April Retreat with Rupert Spira Week One

April Retreat Week One

This week I have been attending an online retreat led by non-dual teacher Rupert Spira. It just finished this morning (Saturday). The good news is that I have another week of retreat online with Rupert starting on Sunday evening. In the meantime, I am on call all weekend in my job as an NHS healthcare chaplain and also working on site at the hospital tomorrow. 

I have always wanted to understand the universe and my place within it. It has been a consistent drive in my life. It is what led me to study maths and physics at University. But I soon felt that the deepest answers were not to be found in studying the universe of material things out there. Then relationships, career and family took over my life. Until I was impelled once more to understand what this experience of life is, which took me along the inward looking path of meditation. 

I have been incredibly fortunate in my meditation teachers. My first teacher was Rob Nairn and he came into my life very soon after I developed an interest in yoga, meditation and Buddhism. As many of you know he was an excellent teacher with a deep intellectual and experiential understanding of the mind and how to train it. His teachings were articulate and precise and suited my mind perfectly. Also, Rob never pretended to be anything special, he would frequently allude to his own messy and neurotic mind. I felt that he walked his talk and was authentic. 

From Rob I learned how to be present without preference, ie. with unconditional acceptance of my experience as it is. I also learned from Rob how to create the conditions for insight to arise in the mind, which is being present without preference and with curiosity. From Rob I learned deeply about the dualistic dynamics of the mind and how to navigate these dynamics skilfully so as to suffer less and be happier. 

After Rob retired, I was on the look out for another teacher, who could pick up from where Rob had left off. Thankfully, a WhapsApp message appeared on my phone from a friend saying, try this teacher, I think you will like him. This was four years ago in April 2022. That teacher was Rupert Spira. 

Since that time I have immersed myself in Rupert’s non-dual teachings, followed his guided practices, attended many of his weekends and retreats and shared some non-dual teachings in the wisdom course I have taught over the last few years. He is also, an excellent and articulate teacher with a deep and wide understanding of the non-dual teachings from many different perspectives and religious traditions. He is humble and does not pretend to be someone he is not and this signals clearly to me that he authentically walks his talk. 

Rupert’s retreats are not too intense. This and the next retreat include a one hour guided practice at 6.30am and 10.30am and a two hour dialogue with participants at 3.30pm. So I can fit it into my day well. Practice, dog walk, chores, practice, lunch, a nap (if I can fit one in), another dog walk and then the dialogues. In the evening I have been doing a bit of work, checking emails, writing, etc. 

On Wednesday I was out in the morning delivering a mindfulness taster session for an Everyone Project course starting at The Hinge in Bridlington on 29th April. On Thursday afternoon I was out at Bridlington hospital facilitating the bereavement support group and visiting patients. I caught up the sessions I missed with the recordings which are available an hour or two after each retreat session ends. 

My mantra to myself during the week, especially in daily life, has been ‘be that which knows’, which means abide as awareness. In other words be what you are. This requires what Rob taught me, ie. presence without preference. It also requires an attitude that I have learnt in a felt sense way from my retreats and practices with Rupert. This attitude is surrendering completely the activity of the separate self and trusting that there is absolutely nothing to do. Rupert’s teachings took me from the finite mind to infinite awareness. 

One big obstacle in the Buddhist teachings I have received over the last 20 or so years has been the idea that enlightenment or awakening to our true nature is a long way away and requires intense and sustained effort. I learned from Rupert that awakening is here and now and requires no effort at all. Anyone’s mind can awaken to the fundamental okness and oneness of our being. This is a message I hope to share through Beachcomber Meditation. 

My beliefs have also been widened by Rupert’s teachings and by my experience of working with Christian chaplains and praying with Christian patients over the last four years of my work as a healthcare chaplain. Rupert’s lineage is Advaita Vedanta, which is also the lineage from which yoga and Hinduism arise. So, I find myself abiding as infinite loving awareness, in other words God, in other words Buddha Nature. Experientially, I feel that they are the same and that the main world religions are teaching different paths to the same non-dual understanding. As Rupert says, different paths to the top of the mountain. 

Next week’s retreat is on Balyani and the Unity of Being. Balyani was a sufi mystic, and so in the Islamic lineage. I’ll report back at the end of next week to see if my beliefs have widened further!

Rupert describes the non-dual understanding very simply as the recognition that the nature of my being is peace and love and that I share my being with everyone and everything. Sometimes he teaches this very simply. Sometimes he teaches this in a complex philosophical way. Both of which appeal to my mind and which for me compliment each other beautifully. 

Our thoughts and sense perceptions present reality to us as a material universe made from myriad separate beings and things. If we believe this then the sense of separation leads to suffering on the inside and conflict on the outside. Our experience of abiding as being leads us to recognise that the universe is made of one infinite awareness, with inherent qualities of peace and love, which we all are. Living according to this understanding leads to peace and happiness on the inside and love and understanding on the outside.

I plan to share some non-dual teachings and practices as part of A Year of Meditation beginning on 1st May. 

I hope to see you there.