Liberating Joy on the Journey and in Daily Life

What brings you joy? What causes your unhappiness? Have you wondered if joy is the result of external conditions, or is it actually a natural state? And if it is a natural state, how come we aren’t happy all the time?

In this three day online retreat, we will explore essential joy—what we call ‘the yellow Latifa’. We will dive into what blocks it for us, and what opens it up.

Essential joy is the sunny radiance of our heart. Our reactions to the conditions of life tend to shut down our natural qualities of playfulness, joy, delight, curiosity. Some of the biggest blocks to it are our “shoulds”, our ideas about what is and is not an appropriate emotion, about what we are allowed to want or wish for, and about where our happiness comes from.

We will look at these ideas to see what’s true, and see if we can let go of misconceptions and judgements, so we can open to the naturally occurring phenomenon of happiness.

It’s true that the spiritual journey is a sometimes arduous undertaking, and sometimes a thrilling adventure, which requires steadfastness, discipline, and courage.

And it’s also play—delightful, light-hearted play.

The yellow Latifa makes it fun.

From your experience of participating in this retreat you may:

• see when and how you shut down your playfulness, curiosity and delight
• release the patterns that block your heart’s capacity to experience the joy of your being
• reconnect to the innate human quality of curiosity that has been squashed through conditioning and beliefs
• recognize how you can access your natural happiness even in times of great stress and strife
• understand that the closer we get to reality, to authenticity, to the truth, the happier we feel

This three-day retreat uses an experiential approach that includes teacher talks and spiritual practices such as open-ended inquiry, meditation and awareness practices.

Teaching sessions generally start with meditation followed by a specific teaching related to the theme of the retreat. You will have the opportunity to deepen your personal exploration through experiential exercises, usually in pairs or triads and sometimes in a small group, before re-joining the large group to process what has emerged in response to the teaching.

Each retreat day is divided into two, three-hour sessions with a 2-hour break for lunch.

EVENT DETAILS
Teachers: Jane Armytage, Frances Haynes, Grant Trewenack, Renee Rudd (Learn more about our teachers)

Dates: 19 – 21 May 2023, (3-day on-line retreat)
Cost: $605 (inc GST)
Live-stream via Zoom

Open to: General public and those considering joining the new Diamond Approach Australia ongoing retreat group 8 (DAA8)

Integrating the inner foundation of confidence, persistence and ease

How would it be to live your life with an honest-to-goodness confidence in yourself? To be able to see what needs to be done and take action in the simplest, most efficient way.

Life can be this way when true will is operating. “True will” – what is that? As it turns out, it’s quite different from what we usually experience or think of as will.

Our conventional concepts of will are often around ‘willpower’ or ‘iron will’–concepts which conjure up a hardness, as if ‘life is hard’ and we need to work hard, control everything, and be forceful to deal with it effectively.

Is this really true? External events over the last couple of years have really challenged this idea of us ‘having control’!

Discovering and developing true will can give us the confidence to relate and respond to reality in a more direct, grounded and realistic way. True will gives us more determination but with ease rather than hardness. It is an unshakeable inner support for being who we really are ….

As AH Almaas writes “…true will is like the grounding, the implicit grounding that serves as a confidence that things will flow. It’s hard to describe exactly, because I’m talking about it as if it is something you think in your mind. It isn’t; that’s why I use the word “implicit.” It means you function from an innate feeling and understanding that things flow. True will is right in this moment; it’s a complete openness to what’s happening right now.” (Diamond Heart Book Two: The Freedom to Be)

In this five day retreat, we will look at the obstacles to true will, how we became disconnected from it, and how our current patterns continue to disconnect us. By exploring these patterns with openness, curiosity and compassion, we can understand and release them, making way for the presence of will, our essential will, to arise within us.

By participating in this retreat , you have the opportunity to gain:

• an understanding of how you block your true will
• a clearer sense of what essential will is
• a greater capacity for persistence and determination
• more confidence, resilience and inner solidity
• a greater capacity to stay the course in life and on the spiritual journey

This five-day retreat uses an experiential approach that includes teacher talks and spiritual practices such as open-ended inquiry, meditation and awareness practices.

Teaching sessions generally start with meditation followed by a specific teaching related to the theme of the retreat. You will have the opportunity to deepen your personal exploration through experiential exercises, usually in pairs or triads and sometimes in a small group, before re-joining the large group to process what has emerged in response to the teaching.

Each retreat day is divided into two, three-hour sessions with a 2-hour break for lunch.

EVENT DETAILS
Teachers: Anne Laney, Jane Armytage, Ashley Wain, Frances Haynes, Grant Trewenack, Renee Rudd and Ian Cox (Learn more about our teachers)

Dates: 14 – 18 Oct 2023, (5-day on-line retreat)
Cost: TBC
Venue: Sydney University Village, Newtown, Sydney
Open to: General public and those considering joining the new Diamond Approach Australia ongoing retreat group 8 (DAA8)