Online: How Your Mind Shapes Your World – A Half-day Retreat
with Martin Aylward
Sunday, February 23rd, 2025 | 10:00am – 1:00 pm ET
Your mind can be a playground, or a prison. As Buddha reminds us in the first lines of the Dhammapada, an ancient Buddhist scripture, our mind-state directly determines our experience of the world.
This day of practice will be all about meeting your mind directly, and understanding how it shapes your beliefs and behaviors. Beyond spiritual clichés about creating your own reality, this day of practice will be something of a magical mystery tour through reality.
With teacher Martin Aylward, you’ll contrast the worldview of scientific materialism with the Buddhist concept of ‘Chittamatra’ (Mind-only), looking beyond both extremes (that things exist, and that things don’t exist!).
Join us for a deep-dive into the ‘Chittasphere’ as the location of all experience. We’ll dissolve inner and outer, we’ll see if we can bend reality a little, and what we can learn about mind, world and existence along the way.
Together, we’ll discover practices of:
– Recognizing and resting in the cittasphere
– Dissolving attention into experience
– Seeing through limited beliefs about mind and world
Save the date! Martin is also teaching a weekend retreat in-person at NYIMC on September 13th-14th, 2025.
Registration:
Please register below. If you are able, registering at the “Supporter” level enables others to attend at the “Subsidized” level. Thank you for your generosity! (Please note that the registration price includes a base level of teacher support, and you will have the opportunity to donate more after the program.)
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Volunteering
All of our programs rely on volunteers to support our teachers and staff with various tasks and responsibilities. Volunteering allows you to participate in our programs at no cost. To inquire about volunteering opportunities, please fill out our inquiry form, and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
Teacher(s)
Martin Aylward
Martin Aylward has been meditating for 30 years and teaching Dharma since 1999. He took a one-way flight to India aged 19 and spent most of the next 4 years in Asian monasteries, retreat centres and Ashrams. Martin practiced with Ajahn Buddhadasa in Thailand and sat annual month-long retreats for 10 years in Bodh Gaya with Christopher Titmuss. He spent 2 years living with Indian Sadhus and Himalayan hermits and 13 years as a student of AH Almaas’ Diamond Approach.
Martin co-founded the Dharma Yatra pilgrimages in France, he is guiding teacher of WorldwideInsight.org and founding teacher of Moulin de Chaves, a retreat centre in South West France where he has lived and taught for the last 14 years, and where his children grew up. He is also co-founder with Mark Coleman of the Mindfulness Training Institute, training Mindfulness teachers in Europe and the US, with 200 graduates from 30 countries worldwide. Find out more at MartinAylward.com