Compassion retreat: Welcoming the stranger
A long-weekend retreat from your own home. You’ll be supported to deepen your mindfulness and compassion practice with a particular emphasis on intention, on why we are practising.
Brief overview
How well do we really know ourselves? How well do we know our neighbours, our community, our fellow inhabitants of this island, this continent, this planet? Although psychological wisdom – ancient and modern – emphasises connection as the quintessential factor in wellbeing and thriving, we struggle so much to practice this – particularly when we encounter the unfamiliar, the unexpected, the unpleasant. The ‘not-me’, ‘them’: the stranger within and without.
We have been hearing the term ‘stranger’ weaponised in public discourse across the political spectrum in recent months. The term tends to be used in a negative way to identify certain groups of people deemed to be ‘not me’ and therefore somehow outside our legitimate field of care.
We can begin to challenge this notion in a meditative context, explicitly inviting hospitality internally to parts of ourselves that we want to banish; but also clarifying the implication of that contemplation in terms of how we act in the world and how we relate to people that it might feel more convenient to avoid or exclude. Bernie Glassman, founder of the Zen Peacemaker Order, says “I’m drawn to those aspects of myself that I do not understand, that I fear, that are a mystery. I’m drawn to enter that realm…[and if I can do that] there comes a healing of myself and others that I would never have expected.”
To do this work, we will draw on multiple sources of inspiration from a wide variety of faith, philosophical and psychological traditions that all point in the same direction: to cultivate open-hearted, unconditional hospitality for the stranger, inner and outer.
The programme will run through the Friday afternoon and early evening, all day Saturday and Sunday morning. There will be a mix of teaching, guided and unguided practice, and unstructured time. Most of the retreat will be held in silence. There is the possibility to talk to either of the teachers individually.
Where is it?
Online. You can attend from your own home. You will be given guidance on how to prepare for this in an online orientation meeting a week or two before the retreat.
Who is the retreat for?
The retreat is designed for people with some experience of mindfulness and/or compassion practice who want to deepen their practice in a supportive, safe environment. As a minimum, you should have a regular practice and should have done an eight-week mindfulness-based or compassion-based course and/or have attended at least a one-day, silent retreat. It is also a great opportunity for mindfulness-based and compassion-based teachers to approach this area in a new way. The retreat will count towards the annual retreat requirement for teachers and supervisors on the BAMBA Register.
Retreat leaders
Paul Johanson is a social worker, mindful self-compassion teacher and cognitive analytic therapist in private practice. He has worked in many areas of health and social care, including criminal justice, substance misuse, serious mental illness, psychological therapies, cancer and palliative care.
Paul has worked as a strategic leader for the NHS in implementing national programmes in mental health, psychological therapies and patient experience. Paul is a long-term Buddhist practitioner, beginning his journey over 35 years ago in the Rinzai Zen Buddhist tradition, and has been a student in the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism since 1991. He has been the Buddhist Chaplain at the University of Sussex since 2013.
Robert Marx is co-lead for the Sussex Mindfulness Centre and leads the Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) in Talking Therapies in NHS services training centres collaboration. He is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist and has been teaching mindfulness to patients and staff in the NHS for 18 years. He teaches MBCT and Mindful Self-Compassion. He has been practising Buddhist meditation for over 30 years, initially in the Theravadan tradition and then in the Tibetan tradition. He is passionate about building compassionate cultures in organisations and about integrating relational and mindful approaches to work.
Please contact spft.smc@nhs.net if you require any further information.