The Power of Your Mind: Kindness, Clarity & Insight

This five-day retreat will present the Mahayana Seven Points of Mind Training, to lay out a path of formal meditation practice, accompanied by guidelines for extending that practice into everyday life.

These teachings are precious and unique in presenting the entire depth and breadth of the Buddha’s Mahayana teachings succinctly and practically. Mahayana mind training offers an approach to life that is straightforward, grounded in sanity, kindness, and compassion. Yet it also offers a vision that completely transcends our ordinary way of viewing ourselves and others, with an all-encompassing vision of enlightenment.

At the heart of this vision of enlightenment is the view that our innate, fundamental identity is vast, luminous and utterly awake. The Mahayana teachings refer to this as our enlightened heart, or bodhicitta. Enlightenment is nothing other than who we really are. But for most of us, our true nature is like a hidden treasure, concealed behind layers of mental activity and preoccupation.

Mahayana mind training helps us give expression to our enlightened heart in everything we think, say and do. The training particularly focuses on our relationships, which are like a mirror that shows us exactly where we are at. Our relationships also provide us with a way to dissolve the limitations that prevent the vastness of our true nature from fully manifesting.

Founded on a practice lineage that has been actively and continually practised for hundreds of years, these teachings are completely relevant to the challenges posed by our modern, globalised life.

Topics covered in the retreat will include:

• finding meaning in our lives, and connectedness with our world
• overcoming loneliness and isolation
• how to thrive in the face of difficulties
• how to contribute to creating a more sustainable, kind, and compassionate world

We strongly encourage you to join us in person to get the most out of your retreat time. For those unable to travel to Sydney this retreat will be streamed to Rigpa’s centres in Adelaide, Brisbane and Melbourne. For those unable to attend a Rigpa centre, a direct online option is also available.

This retreat will be led by Senior Teacher, Jan van der Breggen, along with a team of Rigpa Australia teachers and instructors.

About Jan van der Breggen

Jan is a teacher in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and a scholar of Buddhist philosophy. He began the path of meditation at 17 years old, touched by the tenderness of the human experience and filled with questions about what reality was all about. He soon encountered the writings of great masters from various traditions such as J Krishnamurti, Suzuki Roshi, Thich Nhat Hang and Sogyal Rinpoche. Thirty years later, Jan continues to be moved by the vast profundity of the Buddhist path and its vision of the inherent wisdom, loving kindness and strength that lies in the minds of each and everyone of us.

Jan was honoured to be entrusted by Khenchen Namdrol Rinpoche and Mindroling Jetsun Khandro Rinpoche as one of the twenty-five worldwide Rigpa Senior teachers. In 2017, he was selected to be a participant in the Milinda program, a 10-year, international Buddhist teacher training program under the guidance of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche.

Jan grew up in the Netherlands where he earned a Masters Degree in Historical Anthropology. He is fluent in English and Dutch. He lives in Brisbane where he works as a data analytics professional. Jan was instrumental in founding Rigpa Brisbane in 1999, where he has served as a Dharma instructor for over 20 years.