2025
Insight and Imaginal
Practice retreat, Canberra, October 2025
This
retreat was intended as an introduction to
imaginal practice for people with previous
retreat experience. Imaginal practice
comes from and develops a world-view where
the everyday physical and social world is
seen as continuous with imaginal worlds,
all dependent but - the imaginal
worlds - very different from simple
imagination or fantasy. The orientation of
imaginal practice is to be less bound up
with a world that has little myth,
meaning, reverence, sacredness, sense of
love and dimensionality. The biggest
influence in this form of imaginal
practice has been Rob Burbea’s Soul-Making
Dharma. Other influences have
included archetypal psychologist
James Hillman, psychiatrist Iain
McGilchrist and writer and teacher Joshua
Schrei.
The
talks mention a list
of characteristics or elements.
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Energy
Body Practice (guided meditation)
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21
mins
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Fabricating
Self and World
Some of the common ways that the sense
of self and sense of world are
dependent and can be noticed;
how the sense of self can be dependent
aspects of the imaginal world;
how the sense of self can relate to
one’s worldview. This talk serves - in
part - as an introduction to the
imaginal practice talks.
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31
mins
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Imaginal Practice 1
Ways of looking as a foundation; terms
in imaginal practice; figures and
presences; callings; example of very
simple image; autonomy; cautions for
working with images; types of image;
spirits in the Pali Canon; dismissive
attitudes; assumptions based on
knowing what is measurable; views on
the reality status of imaginal and the
material worlds; relationship to an
image or a presence; Henry Corbin and
a sense of the divine in an image;
risks.
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38
mins
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Imaginal Practice 2
Unlimited
possibilities for images with a range
of examples, including God and gods,
wild images, images based on people,
the sense of being called, image with
no figure, embodying an image, felt
sense and image of spirit of place;
putting aside questions about the
reality status of images; Eucharistic
imagination; fully and partially
imaginal images; Iain McGilchrist on
left brain right brain, and the world
not being given before it’s
experienced;
Rob Burbea’s list of elements or
characteristics and the
characteristics: two-ness,
unfathomable quality, participation,
loving and being loved; different
orientations of imaginal and insight
practices.
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28
mins
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Imaginal Practice 2b
Ways of relating to images; using or
not using the list of characteristics;
characteristic of eros and
distinguishing it from clinging,
energy body as a guide, theatre-like
quality and the risk if this isn’t
acknowledged, meaningfulness,
two-ness, autonomy.
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9
mins
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Imaginal Practice 3
Julie Nelson and the romantic belief
in knowledge from a perspective-free
viewpoint; the interaction of
eros, heart-mind-soul and the
conceptual framework; the
characteristic of soulfulness; Jack
Kornfield on an approach to images in
psychedelic experience: how that
differs from imaginal practice;
working with characteristics that may
not be present; other characteristics:
the lattice, grace, trust, reverence,
humility, values, beauty, duty,
fulness of intention, participation;
imaginal views of oneself; WH Auden
and Henry Corbin; caution on talking
about images with others; the six
devas on Lantau Island, what they
represent, and how they could be
related to.
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21
mins
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Imaginal Practice 3b
Further possible characteristics of
images: slightly less fabricated,
sense of divinity, an unfathomable
quality, soft and elastic edges,
timelessness, sense that images can’t
be fully captured or reduced, sense of
other images being in the field,
echoing or resonance between the image
and oneself.
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9
mins
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Dukkha
in the Wider World: What Contributes
to Engagement?
Overview of the last 12 months,
Conditions that help engagement:
1. contentment and appreciation; Dr
Luke Kemp, his study on civilizational
collapse and the value of happiness;
contentment and burnout;
2. Anger as being pivotal, types of
anger; recent world changes related to
anger; tempus nullius; risks and care
in relation to anger; Aristotle on the
value of anger; Mahakala as a helpful
image;
3. An inclusive way of looking; Mother
Theresa and one’s family circle;
Analyo Bhikkhu and the question of
what can one do;
4. Equanimity: perspective of John
Gray on the myth of progress in the
field of ethics and politics - with
examples; Philip Blom on a view of
homo sapiens and the comedy of homo
sapiens seeing itself as the ruler of
nature;
5. A sense of duty and the soulful
quality that can come with that;
6. Stories and images: Ursula Le Guin
and the Ones who Walk Away from Omelas
- with an interpretation; James
Hillman and Michael Ventura;
Kuan Yin as an image and how she
is seen by some in a large
Buddhist charity.
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32
mins
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Talks
on Dharma Seed
2024
Visible and
Invisible Roots
Sometimes our
world feels fresh and beautiful, other times
when we take in some of what's happening in
the wider world (genocide on our watch,
climate breakdown, a fraying of the global
rules based order) the outlook appears
bleak. What's happening could be seen in
terms of collective numbness, or in terms of
moral deterioration or moral injury. In what
helpful ways might we see our actions when
the outlook appears bleak?
10th October
2024, Canberra Imaginal Practice
Retreat.
2023
Recordings from Canberra
Seeing That Frees retreat on DharmaSeed
2022
Being part of a
sacrifice
We’re
part of a culture that is sacrificing a
stable climate and the well-being of
future generations for short term gain,
short term convenience and pleasures.
There's ongoing questions as to what
values we hold and what we do to honour
those values. The talk outlines the the
beginnings of run-away climate breakdown,
the range of felt responses, failure of
the collective imagination, behavioural
denial, ecological debt and how facing
that can be a type of awakening, the sense
of sacredness, other dharma perspectives,
and questions about responses.
8th December, High Country Walking Retreat
What
is a beautiful life? What does it mean
to live a beautiful life, and are we
called to the possibility of a beautiful
life, of making our life into something
beautiful?
6th December, High Country Walking Retreat
Rockhampton Samadhi and Insight workshop, 16
- 17 July
Dharma
and Climate: being part of a sacrifice,
how could we respond?
We’re
part of a culture that is sacrificing a
stable climate and the well-being of future
generations for short term gain, short term
convenience and pleasures. There's ongoing
questions as to what values we hold and what
we do to honour those values.
16th July 2022, Association of Engaged
Buddhists, 33 mins
2021
Buddhism
for our time and the Secular School
16th August 2021, Bluegum Sangha
2019
Climate
Breakdown and the Dharma - Part 4, 8th
September 2019, Heart Insight Group,
Brisbane, 26 mins (Minimising harm and
effectiveness in social and political
movements and actions).
Climate
Breakdown and the Dharma - Part 3, 1st
September 2019, Heart Insight Group,
Brisbane, 21 mins (Covers dukkha in relation
to what’s happening to the earth, views that
are behind the crisis, age of separation,
human supremacy, a commitment: letting go of
unhelpful views, climate change nihilism,
climate awakening.)
Climate Breakdown and
the Dharma - Part 2 (Felt Responses),
5th August, Bluegum Sangha, North Sydney,
33 mins
Climate
Breakdown and the Dharma - Part 1, 9th
June 2019, Heart Insight Group, Brisbane, 36
mins
Friendships,
Influence, The Dependent Nature of our
Views and Sense of Entitlement, 18th
April, 2019, Golden Wattle Sangha, Bondi
Junction, Sydney, 19 mins
2013
Ethics,
Climate Change and Practice 2nd April, Bluegum
Sangha, 44 mins.
Essay
Climate
Change, Ethics and the Field of Greed
(2013)
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