Serenity and Insight

Serenity and Insight – a Journey with Mindfulness’ is a day-long retreat exploring some Buddhist principles and practices for finding peace in everyday life.

This retreat will be a day of talks, sitting practice and (weather permitting) walking practice devoted to cultivating ‘serenity and insight’ even in the midst of the difficult. We will practice some silent meditation; and some ‘Heart’ practices.

The Buddha says…

“…for the direct knowledge, for the full understanding, for the utter destruction, for the vanishing, for the fading away, for the cessation, for the giving up, for the relinquishment of hatred, delusion, anger, hostility, envy, miserliness, deceitfulness, arrogance, intoxication these two things are to be cultivated.

Which two?

Serenity and insight.”

Together, Serenity and Insight can bring to an end to greed, an end to hatred and an end of ignorance, including all of the countless other intoxicating inclinations.

But both Serenity and Insight need to be supported by Right Mindfulness.

When we cultivate Serenity and Insight with Mindfulness, we open up new ways of seeing the self, new ways of seeing the world, and new ways of seeing ourselves in the world.

It is said that we are all living in a dream, that we are all asleep, we are all under a spell, an enchantment that blinds us to the inherent biases, distortions and dissonances that are deeply embedded in fundamentally and simply being human; in being ourselves.

The Buddha says that to find liberation, we must become disenchanted; we must break the spell in order to reveal what has been hidden from us.

“There are to be seen beings who can admit freedom from suffering from bodily disease for one year, for two years, for three, four,​ five, ten, twenty; who can admit freedom from bodily disease for even a hundred years.

But, those beings are hard to find in the world who can admit freedom from mental disease even for one moment…” 

~ Buddha (Anguttara Nikāya Volume 2 – vii (157) Disease.)

Free PDF download – The Forgiveness Workbook

The charge, if any, for the day goes towards covering actual retreat costs and the teacher’s expenses.  Vince does not get paid to offer these teachings (see Dana below).

Booking is essential, so to ensure a place, please contact the relevant retreat centre – please see the schedule.


“Don’t use Buddhism to become a Buddhist. Use Buddhism to become better at whatever else in your life you are doing already.”

~ His Holiness the Dalai Lama

A Commitment to Harmlessness:

As for all retreats, retreatants are required to commit to the Five Universal Precepts (harmless conduct) for the duration of the day:

To refrain from harming any living being
To refrain from taking what is not offered
To refrain from sexual and sensual misconduct
To refrain from false speech (including idle gossip, harsh and divisive speech)
To refrain from taking substances which disturb the balance of the mind.

DANA: Vince Cullen offers this retreat freely in accordance with the Buddhist tradition of Dana (the cultivation and practice of the virtue of generosity) where you are invited to contribute financially to the teachings based on your individual income and the value that you place on what has been offered. Vince’s livelihood and the future of ‘Hungry Ghost’ retreats are dependent on the generosity of Dana. There will be more details of this during the retreat.