DharmaLife Course for Young Men
27 August – 17 december 2024
A four-month residential course providing you with an opportunity to live an intensive dharma life: living, practising, studying, and working together within the context of Adhisthana.
Over 16 weeks you’ll receive a grounding in the principles and practice of Triratna Buddhism through retreats, study with experienced teachers and communal living. You’ll also participate in the life of the wider Adhisthana sangha: meditating together, performing ritual, developing kalyana mitrata and joining in with regular work periods as a spiritual practice.
Days start with communal meditation practice at 7am, followed by morning seminars with a different visiting order member each week. Three weekday afternoons each week are for collective work periods, with the other two given over to personal study and reflection. One week each month will take the form of a week-long retreat, for which the programme will differ from the usual weekly routine. Weekends will usually be free to rest, enjoy the surroundings of Adhisthana and spend time with each other less formally.
The course is aimed at male mitras* under the age of 35 and costs £3000. In previous courses, half of the participants have come from outside the UK, and we remain really keen to receive applications from those outside of Great Britain. In the past, many people have fundraised within their local Sangha to meet the cost of the course, and we can offer some bursaries where the need is greatest.
Applications
To apply for the course, download the application form, complete it, and send it to us using the email address below.
To send us your application, or if you’d like to have a chat about the course, contact us on mensdlc@adhisthana.org
* If you are not a mitra, you are still welcome to apply, but the course assumes that everyone will be familiar with (and able to engage with) the core practices common to the Triratna Buddhist Community. These include an understanding and acceptance of the five Precepts in principle, as practice, and as the common commitment of Triratna Buddhists. We also assume a familiarity with, and willingness to intensively practice, the Mindfulness of Breathing, the Metta Bhavana and the Seven-fold puja. By the time the dharma life course starts we assume that everyone is very familiar with the material of the first year of the Dharma Training Course for Mitras or Sangharakshita’s book A Guide to the Buddhist Path (which covers much of the same material).