Category Archives: Personal Stories

Interview: Rosie Lancaster

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Rosie Lancaster is Green Earth Awakening Workshops Co-ordinator. Interview by Satyadarshin

 This is our second GEA; what have you changed this year?
I think last year worked quite well having spaces in the programme where people could be together outside of the workshops. But I’d like to see more of that: last year it was still quite tight; lunch was a narrow window in relation to time slots for the programme. I want more crafts, more independent spaces, more transferable skills; someone should be able learn something at the GEA, go home and do it. That feels like more of a life changing experience: they have that wow! moment, where they walk away and feel that they’ve accomplished something. People could feel that they’re going on a journey through the event, rather than “Oh! I’ve got a slot now; lets get to the blacksmith!” I’m aiming to pull it all together with a bit more of an emphasis on the theme. The Dharma talks are what will underpin it, really good speakers that embrace the theme.

rosieTractor

Rosie, GEA Workshops Co-ordinator

What do you see the difference between the Buddhafield Festival’s Permaculture Area, and the GEA?
I’m actually trying to make a connection more obvious. At the Buddhafield Festival we have the Dharma Parlour over there and Permaculture over here. In my view they should be in the same space. So trying to to get that link in, that it’s not about doing your green crafts, then trying to get your meditation in. The two are so fundamentally linked, that the only way change can happen in the future is that people recognise that we are so fundamentally linked.

We’ve talked about linking the theme to this year’s Triratna International Retreat: The Bodhisattva’s Reply; I suppose we’re training our Bodhisattvas aren’t we?
Yes, yes I think so. Individual input into the world, so to speak, in relation to other individuals. It links in with the prophecy of the Shambhala Warrior: “The Shambhala workers go into the corridors of power armed with the only tools that the barbarians don’t understand, and for which there is no defence. The tools of the Shambhala workers are compassion for all, and knowledge of the connectedness of all things. Both are necessary.” The Bodhisattva vow came up quite a lot last year and just hit the spot for me: this is about all of us standing up and facing the world for each other, that it’s all our responsibility. One person can make a difference; believe in that. It’s not a question of feeling a horror of what’s going on in the world and needing to do something about it, of feeling responsible and therefore we “should”. It’s to do with the sense of deep ecology, that we’re so interconnected that there’s no way of standing outside from it, we are part of it. You’re breathing, so you have to do something. And that was the root of it for me, the notion of deep ecology , of it being so obviously Dharmic.

Horrified anxiety isn’t the fuel for the future, then?
No. A love and a compassion, and a will, and a “wow! I’m part of this!”. Protests, activism and the need for social change, can really emphasise the devastation … but the connection, that’s got to be the compassion of moving forward. So that’s why the Dharma Parlour and Permaculture Areas are moving forward together. In the Buddhafield Festival Permaculture Area, we’ve got Green Crafts and we’ve got Social Change, so in a sense the GEA is an extension of that, but a lot more in depth.

The GEA is increasing the sense of intimacy?
Yes, at the Buddhafield Festival people do become ships passing in the night; you’ve got your timetable, you jot your workshops down on the back of your hand, you’re running to the next thing. Whereas with a structured timetable, you’re eating together, you have a chance to network and I think that’s really important; like-minded people, people who feel the way you do, get into groups together and that brings a sense of community. You’re doing it together. You go to one workshop and feel really moved, go to the next one and it might be the same group of people. And I think in that sense you’re not alone. I think that can be quite powerful. So I’m hoping that that’s different from a Permaculture Area at the Festival.

Interview: Ratnadeva

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Ratnadeva was ordained by Kamalashila at Guhyaloka retreat centre, Spain, in the summer of 2013 .

So, the 2014 season is upon us. How’s it going so far?
Well, we’ve got a full retreats programme, ten events, and we’ve also got the exciting Triratna International Retreat. This year we’re collaborating with Adhisthana for the first time. It’ll be fun trying out a new site, having got used to working with Taraloka, which was a delight. It’s also going to be a delight working with Adhisthana because there’s a sense that we’re very much at the centre of Triratna when we collaborate on this event. For us it’s an opportunity to get better known throughout the movement. It’s kind of a shop window for Buddhafield.

ratnadevaFor me, one of the big flavours of the coming year is the word “change”. We’ve got a lot changing within Buddhafield in terms of people involved and we are in the process of reorganising, so as to make the best use of the limited resources. I suppose it’s a challenge and an exciting opportunity this coming year in terms of reorganising, finding a structure and a way of working that means we can put the events on that we have planned and people don’t get worn out. People don’t have to overdo it. And that probably means trying to involve the circles of people that are interested in Buddhafield and have been helping us over the years … I think we need to reach out more. That’s one of the main themes of the coming year, find ways to reach out; tell people that we need them and provide the opportunities for the people out there to get involved. I have this sense, this image in my head, of concentric circles around Buddhafield, of different levels of involvement, it may be hundreds, it may be over a thousand of people that, at some point in the last few years have been involved, been inspired by their involvement with Buddhafield. And that’s a resource, their interest in helping us, their interest in getting involved is what we need to tap into.

What is it that we need to do to keep people involved and motivated?
I think what we put on is inspiring in itself. We don’t really need to go outside of that because it’s already quite versatile. It’s versatile from the point of view of the events themselves; you look at the range we have in any given year. We don’t have a Yatra this year, but for several years now we’ve had a walking retreat; such a different experience to, say, the Total Immersion where we’ve had experienced meditators going deeper over four weeks, in silence. And then a very different event is of course the Family Friendly Village Retreat for up to 260 people, a third of them children, experiencing retreat-like conditions on a beautiful piece of land.

But having said that, there are alternative projects that might also inspire people, a bit leftfield. For example, this year we’re looking at the possibility of a co-housing project. Now that is perhaps an inspiring project that might attract people who otherwise might not try a camping retreat. But essentially I think what we put on is a very attractive package. The concept of getting close to nature, spending time, if you like, with yourself in a beautiful environment, being inspired by the Buddha’s teachings and having time out from your normal routine … experiencing oneself anew. I think that is in itself an incredibly inspiring prospect. And in fact I think that’s the core; for me that’s what inspired me to be involved with Buddhafield in the first place — an organisation that puts that sort of event on. I enjoy all the other events, like the Festival, but as far as I’m concerned they’re in service to putting on retreats. I come form a background where Im trying to get more immersed in nature, because I see that as a key expression of my own spiritual life. And I think it can be a key theme within the Buddhist tradition, breaking down that sense of separateness from the natural world.

It’s very related to your involvement with Druid culture?
Yes. I see it as quite seamless in fact. I think that immersing in nature can teach so much about impermanence. If you walk out on a bed of autumn leaf litter, and if you’re really aware when you’re doing that, that can be a lesson in impermanence. Better than any books about impermanence. If you’re involved with setting up a forest garden, or really into connecting with trees, even if its on a mystical level, that can teach us so much about interconnectedness, which is not that far away from non-self. The book of nature is so central to Buddhist teaching. For a lot of Buddhists who live in urban or sub-urban environments it’s not so much the case and I do think that’s a problem. And that is what Buddhafield is offering par excellence: offering people in those sorts of situations to escape and find a connection with nature that they don’t normally get, even if it’s only for a week.

You Shall go to the Ball

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Worthy Farm is a town-sized Cinderella whose glamour does indeed start to slip on the stroke of midnight. For a few nights she’s an edgy fairytale princess, but in the wee small hours of Monday morning, the last acts barely having left the main stages, the magic is obviously wearing thin. Within twelve more hours she’s obviously just an otherwise innocuous Somerset dairy farm, a bit worse for the wear and now with few extra chores to do.

At Festival end I’m always left with a set of multi-hued feelings: shades of disappointment for experience I’ve missed out on (I never did get to Hell in Shangri-la); a flush of loss over adventures past (I successfully conspired to meet two friends in the sardine-compressed Pyramid Stage field for The Rolling Stones); not a little relief in being forced to let go of the anxiety that one is missing out on something spectacular, somewhere else on site, at all times of the day and night.

A true Glastonbury veteran is aware that it’s a spectacle that one can never truly, completely consume. Even if one wasn’t working (we do one six-hour shift per day in the Buddhafield Café), one could never investigate every nook or cranny, visit every themed dance space, try every craft workshop, watch every cabaret or circus act, see all the bands … or even sample every cafe, for that matter.

I started writing this on the Buddhafield Festival site, which we rolled onto directly from Pilton (the village that actually homes the Glastonbury Festival). Ostensibly a pole away from the end of a festival spectrum that includes The Rolling Stones, both events actually share a common heritage. (For a time Buddhafield even rented a field from Michael Eavis in its early days over at Shepton Mallet.) But even only a day after we left, it’s a bit difficult to believe that the absurdly demanding world of Glasto really existed. I was sat in the private, core-crew only camping space I dubbed “The Squirrels” (a wood well at the back of our site), sitting surrounded by a carpet of leaves and twigs, enjoying the still, cool air, listening to a stream chattering away to the dusk and sketching out this post on my smartphone. Fighting off the rather insistent midges was only the dimmest echo of the seagulls that were even then circling for tit-bits to scavenge from amongst the detritus in those Pilton fields.

Just like Glastonbury, people wax lyrical about the early days of Buddhafield. There were in fact many incredible things that came about as a result of our innocence and naïveté, but one can’t remain artificially innocent: the wilful blindness to learning from experience slowly turns toxic in the face of change. There have been ongoing difficulties at a management level in Buddhafield as we’ve skidded to a rather bruised end of a natural cycle in our collective’s life. We’re trying to rediscover who we are and what we’re about. But ironically, on the ground, it’s been a very successful team experience for me so far this year.

At Glastonbury in the Buddhafield Café, I had the pleasure of working with a shift of twelve people who’ve been capable, conscientious and harmonious. This is worth remarking on when working in an environment like Glastonbury, which can be quite so physically and emotionally demanding. Even if one isn’t a party animal (and some of us are well up for seeing a couple of dawns in), nothing is simple: one has to balance out a strategy for actually getting to a loo, even before the hygiene situation prods ones boundaries.

In this context, a personal fulcrum of inspiration off of which to hinge Dharma practice is essential. For me it’s cultivating the quality of equanimity, the value of which is probably best highlighted by temporarily living and working in such an intense environment. Upeksha (Pali: upekkha) is the word we usually translate as “equanimity”. It’s the fourth of the Brahma Viharas family of meditation practices, all of which revolve around dimensions of metta (loving-kindness).

Sometimes I like to think of equanimity as being rather like a perfectly reflective ball sat on a flat plane. regardless of the forces exerted on it, the ball remains at rest, mirroring the demands on its attention, but not commanded by them. it also remains a sphere, not pressured out of shape and therefore into distorted reflection. I think a non-equanimous mind is often very distorted: it perceives the world rather like a hall of mirrors, where it moves from a stretched, to a squashed, to a twisted perception without pause or much awareness.

This metaphor is useful in a context where attractive stimulus is so pervasive, especially for those of us with a “butterfly mind”, alighting only briefly on the next in an arbitrary series of experiences, never resting long enough to fully engage. An equanimous mind is paradoxically both active, because it’s flexible and creative, but also at rest, because it’s not grasping or hungry. It’s a mind that is a completely engaged one, moving in the flow and rhythm of full awareness rather than a spastic staccato.

This implies that upeksha isn’t the aloof state that the English translation usually connotes. Because its completely receptive and non-judgemental, maintaining equanimity is a very broad and solid base from which to engage with the world.

If we consider it in the light of working in the Buddhafield Café, we can say that an equanimous state implies being aware of the whole length of the queue at the counter, pacing every interaction accordingly, whilst at the same time giving each customer the fullest attention. The opposite mental state would probably be anxiety, where one is more caught up with imputing frustrations at the back of the queue than offering the person at the front an efficient service.

Anxiety is rather like running with a leaky bucket. It doesn’t actually address the problem and likely as not makes spillage worse. Ones attention is placed on the future and on conditions over which one may have little or no control. Anxiety is an example of awareness – the reflective ball of my earlier metaphor – twisted out of shape, thus distorting ones response to the flow of conditions.

In equanimity we’re actually always at the Ball because we’re alive to the wonder that’s going on around us all the time. We’re not grasping after adventure, novelty, distraction or amusement. We’re not pushing away the unpleasant, unwanted, pedestrian or routine. Equanimity is in fact our glass slipper.

Turning the Mind

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The Turning of my Mind.

I have been struggling with a slight case of writers block recently and finding my way into writing something for this blog has been proving difficult. I think this has been due to a lack of Dharmic input in my life over the last few months. I have forgotten to keep my eyes open to the beauty that surrounds me every day. I have been in a very introverted space, reflected a lot over my experiences of the last handful of years and have really and truly begun to reflect and more importantly start to accept those things that make me who I am. The process is challenging but innately beautiful once there is respite enough to look back and see how much life has shifted. The explanations of how this works is what I am struggling with at the moment. I either know something intuitively or I know something intellectually and words fail me on both counts! In any case that is not a reason to stop trying to communicate something that has moved me in some way.

I also attended the Women’s Mitra study week – click here for Lulu’s report – and found that it was just what I needed, an injection of Dharma as the spring tries its best to burst into life, battling with the snow; a reminder of things I have already been taught (For anyone interested in listening to the talks on the four mind turning reflections, you can find the talks on Free Buddhist Audio). My attempts at routine haven’t quite manifested after moving to Bristol two months ago so to get immersed into Dharma and supported by Sangha felt like a really positive turning point in my year so far. Just being surrounded by my Sangha, in a different form was incredibly healing, actually seeing and experiencing a continuation, new life after a death, the turning of a wheel helped me to put aside some of the fears that I have had concerning about how Buddhafield will strive forward.

Getting out of the city and standing under the starry, starry skies of Devon also helped to put many things into perspective; that I can imagine pulling Orion’s sword from his belt to battle with delusion is quite magnificent. I have a capacity understand that human life is precious, brief and very rare. I have a body that, for its aches and pains, takes me places, allows me to dance. I have a mind that can imagine the most incredible things, takes in and filters information, forming opinions and allows me to reflect on the fact that I am here on a planet that supports my life, all life and that I have come into contact with a set of teachings that is helping me to see these incredible things more clearly. For some reason I still take this information for granted, I quite flippantly say ‘yeah, I know’ like the stroppy teenager I once was. My mind, or maybe all of me, still wants to cling to the negative, somehow, somewhere along the way the negative became the easier way to live.

But life is also impermanent and things do change, shift, transform and this sucks quite a lot of the time but occasionally and sometimes more than occasionally, the utter joy and relief of seeing something shift is amazing. So what shifted for over this week?

It sounds simple but the fact that I can change my mind, my perspective on how see things. Turning the negative approach into the positive approach. I try to look out for the changes and watch my emotional response to these changes. I find these initial responses fascinating and exploring how to move forward from that initial response is also fascinating!

When life starts to be seen as deeply connected as it is then all the actions that are taken must be taken with, at least, awareness and at most with awareness, kindness and compassion for yourself and for others. I have had to go back to myself, to understand my cravings, my fears and my inspirations and by knowing these things deeply, challenging the things that frighten me, questioning why I crave something, moving towards the things that inspire me I can strive forward and feed into a bigger picture of positive conditions.

Women’s Mitra Study Retreat 2013

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I have been asked to write a blog to accompany the photos I sent of the ladies Mitra retreat! Well, I have never written a blog before so here goes…

I have been going on retreat with Buddhafield now for about 6 years and in the last few years I have been doing about 2 a year. I usually have one “for me” and one where I help on the team, this one was for me! I was particularly looking forward to this one as it was in a beautiful medieval farmhouse and had beds! As it turned it the farmhouse was simply amazing! Not only did it have beds but it had a dishwasher too!!! To any hardened camping retreat goer this was an unbelievable luxury that couldn’t quite be taken in!

Women's Study Week

Siddhimala and Lou

Gradually we all started to arrive, 9 wonderful ladies congregated and a community began to form. This was my first “study” retreat and the daily programme was quite full starting with meditation, breakfast, study period, lunch, reflection, led meditation, dinner, study period, evening puja/ritual/meditation. Phew! There were periods of silent reflection amongst this to constructively reflect on the material.

The study material was the four mind turning reflections which are the preciousness of this human life; death and impermanence; karma and its consequences and the defects of samsara. We listened together to the 5 talks by Order members which were an introduction talk and then one on each reflection and then were facilitated in often lively, hilarious discussions about the subject matter. I absolutely loved it! It is a very long time since I have been in a constructive study atmosphere (if ever!) and I found the mental exercise exhilarating, I learned a great deal and each day we had so much to absorb and reflect on. We were all a bit scrambled with overload of information at some stages and Siddhimala (our excellent teacher) was very skilful in directing our thought processes, she was a complete joy to be taught by! Siddhimala was supported by Varabadhri who has a wonderful sense of humour and a keen eye for ritual; she not only supported us all but organised wonderful ritual evenings in true Buddhafield style.

Women's Study Week

The retreatants (minus Lulu!)

After a week I was sad to leave but ready to come home to my busy life. I have brought these daily reflections with me (consciously and sub-consciously) and they have been seeping into my daily practice. The first action for me was to give up Facebook and playing annoyingly addictive computer games. I realised I spent too much of my “precious” time in this life trawling through this medium like a voyeur looking at the lives of others (some I don’t even know!!) and decided this had to stop! I am feeling quite refreshed by this decision and am finding pockets of time already to do things like write this blog which I wouldn’t have had “time” for before.

So from the bottom of my heart, thank you to the Buddhafield team for this wonderful week in Devon, I so hope it continues next year as I will definitely be coming back, if I am still in this precious life!

Lulu Robertson

Love.

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Love.

Love has almost destroyed me recently.

I have had to gather my strength up again to beat that sinking feeling that comes from losing or being rejected by a person you felt so deeply for and fell so quickly for. The feelings of a tentative uncertainty about whether I want to put myself through this destruction again have permeated my being for a while, and now I say, of course I will because that which destroys also creates.

I have recently moved away from the Buddhafield community in Devon to find myself, by choice, living in Bristol. This move signifies the start of a independent continuation of my life, something which I have not fully had for almost all my 20’s. I can feel myself starting to unfurl in a way that I have never had a chance to before, testing the waters, learning how to swim again. I have bought with me is a mess, cluster of experiences of love all of which fed me in varying degrees of good and bad. All the bits where I felt like a fool, all the bits where I thought I understood something but really didn’t, all the beautiful encounters, moments of sharing I have woven into a shawl to keep me warm; for the days have swung between being long and lonely to being full and connected.

It has been important for me to learn not to reject all it in hatred for these people but to take it all up and be lifted by what I have been given by them all. By bundling up all these lessons I have felt safely and carefully held by the sheer capacity that people, including myself, have to throw themselves wide open for someone to either accept or to cast aside and the depth of the emotion that comes with that. I have begun to find it magical again and want to spread that magic.

I have noticed so much how my mind has tired to eat itself with stories when it comes to the attachments that falling in love bring with it. I have watched the stories spiralling more and more out of my control. Without that precious truthful communication it is a futile to keep imagining what might have gone wrong, why was I not good enough, why is that other person better then me.. and unless that courage is there to actually ask for answers to these questions then the stories will continue to dominant. Even so if you do ask sometimes that basic respect to respond is missing, relying on someone to hold the same values of honesty as you have.

So why is there so much weight put on that phrase of ‘I love you?’ Why can’t it just be a simple statement of fact that in that particular moment in time there is a lot of love spilling from my pores that is, at that same moment directed at the person I am facing and that it’ll probably remain for a while. That doesn’t mean that I have trapped you or want you to stay by my side forever and always (the ‘forever and always’ is definitely one of the biggest stories that I have had to deeply understand and let go of). Love is an emotion that provides me with a brightness and a by saying it out loud to someone else I hope that it will provide them with a brightness also.

So from something destroying my faith in love I feel like I have travelled in a circle and have been inspired again by those simple gestures that I see everywhere and will tell the world today and everyday that I love.

Mid Winter Reflection

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I went to midnight mass last night with my mum and her new fella. Not to take communion or pretend to be christian for this christmas but to honour something in myself, where I orginated, to see what it had to offer me and to sing some carols. I would love to go to midnight puja but there are no centres around where my Mum lives so church is where I went to feed that little bit of spirituality in me.

Christmas is not and hasn’t been for a long time anywhere close to my favourite holiday. Give me all the humbugs in the world but unless there is snow to play in (more then unlikely in the south east of England) then you are unlikely to get me to come to life. It sucks, I get bored, I get lonely. I battle with this every year but that is just how it seems to be.

And I want to enjoy these festivities, I long to celebrate the lengthening days and share joy and comfort to my friends and family. Celebrate all those good and bad things that has happened over the year. It is such a quiet affair at my mum’s. I find the festivities to be fairly alienating as I often go inward, feeling stuck in front of the TV set and end up getting more and more lost in the bad decisions I have made. More harm then healing comes from this time of year.

It is different though, life is impermenant afterall. Things have definitely changed and I am still working through how these changes impact on my life. The vicar in the church spoke about surprises and the joy of either being given a surprise or receiving a surprise and thinking about it I have had some beautiful gifts of friendship this year which still surprises me. My dad got a surprise birthday party on Saturday, the third surprise birthday party in as many years and I just love the look of childlike joy when he realises that something other then what he thought is happening. He never expects anything either and that I love as well. It is when you are not expecting something, I find, that the dearest of surprises appear, for me at this time of year the sun brings me the most joyous of surprises, it just appears sometimes and smiles before hiding behind a cloud again but just that surge of light upon my skin brings me me alive for a short while.

I have been surprised this year and this Christmas and I am still accepting is the chance to go inward at this time of year and actually learn something of who I am, what I have done with my life and forgive those things that I always end up hating myself for at this time of year. I feel oddly blessed this year as well for the lessons I have been given. For the last year of my twenties it feels significant. I am not saying that these lessons have been all roses in fact I would say that I have been awful company in the last couple of months as I slide in and out of difficult mental states but still people have offered me light and love every step of the way and I thank everyone for that.

So I don’t really know what I am trying to say here about christmas but maybe to just remember with love and acceptance anything that has bought you pain or anger this year. I am as connected with anyone who reads this as I am to my own mother. Everyone sees something amazing in everyone else and everyone can help everyone else in some way.

I am grateful today for my mother, the woods near her house and the candle light.

Merry Christmas, new year, solstice, yule, mid winter, whatever you wana call it..

Women’s Retreat

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I’ve just spent the last few days recovering from what must have been the most intense 12 days of my life.

A few months ago I realised that the Women’s Retreat, which happened the 14th – 21st September, didn’t have a facilitator or a site organiser, and so, in my tireless enthusiasm (it was the beginning of the season, after all) I volunteered myself. Cue, 2 months later, me realising just what I had let myself in for.

The epic mental journey started on the 7th September as I joined a team of Buddhafieldites to tat-down the massive Big Fat Buddha site at Frog Mill, in order to move our retreat head quarters onto our other piece of land at Broadhembury. I had to make sure that all the structures, cushions, blankets, pots, pans and rupas were stowed away in the right vans to get to Broad Hembury to set up the next retreat. I’d never taken on a leading role in this area so I arrived on site armed with a note book, which became my bible, and a pen, which I frequently lost. I also had Sean, who is our usual site co-ordinator/facilitator, who answered my every question with utmost patience and supported me amazingly. After 3 days of deconstruction, scratching my head and writing millions and millions of lists, at about 6pm on Sunday evening, we threw the last of the vegetables into a van, made a last neat tat pile against the hedge to come back for later, and stood in a circle, joined hands and transferred our merit. It is always an intense moment, leaving site. However long I have been there, whether it is just for the few days of a festival, the three weeks of Buddhafield Festival, or a site that I have come and gone from over a longer time, there is always something momentous about driving out of an empty field, with everything you need to create your home in the vans following you in convoy. It really brings home to me again and again the truth of impermanence and non-attachment, and then I forget it so easily, and have to remember that I know it. I feel as if, with Buddhism, I am constantly learning something, realising it a little bit, then falling back into old patterns, and then coming back to remembering what I’ve learnt, only each time it’s a little easier, feels a little more natural.

After one last night in the warmth and comfort of the van, we, a team of 5 women and 1 man, set off for Broadhembury, as usual, running late. The site is a beautiful boggy woodland, which, fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you view it, hadn’t been visited or had any upkeep done, all summer. This meant that at the bottom of the main track we had to stop and 3 of our team had to cut back brambles and bracken so we could get the vans down there. Once parked up, we had to do more bramble fighting and grass wading to make our way into the main hearth area of the retreat site. I stood at the end of the board walk and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The rain this summer, though bad for us, has been amazing for the land. The grass was lush and almost waist height in places, a big line of bracken has sprouted up, dividing the field, its wide, deep green, unmistakeable leaves providing some different textures from the yellowing ripening grass heads. The gravel paths which we spent so many hours digging, lining and filling in December were totally obscured by greenery, and I wasn’t sure if we would ever find them again. Ripe blackberries dangled from every plant, and even after just a few minutes of being on site my fingers were purple and my mouth full of dark sweetness. After a while of the team wandering around, re-introducing themselves to the land, we came back together and as it was starting to get dark, decided that all we could do would be to make a cup of tea and go to bed, to start early and freshly in the morning.

The next few days were a whirlwind of action. Each morning we would meditate, have breakfast outside round the hearth fire, check in, have a work meeting and then, after another few cups of tea, spring into action. Over the days the team grew until we were a group of 10 strong women (with Sean still helping for the first few days), each bringing something special to the group. We built a kitchen and tea tent, put domes up, cut grass back, built showers and shower cubicles and put the hot tub together without problems. Though I was running the site, and led the work meetings each morning, it always felt very much like we were all running it, we were all creating the space. In a very short time we felt like a community, and I knew I could rely on each of these women to do each thing to the best of her ability. The honesty within the group about what was going on for us personally, and the way in which those gifts of speech were received was awe inspiring, I have to say that I have never been on such a harmonious set up before. It was a nuturing space where we were able to take the time we needed to be in touch with ourselves, while also working really hard to do what we were there to do. Our morning meetings were long, full of laughter and joy, and yet also able to hold the sadness and grief that also came, which is an intrinsic part of our experience as living creatures.

By Friday lunch time we were all exhausted, and yet the retreat was only just about to begin! As some of us tended the hearth fire and put the kettle on, others trundled wheel barrows down to the car park to meet the new members of our community. I found myself helping people put their tents up, guiding them up and down the hill, pointing out the amazing sweet track, where I’d found the sweetest black berries, and of course, the all important question of where the toilet was. As it grew dark, we had our first meal as a full women’s community and headed off up to the shrine tent under the old grandmother oak at the top of the site, to welcome each other and perform the dedication ceremony.

We very quickly settled into an even rhythm, morning walking meditations from Vidyadasi, followed by an open sit, porriage for breakfast before a usually late work circle, through into a morning activity, lunch, free time, then another activity, then dinner, shrine and hot tubs and bed. Though I had volunteered to be both site manager and retreat facilitator, in the rush of the season, I hadn’t thought very much about the latter role, and shocked myself when I realised what I’d let myself in for. Speaking in front of groups, directing people I don’t know, being the person at the end of the chain of responsibility; these are all things I would not happily choose to do, I think I must have managed to blank out that those would be part of my role when I volunteered for it! I struggled a bit at the beginning, especially with calling the work circle and having to make the final decision on things, but by the end of the retreat I was really enjoying gathering people and holding the space, and I found a real sense of letting go of the doubts that I have about my abilities, and an incredibly deep sense of empowerment.

As a result of the powerful experience of setting up, combined with other recent happenings, I had my mitra ceremony on Wednesday night of the retreat. I first thought that I wanted to be a mitra when I was on the Young Women’s Retreat in January at Tara Loka, and since then I have been dancing round the idea, sometimes pushing it far away and thinking, ‘Never!!’ sometimes coming close to it and feeling into it. More recently with the end of the season I have had more time to connect with what I feel and where I want my life to go, and have been sitting with the thought of becoming a Mitra and making that commitment. I hadn’t come to a concrete decision yet, I had tentative plans to have it at the Team Retreat which is coming up next week, but when Mumukshu suggested that it would be good to have it during the retreat, something clicked and it felt like the right thing to do. Alix, another woman on the team also wanted to have hers then, so we combined our ceremonies, and it was the most intense amazing deepest joyful experience of my life.

Personally, my theme of the retreat, as well as the official one of ‘doorways to freedom’, was, in my mind, ‘keeping it silly and joyful’. I think it is very easy to be overly serious about the spiritual path, and to take yourself too seriously. In my experience bringing joy and laughter to everything you do, from meditation to work, can have a really profound effect. So, Alix and I agreed to have a fancy dress mitra ceremony. I must have sub-consciously been planning this or something as we’d brought two big bags of fancy dress clothes with us, and so over Wednesday women would disapear into the dome, we’d hear laughs and giggles and shouts of joy, and then smiling women would emerge, clutching piles of fabric bundled up, telling us they couldn’t wait to reveal the outrageous outfit they had decided upon.

Later that night, sitting at the front of the dome, right next to the shrine, I looked around and was filled with such pure joy I felt like water. It was so clear to me that I was doing the right thing, that this was the path I was meant to be on. As I looked round the dome I could see old friends, new friends and women I had hardly spoken to, all united, each full of joy and beauty. Each had thrown herself wholeheartedly into the community, into practising and learning, and I felt honoured to share my experience with them, and honoured that they shared their experiences with me. Part of me wishes that I could or would share more of my experience of this with you reading this, but at the same time, I know that no words are deep enough, no sentence that I could construct would really tell the reality of what I felt and thought during those few hours, and so I won’t try, I’ll just say, I have no words, it is something that has profoundly affected me in many way, most of which, I’m sure, I don’t know or haven’t seen yet.

After this pinnacle, the rest of the retreat seemed to flow as smoothly as water does downhill, one thing seamlessly blending into the next, meditation into work, into deepening friendships and trying to work through old ones. I felt full of a deep calmness, and like, to use the word again, joy was just bubbling through me. Before I could comprehend it, it was Friday again, and tents were being taken down, I had a last minute scramble to make sure everyone got to their trains and buses on time, hugs were given and a massive email list drawn up so we could all keep in touch. Our little community of heroines disbanded, and we dispersed, carrying stillness, simplicity and contentment in our hearts.

Introduction to us!

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>Lou: I started working for Buddhafield as a way of getting to spend more time at festivals. For me being at a festival is something that I have always loved, the bubble of contentment and madness that arises within the site boundaries is a wonderful thing and I have always wanted to be more involved in how festivals are put together. After setting up the Café at Glastonbury, a festival that is very familiar to me, I soon realised that not only do Buddhafield Café provide a safe and welcoming place for festival punters but it also provides a home, a sanctuary amongst the chaos for its team of volunteers. I am one of the café volunteers and this year I also got involved with the site décor at this year’s festival. What I didn’t realise is that I would fall sideways into being with a family all of whom are learning and trying to adhere to Buddhist principles. This is what the café, in a wider context is trying to do; to bring the Dharma, the Buddhist spiritual path, to a greater audience. I have learnt much about myself and my relationship to others in the last few months and now that my position becomes more and more established I look forward to bringing my discoveries to aid the creation of this blog to support Buddhafield in all it does.

Ruth: It started off as a one time visit last year to work for the cafe at the festival, a week of working later, I knew with the most certainty I’ve ever felt that I needed to become part of Buddhafield. Just over a year later and I have been job-free, house-free and volunteering for the cafe for nearly 5 months and have never been happier. Before joining Buddhafield I had no interest in Buddhism,  having been brought up a Jehavah’s Witness and left the faith I have quite a strong resistance to ‘religion’, I was interested more in living a life outside of mainstream society, that didn’t have as its main aim acquisition of objects or money, that promoted freedom of choice and personal responsibility. What I found was so much more than that. I have slowly come to think that what I was looking for seems to be embodied in Buddhism, and while I still have my doubts, the effect on me that Buddhafield and my increasing knowledge of Buddhism has had cannot be seen as anything other than good.

What is a Buddhafield?


A Buddhafield in the Mahayana Tradition is a place in which the conditions are perfect for spiritual growth, a place where there are no burdens or hassles, a beautiful place that exists to benefit all beings and is under the influence of the Buddha’s wisdom and compassion. The Buddhafield that we work for, in its various guises, creates a supportive space that holds many people on their own paths into Buddhism and the journey they choose to undertake to spiritual enlightenment.

In its most basic form Buddhafield can be spilt into three factions: Buddhafield Cafe, Buddhafield Festival and Buddhafield Retreats. The café which takes its delicious vegan food to various festivals over the summer including Glastonbury, Wildheart, Sunrise, Out of the Ordinary and many others. The cafe creates a perfect space for festival goers to relax and rejuvenate and also hold a space within which the Dharma is an ongoing concern. The festival, unique in its ‘no drink, no drugs’ stance, holds many free workshops that encapsulate awareness: from Dharma talks to all kinds of meditations and yoga, from rituals and pujas to beautiful acoustic music. The retreats team hold a number of different retreats throughout the year for those who wish to delve deeper into Buddhism.  All the retreats are held in stunning locations offering a chance to get closer to nature and yourself. The most popular of our retreats is the Family Friendly retreat, held at Frog Mill, a piece of  land in Dartmoor National Park which Buddhafield has bought, and that the Land Appeal, another offshoot of Buddhafield, is raising money to pay for.

The Festival, Café and Retreats are all working towards being as sustainable as possible. We use wind and solar energy to power the cafe and the festival, biodiesel in the vans used to transport us and all the equipment from site to site, wood fired hot water systems for the hot water in the cafe, (the excess heat goes into a sauna and shower for the cafe crew to keep them clean and happy!!) composting loo’s at retreats and at the festival and we also source our veg from local suppliers, in whatever part of the country we happen to be in. This caring for the environment we inhabit, in turn helps to create a safe space for people to confidently and comfortably grow at their own pace, so they can lighten their burdens and release the constraints of their mind and bodies and become enlightened (or near enough!). Truly a Buddhafield in action.