Vipassana Meditation Blackheath and Sydney in Blackheath, New South Wales | Meditation centre

Vipassana Meditation Blackheath and Sydney

Locality: Blackheath, New South Wales

Phone: +61 2 4787 3600

Address: 212 Station St 2785 Blackheath, NSW, Australia

Website: http://www.bhumi.dhamma.org

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25.01.2022 Vipassana Assistant Teacher and author of Sapiens and Homo Deus, Yuval Harari, talks about learning to focus by using Vipassana meditation.

23.01.2022 Further to our last post about Dhamma Bhumi closing until further notice due to the rapid spread of Covid-19 (Coronavirus), all official Group Sittings for old students in the ACT and NSW (excluding Northern Rivers Gold Coast; please contact them for details) are also cancelled until further notice. Please share with other Vipassana meditators in your networks.

20.01.2022 As we prepare for the first course at Dhamma Pasada - the new Vipassana meditation centre in Lower Portland - there are several working periods open to all old students in this meditation tradition. It is wonderful for one's meditation practice to be able to serve, and a great opportunity to help prepare a new meditation centre for its first course. The next work period is from Monday March 8 - Saturday March 13. If you are an old student who has the time and volition to serve either full-time or part-time, please apply via the course schedule at https://myvipassana.calm.dhamma.org//initi/9-S0N1N1noc9B86

20.01.2022 The path of Vipassana is a human capacity and a personal choice. It points towards a tranquil wisdom that transcends the automaticity of animal existence. Rather than reducing human life to a psycho-physical machine, this meditation exposes the ignorance of unconscious reactivity and releases the spirit of wisdom, virtue and illumination. The meditator becomes free to live for higher values, richer goals: loving kindness, sympathetic joy, compassion and peacefulness. Fear and... yearning give way to choice, ardor, and faith in the human potential. ~Excerpt from ‘Healing the Healer’, by Vipassana meditation teacher Paul R. Fleischman. [image is of the meditation hall at Dhamma Bhumi, Blackheath]

20.01.2022 Dhamma Bhumi is recommencing 10-Day courses! With the gradual easing of COVID-19 restrictions in New South Wales, the Vipassana Meditation Centre is again open for student enrolments. The first course, for Old Students only, commences tonight, June 10, 2020. Initially courses are limited to 50 students to better comply with social distancing rules. The Centre is following Government health guidelines and has put in place strict COVID-19 safety plans which includes new arrange...ments for enrolment, dining and cleaning. Go to the Dhamma Bhumi website for a list of upcoming courses. http://www.bhumi.dhamma.org/

18.01.2022 "It is widely taught that the Buddha himself insisted nobody should embrace his teachings on blind faith, but only try the methods with an open mind, to see if they work. The best-known modern teachers of Vipassana are true to this instruction, holding retreats that teach the technique without proselytising or even inquiring about attendees’ religious affiliations." A lively article written by a first time meditator, detailing their personal experience on the course.

17.01.2022 Please share this video to help the Campaign to Save Dhamma Bhumi from having a highway run through it! To donate to the publicity campaign: https://www.bhumi.dhamma.org/donations.html To hand out flyers in Blackheath email: [email protected] ... Save our Centre sample letter: https://www.bhumi.dhamma.org/SampleLetterAug2020.pdf

17.01.2022 BREAKING NEWS! NSW State Government has announced that Options 1 & 2 for the proposed Highway upgrade have been taken off the table. Those two options would have seriously impacted not only the Vipassana Meditation Centre, but Station St and the majestic Centennial Glen. There will now be an option for either a long or short tunnel, neither of which will adversely impact the centre or the surrounding landscape. Thank you to all the Vipassana meditators who wrote heartfelt let...ters to the State Government, and to those on the committee to protect the centre. We will keep you updated with any further news. https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au//its-tunnel-visio/

16.01.2022 Women servers are urgently needed for the 10-Day course starting tomorrow, April 21, at Dhamma Pasada. Dhamma Pasada is the new Vipassana meditation centre that has been acquired to meet the growing demand for courses close to the Sydney region. If you have sat at least one 10-Day Vipassana meditation course as taught by S.N. Goenka and haven't practiced another technique since your last course, please apply via the course schedule at https://www.dhamma.org/en/schedules/schbhumi

15.01.2022 PLEASE HELP: We are in danger of losing our Vipassana Meditation Centre in Blackheath! The New South Wales Government has begun costing its plan to build a new four-lane highway through Dhamma Bhumi, our meditation centre in the Blue Mountains. The plan is still in its early stages, and the Centre is asking students to join our campaign to get the Government to change its mind before it is too late.... There are several ways in which you can help, outlined here: http://www.bhumi.dhamma.org/HighwayCampaign.pdf If you can help in any way, please do, as this is a very serious threat to the existence of the centre, as well as the surrounding bushland and wildlife. If you are an old student and wish to join the campaign team, please private message this page. Please share far and wide so that we can spread the word and get as much support as possible. Thank you!

14.01.2022 Dear Old Students*, Full-time servers are urgently needed for all upcoming courses at Dhamma Pasada, the new Vipassana meditation centre in Lower Portland. If you have some time and volition, please apply via the online course schedule at https://www.dhamma.org/en/schedules/schbhumi... *Old students are people who have completed at least one 10-Day Vipassana Meditation course as taught by S.N. Goenka.

13.01.2022 Snow fall during the 45-day course at Blackheath. The long course finishes this Friday, then the usual schedule for fortnightly 10-Day courses recommences on June 22. Courses book up in advance - to apply for future courses go to https://www.dhamma.org/en/schedules/schbhumi

13.01.2022 Excerpted from an address to all Vipassana Meditators: 'Dhamma, the True Refuge' by S.N. Goenka First published in the June 1977 issue of the Hindi-language "Vipashyan" Patrik.... Dear meditators, whenever you face difficulties in life, due to storms or tornadoes, or a feeling of helplessness, then learn to take refuge in the Dhamma at such times. Refuge in the Dhamma brings a lot of relief. At times a fiendish storm in the form of a war, or a famine, or an outbreak of disease may occur. Or great waves may rise up in a placid lake, and these high waves hiss at us like a poisonous cobra. Or perhaps a destructive, violent whirlpool threatens to pull everyone into it. At such times even our friends may run away, or divert their eyes like a parrot. Even our near and dear ones are busy protecting their own lives; all those drowning are looking for anything to grasp that could save them. All sense of belonging goes away. At such times, my dear meditators, only the Dhamma provides us shelter. The Dhamma becomes our anchor, the Dhamma becomes our island. Even if only for a little while, try to look inward and allow yourselves to be in the flow of Dhamma. It will give you great strength and self confidence. By being in the flow of Dhamma, we stop creating new habit patterns. It is because of this that an opportunity to get rid of old habit patterns comes, and the storms that have arisen due to these old habit patterns will begin to lose their strength automatically. This is how one takes refuge in the Dhamma. Practice Vipassana when facing any difficulty. Your surroundings will be filled with hope and energy. Kalyanamitta, Satyanarayan Goenka

10.01.2022 'He said, You probably haven’t heard of a thing called Vipassana meditation, but I’d actually been trying to do one of their retreats for years.' Vipassana meditators Peter Greste and Christine Jackman feature in The Two of Us in this weekend's Good Weekend magazine. https://www.smh.com.au//we-just-hit-it-off-peter-greste-s-'

10.01.2022 Helping others is absolutely essential for every Dhamma person. For someone who is meditating, of course the main aim is to purify the mind. But one indication that the mind is becoming purified is that the volition arises to help others. A pure mind will always be full of love and compassion. One cannot see people suffering all around and say, 'I don’t care. I am working for my own liberation'. This sort of attitude shows a lack of development in Dhamma. If one is developing... in Dhamma, then naturally, in whichever capacity, with whatever abilities one has, in whichever field one can serve, one should serve. ~ S.N. Goenka [photo was taken from the dining hall verandah: sunset at Dhamma Bhumi, Blackheath]

05.01.2022 Questions & Answers with Vipassana meditation teacher Paul R. Fleischman at Milltown Institute, Dublin, Ireland, December 3, 2007: Q: How do you stay peaceful when you are being yelled at or confronted? Don’t you have to respond? A: That’s right. We don’t want our inner peace to be an artifice or a form of passivity, as if you study meditation, you become a good meditator, and then you become a passive wimp and everybody can push you around and you never stand up for yourself.... As I said, I had that fear and I am glad that I had models of people, my teacher and other friends, who are active, competent people, who are also meditators. One theme that I have come back to a number of times is that we find a misleading tendency towards dichotomisation under conditions in which mingling and merging would provide more fertile and adaptive responses. Should we be active or passive? Are we going to be skilful and competent or will we be idealistic and accepting? The middle path, the end of splitting, is to put together two opposites, to form a complex middle that takes the best of the apparent polarities. So when we are being yelled at, typically we think of two alternatives. One is to yell back; defend yourself, stand up for yourself; don’t be a wimp. The other simple alternative is to just take it; we are meditators; be quiet; let them yell; turn the other cheek. The middle path of Vipassana is to be able to observe your self, your body, your sensations neutrally enough, that you can locate your feelings, not deny them, and not act on them either. With awareness and with pause and poise, can you overcome your fear, your anger, well enough to respond with firm, non-hateful, non-angry, non-belligerent, honest, straightforward, forceful speech? I’m not saying that I can do that all of the time. If you are a psychiatrist you work on it every single day in your psychotherapeutic interactions. If you are a family person, you work on it every single day, in your family relationships. Sometimes I am successful. Sometimes I am not successful. But the goal is neither to yell back, nor be passive and simply take it. The goal is to find right speech. Right speech is speaking honestly and forthrightly to the issue without being demeaning, aggressive, provocative or belligerent. [photo is of gardens at Dhamma Bhumi, Blackheath]

04.01.2022 ! . Three ways that you can help:...Continue reading

04.01.2022 Due to the rapid spread of Covid-19 (Coronavirus), Dhamma Bhumi in Blackheath will be closed from Saturday 21 March, 2020, until further notice. From today Monday 16 March, access to the centre is restricted only to essential deliveries and services. If you have questions about visiting, please email the centre at [email protected]

02.01.2022 Friendly wild King Parrot outside the kitchen at Dhamma Bhmi. Video taken by a server.

02.01.2022 A new Vipassana Meditation Centre with room for about 50 students will open in a few months at Lower Portland, north-west of Sydney! Perched high above a bend in the Hawkesbury River the 8-acre property is 90 minutes drive from the CBD and about 2 hours by train to Windsor, from where transport will be arranged. The property includes 11 self-contained cottages, a comfortable hall surrounded by verandas, a main residence with four potential bedrooms, lounge and dining rooms, a...nd a commercial kitchen. The new Centre will operate separately from Dhamma Bhumi at Blackheath and will help to meet the growing demand for Vipassana meditation, with courses often booked out within minutes of opening. Old Students - What you can do to help: The property has been bought for $2.25 million. Including initial capital expenses, the total cost to get the Centre up and running is estimated to be $2.75 million. Old students have already generously offered dana and loans of $2.1 million, leaving another $650k to be raised by 1 March 2021. If you wish to take this opportunity to share in the merits of a new Centre, we welcome direct donations, monthly pledges or interest free or low interest loans. No amount is too small, as it is your volition to contribute that is important. For bank details please email [email protected]