28-Day Vipassana Retreat with Patrick Kearney

Patrick Kearney has practised mindfulness meditation (satipaṭṭhāna vipassanā) since 1977. At that time there was little or no Buddhist meditation training available in Australia, so he spent years travelling in Asia and the USA working with teachers from different Buddhist traditions to learn the craft of meditation practice. Most of his training has been in the insight meditation lineage of Mahāsī Sayādaw of Burma, which included several years as a Buddhist monk. His main teachers were Sayādaw U Paṇḍita and John Hale. He has also trained in the Diamond Sangha lineage of Zen where his teachers have been Robert Aitken Rōshi and Paul Maloney Rōshi. Patrick has been a full-time teacher of mindfulness meditation for a quarter of a century. He conducts residential and online retreats, workshops and seminars. He has studied early Buddhism at post-graduate levels and has a particular interest in the original teachings of the Buddha, before the invention of “Buddhism.” This allows him to bring the radical insights of the Buddha to our contemporary situation. He sees meditation as a physical practice that reconnects us with the felt world of our senses, allowing us to live our lives directly rather than through the cling-wrap of our habitual thinking. For further details see his website.

Emma Pittaway teaches an open 'natural awareness' approach that emphasises meditation as a way of being in the world. Her style is drawn from 25 years experience in the Burmese lineage of Mahāsī Sayādaw, via her primary teacher Patrick Kearney, and her training with Sayādaw U Tejaniya. These two influences combine relaxation and creativity with investigation and clarity. Inspired by the Buddha and his followers, who lived and meditated in the forest, Emma draws on the natural world to support her practice. She is the principal insight teacher at the Kuan Yin Meditation Centre in Lismore, NSW.

Robyn Gibson has been practising and studying meditation for 30 years, predominantly in the Mahāsi lineage of Theravāda Buddhism. Her principal teachers have been Patrick Kearney and Carol Perry. Teaching since 2016, Robyn’s approach brings together the Buddha’s radical teachings of freedom through embodied presence, deep ecology and other nature-based practices, and creative expression. All this allows us to enquire into what it means to live a wise and ethical human life on this earth, and how to face the challenges of our current times with courage and integrity.