Seeing That Frees: Meditations on Emptiness and Dependent Arising

Product Information

Rob supported many environmental campaign groups financially, including Green Peace, Flora and Fauna International and the World Land Trust.

ZOHAR LAVIE has been practising meditation in different traditions since 1995. This journey has taken her from the meditation cushion into exploring further ways of expressing truth and love and in 2004 she co-founded SanghaSeva. She now spends most of her time facilitating retreats that offer service as a spiritual path around the world. Since 2006 she has been teaching on silent retreats and Dharma gatherings in India, Europe and Israel. SOPHIE BOYER has been practicing meditation for 20 years during her time providing nursing care. After years spent in hospices, she became more interested in exploring silent meditation retreats in Europe, and in the US and spent 2 years in Myanmar as a buddhist nun.Here are key excerpts from our community content guidelines, which are designed to help create a positive environment for everyone:

JENNY WILKS has practised in various Buddhist traditions since the late 1980s and has an MA in Indian religions. She has taught at Gaia House since 2008, as well as at the Barn Retreat in Devon, and for the Mindfulness Network. She trained in clinical psychology and has taught mindfulness-based approaches in healthcare settings. In recent years her practice has included exploration of deep ecology and nature-based approaches to psychosocial and spiritual well-being. Rob was the first to admit that his teachings weren’t for everyone or even necessary. So long as there was eros, love, a movement of the soul, it doesn’t matter what you call it or whether you even know it’s there. He wasn’t trying to start a new religion. Yet for many people he voiced a crucial insight: that the profound teachings of emptiness give rise to the possibility of holding different perspectives on reality for different purposes and cultivating a range of qualities which enrich and deepen the journey of life. I don’t know how to reconcile the creative tensions between innovation and tradition. Maybe it’s always just a tension. However, I do know I’m grateful to Rob for his teachings and his way of teaching. They have expanded and enriched the way I practice and conceive of practice and I’m sure they have impacted many individuals and communities beyond Gaia House and beyond even the Buddhist Sangha. When it was clear that he was not going to pursue his musical journey in the same way that I was, we spent less time in each others’ company and over time we driftedapart.Michael: Can you actually remember that moment of kind of leaving the well-worn trail and going off into – just to horribly mix metaphors for a moment – going off into your jazz improv on emptiness? TONY O'CONNOR has been practicing meditation since the mid 90's in both the Insight Meditation and Korean Seon traditions, trained under the guidance of Martine Batchelor and completed the Bodhi College Dharma Teacher Training Programme. He is interested in exploring how Dharma teachings can be integrated into our daily lives and inform the issues of our time. Christina Feldman's Talks given at Gaia House on 24.09.2013: Swimming Against the Tide (Duration 61:35) Michael: It’s today’s answer. Perfect. So I’m just going to ask you an impossible question, which is, okay, Rob, you have this deep insight into emptiness – what can you say about emptiness? What is it? Why does it matter? Why should someone care? BERNAT FONT met the dharma at a very young age and has practiced in Europe, India and Myanmar, gradually putting aside his artistic career. He completed his dharma teacher training with the Bodhi College in 2022, mentored by Stephen Batchelor, and is doing a PhD in Buddhist Studies. He guides a small sangha in his native Barcelona and teaches in English, Catalan and Spanish.

Rob: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Basically that’s the whole premise of the book. We can divide ways of looking into two broad camps. There are ways of looking that kind of keep suffering and dis-ease and whatever objects and selves are involved in that suffering, they keep it solid and real-seeming and there, or they make it even stronger and more intense. We’ve got those kinds of ways of looking in, kind of broadly speaking, one camp. And the other kinds of ways of looking are ways that fabricate less, that cause the fading – to some degree or other – of the suffering, the sense of self, the sense of things. So besides Thanissaro Bhikkhu, what other resources did you find that helped you do this long process of investigation into emptiness? We can do that with different intentions. So, for example, one might do that with mettā practice or lovingkindness – I decide to see this person in a certain way; I play with that way of looking that sees them in a certain way for the sake of mettā or whatever. But I can also do that for other reasons. So I can broaden the scope of why I’m doing it; it’s not just for the release of obvious suffering. Does this make sense?CARL FOOKS has been practising in Mahāyāna and Theravāda traditions since the late 1980’s, starting with Rinzai Zen before settling on the Mahasi tradition in 2007. He has been leading groups since 2011 and teaching retreats at Satipanya and Gaia House since 2014. He has an MA in Buddhist Studies. During this time Rob also began sitting retreats with Thanissaro Bhikkhu (Ajahn Geoff), an American Thai Forest monk and abbot of Metta Forest Monastery in California. Thanissaro strongly influenced his development, although Rob would eventually take his Dharma in very different directions. The following is a (fairly) verbatim transcript of a podcast interview I conducted with Rob Burbea. Please let me know if there are any errors in the text.) Katrin completed her Dharma teacher training under the guidance of Martine Batchelor and teaches in South Africa and in the UK.

Based on his deep experiential understanding of emptiness, Rob dedicated much of his time and energy during the last years of his life to conceiving, developing and establishing a new body of teachings that he called ‘A Soulmaking Dharma’. Think twice before posting anything that’s likely to give offence or be inflammatory. That doesn’t promote good conversation. If you’re upset at something you see here, perhaps let a little time pass before responding. Bear in mind this isn’t a space to vent our views, it’s about exploring respectfully with others what it means to be a Buddhist within our community and in the modern world generally.

Path of the Imaginal (Longer Course)

LEIGH BRASINGTON has been practising meditation since 1985 and is the senior American student of the late Ven. Ayya Khema. Leigh began assisting Ven. Ayya Khema in 1994, and began teaching retreats on his own in 1997. He teaches in Europe and North America and is the author of the books Right Concentration: A Practical Guide to the Jhanas and Dependent Origination and Emptiness: Streams of Dependently Arising Processes Interacting. Find more information about Leigh’s teaching and schedule at leighb.com