New Year Retreat (online) with Martin Aylward: Gathering, meditating, exploring together (assisted by Shireen Jilla)

End 2025 in practice and in community.
4 days Zooming in together for meditation, dharma reflexion, and exploration.
Practices will include guided and silent meditation, teachings and reflexions and exploratory dialog exercises with others on the retreat. There will also be some chanting practice and a transitional ritual moment on New Year’s Eve.

Those of you who have been meditating with me at Sangha live in the mornings for these last months will know how much intimacy, support and shared presence can be cultivated when we come together online. Come and join me for these last days of the year, and share your love of the dharma with other like-minded souls.

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Martin Aylward began dharma practice and study aged 19, spending several years in Asian monasteries and with Himalayan hermits. Teaching worldwide since 1999, Martin co-founded Moulin de Chaves, the retreat center where he lives and teaches in SW France; the Mindfulness Training Institute and the online dharma community Sangha Live. He is married with two adult children, and integrates dharma into daily life with programs like Work Sex Money Dharma. His latest book is Awake Where You Are (2021).

Shireen Jilla is also a long-term dharma student of Martin’s. She is inspired by the lightly-held wisdom and joyfulness of elders: sitting with Ajahn Sucitto, exploring one-to-one with Leigh Brasington and learning Qigong and much more from a precise, playful group of Chinese septuagenarians in the local park, where her son lives in Beijing.

As an ex journalist and novelist, Shireen is enjoying writing about practice for the first time for a new book focusing on women’s mental health. She finds it rich and humbling to meet people where they are and introduce a path of practice, whether its the homeless or CEO’s, waste collectors or those working in mental health.

Before dawn every morning, Shireen gets outside to practice in nature. In the shadowy silence, she does all her householder chores before sitting. These rituals bring care, loving kindness and equanimity to the heart of her practice and teaching. Other joys are feeding and sharing with friends and family, and swimming out into the open sea.

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Dates and timings:

29 Dec – Meeting at 6.30-8pm UK, 19h30-21h EU (US Times: 10.30-12pm PST, 1.30pm – 3pm EST)

30 Dec – Meeting 3 times a day at 9.30am, 2.30pm 6.30pm UK time (10h30., 15h30, 19h30 EU). (US times: 1.30am, 6.30am, 10.30am PST/ 4.30am, 9.30am, 1.30pm EST)

31 Dec – Meeting 4 times a day at:
9.30am, 2.30pm, 6.30pm UK time (10h30., 15h30, 19h30 EU) and 10.30-11.30pm UK (23h30 – 00h30 EU) (US Times: 1.30am, 6.30am, 10.30am PST/ 4.30am, 9.30am, 1.30pm EST) and (2.30pm – 3.30pm PST/5.30pm – 6.30pm EST)

1 Jan – Meeting at 9.30am UK time (10h30 EU) for the closing session (US Times: 1.30am PST/ 5.30am EST)

To calculate your time zone please use the EU time as reference, that is Central European Time. This is the time that the sessions will be recorded at live. There are many websites that convert time such as Google or https://greenwichmeantime.com/time-gadgets/time-zone-converter/

Sessions will be 60-90 minutes long and will be recorded. Recordings will be available to all the attendees for two weeks.

Registration fee:

€100 plus VAT plus dana offerings for the teachers. Dana can be paid at the end of the retreat.

Once you have placed your order you will receive a confirmation email. If you have not received one please check your spam folder and place the contact@martinaylward.com address on your safe list.