Heart and Mind Yoga
Yoga in the Deepest Sense

International Three Week Meditation Retreat in South Africa with Rob Nairn
This article appeared in Yoga and Yealth, June 2004 p8-9
By Sarah Lionheart © 2004,



Last summer on my usual ten-day meditation retreat in Scotland with international retreat master Rob Nairn, I asked if he would lead a three-week retreat.  (I wanted four weeks but I was unsure how much I could ask for and get away with!)  I said rather rashly that I would travel anywhere in the world for it so he could have it wherever he liked.  As he comes from Zimbabwe and works a lot in South Africa this was a asking for trouble.  He said Johannesburg and I said okay.  Next February, he asked.  Okay I said.  Oh boy……….

I am a yoga teacher, I have two primary school age children and a busy mathematician husband plus I had just enrolled on a meditation training course that seemed to be taking up about 4 hours a day of my time.  What was I agreeing to?!  Supportive friends, neighbours and obliging yoga teachers stepped in and my husband as usual was supportive and keen to help me manage to do this.

Six months later I arrive at a small farm homestead 3 hours west of Jo’burg to be greeted by a familiar face, Pippa, whom I had met in India a year earlier. She announced she was  the cook.  Then I was shown a lovely room with a proper bed (I had been wondering about whether I would even get a bed.)  I then found out that not only did we have running water and electricity but that there were two hot showers, two  bathrooms, a tank which was  called a swimming pool, and even, wait for it, a washing machine!  Then I met the ten other people on the retreat (one Scottish who had travelled out with me, five from Zimbabwe, and the rest from South Africa).    We ate soup together and then went for the first talk.  As usual Rob was in fine form and we got an idea of the schedule and the topics he would be covering the next few weeks. The title for the retreat was
Recognising Compassion

And the outline we were given was as follows:

This will be a silent retreat for people who want to deepen their experience and understanding of tranquillity and insight. Tranquillity is the ground of compassion and insight the basis of wisdom – the two qualities that lead to enlightenment. The main idea is to give people a chance to engage in fairly intensive meditation with sessions of at least one hour. There will be scope for individual meditation at certain times and then people can sit for longer.

There will be a short period of instruction each morning, followed by questions and specific meditation exercises designed to deepen tranquillity and promote insight. Meditation throughout the day will be group and \ or individual. There will be time for personal discussion with Rob
 
The following areas will be covered:
 Then he announced that the rule of Noble Silence started now.  So much for getting to know my other retreatants………..

Each day started with a first meditation session at 5.45am.  I got up earlier as I had my other practice to fit in and the cockerel obligingly crowed outside my window at 4.30 am every morning.  One soon adjusts to so early a start and going to bed early as well.  The days rolled by, including about 7 hours of meditation sessions, two talks (8am and 8pm) a whole hour of guided yoga nidra  [bliss, (snore), more bliss, (snore), dreaming……ooops – is it over already?] a guided walk for an hour, and a led prayer for compassion last thing at night. There was plenty of time for an after-lunch nap, for washing clothes,  for tea breaks and swim breaks.  The days seemed to be long and happy.  People attended whatever they felt able to. 

Rob teaches with great acceptance and great clarity.  I find that if I let go and just trust where he is guiding  – then the whole process deepens.    Each day he would give us a nudge in the right direction and then explain the process of some of the difficulties we were having and how to deal with them.  Acceptance of where we are and who we are was crucial to the whole process.  So was letting go – not expecting anything and not wanting anything.  No goals nor expectations.  Noticing what the mind was doing – no matter what it was doing – was the task at hand.  Then noticing how we push away, or grasp or are neutral towards the various thoughts and feelings that come and go.  We moved on to noticing that we are observing all this and then we were asked ‘what kind of observer did we have?’.  A critical impatient one?  A kindly tolerant one?  An excited achievement orientated one?  And then we moved on to noticing what happened when we let go of observing.  Day after day the daily meditation instruction came and day in and day out we got on with it.  Fascinating and intriguing – and on top of that I felt happier than ever.  I slept wonderfully, having marvellous dreams of my teachers and woke refreshed as the cockerel crowed.  Things seemed right and in their place.  The food was vegetarian, quite superb and different dishes every day with fresh mangoes or pineapple and real ice cream for pudding.  I would sit on the veranda (‘stoop’ I think they called it) sip my roibush tea and wonder if I had died and gone to heaven.  The weather was gorgeous and it was so nice to wander around in light cotton trousers, shirt and bare feet and think of the snow I had left behind in England. 

Day five Rob announced he was leaving for Cape Town (his mother was dying).  He did not know when he would return.  Pippa commiserated – we’d come all this way and now the retreat with Rob was finished.  Strangely, I only felt for Rob.   I felt that whatever happened was what was meant to be happening and just got on with being on retreat.  Another retreat teacher, Beryl Schutten arrived from Cape Town.  I had not met her before and she was an absolute love.  She taught right from the heart and we had evening teachings which were full of stories about her teachers and how they had opened her own heart.  I was now convinced I really had died and gone to heaven!  A week with Beryl and the awareness of compassion seemed to be all around me.  I seemed to be resting in it and guided by it and sinking deeper into it.  And then unexpectedly Rob returns and we have another ten days with him of exploring compassion even further, in our hearts and in our minds.  Those three weeks seemed to last and last – some days I could hardly believe that only a day had contained what had occurred.  In my personal interviews with both of these teachers I realised how open I was becoming, how much was actually happening.  Meditation does uncover places that we have repressed or buried deep and some of those interviews were difficult but I was always met with acceptance and the space to be as I am and not to fight nor grasp but relax.  I could be completely open and be met with openness and acceptance in return and then guided with insight and wisdom.  Things that happen on retreat can uncover feelings and energy and reactions that normally would be hidden.  (I shall refrain from telling you about the missing bar of chocolate incident.) One morning I went out and did a heart opening yoga sequence under the huge fig tree as the sun rose – and as the sun burst over the horizon, my heart seemed to burst open too and I felt wave upon wave of love and kindness and compassion and acceptance sweep into every pore and cell of my being.  I felt such gratitude that good teachers exist.  I felt so grateful to be privileged to attend such a retreat and to have a family and friends who support and enable me to do this.  On the last day of the retreat, the mind awareness of meditation and the heart awareness of meditation seemed to coincide and meet and I realised I was standing at the same place having arrived by two different routes.  The mind still, the heart aware of enormous compassion. A vast spaciousness where all is okay.  Where all is well.  And always has been.


Rob Nairn is an internationally sought after lecturer, teacher and retreat leader.  He has trained within Tibetan Buddhism for over 40 years having met the Dalai Lama in 1963.  He undertook a four-year closed retreat and has been teaching in Africa, Europe and America for many years.  He is the author of three books:’Diamond Mind’; ‘Tranquil Mind’ and ‘Living Dreaming Dying’.  He will lead another long retreat – for a month this time – yea!- starting Feb 6th 2005 at the same place 3 hours west of Johannesburg.  I estimate the cost to be around £1, 000 including flight and course fees and food and dana (offering).  For more information please contact me, Sarah Lionheart on sarah@heartandmind.org.  Or the Johannesburg centre on dorje@gem.co.za

The Groot Marico Retreat Centre is also open to bookings for other courses by other leaders. Contact dorje@gem.co.za

Rob Nairn will be leading retreats and weekend courses around Britain during July to September 2004.  For more information on these please contact Samye Ling Tibetan Buddhist Monastery on scotland@samyeling.org or their website www.samyeling.org or phone: 013873 73232.  He is leading a week retreat from July 9th at Samye Ling and another week retreat on Holy Island off Arran August 28th – Sept 5th.  He will also do a one-day meditation workshop in September near Manchester. 

Sarah Lionheart will be leading a meditation retreat with yoga at Ampleforth Abbey in North Yorkshire June 18th to 20th 2004 and a week long retreat of yoga, meditation and deep relaxation on Holy Island off Arran July 30th to August 6th.  Contact Sarah on sarah@heartandmind.org or Phone: 01663 732 701

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