Simply Being

All times refer to UK time, unless otherwise stated.

 James Low, April 2026 writes: The traditional structure of Buddhist teachings is that each level or vehicle has its own View, Meditation, Activity and Result. Over the years I have focused on making the various views and meditations as clear as possible and you can access these through my many audio and video recordings, books and transcripts.

I feel that our retreats now need to have increasing emphasis on your activity and proactive learning.

We all have a lot of life experience and so how can we mobilise this experience to become an ally on our path instead of an obstacle? Rather than relying on our habitual assumptions and conclusions, our practice is to investigate how our subjectivity arises in different situations. We aim to locate the ground (or basis) for our subjective thoughts, feelings and actions in our simple presence within the ever-open here and now.

I will be teaching in the mornings. In the afternoons there will be small group activities led by experienced members of our sangha. They will offer a  range of activities and I am encouraging you all to try them out so that you can experience what you can make use of (or not) at each moment in time. The key point is for you to observe what arises for you as you engage with each activity in your ever-changing environment.

The aim in dzogchen is to see the self-vanishing of each moment. We do this by ripening our presence without engaging in dualistic reificatory judgement.

Latest Past Events

Supporting Minority Groups. Zoom, May 2026

Zoom

James will talk about compassion in action and supporting minority groups such as the Huni Kuin in the Amazon.  You can read more about this group and how to support them here. This is the Zoom link The password is rigpa James will talk at 3pm (London time) on Sunday May 31st and there will be translators. This event is [...]

Dzogchen summer retreat. Emerson College, UK June 2025

Emerson College Hartfield Road, Forest Row

Open to life: life comes as it comes. Vast as the sky. Deep as the ocean. James Low has been leading these summer retreats in Sussex almost every year since 2013, organised by Huw Wyn. They are usually in Emerson College, a training college inspired by the work of Rudolf Steiner. Topic We do not know what events will arise [...]

50.00€

Lama Vajranatha

Zoom

Dzogchen Teachings in the Longchen Nyingthik Our Polish translator, Bartek Czajkowski, asked us to share this information about teachings by Lama Vajranatha (John Reynolds) who studied in India with C. R. Lama. Seminar via Zoom (Saturday 17th June and Sunday 18th June, 15:00-19:00 GMT+2, with breaks) The seminar is donation-based, see details and register at http://kunzangling.pl/zoom In Tibet in the 18th cen., [...]