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

No gain, no loss. Zoom. Saturday Jun 2025

Zoom

No gain, no loss. The eight worldly concerns are no concern of awareness. Zoom Saturdays in the first half of 2025. With German (Kati), Polish (Joanna), Portuguese (Milton), Romanian (Viorica), Russian (Marie), Spanish (Mária) and Turkish (Mustafa) translation.   Register yourself here Schedule 10:00 - 11:15        Teaching 11:15-11:45       Break   11.45-13:00       Teaching 13:00-14:00      Lunch break 14:00-15:15  [...]

Access not ownership – staying present with whatever occurs. Zoom. Saturday May 2025

Zoom

Zoom Saturdays in the first half of 2025. With German (Kati), Polish (Bartek), Portuguese (Milton), Romanian (Viorica), Russian (Marie), Spanish (Mária) and Turkish (Mustafa) translation.   Register yourself here 10:00 - 11:15        Teaching 11:15-11:45       Break   11.45-13:00       Teaching 13:00-14:00      Lunch break 14:00-15:15      Teaching 15:15-15:45      Break 15:45 -17:00     Teaching   Those who would [...]

Wisdom and Compassion Teaching Days. March 2025

Townley Hall Townley Street, Macclesfield

James Low Macclesfield, UK. There will be a balance of teaching and meditation. Painted by Lea Pabst “Wisdom and Compassion are often said to be like the two wings of a bird…with their collaboration we can fly free of the snares of samsara and its false dualism.  We will integrate the wisdom of emptiness which reveals how all our experience [...]