The Hyning Retreat
Christian Meditation in Cumbria
The Hyning Retreat
Friday 15th to Sunday 17th March
Leader: Christopher Collingwood, Anglican priest and Zen teacher.
Venue: Monastery of Our Lady of Hyning, LA5 9SE
We’re delighted to invite you to our retreat at Hyning Monastery Friday 15th to Sunday 17th March 2024. Our leader will be Chris Collingwood, who is an Anglican priest and Canon Emeritus of York Minster. He is also a Zen teacher in the White Plum Asanga.
The cost of the retreat is £155 (£105 for concessions) and you can book with Heather Keogh heatherandpeter@keoghfamily.co.uk This is a silent residential retreat.
Chris writes:
At the conceptual level, Christianity and Zen appear to be poles apart. So often, the Christian faith is presented above all else as a set of beliefs that have to be subscribed to, whereas Zen is not dogmatic in the true sense of the word, in that it does not require adherence to any set of beliefs, but rather invites us simply to let go of everything, including – and especially including – ourselves and, in so doing, wake up to who we really are.
When we do this, we experience a sense of coming home to ourselves.
This, of course, lies at the heart of following Christ, who, ‘though he was in the form of God… emptied himself’ (Philippians 2:6a,7a). The practice of zazen (seated meditation) in Zen and contemplative meditation in the Christian tradition require us to die to ourselves. In Zen, when we relinquish the small, separate, egoic self, we experience not nihilism but waking up to the 10,000 things, as the great Zen Master Dogen put it; in Christianity, we enter into the fullness of Christ, in whom life is found in all its abundance (John 10:10).
This retreat will take us on a journey of exploration to discover afresh the nature of emptiness and fullness as experienced in the practice of Zen and Christianity.
Please download the flier https://bit.ly/3UzpwyY, and share with your meditation group and faith community.