The retreats taught by Steve and Rosemary have as their basis many skillful meditation techniques taught within Theravadin Buddhism designed to help us develop Vipassana or Insight into Reality. Vipassana is an ancient Indian Pali word. It does not mean a specific technique, but the resulting Insight and Wisdom which comes from skillful methods. These help us to understand the underlying characteristics of ourselves and life. The techniques taught include the developing of:

1. Concentration and mindfulness.
2. Moment-to-moment awareness.
3. The investigative quality of clear comprehension which helps to discover the deeper laws of cause and effect, and dependent arising nature of body and mind.
4. Unselfish emotions such as compassion, lovingkindness, sympathetic joy and equanimity. These help to transform our intentions and develop our emotional well-being. Also they help evolve the mind sufficiently so it is capable of understanding.
5. Yonisomanasikara, or Wise Reflection, which helps to develop the faculty of analytical investigation into the deeper truths and laws governing the body and mind.

Rosemary and Steve believe that the path of meditation and mental development must be treated as a whole. It needs to nurture a person's development on all levels rather than emphasis being placed on only some aspects of the human mind. The practice needs to address our intellectual and emotional well-being. As well, we need to develop Compassionate Understanding which helps us to relate to ourselves, others, Nature, and the world in a beneficial way. Steve and Rosemary do not believe that we can only focus on a few limited techniques taken out of the context of the whole "way of living" described within Theravadin Buddhism. This path taken as a whole can help liberate us from problems and difficulties, and help us to find more inner peace. A fragmented or partial practice will often result in people not being able to nurture themselves in the multifaceted nature of their experiences with the world and their relationships with others.

The Buddha is recorded to have given appropriate ways of practice to people from all walks of life. This ranged from people actively involved in the everyday world with home, relationships, and work responsibilities to those devoting their life full-time to the inner journey. Rosemary and Steve have been influenced greatly by the many varied examples of how the Buddha taught that have been recorded in the scriptures. They try to teach what is appropriate and beneficial for their students. They try to follow a simple principle: "You have to use the right medicine for a particular disease. No matter how good the medicine is, if it is not the appropriate one for the disease, then the disease cannot be cured."

Through an overall and balanced mental development practice, we may be able to gain Insight into our own nature and the laws of Nature; developing deep Compassion and Understanding of the origins of difficulties and stress, and how to end them. This Compassionate Understanding may enable us to deal more successfully with all of life's situations, whether pleasant or unpleasant. This helps us to react to the arising and passing of experience within ourselves and the world in a more balanced way. Within the different programs here, many Buddhist meditation techniques of Mental Development are blended into the basic practice. This is in order to give the meditator many different ways of developing beneficial mental qualities such as Compassion, Patience, Lovingkindness, Acceptance, Equanimity, Joy, etc., while at the same time lessening attachment to unbeneficial qualities such as anger, hatred, greed, worry, frustration, self-pity, envy, etc.

In learning these techniques, the meditator is able to use whatever is appropriate to deal with the often complex and difficult experiences in life. As we learn to react in a wise way, Peace, Balance and Strength start to be experienced within the purification and development of the mind.

 

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