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Mala Sikka ~ Life Moves

Past events

Below are past events involving Mala Sikka and Terry Hagan with some of their co-teachers.

Weaving the Elements

Cecilie Kwiat, Mala Sikka & Terry Hagan

Pink Flags Tibet

Reality is " the thing you think about", according to physicist David Bohm. So what prompts our thoughts and how do we create "realities"? How do we perceive and how is this influenced by the elemental flow of the body? In Buddhism, perception is compared to a dream, an illusion, and a magic show. How does the play of the elements weave our dreams and lives? These questions will guide us during this retreat, assisted by the dharma teachings and movement meditations on the subtle interplay of Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Space.

The Loving Heart is the Loving Mind

Dharma Centre of Canada

Mala Sikka and Terry Hagan

Loving Heart Poster There is a Buddhist saying; "You can explore the universe looking for somebody who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and you will not find that person anywhere."

Why do we continually run the treadmill of looking for love when it is closer than hands and feet? The strength of that in destructible love is the force that moves this world.

This retreat will teach us how to recognize that love is free from attachment. Learn how to apply this natural wisdom to go beyond suffering.




The Missing Peace

Dharma Centre of Canada

poster

In this busy work-a day world many stresses challenge our ability to remain calm, clear and focused.

How do we deal with distractions and find the strength to be free from worry? The Buddha said, "Develop a mind so filled with love, it resembles space." For it is in the spacious mind we find peace.

Discover how patience, receptivity and appreciation are enhanced by meditation and learn how this increases our natural propensity to peace and harmony.

Attachments and Anchors

"Clinging to nothing, but aspiring to compassion
Like a bird in the sky of simplicity,
Gliding through life without fear,
The Buddha-son/daughter reaches the highest plane"

Mipham Rinpoche

Our lives are ruled by attachments which dictate the way we relate to our loved ones, friends, and the environment. They are the elements which anchor our perceptions of self and others, providing us with what seems to be a safe harbour. Yet are they actually limiting our ability to interact freely, to move beyond suffering?

During this course we will use Mipham Rinpoche's excellent text "Calm and Clear' to show us how to cut through attachments, and see the emerging mind of awakening.

Tara the Teaching of Transcendance Jan 19-26, 2006

A Movement and Meditation retreat on Green Tara, in the beautiful suroundins of The Open Island Retreat Centre, Hampi

With Mala Sikka and Terry Hagan

Green Tara is known as the swift heroine that comes to rescue beings from their suffering, she pacifies and heals. The meditation of Green Tara is profoundly moving, transforming states of fear, anger and anxiety. The Sanskrit word Tara means free, carrying across, excelling and conquering. She frees us from aversion and attachment, leading beings to deeper love, mental flexibility, compassion and insight. She is the union of wisdom and compassion, and this ancient practice is relied on by many great yogins.

Mala Sikka (www.malasikka.net), Healing-Shiatsu practitioner and teacher of movement and meditation will be working with Dharma teacher Terry Hagan. Both of these highly skilled teachers will be fresh from their own two-month retreat to lead this unique course. The retreat will offer dharma talks, movement and meditation in the beautiful landscape of the Island Centre surrounded by the Thungabhadra Rivers

Elevate your experience and remain wide open like the sky. Expand your mindfulness and remain pervasive like the earth. Steady your attention and remain unshakable like a mountain. Brighten your awareness and remain shining like a flame. Clear your thought free wakefulness and remain lucid like a crystal. Dakpo Tashi Namgyal, 16th century

Mahamudra, the Great Movement: Clarifying the Natural State Meditation Retreat with Mala Sikka and Mark Webber

Maitreya House in the beautiful Herefordshire countryside

May 28 - June 6 2004

This course is suitable for all practitioners and students of shiatsu and other healing traditions. It is especially useful for those who wish to explore a non-intrusive approach to healing. The retreat will help you to understand how to contact the natural movement of energy that exists in yourself and the environment. The quality of your touch, receptivity and intuition will be greatly enhanced by the practice of Mahamudra.

This retreat is an introduction to Mahamudra; the very essence of mind. “Maha” means great and “mudra” means movement. There will be step-by-step clarification of this natural state, which helps the practitioner to transcend the partial view of what’s happening, and to avoid false judgements of yourself and others. The practice of Mahamudra is both the path and the fruit of liberation from suffering. Calm but penetrating, lucid yet relaxed; it is an exploration of the vast awake mind and the nature of Emptiness. The Great Movement is the release from stagnant fixed views and stories; it is the direct seeing of the intrinsic nature of what is naturally present (Vipassana).

Mark Webber will introduce the classic meditations that unfold the tranquil mind (Samatha), followed by waking the now calm mind through Mahamudra meditations. He will give essential instructions for penetrating the nature of mind and phenomena (Vipassana). Mala Sikka will give practical guidance on how to apply the practice of Mahamudra in daily life. She will work with movement and awareness and how subtle energy shifts can create or eliminate veils of ignorance.

This retreat will be absorbing and transformative. The nine days will form a strong foundation for a life practice of bliss, clarity and non-clinging awareness.

Please obtain a copy of the text to bring to the retreat: The Mahamudra, Eliminating the Darkness of Ignorance, The Ninth Karmapa (Wang-Ch’ug Dorje). ISBN81-85102-13-9

The Practise of the Mandala of 21 Taras Retreat January 31- February 13, 2004,

Galiano Island, British Columbia

With Mark Webber and Mala Sikka

The meditation of the Twenty-one Taras is profoundly transformative and deeply healing. It uncovers the entire sphere (mandala) of mental states causing life paralysis.

This course is dedicated to the Great Venerable Namgyal Rinpoche, who passed away on October 22, 2003. He intended to bestow this teaching at the Dharma Centre in January 2004. Out of great respect and honour for Rinpoche's teachings and to continue supporting his works, Mark Webber and Mala Sikka will lead a retreat on the Twenty-one Taras practice on Galiano Island.

Over the fourteen-days, there will be empowerments (initiations) into each of the 21 Taras, followed by a class giving guidance on how to practice each Tara meditation (its psychological, physical, and liberative aspects) and a daily two hour movement session with Mala Sikka on how to unfold the various qualities of each Tara. In addition there will be a meditation session each evening.

The Sanskrit word Tara means free, carrying across, excelling and conquering. Tara pacifies and heals impediments to engaging with life in all its richness and diversity. It is a pacifying system because it dries up inharmonious conditions.The twenty-one Taras meditation is a profound method of removing fear and anxiety states, through engaging the psyche and body in a mandala of liberated peaceful and fierce states. It frees us from aversion and attachment, leading beings to deeper love, mobility of mind, compassion and insight. She is the union of wisdom and compassion. Moreover, this is an ancient practice, relied on by many great yogins.

The Seven Shining Tones

O mind serve and worship
the beautiful shapes
of the seven tones which are shining
In the navel, in the heart,
in the throat, in the tongue
in the nose and in the other centres
Those seven Shining Tones - beautiful beings
Serve and worship them O my mind

Thyagaraja

Tim Jones & Mala Sikka will lead this workshop exploring the intuitive feeling of Awareness (rasa) awakened in the simple act of singing and moving. Our starting point will be the Seven Shining Tones:

SA RI GA MA PA DHA NI

The oral tradition that is sometimes called the Indian scale, or naming of notes '.. Sa, Ri, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni, Sa..' puts you in contact with a millennia old, still living and vibrant tradition with its understanding of the power of sound. This understanding grows into a bodily felt awareness of each note, putting you in touch with universal resonance, stillness and movement. This is the nature of sound.

Course details

All the above will develop the different textures of Rasa*..... securing a new confidence in 'the intuitive feeling awareness' which will directly influence all aspects of our daily life.

* Rasa is our organ of awareness through feeling. RASA..has a multitude of meanings...juice, colour nectar, essence, source.

Mala Sikka

Mala Sikka - movement artist of Indian origin. She trained in Classical Indian Dance, specifically Kathakali. In 1989 her explorations in dance, healing and movement took on greater freedom while studying Amerta ('river of life'). Since 1991 she has studied Amerta movement extensively with Suprapto Suryodarmo in Indonesia and Europe. Meditation, Healing-Shiatsu and Aikido continue to inform her approach of 'Life Moves'. Over the last twenty years Mala has attended annual meditation retreats, alone and with the late Ven.Namgyal Rinpoche, which continue to deepen her practice and teaching. She has recently returned from India where she has been teaching movement with Suprapto in 'The source of the temple in nature'

Tim Jones

Tim Jones lives in Dorset and is a voice teacher and singer. He has studied Carnatic and Bhava music with Sivasankara Panikar since 1984, and movement meditation with Suprapto Suryodarmo since 1992. Tim teaches in England and Germany, and also in India at the Kerala Bhava Sangeetha Academy. He has sung with Opera Factory, accompanied Indian classical dance and often works as a singer and storyteller with various Javanese gamelan ensembles. The composer Judith Weir has called his voice ‘a unique blend of virtuosity and human approachability’.

To Book

Non - residential course fee: £100. Early Bird price - £85 if paid in full by April 1st. Places are limited to 10 - 12 people, so early booking is advised.

To secure a place, send a deposit of £50. Deposits & Early Bird payments are non-refundable. When booking, please include your name, address, email address and telephone number with a cheque payable to Mala Sikka, to her at 7 Wood St., Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan, CF64 2NH, Wales.

For further information please contact

e-mail: malasikka@onetel.com tel. 02920 711214 or Tim Jones e-mail howjo@iname.com tel. 01963 23792

The Great Womb, The Vast View

;Elevate your experience and remain wide open like the sky.
Expand your mindfulness and remain pervasive like the earth.
Steady your attention and remain unshakable like a mountain.
Brighten your awareness and remain shining like a flame.
Clear your thoughtfree wakefulness and remain lucid like a crystal.

Dakpo Tashi Namgyal, 16th century

Mala Sikka and Mark Webber (K.T.Lekshe Yongdu) will be fresh from their own 3- and 5-month retreats to lead this residential retreat and share the benefits of their practice.

This course aims to help us grow and learn how to live unhindered by past conditioning. The experiences in the womb, and at birth, are major influences that can affect us deeply throughout our lives. To live with joy and clarity, it is essential that we clear the negative and support the positive patterns that were formed in the womb.

The first stage in this process is to understand our suffering. We will explore the nature of mind states and how they drive us, recognising the range of patterns that either help or hinder us. The meditation practices given will strengthen us to ;remain unshakeable like a mountain&, to be unmoved by the emotional, mental and physical states that continually arise and pass away.

The retreat will include dharma talks and movement and meditation in the beautiful surrounding landscape and gardens of the Tudor residence. The exercises given will have a particular emphasis on awareness of breathing and Mark Webber will give the empowerment of Green Tara. There will also be opportunities for individual interviews for meditation guidance with both teachers.

Past events



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