1 – 11 May 26, Buddhapada, Kalimpong. W.B, 10 day Retreat
1 – 11 May 26, Buddhapada, Kalimpong. W.B, 10 day Retreat
🔥 Stop the Struggle: Your Life Demands a Radical Shift!
🛑 Confront the Crisis: Ask the Critical Questions
- Are you exhausted by a life moving against your true will?
- Consequently, do cycles of anger, craving, and uncertainty desperately trap you?
- Furthermore, have you tried meditation only to ask: “Which method guarantees lasting change?”
- Listen: Your current environment cannot solve the problems it created! Therefore, disrupt the routine now.
⏸️ Initiate the Inner Revolution
- For a short, crucial time, hit the PAUSE button!
- First, silence the noise, the endless distractions, and the modern hustle.
- Then, isolate yourself intentionally. Immediately, allow profound practice to reshape your life from the inside out.
🌟 The Challenge: Ehipassiko (“Come and See”)
- The answer is not found in endless books or complex dogma.
- Instead, embrace the Buddha’s timeless invitation: Ehipassiko (“Come and See” for yourself).
- Crucially, your transformation requires direct experience, not external theory.
- Thus, join our 10-Day Residential Metta Vipassanā Way Retreat .
Choose now: Continue the draining routine, or dedicate 10 days to radically change your life’s course!
💖 Experience the TWIM Difference
- Do not forget: The Metta Vipassanā Way (The TWIM Method) is not strict; it is a dynamic journey of smiling, feeling, and joyous meditation.
- A journey without this essence holds no true value; consequently, explore this liberating path with our supportive guides at your own pace.
- Stop seeking answers in external knowledge immediately.
- The key to absolute freedom is held within your own direct experience. Enroll now and trigger a powerful, permanent shift in less than two weeks!
📅 Accelerate Your Peace: Join a One-Day Retreat
- Seize this opportunity: Discover peace within—join our powerful one-day Metta Vipassanā pairchi mugam (retreat).
- Master the heart-opening art of loving-kindness (Metta).
- Simultaneously, learn the essential 6Rs technique, TWIM meditation, and more.
- Furthermore, experience a practical, joyful path to inner clarity and vibrant living.
- Act Fast: Limited seats (20) remain—therefore, reserve your spot immediately and start your journey to tranquil wisdom!
Additional Details
Language – English
Organiser
From my first encounter with Buddhism when working in my 20’s in Asia, to co-teaching the first secular mindfulness courses in 2008 at the Oxford Mindfulness centre more than 25 years later, Buddhism has been a foundation of support and enquiry throughout my adult life.
For more than 20 years I practised in the Mahasi meditation tradition, experiencing all the stages of insight and was invited to introduce it to beginners by my monastic teachers. I found the rigour, discipline and insight of this practice had a positive impact in many areas of my life and work, but the learnt capacity to withstand levels of emotional, physical and mental pain ultimately was not an aid in my personal life.
It was my experience that the subtle suppression of unwholesome states of mind, I’d become so adept at in formal practice, held a buried tension that was incompatible with finding balance in my life.
Meeting Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation in 2008 started a deep process of healing, and a lot of change happened very quickly. My yoga practice, which I’d also had since my 20’s transformed into a much more subtle somatic relationship to internal experience.
I learnt to embody loving kindness and compassion when meeting tension and this encouraged balance in form and movement in a way that was also a healthy model for daily life. So much fell away from my Yoga practice and life that was imbalanced and this included my relationship at that time. In the place of habitual tension and willed strength, a new way forward emerged that was rooted in loving kindness, compassion and balance, and this felt sustaining and wholesome.
This experience is one for which I will always have huge gratitude for the genuinely radical teaching of the Buddha and to Bhante Vimaralamsi for his insights to bring it to life today in a way that is immediately effective as the Suttas describe. Not only was my life directed towards the wholesome in an integrated way – mentally, physically, energetically and spiritually but the training also aligned with the transcendent path described in the Suttas.
Over the years I’ve been fortunate to attend more than a dozen retreats, some online but mostly face to face with Bhante Vimalaramsi, Sister Khema and more recently Bhante Dhammagavesi. Since 2017 I’ve also taught Yoga on TWIM retreats not only to support greater comfort and ease for students whilst sitting but increasingly as a complement to the TWIM teaching, providing a embodied TWIM practice that shows how to use the body as an aid to the practice without creating attachment.
The Yoga I share today is called Sukhita Yoga. Sukhita is a name given to me by Bhante Vimaralamsi as a reminder to smile more. It is a joy and relief that the relax and smile step has become a constant presence for me and all those I share the practice with in this way.
In 2022, I had the opportunity to co-teach a 10 day TWIM retreat in Poland with Sister Khema where we also explored the benefits of Sukhita Yoga with the students. After this experience Sister invited me to teach 10 day online and in-person retreats. I am looking forward to sharing this wonderful teaching with all who are curious about the path of development and transformation that comes from their direct experience as the Buddha taught.
Ven Bhikkhu Dhammagavesi Thero is an Indian Buddhist monk and teacher devoted to the practice and transmission of Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation (TWIM) as rediscovered and taught by Venerable Bhante Vimalaramsi.
Early Years and Search for the True Dhamma
Born in India, Bhikkhu Dhammagavesi began exploring spirituality and meditation early in his adult life. His search for truth led him through a series of traditional Vipassana courses (ten in total) conducted in Mumbai, India, where he cultivated strong discipline and mindfulness. However, despite dedicated effort and years of sincere practice, he began to sense that something essential was missing — a natural ease, joy, and clarity that the Buddha described as integral to the path of awakening.
In 2013, this search brought him to Wat Pah Nanachat, a renowned international forest monastery in Thailand established under the Thai Forest Tradition of Ajahn Chah. Immersed in monastic discipline and daily meditation, he gained a solid foundation in the Vinaya (monastic rules), chanting, and Dhamma study. For over one and a half years, he lived and practiced in this rigorous environment, but even there he noticed that meditation seemed effortful and progress plateaued. The practice felt incomplete, leaving him yearning for a direct and joyful connection to the Buddha’s original teachings.
Discovery of TWIM and Ordination under Bhante Vimalaramsi
In 2016, Bhikkhu Dhammagavesi encountered the teachings of Bhante Vimalaramsi, who had rediscovered the Buddha’s original meditation method through a careful study of the Pāli Canon. Bhante Vimalaramsi emphasized relaxation, smiling, and loving-kindness (mettā) as the key elements in the meditative process — a refreshing and deeply transformative approach compared to the more striving styles he had known before.
Inspired, Dhammagavesi Thero left Thailand to attend a Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation (TWIM) retreat in Bali, Indonesia, led by Bhante Vimalaramsi himself. During this retreat, he experienced a profound shift in his understanding: meditation could be gentle, joyful, and yet lead to deep states of stillness and insight. The Six Rs — Recognize, Release, Relax, Re-smile, Return, and Repeat — opened the way to effortless progress and the direct experience of the Seven Factors of Awakening.
Following the retreat, he decided to dedicate his life to this path and ordained as a novice monk under Bhante Vimalaramsi. Soon after, Bhante encouraged him to continue training under Venerable Khanti Khema in Sri Lanka, where he refined both his meditation and understanding of the Dhamma. In 2017, he received higher ordination (Upasampadā) in Penang, Malaysia, during Bhante Vimalaramsi’s Dhamma tour in Asia.
Spreading the Light of TWIM in Asia
After ordination, Venerable Dhammagavesi began supporting the mission of Dhamma Sukha Meditation Center (DSMC) in Asia. As Co-Director of Dhamma Sukha India’s Asian Projects, he helped to establish the Samatha-Vipassana Trust in Mumbai, a registered organization dedicated to organizing retreats, teacher trainings, and Dhamma tours for Bhante Vimalaramsi and Ven. Sister Khema throughout India and neighboring countries.
His work included coordinating TWIM retreats in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia, Nepal, and India, and introducing hundreds of new practitioners to the gentle and effective method of the Buddha’s original meditation. Venerable Dhammagavesi also began teaching online, offering one-on-one guidance and coaching to students around the world, always emphasizing kindness, ease, and the joyful unfolding of wisdom.
Teaching and Vision
By 2022, Bhikkhu Dhammagavesi began leading his own retreats and sharing the Dhamma independently. His teaching style reflects the same balance of wisdom and compassion that characterizes the TWIM lineage: gentle encouragement, humor, clarity, and a deep respect for the suttas as the Buddha’s living word.
His long-term aspiration is to establish a permanent TWIM monastery and meditation center in India, serving as a base for training future monastics, teachers, and lay practitioners. His vision is to restore the Buddha’s original teachings in their complete form — combining calm, insight, and loving-kindness — and to ensure that they continue to flourish across Asia for generations to come.
So beautifully said. During deep meditation memories pop up – unsettling / unnerving. There are times when one can watch…