27th September - 5th October 2025. Take it easy. James Low's Dzogchen retreat at Casa la Salle, Veciana (Barcelona), Spain.

https://simplybeing.co.uk/events/take-it-easy-teaching-retreat-veciana-sep-2025/

This retreat focused on relaxing our reliance on habitual patterns of dualistic involvement so that the self-liberation of all experience becomes clear. We went through Patrul Rinpoche’s short text Self-Liberating Understanding, which is Chapter 10 in the book "Simply Being"

"Simply Being" book:

- English: www.amazon.com/Simply-Being-Texts-Dzogchen-Tradition/dp/1907571019

- Spanish: www.amazon.com/Simplemente-ser-James-Low/dp/8496478440

The texts are available in:

- English: https://simplybeing.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Simply-Being-Text-Ch.-10-31-05-2023.pdf

- Spanish: https://simplybeing.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Chapter-10-Spanish_2024-1.pdf

Spanish translation: Mariana Orozco and María Lleó

Organisers: Maica Gardia (Mayka) and Antonio Gomez Ceto

Cover art: Peggy Anke (Pexels.com)

📱 Instagram of excerpts: instagram.com/simplybeingsangha

🎧 Poscasts of some teachinhgs: simplybeing.co.uk/news/podcasts/

📆 Learn more about future events: simplybeing.co.uk/events

Video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBLPBAu4OsI

10th - 14th October 2025. All at Once. Teaching and Meditation retreat led by James Low at Şirince Village, Selçuk, in İzmir, Turkey.

https://simplybeing.co.uk/events/all-at-once-teaching-retreat-izmir-oct-2025/

PS: This recording contains only the second half of the retreat.

Organised by Mustafa Mert Çelebi, Sevgi Çakıcı and Trevor Brown.

The focus of this retreat is seeing how we limit our potential by hanging on to habits and impulses which do not function well in the world in which we find ourselves. Dzogchen, the Great Completion, is the heart of Tibetan Buddhism and it offers us a way to release ourselves from the limiting ideas that we have of ourselves so that the freshness of our simple presence can illuminate our life in a new way.

These teachings and practices help us to see the fleeting nature of all experience. With this clarity we can let go of our habit of effortful striving to solidify the flow of experience. This approach to life offers us a profound choice. Either we can continue to objectify whatever occurs so that we can name it and try to shape it to fit our sense of how we want our life to be. Or we can relax and open to being part of the flow, gently influencing how we emerge as part of the circumstances we encounter.

This latter approach frees us from the need to verify and analyse so that we can enjoy the freshness of each and every moment.

This short retreat will introduce us to the essence of the view of Dzogchen and facilitate how we can enter into direct experience of non-dual co-emergence. There will be periods of teaching and of meditation practice.

Referred text: 'Prayer Evocation of Kuntuzangpo', availabel in English, Spanish and Portuguese: https://bit.ly/4tpWxwz

Turkish translation: Mustafa Mert Çelebi

Cover art: Taryn Elliott (Pexels.com)

📱 Instagram of excerpts: instagram.com/simplybeingsangha

🎧 Poscasts of some teachinhgs: simplybeing.co.uk/news/podcasts/

📆 Learn more about future events: simplybeing.co.uk/events

Video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7syJlFOJeU

22-24 February 2019. Equanimity - Finding balance in a turbulent world. James Low conducted these teaching weekend for the Kun-Pan Ling Buddhist group in Macclesfield, UK.

Attempts to withdraw from turbulence or to control the mind are actions which increase our sense of separation. The mahayana view looks at how our mind is, rather than focusing on its impermanent contents. In the meditation we seek to open to that which is stable, an invitation, an explanation and a practice.

~ James Low

Recorded by Charles Lomas and Gareth Williams.

Transcript of the retreat: https://bit.ly/4rtBask

Audio recording of the retreat: https://simplybeing.co.uk/audio-recordings/retreats/macclesfield-talk-no-20-equanimity/

Learn more about future events: simplybeing.co.uk/events/

📱 Instagram of excerpts: https://instagram.com/SBSangha_JamesLow

🎧 Poscasts of some teachings: https://simplybeing.co.uk/news/podcasts/

📆 Learn more about future events: https://simplybeing.co.uk/events/

Video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqyJZ-bwCYA

27th September - 5th October 2025. Take it easy. James Low's Dzogchen retreat at Casa la Salle, Veciana (Barcelona), Spain.

https://simplybeing.co.uk/events/take-it-easy-teaching-retreat-veciana-sep-2025/

This retreat focused on relaxing our reliance on habitual patterns of dualistic involvement so that the self-liberation of all experience becomes clear. We went through Patrul Rinpoche’s short text Self-Liberating Understanding, which is Chapter 10 in the book "Simply Being"

"Simply Being" book:

- English: www.amazon.com/Simply-Being-Texts-Dzogchen-Tradition/dp/1907571019

- Spanish: www.amazon.com/Simplemente-ser-James-Low/dp/8496478440

The texts are available in:

- English: https://simplybeing.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Simply-Being-Text-Ch.-10-31-05-2023.pdf

- Spanish: https://simplybeing.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Chapter-10-Spanish_2024-1.pdf

Spanish translation: Mariana Orozco and María Lleó

Organisers: Maica Gardia (Mayka) and Antonio Gomez Ceto

Cover art: Peggy Anke (Pexels.com)

📱 Instagram of excerpts: instagram.com/simplybeingsangha

🎧 Poscasts of some teachinhgs: simplybeing.co.uk/news/podcasts/

📆 Learn more about future events: simplybeing.co.uk/events

Video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzzZaXqQPyc

26th November 2008. James Low's lecture on "Mindfulness: theory and practice" held at the 1st Conference on "Practical Application of Buddhism in Western Psychology", in Warsaw, Poland. www.buddhisminpsychology.com

📱 Instagram of excerpts: https://instagram.com/SBSangha_JamesLow

🎧 Poscasts of some teachings: https://simplybeing.co.uk/news/podcasts/

📆 Learn more about future events: https://simplybeing.co.uk/events/

Video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a308y3lfWrI

January 10th, 2026. A conversation with James Low and Viorica Constantinescu about Dzogchen as a living experience, embodied in the simplicity of everyday life.

Note: the constant cuts in this video result from the removal of James Low's periods of silence, while waiting for the consecutive translation from the Romanian translator.

Starting from the Romanian release of the text “Love Your Mother”, we explore openness, possibility, and how we can relate to our own experience in a more direct, gentle, and authentic way.

English: youtu.be/r8r9CH7-XJc (you are here)

Romanian: youtu.be/dIOcV9CrTGs

Transcript of this video: [soon]

Audio recording of this video: [soon]

📱 Instagram of excerpts: https://instagram.com/SBSangha_JamesLow

🎧 Poscasts of some teachings: https://simplybeing.co.uk/news/podcasts/

📆 Learn more about future events: https://simplybeing.co.uk/events/

Video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8r9CH7-XJc

January 10th, 2026. A conversation with James Low and Viorica Constantinescu about Dzogchen as a living experience, embodied in the simplicity of everyday life. Starting from the Romanian release of the text “Love Your Mother”, we explore openness, possibility, and how we can relate to our own experience in a more direct, gentle, and authentic way.

Video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIOcV9CrTGs

James Low is interviewed by Guido Ferrari during a retreat in Todtmoos, Germany, in June 2006. James was asked what dzogchen is, what it means and how we should live with this awareness.

Transcript of this video: https://bit.ly/49pGlCh

Audio recording of this video: https://bit.ly/3NbnKT7

📱 Instagram of excerpts: https://instagram.com/SBSangha_JamesLow

🎧 Poscasts of some teachings: https://simplybeing.co.uk/news/podcasts/

📆 Learn more about future events: https://simplybeing.co.uk/events/

Video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY_TK5PchC8

30 July - 9 August 2025. Seeing and imagining. Dzogchen retreat with James Low at Casa de Exercícios de Santo Inácio, Colares, in Sintra, Portugal.

Imagining is the play of the ground source. If the source is seen then all that is imagined is non-dual illusion, like a mirage or a dream. If the ground source is not seen and opened to then all that is imagined is reified and then we experience ourselves as existents in a world of existents.

~ James Low

Texts translated from the Tibetan into various languages:

• The Record of the Heart-felt Advice of the Dakini, Indestructible Glorious Lamp: https://simplybeing.co.uk/texts-and-transcripts/translations/heartfelt-advice-ayu-khandro/

• Uncovering the Presence of the Mother of all the Buddhas: a treasure text of Gonpo Wangyal: https://simplybeing.co.uk/texts-and-transcripts/estonian/gonpo-wangyal-text-mother-buddhas/

Audio recording of this video: https://bit.ly/4iUQ8ov

Portuguese translators: Madalena Pedroza & Milton Petruczok

Spanish translator: Juan García Lázaro (@juanb.garcialazaro) & Mariana Orozco

"(0:00) Mariana Orozco (ES)"

"(1:17:09) Madalena Pedroza (PT)"

"(2:08:51) Mariana Orozco (ES)"

"(3:21:39) Milton Petruczok (PT)"

"(4:21:08) Mariana Orozco (ES)"

"(5:40:39) Madalena Pedroza (PT)"

"(6:35:19) Juan García Lázaro (ES)"

"(8:12:57) Milton Petruczok (PT)"

Cover video art: ed1toR, via Pexels.com

📱 Instagram of excerpts: https://instagram.com/SBSangha_JamesLow

🎧 Poscasts of some teachings: https://simplybeing.co.uk/news/podcasts/

📆 Learn more about future events: https://simplybeing.co.uk/events/

Video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFrnBs_Zn2k

15-18 October, 2015. Meditation retreat in Kamalashila Institute, in the Eifel region of German, based on Chapter 10 of James Low's book Simply Being, which is a translation of Patrul Rinpoche's text "Self-liberating Understanding".

"Integrating the view, meditation and activity in dzogchen. We will focus on the self liberation of experience, which is the heart of the meditation, and how to apply that within the complexities of daily life. This involves finding the middle way of appearance and emptiness, free of control and avoidance on the one hand, and merging and identification on the other."

~ James Low

• Saturday 17/10/2015:

- On Refuge recitation

- Back to points where confusion or loss of direction can enter

- Question - experience with the object - familiar positioning

- The mind that is recollecting - cat and mouse

- Distraction - intention - neutrality

- Deconstructing judgements

- Wrapping phenoma in catchability

- Mind vacant unfocussed - mind itself empty

- Discrimination - categories

- Tightening and relaxing attention

- My own falsity

- Question - thoughts coming going quickly

- Rewards compensations equanimity

- Question - the one who is having the experience

- An explanation of minds activity

- Question - how psychological wounds and karma held

- Guru yoga practice

- Dream yoga

- Instruction on self-liberating confusion

- Being present with in the everyday

- Free of distraction assumption craving

- Integrating practice in everyday life

- An explanation of the self-liberation of the afflictions

• Sunday • 18/10/2015: session

- An explanation of how mind reveals itself

- How to practice the four aspects of behaviour

- The good armour that is the friend of meditation

- Essential advice for great meditators

- A path of learning

Transcript of the retreat: https://bit.ly/4iJbaX5

Audio recording of the retreat: https://www.simplybeing.co.uk/2015/11/28/autumn-2015/

Learn more about future events: simplybeing.co.uk/events/

📱 Instagram of excerpts: https://instagram.com/SBSangha_JamesLow

🎧 Poscasts of some teachings: https://simplybeing.co.uk/news/podcasts/

📆 Learn more about future events: https://simplybeing.co.uk/events/

Video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty_w8HBEUr4