The School of Contemplative Life

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01/05/2026

Words from a member of our practice community who had the privilege of knowing Bede Griffiths OSB.

🕊️ Bede was a Benedictine monk who travelled to India to ‘find the other half of his soul’, and founded the ashram Shantivanam meaning ‘forest of peace’.

🙏 In the Christian contemplative tradition, God is not something or someone we go out to find, but the ground in which we already exist. Meditation is a way of becoming still enough to recognise this profound reality.

🌱 Join us tomorrow morning at 8:30am (UK time) for online practice — a supportive space to learn, practise, and explore this tradition together.

🔗 Sign up via the link in our bio (or below). Free to attend. Open to all.

https://schoolofcontemplativelife.com/online-meditation/

26/04/2026

🌱 “The gentleness of strong people makes them trees of peace. This age needs people like trees, filled with a silent peace, rooted at the same time in solid ground and in the open sky.”

✨ Olivier Clément - from his book, ‘On Human Being: A Spiritual Anthropology’

📸 Photo of a banyan tree at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi. India’s national tree is known for its aerial roots that grow into thick prop roots, forming new trunks and allowing it to spread over vast areas. It holds deep sacred significance, often symbolising eternal life and wisdom.

25/04/2026

We received this message yesterday:

“I just wanted to send you an enormous thank you. After years and years and years of ‘trying’ to connect with God, Jesus, the Bible, through different churches and feeling a miserable failure because I wasn’t feeling the same as everyone else around me seemed to be, I feel I have actually found what it was that I was looking for and…it was inside me all along.

It’s such a wonderful discovery and an absolute revelation. So I wanted to thank you for opening up a whole new world to me.”

23/04/2026

Are you searching for a deeper sense of peace in these restless and divided times?

🕊️ Discover how Christian meditation and the Gospel of Peace can help us become peacemakers - not as an idea, but a way of life.

🌱 Final spaces remaining for our weekend retreat next month at the beautiful Ripon College in Oxfordshire.

📍 Ripon College, Oxfordshire
🗓️ 4pm Fri 29 - 3pm Sun 31 May
🙏 From £300
🔗 Booking link in our bio or https://schoolofcontemplativelife.com/product/the-gospel-of-peace/

22/04/2026

You’re very welcome to join us for online meditation tonight, live from Delhi. We begin at 8pm (UK time). Sign up link is in our bio 🙏

18/04/2026

In a world marked by division and uncertainty, how do we begin to cultivate peace - within ourselves and in the world around us?

🌍 We’re very glad to share that a new retreat, ‘Towards a Global Spirituality: Buddhist–Christian Wisdom for Inner Peace in a Troubled World’, will be open for booking next Tuesday at 9am UK time.

🙏 The retreat brings together Plum Village teacher Sr. Chan Duc (Sr. Annabel Laity) and Christian teacher, Chris Whittington of The School of Contemplative Life.

🕊️ This retreat will invite participants into a living dialogue between Buddhism and Christianity. It rests on a simple but radical insight shared by both traditions: peace in the world is inseparable from peace within. Drawing from Buddhist teachings on ‘interbeing’ and Christian wisdom on ‘oneness’ and universal love – Sr. Chan Duc and Chris Whittington explore how wisdom and compassion must mature together.

🌱 Participants will be invited to practice silent meditation, walking meditation in nature, mindful eating, guided meditation, and quiet reflection. Sharing circles offer space to speak from lived experience; addressing real difficulties participants are facing in their personal lives and in response to what is happening in the wider world.

🔗 Please visit The School of Contemplative Life website or Plum Village UK website for more information.

📍 Being Peace Centre, Forest of Dean
📅 Thu 10 - Sun 13 September
🕘 Bookings open Tuesday at 9am (UK time)

16/04/2026

At a wonderful Ecumenical Interfaith Easter celebration in Delhi last week, Chris shared a little about Bede Griffiths OSB with the audience.

🙏 Bede Griffiths (1906-1993) was an English Benedictine monk who travelled from Prinknash Abbey in the Cotswolds to India in 1955 ‘to find the other half of his soul’ – and became one of the great mystical teachers of our time.

🌱 In the scriptures of India, Bede discovered a source of wisdom and inspiration that deepened his own Christian faith. Wearing the saffron robes and following the spiritual discipline of a Hindu monk (Sanyasi), Bede found the contemplative depth-dimension of life and faith that Western Christianity has all but lost.

🕊️ A peacemaker who worked for harmony and understanding between religions, Bede encouraged the formation of lay contemplative communities where people can support each other in their search for God, for Truth, and learn to live in peace and friendship.

🌍 Join us for a special online workshop – live from India this Saturday 18th April (10am - 1pm UK time) – where we’ll explore the teachings of this great contemplative and the importance today of his vision for global spiritual friendship.

15/04/2026

Discover how Christian meditation and the Gospel of peace can help us become peacemakers in a divided world — not as an idea, but a way of life.

In a world marked by division, this weekend retreat explores the Gospel of peace through silence, teaching, and shared practice.

Led by Chris Whittington, with two live online sessions from Fr John Dear — nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Desmond Tutu.

📍 Ripon College, Oxfordshire
📅 Fri 29 – Sun 31 May

You’re very welcome to join us.

https://schoolofcontemplativelife.com/product/the-gospel-of-peace/ or click the link in our bio

13/04/2026

Gandhi said: ‘I have only three enemies. My favourite enemy, the one most easily influenced for the better, is the British Empire.

My second enemy, the Indian people, is far more difficult. But my most formidable opponent is a man called Mohandas K. Gandhi. With him I have very little influence.’

🕊️ Gandhi allowed the teachings of Jesus to disarm him, change him, help form him into the peacemaker he became. Along with the Bhagavad Gita, Gandhi considered the Sermon on the Mount the greatest writing on nonviolence in history. He read the Sermon nearly every morning and evening for over forty years.

🙏 Though not a Christian, he said its words went ‘straight to my heart.’ ‘The gentle figure of Christ – so patient, so kind, so loving, so full of forgiveness… I thought this was a beautiful example of the perfect human being.’

🌱 Read or listen to the full reflection, taken from our Saturday morning practice community gathering.

🔗 Click the ‘teachings’ link in our bio or the URL below: https://schoolofcontemplativelife.com/blog/the-work-of-peace/

11/04/2026

🙏 Join us this morning at 8:30am UK time for our practice community gathering: a short teaching, 20 mins of silent prayer and some conversation. Everyone is welcome.

🕊️ A theme that comes through very clearly in many of the emails we receive is how important it is to know that to practice this way of meditation is to participate in an ancient tradition; and that this ancient way of silent prayer doesn’t just benefit us individually, but benefits all people, all beings.

🔗 Sign up link is in our bio.

09/04/2026

🕊️ What a joyful evening we had last night at the Inter-religious Ecumenical Easter celebration in Delhi, hosted by the Chavara Centre and Catholic Bishops Conference of India. Wonderful people, performances and food - all of which served as an important reminder that what unites us is far more powerful than any differences.

🙏 Online meditation for the next few weeks will be hosted from Delhi. If you don’t already come along, you’re very welcome to do so! Sign up link is in our bio Chavara Cultural Centre Delhi CBCI | CATHOLIC BISHOPS' CONFERENCE OF INDIA

29/03/2026

It was a joy to dive into The Cloud of Unknowing with such a wonderful group of people this weekend at Launde Abbey in Leicestershire 🙏

We will be returning in July for our ‘Into the Silent Land’ five-day Christian meditation retreat. For more information, please click the link below. Launde Abbey is a perfect place to explore the Christian contemplative tradition.

https://www.laundeabbey.org.uk/event/intothesilentland2026/

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http://linktr.ee/schoolofcontemplativelifeuk, https://schoolofcontemplativelife.com/teachings-from-contemplative-christi

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