James Low - Dzogchen and Buddhist Teachings

3/4 Taking your ease where you are always welcome. [EN-PT-ES] Sintra 08.2026

This is part 3 of 4 from the Dzogchen retreat "Taking your ease where you are always welcome" with James Low. The retreat took place from 1st to 12th August 2026 at Casa de Exercícios de Santo Inácio, Colares, in Sintra, Portugal, with consecutive translation into Portuguese and Spanish.

James writes: "We will focus on opening to our minds as they actually are, free of conceptual covering. We will meditate, communicate and participate in various activities bring us ever-closer to the here-and-now."

The retreat followed a new timetable. James taught in the morning. In the afternoon there were small practice groups and activities such as drama and movement, led by experienced sangha members. This is designed to make James's work easier and to encourage active participation in learning.

Translators

Portuguese: Madalena Pedroza and Milton Petruczok

Spanish: Mariana Orozco and Juan García Lázaro

Links

Retreat information: simplybeing.co.uk

Audio recording: https://bit.ly/4zOoYql

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

Future events: https://simplybeing.co.uk/events/

Instagram of excerpts: SBSangha_JamesLow

Cover video art: Matthias Groeneveld, via Pexels.com

Watch the original video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npHxBKLOYZM

Chapters

00:00 Juan García Lázaro (ES) • 9 August 2026

15:13 Releasing clinging with the sound A or phat

28:40 Ageing and the changing permeability of the body

38:42 The ego as an exile who has forgotten home

47:17 Self-reference limits empathy for others

57:49 Looking at the one who looks

1:09:18 The five skandhas and the kaleidoscope of the person

1:21:20 Blessing in ordinary life: Padmasambhava and Christ

1:31:29 Milton Petruczok (PT) • 9 August 2026

1:45:37 Practising in a peaceful, isolated place

2:00:07 Your true home is the mind itself

2:16:55 Precious human birth, freedoms and opportunities

2:29:39 Valuing people by usefulness leads to abuse

2:39:32 Sitting naturally without manipulating body or breath

2:49:50 Mariana Orozco (ES) • 9 August 2026

3:03:53 Explaining and taking the bodhisattva vows

3:20:59 Aspirations of a child of the Buddhas

3:33:46 Supporting indigenous peoples between two worlds

3:53:39 Madalena Pedroza (PT) • 10 August 2026

3:58:01 Trauma, disturbance and working with the body

4:17:03 Our many inner voices like an orchestra without conductor

4:29:04 Self and no-self in Hindu and Buddhist views

4:45:13 All names are placed on reality by the mind

4:55:58 Watching thought dissolve back into silence

5:05:25 Blue cloth and crystal: appearance without substance

5:13:21 Five poisons purified as five wisdoms and Buddha families

5:29:59 Juan García Lázaro (ES) • 10 August 2026

5:41:28 Knowing and not knowing: the first stage of ignorance

5:56:08 Second stage: dualistic consciousness and co-emergence

6:06:05 Third stage: naming and fixing identity

6:23:39 Third level of ignorance: ego defining the object

6:36:31 The deadly power of definition and being defined by others

6:54:46 Madalena Pedroza (PT) • 10 August 2026

7:02:52 Padmasambhava images to consecrate for each continent

7:14:40 Milton Petruczok (PT) • 11 August 2026

Taking your ease where you are always welcome (Part 2 of 4)

This is the second of four recordings from a Dzogchen retreat with James Low, held 1st–12th August 2026 at Casa de Exercícios de Santo Inácio, Colares, in Sintra, Portugal. The teachings were given with consecutive translation into Portuguese and Spanish.

James writes: "We will focus on opening to our minds as they actually are, free of conceptual covering. We will meditate, communicate and participate in various activities bring us ever-closer to the here-and-now."

The retreat followed a new style of timetable. James taught in the morning. In the afternoon there were small practice groups and activities such as drama and movement, led by experienced sangha members. This was designed both to make James's work easier and to encourage active participation in learning.

Translators

Portuguese: Madalena Pedroza and Milton Petruczok

Spanish: Mariana Orozco and Juan García Lázaro

Links

Retreat event page

Podcasts of some teachings

Future events

Instagram of excerpts

Cover video art: Matthias Groeneveld, via Pexels.com

Watch the original video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAnOdFUxQwg

1/4 Taking your ease where you are always welcome. [EN-PT-ES] Sintra 08.2026

Part 1 of 4 from the Dzogchen retreat with James Low, "Taking your ease where you are always welcome," held 1st-12th August 2026 at Casa de Exercícios de Santo Inácio, Colares, in Sintra, Portugal. The teachings were given with consecutive translation into Portuguese and Spanish.

James writes: "We will focus on opening to our minds as they actually are, free of conceptual covering. We will meditate, communicate and participate in various activities bring us ever-closer to the here-and-now.

The retreat will have a new style of timetable with James teaching in the morning and then in the afternoon there will be small practice groups and a range of activities such as drama and movement led by experienced sangha members. This is designed to both make James's work easier and to encourage active participation in learning."

Retreat information:

Event page

Translators:

Portuguese: Madalena Pedroza and Milton Petruczok

Spanish: Mariana Orozco and Juan García Lázaro

Credits:

Cover video art: Matthias Groeneveld, via Pexels.com

More resources:

Instagram of excerpts

Podcasts of some teachings

Future events

Watch the original video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O32vkOYOoaU

Dissolving Obscurations in the Innate Openness of Presence

A Dzogchen retreat with James Low in Wilga, Poland, held May 21–24, 2026. The teachings were given with Polish translation.

"From the point of view of dzogchen, collaboration and participation are much more important than dominance and control. That is to say, we relax and find ourselves within the field of our participation. The world reveals itself as we reveal ourselves – nothing is fixed and everything moves together. The field of experience is responsive yet will always slip out of our attempts at total control. The one who wants control is the one who is already in duality."
~ James Low

Credits
Polish translation: Bartek Czajkowski
Camera: Olaf Brockmann
Retreat organised by Olga Maj, Jagoda Tobota, Konrad Świtała and Robert Hnat

Links
Retreat event page
Audio recordings of this retreat
Podcasts of some teachings
Future events
Instagram of excerpts

Watch the original video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0tOnuUhFdg

Chapters

00:00 Why are we here? Reflecting on intention and Dzogchen as freedom

07:31 Thoughts, mind and the search for the thinker

18:17 Choices, habitual formations and the limited field of knowing

29:03 Hierarchies of meaning and the ego as interpretive system

36:19 Buddha's four sights and the eight worldly concerns

45:57 Buddha's six years of striving and awakening under the tree

1:02:56 Arising and dissolving of appearances; non-artificial presence

1:14:26 Buddha's awakening, emptiness and dependent origination

1:23:23 Gradual teachings, Buddha as doctor and trusting thoughts

1:37:48 Language, names and constancy as constructed

1:52:13 Situational nature of experience: water and ice example

1:57:44 Perceiving others in public space versus objectifying them

2:07:58 Naming, defining and shifting identity in samsara

2:16:53 Airport in Warsaw: experience as projection, not a thing

2:23:57 Am I a thing? Definitions received from education

2:29:09 Refuge and the bodhisattva vow to help all beings

2:35:50 Judging others and turning variety into hierarchy

2:47:58 Seven-line prayer and indebtedness to all beings

2:56:10 Light dissolving body, speech and mind into the ball of light

3:07:55 Why we rely on the guru: dissolution of subject and object

3:17:19 Mind as it is: cataract and lamp examples

3:28:13 Properties of the base; presence versus consciousness

3:36:04 Self-arising presence is free from concepts: the tea example

4:09:41 Origin of delusion: lack of presence of the base

4:16:26 Lack of presence and the dissolution practice into light

4:25:36 Water and ice: fixation and the sense of a separate self

4:39:30 Primordial trauma and forgetting the source

4:45:52 Practising from vulnerability: Padma light and dissolving

4:58:07 Absorbing the meaning of the text into oneself

5:07:56 First obscuration: the five poisons

5:13:05 Second obscuration: conceptual knowing

5:23:15 Invasion and abandonment, opacity and the separate self

5:29:09 Freedom of choice and the ego's need for privacy

5:39:37 Co-emergent presence and co-emergent ignorance

5:52:59 Naming and labelling as an act of power

6:03:44 Six realms of samsara and karma as a trace

The Illusion of Perception

A teaching by James Low on Dzogchen and Tibetan Buddhism, given to a practising audience.

This episode is an extract from the longer teaching "Wisdom and Compassion", given in Macclesfield in March 2025. You can watch the full teaching here: https://youtu.be/jtjlM1CYuN4

Watch the original video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38Qp3DnR4QY

Chapters

00:00 Phenomena arise and pass: we see light, not the wall

03:24 Hearing sound: we organize it through our templates