The Power of Love

Simple Thoughts That Change Your Life

A Practical Eight-Week Meditation Course

Time: Wednesdays 7:00-8:15 pm
Venue: University of Derby - Sports Centre, Keddleston Road, Derby DE22 1GB
Teacher: Gabrielle Marier-Desroches

* Parking free of charge *
Please use the first car park entrance on your right as you enter the site.

* Seating on chairs *

Learn simple, practical ways to develop a more loving, positive mind and discover a deeper source of happiness within.

Everyone wants to be happy and no one wants to suffer, but very few people understand what is the real cause of happiness and what is the real cause of suffering.

In this eight-week course, learn to solve your daily problems and experience a purer form of happiness through simple yet profound Buddhist wisdom — scientific methods tried and tested, passed on from generation to generation.

In these classes we learn special ways of thinking that easily overcome self-centredness and enable us to develop a heart of genuine love and compassion for all living beings. By gradually replacing our habitual selfish attitude with the mind that cherishes others, we align our mind with reality and discover that the true source of happiness lies not outside ourself, but within our own mind.

“Pure, unconditional love never causes any pain or worry but only peace and joy.”
- Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche

This course will be based on the book The New Eight Steps to Happiness By Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche

Everybody welcome. No previous meditation experience is necessary.

Each class consists of a short talk, guided meditations and discussion. The classes are self-contained, so you can attend any individual session or the full series. Head to our What to Expect page for practical info about visiting us for a class.

You are welcome to join at any time. This is an ongoing weekly class held throughout the year.

Gabrielle Marier-Desroches is a qualified meditation Teacher studying on the Teacher Training Programme at Tara International Kadampa Retreat Centre. She has been studying and practising Buddha's teachings for about 10 years, integrating them into her everyday life. Her practical experience brings a warm and relatable approach to sharing Buddha's timeless wisdom with others.

Wed 4 Nov 7:00-8:15pm
Learning to Cherish Others
The Solution to All our Problems, the Source of All our Happiness

Discover the precious mind of love — the key to developing and maintaining a peaceful mind, so you can be happy all the time. By contemplating the practical benefits of cherishing others, we come to a genuine decision to do just that. This is a practical method for overcoming our self-centred desires, beginning an inner journey from a mind constrained by self-concern to the altruistic attitude of those bound for everlasting peace and joy.

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Wed 11 Nov 7:00-8:15pm
Increasing the Scope of Our Love
Living Beings Have No Faults

One of the main obstacles to enhancing our love, and a major source of our negativity, is our focus on others' faults. Using Buddha's skilful and practical methods, we can free our mind from this negative habit which, far from naive, prevents us from seeing the best in ourselves and others and makes it impossible for pure love to grow.

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Wed 18 Nov 7:00-8:15pm
What Blocks Our Love
Identifying the Real Troublemaker

Dive deep into the core of our problems and discover where all our unhappiness and negative experiences are really coming from. At the root, operating from the depths of our heart, is a mistaken mind that exaggerates our own importance. The moment we let go of this obsessive self-concern, our mind naturally relaxes: our worries and anxieties simply disappear and a new sense of freedom develops.

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Wed 25 Nov 7:00-8:15pm
The Most Radical Transformation
Exchanging Self with Others

Discover the practice of "exchanging self with others" — learning to climb down the mountain of ‘self’ and ascend the mountain of ‘other’, until we realise these two identities were never so different. As our view shifts from self-focused to other-focused, a confidence far beyond that of any self-centred being begins to grow. By changing the object of our cherishing, we uncover an inexhaustible source of happiness - our love for others.

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Wed 2 Dec 7:00-8:15pm
Strong, Unshakable Mind
Taking by Means of Compassion

Purify your mind through the magical practice of 'Taking' — a sublime method for increasing our compassion, taking us closer and closer to complete purity. Through this practice, we develop a very strong mind that can bear adversity with courage. Undisturbed by whatever hardships life throws at us, we become like modern day heroes and heroines.

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Wed 9 Dec 7:00-8:15pm
A Completely Pure Mind
Giving by Means of Love

Learn to harness the power of your imagination to create the future you wish for. By training in giving our own future happiness of enlightenment to all living beings now — using correct imagination based on wisdom — we create the causes to actually achieve it. In this way, travelling the inner paths of love and wisdom, we can fulfil all our wishes, temporary and ultimate.

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