The Way of Mindfulness
with Patrick Kearney and Emma Pittaway
November 14 - 23, 2025
Our practice is based on mindfulness, which emerges from the continuity of awareness. How can we maintain continuous awareness? By recognising the fact that awareness is part of nature; it’s not something we need to generate. When we “try” to be aware, our effort is based on our desire to be someone different, to have something different. But if we are already aware, then what is there to try for? When we stop trying and allow ourselves to recognise what is already here, the continuity of awareness naturally emerges.
This retreat is co-taught with Emma Pittaway. Emma teaches an approach to satipaṭṭhāna based on her training in the lineage of Mahāsi Sayādaw and Shwe Oo Min Sayādaw, an early teacher at the Mahāsi Centre. Inspired by the Buddha and his followers, who lived and meditated in the forest, she draws on the natural world to support her practice. She is the principal insight teacher at the Kuan Yin Meditation Centre in Lismore, NSW.
About the Teachers

Patrick Kearney
Patrick Kearney is an independent dharma teacher in the lineage of Mahāsī Sayādaw of Burma, his principal teachers being Paṇḍitarama Sayādaw and John Hale. He has also trained in the Diamond Sangha lineage of Zen Buddhism. His original teacher was Robert Aitken Roshi, and he is now studying with Paul Maloney Roshi. Patrick has a particular […]
Learn more about Patrick Kearney
Emma Pittaway
Emma Pittaway has trained primarily in the lineages of Mahasi Sayadaw and Shwe Oo Min Sayadaw, her teachers being Patrick Kearney and Sayadaw U Tejaniya. She has practiced for over twenty years in Burma, Thailand, India, Nepal and Malaysia, as well as here in Australia. Inspired by the forest lives of the Buddha and his […]
Learn more about Emma PittawayCategory : Residential Retreat