"Today we entered the retreat part of week 1, with beautiful guiding by Kadam Morten. He encouraged everyone to gather inwards into retreat mode, arriving early for sessions and taking time to settle our chattering minds. As a result you can already feel the festival energy changing across the whole site to be more quiet , peaceful and reflective.

"As Kadam Morten said, we have received all the teachings, now we need to enjoy practicing them with a light, relaxed approach, not pushing or tight.

He encouraged us to get our ordinary identity out of the way, and to allow our mind to mix and commune with our Guru’s mind, the nature of great bliss and emptiness, just allowing the blessings to bring our visualisations to life without expecting quick results.

"As we practice the eight stages of inner fire meditation he said we can think it is like sampling a taster menu, and later we can go back and enjoy each stage fully. "