RED LADDER STUDIO NEWSLETTER

Dear Subscriber First Name,

I’m sitting in our apartment surrounded by boxes. We’re taking a day off from packing to catch up on other things — then it’s just two more days until we walk out of here for the last time. It feels so strange to leave and not leave anything behind. What about the butter? Nope — nothing.

It reminds me of when my dad died. He was in hospital, not even wearing his vest (he always wore a vest), and I remember thinking: you really do leave with nothing. Though in this case, it’s the other way around — we’re taking everything with us. All 70 boxes. We mustn’t leave a thing behind.

Among all the emotions of leaving, I’m also having a bit of an identity crisis. I thought I was a minimalist — so how do I have all this stuff? Some boxes came with me from the UK when I sold my house there. Others are from our little allotment house here in Stockholm. Not knowing quite what we’d need or where we’d end up, we kept it all — just in case.

Once we’re in a bigger space, there’ll be room to unpack, take stock, and figure out what we actually need. I’m going to try to keep my dad — and his vest — in mind, and not let myself accumulate so much ever again.

It’s just over a week since I got back from a retreat in the UK with James Low. He’s a Dzogchen teacher from Glasgow who spent many years in India studying with some of the great Tibetan lamas. He blends profound Dharma with classic Glaswegian wit, which makes him a real pleasure to listen to. And that’s exactly what we did — five days, six hours a day!

Somehow, between all the packing, I managed to make time to write up my notes — and I’m sharing some of them in the blog post below ⬇️

The Dharma Bundle is all wrapped up!

The Dharma Bundle comes to an end today — thank you to everyone who’s been part of it. I loved creating them, and I’m really missing that thread of creative Dharma in my life at the moment (practical matters are taking centre stage right now).

Once we’re settled into our new home, I’m planning to bring all 26 bundles together — the 13 recent ones and the 13 from 2021 — into one big archive and make them available again.

Retreats in southern Sweden

We have a new venture!
Dhammasiri, my wife, and I have recently bought this property in the south of Sweden, and from 2026 we’re planning to run a few retreats here. But before we launch into that fully, we’d like to try things out a bit—so we’re inviting a few people to join us for week-long working retreats later this summer. It’ll be a chance to get a feel for the place, help out with some simple projects, and share some quiet time together.

There's room for 6 guests plus us. We offer a simple retreat programme, comfortable accommodation and good food. In return we ask for your help with various little projects, as well getting your feedback and ideas for what we could create here.

The dates:
Retreat one: 9 - 16 August
Retreat two: 6 - 13 September

Theme: Padmasambhava’s ‘Self Liberation Through Seeing with Naked Awareness.’

In the evenings we’ll explore some of this text together through discussion and led reflections. Hopefully the flavour of the teaching will also permeate our days together. 

Click on the button below for more details of how to book.

A quote I’m thinking about:

“Our self is not a thing but a space of potential located inside the space of awareness.”

- James Low