Have you a Retreat experience to share ~ a story waiting to be written ~ to inspire, to inform those interested in the practice and benefit of Retreat - short or long term - help build a Community of Retreat practitioners by your example ~ thank you in advance. Please forward your story to
A stream close by to Lauwdo Gompa Nepal ~Nestling in the jade green Himalayan Mountains, amidst the juniper trees, mountain peaks and floating clouds is the most beautiful hermitage of Lawudo .. read more https://www.lawudo.com/index.html
One student's personal account of Retreat experience :
I spent six months of 2012 on retreat. From February until May, I was in solitary retreat at De-Tong Ling in Kangaroo Island, South Australia. From August until November, I completed a Vajrasattva Retreat led by Venerable Antonio Satta at Mahamudra Centre in Coromandel, New Zealand. In between the retreats, I moved house, cried at the Grand Canyon and said I do in Vegas. In 2012, at age 35, I have just begun to learn what it means to live.
Some people have the idea that retreats are an “escape from reality”. In some ways, they are right. The most conducive retreat environments are simple, peaceful places of natural beauty, where retreatants and those precious people who quietly support them, create space and time for reflection and stillness. In retreat, we are away from the pressures of work and family, we turn off our mobile phones and computers, we close our diaries filled with appointments, dinner dates and meetings. Yes, in some ways, retreats can be a time for rest and rejuvenation.
But those who think that meditation retreats are a blissful escape have never been on one. Retreats are hard work. Days can be filled with emotional and physical pain, loneliness, suffering, struggles, doubt and boredom. However, guided by discipline, commitment, the kindness of a teacher and the truth of the Dharma, the hardship of retreat becomes a source of strength, confidence, faith, compassion, joy, wisdom, freedom and openness.
