Czech AYP retreat 09

[tadeas]

Hi everyone

At the end of August, we did a 10-day AYP retreat in Czech Republic, near Prague.

There were 4 people at the retreat, two men, two women. It took place at our friend's summer house. We used a version of the retreat schedule available here in the forums. It's been our first ayp retreat, some of us had some previous experiences with retreats in other traditions and settings.

First two days, we did three sessions a day, then for 6 days there were 4 session per day and then the last two days we did three sessions a day. The amount of time that each practitioner spent doing his/her practice (per session) varied from 30 minutes to about 80 minutes. The start of morning and evening sits was synchronized. It wasn't a silent retreat (although this may be a good option, if not for the whole period, then at least for some time).

Mostly, we ate lunch and dinner together. We cooked for ourselves, light and delicious vegetarian food (We've found out that as retreat progresses, potato chips become more and more popular. Was that a coincidence? )

We didn't stick to the schedule 100%. It was planned that apart from the 3 or 4 sittings per day, there'd be two "silent awareness" sessions, each lasting one hour. This was something that we skipped sometimes and replaced this with a walk, drawing, or something else. For a more relaxed schedule, it's probably not a bad idea to plan it like this in the schedule.

There have been some good releases during the retreat. The retreat really builds a momentum that you can then feel for quite some time afterwards. The effects I've mostly noticed after the retreat ended. The group of people kind of goes higher and higher together and it's after coming back to the rest of the world that the difference is noticed

We didn't talk about having or not having sex at the retreat in advance. In the situation of a big release and opening for my partner, we did have sex and all the released energy and emotional openness went into it. I sometimes wonder about experiences of other people in such highly open situations. If you have something to share in this area, please do

We're looking to do another retreat at some point, hopefully not later than again during the next summer.

I highly recommend to put together a group of practitioners and do a retreat together. It's great. Try it

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Happy living

[Shanti]

That sounds like an awesome retreat Tadeas.

Beautiful and inspiring.

Thanks for sharing.

[Sparkle]

Hi Tadeas

Sounds great, any overloads experienced?

[tadeas]

Not counting myself, then probably nothing extreme. Not during the retreat itself. My friend wrote me a message a week after the retreat that if she starts doing weird things, then she's probabaly going crazy. : ... We were speculating what a 40-day retreat like that would produce. Who knows? Maybe the house would burst with light-ness

I'm already looking forward to doing this again

(I'll post more about my "purification" stuff in a different topic in a day or two.)

[mimirom]

quote:We were speculating what a 40-day retreat like that would produce. Who knows?

Hi Tadeas,

I did about 25 days in a Buddhist vipassana retreat setting. I was doing half time translating/interpreting there and was able to do four full sessions of my regular routine for most of the period. It was a great boost. However I had to scale back on my practice time, and some of the practices themselves, during the retreat already, due to overload. After returning home to my normal life I soon ended up with less then 50% of all practices. To this moment I've been able to slowly build up the practices again, and now I'm actually adding some new powerful stuff already, having everything running smoothly.

So: Great adventure in general, lots of experience gained. The prolonged retreat period itself is not a problem, I'd say. Rather the longer the retreat, the more experienced the practitioner has to be in order to benefit fully, without excess.

Roman

[tadeas]

Hi Roman

thanks for the info.

Several weeks after the retreat, I've also self-paced a lot - after almost three years of really pushing it with practices ... that is an enlightenment milestone in itself

During the retreat itself, my practice was progressively shifting into a kind of "zen-mode" ... where whatever practice I'd be doing, the bodymind would just sort of be there, simply as open space. I'd notice sometimes in a while, sometimes in ten, twenty minutes and return to a practice.