Czech AYP retreat 2010 - a short report

[tadeas]

Hi everyone

a month ago we returned from the second Czech AYP retreat. It was an 8 day retreat (Saturday evening - Sunday noon). There were about eight or nine people attending. Not everyone stayed the whole time. The retreat took place at a friend's summer house and we cooked for ourselves, so very little money was needed. The age of participants was in the range of about 22 - 32.

The program was: 2 morning sitting practices, breakfast, a walk, reading/drawing/writing journal, lunch, reading/drawing, walk/pysical activity, 1 hour silent observation, 2 (or 1 in the first two and last two days) sitting practices, dinner, reading/drawing/journal/etc, silent observation and sleep.

The second period of silent observation took place only sometimes. It may be difficult to synchronise the program even if there are not so many people involved. Overall, the silent observation seems like a very important part of the retreat. A period to just sit, even without a practice involved.

It was not a silent retreat. There were spontaneous periods of silence or sometimes we just agreed to be silent, but we didn't set any strict rules.


What we'll do differently next time

* set the same date of arrival and departure for everyone. We allowed people to come at different days while the retreat was already running. New people coming during the retreat means concentration is lower, there is more distraction and it takes some time for the group to readjust and regain the concentration. We may allow one specific date for people to leave if they want a shorter retreat.

* make it mostly a silent retreat. Silence adds much to overall concentration. We may do some group talking, but only after a few days of silence - to share what is happening.

* try to stick to the silent observation period more


Overall, it went smoothly and it was a very good experience and boost for practices.

Now a month from the end of the retreat, there is a huge underlying "pool" of stillness And while everything is happening, I am

[yogani]

Bravo!

[tadeas]

We did another week-long retreat, 5 people altogether, from Dec 27 to Jan 2.

A good experience for organising another small and one larger (hopefully) and more "official" retreat in the summer

This time we tried to make the retreat silent until 3pm every day and had partial success

Already looking forward to the next one.

[yogani]

Hi Tadeas:

Wonderful.

Would you be interested in advertising these events in advance, likely resulting in larger retreats with people coming in from other countries?

Not sure how language differences could be addressed (when not is silence), but it would certainly be good to draw more people together for retreats.

Thoughts?

The guru is in you.

[tadeas]

Well, once we have the place and date, we can advertise the retreat in the column on the left like other retreats. Whether there would be interest from other countries I don't know. I e-mailed a few forum members from nearby countries before the last years retreat, but there was no interest.
In case anyone wanted to come from another country, that shouldn't be a problem. Everyone participating in the retreats so far could speak English. Also, so far it's not planned to include any formal lectures or big talking on the retreat, except for a little review and informal talk about what is happening.

[yogani]

Hi Tadeas:

We will soon have an "AYP Retreats" page available and linked from the website and forum top left border. It will list both scheduled and tentative retreats, linking to other places where people can sign-up for retreats, or express interest in a tentative retreat to aid those who are seeking enough participants to commit for facilities, dates and retreat leaders (some will travel as needed). There will be links from the Retreats page to corresponding retreat announcements here, facility websites (where applicable), feedback on past retreats, etc.

The Retreats page will be a planning, promotion and feedback tool, all rolled into one. One stop shopping for AYP retreats.

So anything you have coming up, even tentative, can be listed, with a corresponding announcement posted in the announcements forum. That will help the entire process move along, for retreats anywhere in the world.

The guru is in you.