21/01/2025
Retreat Season Reflections
Bring a bunch of strangers into the bush for a week or so to live, meditate and study dharma together and somehow, each time, it is rich, harmonious and deeply connecting.
Our New Years Retreat was full and vibrant, with 18 of us joining together to enter the mandala and meet the Five Buddhas. The teachings and discussions turned out to be powerfully personal, and guided us in reflection and aspiration into the New Year, which we welcomed in together under an exquisitely starry sky. It seemed rather fantastic and perhaps serendipitous that evening how the wind whipped forcefully about us as we did our puja to Amoghasiddhi, the Buddha of Fearlessness, of Air, of Freed Energy- only to die down in time for a peaceful transition into January 1st. There seems something miraculous about the energies that collaborate on retreat at Sudarshanaloka.
Our second ever National Under 35s Retreat at Sudarshanaloka was full of goodies- group meditation, puja, hiking, cooking, doing yoga, making art and sharing vulnerability together. Our theme of interconnectedness and spiritual friendship invited us to reflect with gratitude on the forces that have supported us on our spiritual journeys, as well as to consider how we might ourselves contribute to the greater spiritual movement and stay connected to that nourishing web of relationships. The in-rush of dana after the retreat, with Dan and Charles staying on to help a couple of projects and a team from the Welly Sangha making plans to come up for a working bee, was a beautiful show of active, supportive interconnectedness.
Our open meditation retreat on Metta, the third big retreat of the summer season, was a rich reflective experience. Our mornings went deep, with Guhyavajra, a long experienced retreat leader, unpacking Sangharaksh*ta’s teachings on living with loving kindness. We explored what it really means to move from reactivity to creativity, the mechanisms of mind that cause us to hate, and how we can work with inspiration and intuition to cultivate a deeper and more transformative sense of loving-kindness, for ourselves and all beings. The meditation ante was bumped up with 3 to 4 sits each day, and with spacious afternoons by the river, walking in the bush, or lying in the hot grass, the conditions for deep introspection and integration were wonderful. Such ponderings went from the conceptual to the felt as we dropped into organic and peaceful quietude together at the Stupa, watching the sun set over Sudarshanaloka.
Coming up we have an opportunity to give back, connect with the community and support our bush maintenance mahi on our Working in Nature retreat - this is a weekend volunteer retreat from the 6th to the 9th of February, with only payment being the cost of food for three nights ($60).
Following this, Saturday the 15th of February is a day of celebration and ceremony! We will be celebrating Stupa Anniversary Day and a Mitra Ceremony, with ritual, shared food and sangha. If you want to arrive on Friday or stay on Saturday, please book in advance through our website booking system. Koha/donations are welcome.
Booking for upcoming events:
https://sudarshanaloka.nz/events/working-in-nature-retreat-jan-25
https://sudarshanaloka.nz/events/sudarshanaloka-stupa-anniversary-15th-february-jan-25
Cheers!
