| | Lee,
Thanks (now quite belatedly) for the reply! I must admit, it's a bit disheartening to hear that Bhavana might not offer a very intensive retreat experience, though I'd like to think that the exposure to multiple different techniques could be beneficial. My experience up till now has been with intense solo meditation in the Mahasi vein, which I've found to produce surprisingly good results in a short amount of time, at least while I had the benefit of the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center on my daily walk to/from work to provide a dedicated meditation space. I'm hoping to be able to create a similar situation here in DC at the Washington Buddhist Vihara (which I have yet to visit) which will be very conveniently located for my new commute by bike between Takoma and Silver Spring (once we move to our new house in Takoma next month).
Anyway, as to Bhavana, I'm curious if you have any recommendations as to teachers to look for when picking a retreat, or anything of that nature. Also, do you have any insight as to the 'skill levels' they list for the different retreats? All I'm seeing on their current schedule is beginner, intermediate, and any, with only the beginner retreats being of a shorter length. Now that I'm at a full time job rather than freelancing finding time for the longer retreats will be much harder, but I would suspect that a beginners retreat might not be the best use of my time.
Cheers, Josh |