| | Forum: Dharma Overground Discussion Forum
OK so this is pretty long, so bear with me, especially if you start reading whilst I'm posting it all up. Wait til you get to the bit where I 'sign' my name. That's the end!
So, I said I'd post something about retreats, and how they can be managed around a full life, whether it be family committments, work, ill health, or whatever. Quite often, in various traditions of Buddhism, retreats are recommended, or even just part of the way along the path. Quite often these can be very short retreats - week long isolation, or specific text study retreats with other people (Shedra we call them in the Tibetan Tradition). Though coming from a Tibetan Buddhist background, I know more of my own tradition, and we have a tradition of three months, or three years. The three year retreat is more commonly for people wishing to become Lamas, but nowadays a lot of people seem to be looking to do more and more retreat time, putting in the kind of time that is more commonly seen in a monks life, or a Lama's life.
Also, people seem to be very interested in doing self retreats, rather than group retreats, and how to do these with commitments, and how to set them up, and decide what to do, and schedule things.
So, I've been wondering how we can do this whilst still maintaining contact with the world if we need to, since I personally am quite severely disabled, and I simply cannot cut off my ties to the world, not even for a week, as I have demanding care needs and a serious need to at least maintain contact with my boyfriend and various health care professionals to maintain my physical and mental health.
Other people have other committments, such as work, or family, that they can't just take a break from and put the world on hold for weeks, months, years at a time. |