Winter Retreat 2019

The monastic community’s annual three-month Winter Retreat will take place from the beginning of January to the end of March. This is a time for the Sangha to put many activities down and have an extended period reserved for formal meditation practice. Nevertheless, the meal offering will be the same as usual: every day at 11 a.m. And anyone is welcome to come to the monastery to offer food to the Sangha and share in the meal as well. However, there won't be Sunday afternoon workshops for the duration of the retreat, and we won’t be accepting overnight visitors in the usual way.

Winter Retreat Support Opportunity

During January, February, and March, several laypeople stay at the monastery in order to support the monastic community’s retreat. We currently have a crew of volunteers who have committed to helping out in this way, but it would be helpful to have one or two more.

It’s important that these people are already known to the community and that they are familiar with the monastery from at least one previous, overnight visit of several days. Ideally they will be able to stay for the full three months (or at minimum for one of the months). They would join in most of the group practice periods and there will likely be much unstructured solitary time to use to further one’s practice. Therefore they should be experienced in staying in a silent retreat atmosphere, and comfortable with solitude. 

If you are interested in supporting the Sangha in this way, by helping with meal preparation, shoveling, cleaning, etc. from January 1–April 1, do contact us at

https://forestmonastery.org/contact/

Good wishes,
From the Temple Forest Monastery community