On September 15 our new vaccine requirement goes into effect. Please see details below, following the retreat description.

We don’t need to tell you how the pandemic has turned the familiar world upside down. Now, as we begin to emerge from some of the constraints, we have the opportunity to rethink the many things we’ve taken for granted, including how we think about and approach retreat. We’ve gone without in-person sangha for a year. We’ve learned to meet and meditate with Zoom. Home has become the place for seemingly everything. These have been big changes and we continue to move into an uncertain future.

Now that safe, in-person retreats are possible again, what kinds of retreat best support our needs and the Covid-educated people we’ve become? What have we learned from on-line retreats and retreating at home? What is most special about retreat as we again gather with shared physical presence at Cloud Mountain?

This retreat offers an open, flexible structure for reconstituting and reconsidering retreat. It provides a chance to both practice together and experiment individually with retreat form—a mix of sangha and independence. We offer this space for meditators with past retreat experience and a regular at-home practice. Facilities and possibilities available on this retreat include:

• Indoor & outdoor meditation halls for sitting meditation at any time of day or night
• * 2 full-group sitting meditations daily (morning & evening)
• Individual rooms & spacious grounds, paths & benches, for meditating alone
• Daily Qigong (shibashi)
• Daily Chanting (Pali with translation)
• Reflections on Retreat & Refuge
• Santikaro will share his experiences living at Suan Mokkh, Buddhadasa Bhikkhu’s “Garden of Liberation” in southern Thailand
• * Open Forums on “Practice” on and off cushion: mindfulness with breathing, brahma-viharas, elements, and more
• One-on-one practice consults with Santikaro
• Healthy meals
• Woods & trails
• A break from screens

*The non-optional daily events are the 2 full-group sittings, open forum, and meals. (People choosing to take all eight-precepts are not obliged to have dinner.) There will be one required teacher check-in at the start of the retreat.

This retreat structure is similar to the style of life and shared practice space developed in forest monasteries that welcome non-monastic guests. You are encouraged to make the most of these options. While not required to attend everything, the retreat is for those who are interested in trying most of them. Retreat attendance is limited to 29. Each participant will have a private room.

Santikaro will be available to support all of the above, happily sharing his 35 years experience with leading retreats, 15 years of forest monastic living under Buddhadasa Bhikkhu’s guidance, 17 years co-creating Kevala Retreat in Wisconsin with his wife Jo Marie Thompson, and his study of early Buddhist teachings. He has been guiding retreats at Cloud Mountain for almost 20 years.

Prerequisites:

• Previous residential retreat experience: at least one retreat of 5 consecutive days or two 3-day retreats.
• Regular home practice of at least 4 thirty-minute sessions weekly.
• Taking complete responsibility for one’s own discipline and practice.
• A sense of humor.

WHEN REGISTERING FOR THIS RETREAT, PLEASE SELECT IT FROM THE LIST UNDER A TEACHER-GUIDED RETREATS, NOT AS A SUPPORTED SELF-RETREAT.

VACCINATION REQUIREMENT:
On September 15 our new vaccine requirement goes into effect. Attendees on this retreat will be required to be fully vaccinated and at least two weeks past the date of their second shot (or first, if receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine). You will be required to show proof of vaccination upon arrival; please don’t submit verification before that.

With the vaccination policy in place we will allow participants to remove their masks if they so choose. However, we may ask retreatants to continue masking depending on changing conditions related to the highly-transmissable delta variant, or if other more virulent and transmissable covid-19 variants arise.

Each participant is guaranteed a private room for this retreat for self-guided practice and for health and safety purposes.

A medical exception is in place to allow registration for those with a letter from an MD verifying the medical nature of the exemption. This exception and the accompanying documentation must be provided at the time of registration.

The retreat container will be constructed in accordance with the current covid-19 conditions at the time to maximize individual and group health.  We reserve the right to adjust expectations of acceptable behaviors within the retreat environment according to changing covid-19 conditions. PLEASE FOLLOW THIS LINK FOR UPDATED INFORMATION ABOUT OUR COVID-19 HEALTH AND SAFETY PROTOCOLS.

Scholarship funds are available on all retreats to assist those with financial challenges. For more information, read the Scholarship section of our overview information.