Oh, how very cool!

I haven't done one, but I've wanted to. There's actually a Christian monastery in Big Sur that lets visitors stay for cheap, as long as they stay quiet (well, I mean, I doubt they charge you more if you speak; you know what I mean), but I haven't yet gotten up the courage to call and schedule a weekend there.

I did one many years ago at the Minnesota Zen Center's rural retreat. It was kind of overwhelming--not so much the meditation itself, but all the fairly ritualized practices, especially the oryoki meals. I was doing OK, though, right up until I got either food poisoning or stomach flu early on the second day, and had to drive 180 miles back to Minneapolis in that state. (Now *that* was an object lesson re: the Impermanence of All Things, although not so much conducive to inner peace. As it were.)

I'm sure your experience will be much better than that, though. I'd love to hear about it once you're back!

Congrats! It sounds awesome. I used to know a 60ish lady in S.F. who would go to rural India for 6-week silent Vipassana retreats. They had to travel by rickshaw through bandit country to get there.

That sounds amazing, pie. I've never done one, though I'd love to.

My only trepidation about Zen centers is that I understand there is no coffee.

That sounds like time well spent, pieisexactlythree. Remember to eat your rice, drink your tea, and live your life.

That sounds like a good little journey/adventure to have.

Do ask about their koan practice. This is generally where they help you get through blocks in your journey to enlightment by having you think deeply about paradoxes, in the middle of which periods of concentration, they thwack you hard from behind, to make sure you are awake and thinking diligently. Worked a treat for my hard headed Western self.

Oh lucky pie! I hope you have a good and interesting time!

Are you going to one of the monastaries on Madison?

I haven't done a Buddhist retreat, but I've done many courses/retreats/intensives when I lived at the Hindu monastary... Once I was in silence for a month! That was tough. But good.

I just got back from lunch with my dad. While we were sitting at Whole Foods talking, the guy across from us said that he'd spent a month at the Trappist monastery in McMinville, OR, and we (or rather he and my dad) talked about the different experiences.

Specklet, this one is located out in Clatskanie, on Hwy 30 about halfway between Portland and Astoria.

Oooh very nice! Should be beautiful out there!

I did two days of silence, out of 10 days in a Stephen Levine death-and-dying retreat at Breitenbush Hot Springs.

It was transformative.

This was will be wonderful, from the sound of it and the location. It will be hard at first but then you will not want to leave and resume your normal life.

I hope you get out of it what you want/need, pie.

I've never been on any sort of retreat but would like to one day.

Pie, that sounds fantastic! I'm looking forward to hearing about your experience.

I'd like to point out that the URL to this thread is: i_m_going_to_a_zen_monastery_for_the_wee

But man, pie, that sounds like fun. Something I've always wanted to do, since I was a little Catholic boy sweeping the Church steps.

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