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Precious Silence - The Gift of Retreat
A Message from the Director and the Team at Gampo Abbey
As I write this we are in the final days of the Yarne retreat - a 45-day traditional monastic retreat that has been fulfilled since the time of the Buddha's first sangha.
For the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, we were able to invite guests, both monastics and laypeople, to join our community for this retreat, which is an essential element of a monastic community.
Ani Pema has been here teaching Mind Training in Eight Verses by Langri Tangpa. It's a pithy instruction on softening into the path of the Bodhisattva, training in recognizing life's difficult moments as our best teachers, and cherishing the troublemakers in our lives.
The retreat started with high winds, very cold temperatures and lots of snow - but boy did it end with a thrilling experience. A full solar eclipse - how lucky can we get?
This year I was struck even more than usual by the power of silence in retreat. It's an essential ingredient to be able to tune into one's inner experience, a precious thing in our day-to-day lives. It's something worth carving out even if just for a day. No talking, no listening to music, no entertainment online. I highly recommend it. In a group retreat like Yarne, we consider silence a gift that we offer each other.
—Trinkar Ötso, Director
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