Christopherxx wrote:
It would be benefical if it was in the west and hopefully under a dana base as I would love to donate but to live in a retreat for possibly a year and pay the prices of some of these retreats would probably come close to bankrupt me haha.
Yeah, the prices for the Forest Refuge and other western long-term retreat centres are nuts! That's the price of a mid-range hotel. I don't understand why they are so expensive, what outlay does a retreat centre have that a hotel doesn't? Teachers maybe. Or maybe they are profit-making businesses.
Anyway, the only dana-based long-retreat places I have heard about are in Malaysia and Burma.
Round-trip flights there from Canada start at $1500 canadian, that's not too bad. That's the price of just 15 days at the Forest Refuge!!
Plus you get to go to a way cool country.
Consider living in a monastery too. You have to work a couple of hours a day though.
If you are looking at Canada, there's a great monastery called Tisarana an hour west of Ottawa, with an awesomely wise abbot called Ajahn Viradhammo. He gets major respect when he visits other monasteries, he's good.
There's also Birken in British Columbia, they are bigger and more comfy but also really good.
They don't do such intensive practise as in the long meditation centres, but I meditated about one week in four, and the rest of the time I did at least 4 hours sitting per day, plus mindfulness etc the rest of the day.
