9 Day Clarinbridge Retreat – Nick Scott

This retreat is to be held at Kilcoan Retreat Centre. Kilcoan is situated in woodland near Clarinbridge, Co Galway. The facilities are excellent for social distancing. There will be a limited number of residential places for local people, probably just 10. Each person has their own room with bathroom and the venue is very spacious..

The retreat will also be available on line via Zoom, with an on-line manager to look after everyone and with the teacher conducting on line interviews. Numbers will be limited to 20. The last on-line 10 day retreat worked very well for participants who had conducive home situations, either living alone or able to isolate themselves within their home. If you are able to do this, then please do the retreat on-line so that those with unsuitable home situations can have the places at Kilcoan.

A ten day retreat is an opportunity to deepen one’s meditation practice and leads to an understanding of what meditation and the spiritual journey is really about. The period is long enough that we can leave behind the stress caused by our daily interactions while having no need to plan the future. It thus becomes possible to explore the present, and in the space and silence that opens up, to process our buried memories, traits and other conditioning so that we can learn how to be at peace and content, whatever is happening. This retreat is suitable for those new to meditation as well as experienced meditators. The instruction will be cumulative, starting with posture and how to establish mindfulness (sati) and a caring open attitude (metta) and through that find concentration (samadhi). With this we can then explore the Buddha’s teachings that are designed to lead to insight (vipassana) so to develop wisdom (panna). Throughout the retreat we will refer to his actual teachings in the Buddhist Pali suttas. The teaching will consist of instruction each morning and some afternoons, evening talks on the theory behind what we are doing and regular one-to-one guidance. The retreat will be held in silence. There will be optional taught yoga sessions each day to help free up the body for sitting comfortably.

Start and End Times:

4th Dec 2020 7:30pm – 13th Dec 2020 1pm

Coming on Retreat

The retreat will be held in Noble Silence and participants will be keeping the Eight Precepts. To find out more about coming on retreat please see here: https://www.sunyatacentre.org/coming-on-retreat-at-sunyata/. Those attending on-line will be expected to also keep this standard.

Cost of Retreat

This retreat is offered on a donation (dana) basis. At the end of the retreat there will be an opportunity to give a donation towards the cost of hiring the centre. Any excess will go to Sunyata Retreat Centre to help with their running costs. The teachings are free.

To book a place, or to make enquiries, please write to [email protected]

We will send you a link to the registration form and more information by return.

Nick Scott has been teaching short and long retreats for 20 years with the endorsement of senior monks in the Thai Forest tradition. His teaching is wise and humorous, and illustrated with personal stories and insights from 45 years of meditation, including long solitary retreats and residing for 10 years at Chithurst Buddhist Monastery in England. He is the author of several Buddhist travel books recounting adventures with Buddhist monks. These can be downloaded for free at: www.nickscottbooks.com

Nick is by profession an Ecologist working for environmental charities. He now lives with his partner, Micheline, in Co Galway.