{"id":7855,"date":"2023-08-03T07:35:24","date_gmt":"2023-08-03T07:35:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opensanghafoundation.org\/newsite\/?p=7855"},"modified":"2024-09-08T11:05:45","modified_gmt":"2024-09-08T11:05:45","slug":"a-short-visit-to-sunyata","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/opensanghafoundation.org\/newsite\/sangha-admin\/a-short-visit-to-sunyata\/","title":{"rendered":"A Short Visit to Sunyata"},"content":{"rendered":"<h6>\n<h4>A Short Visit to Sunyata<\/h4>\n<h6>Sunyata \u2013 a small forest thai wat in Sixmilebridge, Co. Clare, Ireland \u2013 by Cathal<\/h6>\n<style>\np<br \/>\nfont-family: Verdana;<br \/>\nfont-size: 1.9em;<br \/>\nfont-weight: bold;<br \/>\n}<br \/>\n<\/style>\n<p><strong>I came to Sunyata for 5 days (1\/12\/2022-5\/12\/2022) and I was very impressed by how such a small<br \/>\nmonastery can have such a big impact. The schedule ran like the other wats in this forest thai tradition<br \/>\n(with Ajahn Chah) such as Chithurst, Amavarati \u2013 there was about 3 hours work to be done the entire<br \/>\nday with everything being ran off of d\u0101na, breakfast, lunch, tea and the two daily hour pujas I attended.<br \/>\nIn the barren countryside of Ireland it\u2019s very personal experience in polarity to the busyness of other<br \/>\nwats, there was 3 other guys in the entire place so I was left alone for most of the day to the chatters of<br \/>\nmy mind, which proved to be a new experience and a very insightful to see my mind in such social<br \/>\nseclusion. There was no monastics about although recently Ajahn Succito resided a while for a self-<br \/>\nretreat, there are generally lay visitors coming and going and a couple dedicated long-term laypeople<br \/>\nwho stick around who worked quite a bit to maintain the place and keep up the handling of retreats and<br \/>\nso on. It still somehow felt like a Sangha with those guys, we openly could talk and relate to each other<br \/>\non many levels of personal experience in life and our experiences in meditation, it felt really nice to be<br \/>\nable to find a place in my home country who practiced, sharing connections and places to meet Sangha<br \/>\nis pretty solid.<br \/>\nThe place itself is really very simple and after roaming around it is easy to tell they\u2019ve spent a lot of time<br \/>\ncultivating a very aesthetically beautiful place with a bit of land for herbs and vegetables, you have your<br \/>\nroom in a dormitory (although the entire dorm will likely be your room if you\u2019re not in some<br \/>\nretreat\/event) and do whatever you want. There are free books to read if you like and a comfortable hall<br \/>\nto sit in during the common showery cold Irish days and the only thing you\u2019ll be disturbed by is a dog<br \/>\nand a few cats. There is literally nothing to do and nowhere to go. (welcome to anapanasati)<br \/>\nAfter the morning reflection, work begins, you will be likely off to do your own task and it is very nice to<br \/>\npractice working meditation as that is something quite mentioned in this tradition, to approach<br \/>\nabsolutely everything with mindfulness even the most mundane of things. (where I saw my mind prefers<br \/>\nto be the most active).<br \/>\nIt is good to bring any kind of d\u0101na you can whether that be some groceries from the nearby town of<br \/>\nSixmilebridge or donations, this is a very small place and generally they have to do their own shopping<br \/>\nfrom retreat donations, but don\u2019t worry if you can\u2019t because there is plenty of food to go around. Being<br \/>\nno monastics has its downside of not being able to talk about your practice or observe long-term<br \/>\npractitioners who can make great friends or teachers, so I suggest if you are a point you\u2019d like a self-<br \/>\nretreat this is definitely a good place to go or to join during some kind of retreat where you\u2019ll be<br \/>\namongst more people, or to be in contact with the lay-manager as to when monastics are coming and<br \/>\ngoing. I\u2019ll absolutely be back and for anyone in Ireland this is certainly a place you\u2019ll be glad to be able to<br \/>\nvisit often.<\/strong><br \/>\n<\/h6>\n<p>Views: 50<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Short Visit to Sunyata Sunyata \u2013 a small forest thai wat in Sixmilebridge, Co. Clare, Ireland \u2013 by Cathal I came to Sunyata for 5 days (1\/12\/2022-5\/12\/2022) and I was very impressed by how such a small monastery can have such a big impact. The schedule ran like the other wats in this forest thai tradition (with Ajahn Chah) such as Chithurst, Amavarati \u2013 there was about 3 hours work to be done the entire day with everything being ran off of d\u0101na, breakfast, lunch, tea and the two daily hour pujas I attended. In the barren countryside of Ireland it\u2019s very personal experience in polarity to the busyness of other wats, there was 3 other guys in the entire place so I was left alone for most of the day to the chatters of my mind, which proved to be a new experience and a very insightful to see my mind in such social seclusion. There was no monastics about although recently Ajahn Succito resided a while for a self- retreat, there are generally lay visitors coming and going and a couple dedicated long-term laypeople who stick around who worked quite a bit to maintain the place and keep up the handling of retreats and so on. It still somehow felt like a Sangha with those guys, we openly could talk and relate to each other on many levels of personal experience in life and our experiences in meditation, it felt really nice to be able to find a place in my home country who practiced, sharing connections and places to meet Sangha is pretty solid. The place itself is really very simple and after roaming around it is easy to tell they\u2019ve spent a lot of time cultivating a very aesthetically beautiful place with a bit of land for herbs and vegetables, you have your room in a dormitory (although the entire dorm will likely be your room if you\u2019re not in some retreat\/event) and do whatever you want. There are free books to read if you like and a comfortable hall to sit in during the common showery cold Irish days and the only thing you\u2019ll be disturbed by is a dog and a few cats. There is literally nothing to do and nowhere to go. (welcome to anapanasati) After the morning reflection, work begins, you will be likely off to do your own task and it is very nice to practice working meditation as that is something quite mentioned in this tradition, to approach absolutely everything with mindfulness even the most mundane of things. (where I saw my mind prefers to be the most active). It is good to bring any kind of d\u0101na you can whether that be some groceries from the nearby town of Sixmilebridge or donations, this is a very small place and generally they have to do their own shopping from retreat donations, but don\u2019t worry if you can\u2019t because there is plenty of food to go around. Being no monastics has its downside of not being able to talk about your practice or observe long-term practitioners who can make great friends or teachers, so I suggest if you are a point you\u2019d like a self- retreat this is definitely a good place to go or to join during some kind of retreat where you\u2019ll be amongst more people, or to be in contact with the lay-manager as to when monastics are coming and going. I\u2019ll absolutely be back and for anyone in Ireland this is certainly a place you\u2019ll be glad to be able to visit often. Views: 50<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":7702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[38],"class_list":["post-7855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-teaching"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opensanghafoundation.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opensanghafoundation.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opensanghafoundation.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opensanghafoundation.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opensanghafoundation.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7855"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/opensanghafoundation.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15480,"href":"https:\/\/opensanghafoundation.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7855\/revisions\/15480"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opensanghafoundation.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opensanghafoundation.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opensanghafoundation.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opensanghafoundation.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}