Mahasukha Kula Retreat Scholarship Program

Venerable Marut

I am very grateful to the Mahasukha Kula Retreat Scholarship Program for helping to support my retreat. The financial assistance helped me with the costs of a 6 week retreat in rural Australia, including the expenses of my server who had to drive five hours to bring me food and other necessities.

http://www.lamamarut.org

Cindy Lee

Thanks to this scholarship fund I am able to go into a deep retreat. Although I've done a few month-long retreats over the years, this will be my first long retreat since completing the advanced course of study our lineage kindly offers. It is therefore very exciting to be given the opportunity to delve deeper into the practices and meditations we have been learning - to try and withdraw the senses a little and find some stillness, and listen. It is with gratitude and humility that I use this generous grant, and I hope, as well, an honest sense of responsibility to others to pass on anything useful that may arise from within this modern cave.

http://www.siddha-songs.com

Shadi

Thanks to this scholarship fund I am able to go into a deep retreat. Although I've done a few month-long retreats over the years, this will be my first long retreat since completing the advanced course of study our lineage kindly offers. It is therefore very exciting to be given the opportunity to delve deeper into the practices and meditations we have been learning - to try and withdraw the senses a little and find some stillness, and listen. It is with gratitude and humility that I use this generous grant, and I hope, as well, an honest sense of responsibility to others to pass on anything useful that may arise from within this modern cave.

http://www.siddha-songs.com

Julie

The retreat scholarship I received from the MSK Retreat Scholarship Fund allowed me to do an 18-day retreat I would not otherwise have been able to do. In that retreat I had many aha moments that have led to me becoming a better person, student and teacher. I have infinite gratitude for the kindness of those who made it possible. May all beings be happy and free of pain.

Rene

I write this with great, great gratitude for your generous support of our three year retreat! May you realize the merit of your actions immediately!

Accepting this gift gives me greater motivation to give the retreat all the effort possible.

Much love,
Rene'

http://www.retreat4peace.org/blogs/rene-miranda-and-brian-hanner

Vira

I am so honored and humbled by your generosity in supporting our three year retreat. We will use the gift wisely to have a blessed retreat experience. Many blessing to you and the holy work you are doing to support retreaters.

Much Love,
Vira

The total amount of happiness that exists in the world has come from wanting to make others happy. The total amount of suffering that exists in the world has come from wanting to make yourself happy. ~Master Shantideva

http://www.retreat4peace.org/blogs/rene-miranda-and-brian-hanner

Stephane and Jessica

I am very honored and deeply indebted to you all. Not only for the offering you are making to Jessica and me now, but for the countless hours you have all spent making this committee and system something brilliant and invaluable for retreatants.

Because of you, and the Mahasukha retreat fund, retreat dreams are coming true!

Love,
S

http://www.retreat4peace.org/blogs/stephane-dreyfus-and-jessica-kung

Douglas

My deepest gratitude to you ... for this and for your selfless work on this project. I will do my best to put this gift to the best possible use for my retreat. I also truly hope that all the applicants get the amounts they need for their retreat, and that all the benefactors can see the immeasurable goodness that they are creating with their gifts.

Much Love to You and Blessings all around,
Douglas

http://thegreatretreat.org/

Claire

In terms of ways that I used my retreat experience to help others, I started work in retreat on a class about the basics of a meditation practice, along with retreat advice, which I then taught at Mahasukha Center. That class then grew into an ongoing series of meditation classes that can be seen online: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/meditation-basics-with-claire

The class also turned into an article on how to do home retreat, which appeared in the Awakenings Journal.

Also I worked on and thought about how to use my yoga practice to take down my mental afflictions while in retreat, and after I started teaching a weekly yoga class at the Mahasukha Center with the theme of using yoga to transform negative emotions.

It was great! Thank you so much for the help and financial support!

Claire

Tammy and Morgan

http://adrianretreat.wordpress.com

Grace

I have been completely stumped about what to say in a few words to try to convey the meaning and importance of retreat and the depth of my gratitude. I would never have gone on retreat if I weren't trying to perceive a reality that is beyond my present understanding and my known experience. So, in way, I have no ability to speak about it at all. Then I think about how to say thank you, why to say thank you, and who I have to thank, and, as always, it is the Teachers who supply the speech, which seems to begin as a movement deep inside my heart and ripple outward without limit. I think first of the most obvious, powerful forms they take, shaking me up and forcing me to consider and reconsider what really matters, what love is: my heart and lineage Lamas. Then the events that led me to Them, and all the people that guided me to those events, and their surrounding circumstances, and all the conditions those circumstances depended on. Very quickly I arrive at the air I breathe, every cell and microorganism in my body, a tiny piece of trash on the subway platform, the sun, the moon, the stars, existence itself as it arises and disappears from moment to moment.

Thank you. Please bless me to listen and hear what you say.

I want to add that retreat is not a magic wand; nor are my Teachers. I find the practices I have been given very difficult and I struggle every day to not just give them up --- usually in seemingly small ways that I would rather not admit. Ultimately, I find for myself that all practice comes down to this, again and again: if someone appears to you and says "There is hope. There is meaning. There is a way to end all suffering, and you can do it," and you feel at all inclined to think they might be right, that's an unimaginably great opportunity. And at that moment you have a choice.