research

A key ingredient of a business plan is market research ... thanks to the internet, hours of browsing fun are possible simply from typing "Retreats" into google (other search engines are available) ... yoga is popular and luxury pops up quite a lot too ... one senses a particular segment of the market caters for wealthy folks and the prices confirm it ... and why not? Indeed the Stanhope house has a luxurious feel to it, though simplicity will temper that sense of excess and shared bedrooms seem likely especially as there are only five to start with.

An interesting place diverts attention and ends with a booking for June at Sharpham ... browsing is one thing, experience another .. this place feels right ...

More diversion occurs with some reflection on suffering, which featured a few posts back, and exploring the various words used to translate "dukkha" it seems "dissatisfaction" is richer ... and with wider resonance for folks not consciously suffering but vaguely aware that all is not well ...

A tangential link leads to Gaunts House in Dorset and a story from two decades ago, when seeking not spiritual growth but a farm on which to start a visitor attraction, Sir Richard Glyn was suggested as someone nearby with a farm looking for a purpose. Honeybrook Farm was the place and it did indeed become a visitor attraction, though some time after your blogger departed ... still, it was a fascinating experience, a chance to prepare a business plan and to work with an Old Etonian, albeit with alternative views ... the combination of supreme self-confidence and emotional neediness quite compelling ... it's how the Empire was sustained all those years ... maybe .... anyway, the business plan looked sound enough on paper, which is where it stayed ...

Another Buddhist theme arises ... Sangha ... and one that needs attention ... after all, the solitude is only a step on the path ... interbeing is the thing it seems and very persuasive at Plum Village, though the Buddhist forms are not quite my thing ... bringing this post to another observation, the use of  "I", "Me" and "My" and "Mine" .... avoided for a while now as part of the losing of self and an interesting if tiresome discipline ... a favourite teacher of non-duality, Jeff Foster, spoke out about the practice recently ... let's see about that ... anyway language is worth playing with sometimes ... to disrupt its forms and challenge the reader ... as for Sangha, which is the group practising together around shared values ... not so easy to identify with rather ill-defined values to share ... yet defining too tightly also to be resisted ... sensing the tribe was easy enough on the pilgrimages ... though maybe because the relationships were fleeting ...

Crafting the Retreat House and its activities will help draw the Sangha together no doubt and it has already been seen as a place of gentle energy ... we'll know it when we see it ...