
Slide 1
Winter
Kyol Che 2024
Seon Mun Sa, Czech Republic / Bori Sa, Spain / Wu Bong Sa, Poland
The European Winter Retreat Program 2024
Zen Retreats are a traditional Korean Zen meditation retreat held in temples and monasteries. The experience of a whole group immersed in silence, looking deeply into the question “Who am I?” can change your life forever.
In a long retreat, we can easily see that our habits do not need to control our lives. That we can live our lives in a more simple way, in a more joyful way, with wisdom. This wisdom is a door to liberation, and it is something we can give back to this world.
Each retreat will provide more specific details regarding local and national CV-19 situation. General KUSZE pandemic recommendations can be read here. Please bring your sleeping bags, towels, socks, which we use in the Dharma Room, loose trousers reaching your ankles for sitting meditation. All participants are obliged to arrive with valid medical insurance.
Kyolche can vary depending on a person and throughout years of my practice it has been all. In the beginning it used to be a challenge for body and mind showing that I am capable of going beyond my own limitations and not moving (not leaving!) regardless of the mind weather – no matter if my leg hurt, my roommates were snoring or being hurtful, the schedule was harsh, my own feelings leaned towards worthlessness, envy nor even bliss. Then it changed into deeply transformative experiences of finding energy in stillness and presence of something eternal in simple things. And lately it’s been mostly a peaceful, bright, space-like, somehow transparent experience of easing into every day life filled with sitting, eating, sleeping, drinking tea, working in the kitchen, looking at friends. Who knows what comes next?
It is hard to describe what happens when you sit a week long retreat. I can see my mind at work and I see good things and bad things appear, which may not always be pleasant. At the end of the week something has shifted and my mind has become a bit clearer. It is a subtle change, but it has a positive impact on how I respond to everyone around me and to daily life. This is the reason why I will be back to sit another week of Kyolche when I have a chance and I wish that more people will share this experience with me.
Sound in the morning. The bell and moktak right after. Going down from the attic in the morning requires at least a bit of non sleep. Cold water touching face in the bathroom helps to wake up even more without thinking what awakening is. Everything is not to think. I have read “Confessions of a buddhist atheist”. These couple of days showed me what one feels, when the letters forming words in the book become the experience beyond any wording. It has been three days since I left the retreat, but I don’t know, I don’t know how to understand as soon as I look at it more clearly. But I’m still there. It’s like a dose of stillness applied straight into the blood. Moktak. Bowing, sitting, chanting, meals, work, kitchen, forest walk. In the evening you feel every inch of your body, you close your eyes and it’s already dawn. I know for sure I want more. But I can’t say anything more for now.