Happiness is Here and Now:
A Discourse on Happiness

A Weekend Retreat with Plum Village Monastics
From Friday evening March 27 to Sunday afternoon March 29, 2009
at The Kadoorie Institute - Shek Kong Centre, The University of Hong Kong
Yuen Long, New Territories, Hong Kong

Registration is available online at http://www.plumvillage-vn.org/hk/WeekendRetreat.asp on a first-come-first-served basis

Feb 16, 2009

Dear friends,

We are happy to invite you to join us for the regular quarterly weekend retreat organized by Plum Village Hong Kong. Two brothers and two sisters from Plum Village are invited to lead the retreat. As you may have already known, Plum Village Hong Kong Sangha has opened a mindfulness practice center in Tsim Sha Tsui since Feb 2, 2008. The Center offers daily sitting and walking meditation practices and activities on the weekend. The regular twice-a-month Friday night practice now becomes weekly activity at the Center from 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm every Friday night. Please visit www.pvfhk.org for information about the Center.

It is very nice and convenient that we have a practice center in town. We can practice mindfulness wherever we walk, whenever we breathe. It takes a bit more efforts to practice in a busy place like Hong Kong. We can do it. However, having a chance to practice in a quieter place, in a retreat setting, will help us practice better when we return home.

In this retreat, we will have chance to deepen our practice in a tranquil environment. We will be surrounded by beautiful and serene nature and have the accompanies of many fellow practitioners like ourselves, who have made big efforts to slow down our busy life for two days in order to look at the state of our happiness. We will practice mindful breathing, sitting, walking, eating, talking ... in the here and now. We will really take time to do our daily activities without hurry and with joy, being aware of what is happening inside and around us, being aware that we are alive.

The current financial crisis creates some anxieties in us. How do we deal with them? By being aware of what we already have, we may see that conditions for happiness are right here and available in the present moment. We just need to take them. In this retreat we will learn about the conditions for happiness as taught by the Buddha.  We will refer to "A Discourse on Happiness (Mahamangala Sutta,  Sutta Nipata,1)" in the Plum Village Chanting book for these topics.

The tentative program for the retreat is as follows:

Accommodation and cost

The Kadoorie Institute - Shek Kong Centre is situated on 11 hectares of land near Shek Kong, Yuen Long in the New Territories. Several types of accommodation are available for this retreat:  Six-person Dormitory Rooms, Two/Three-person Guest Rooms, Two-person Guest Suites, for a total of 110 persons.

The cost for rooms and boards, facilities and other expenses per person are as follows:

For more information about The Kadoorie Institute - Shek Kong Centre, please visit its website: http://www.hku.hk/kisk/

How to register:

Registration is available online at http://www.plumvillage-vn.org/hk/WeekendRetreat.asp on a first-come-first-served basis. Young people aged six and above can attend retreats with their parents. There will be a children's program. Registrations are not final until we receive your payment. Please make payment within one week after you register. If payment is not received within one week, we will put your registration on the waiting list.

Closing date for registration: March 15, 2009. Cancellation after March 15, 2009 are not refundable.  For enquiries, please contact us at retreat@pvfhk.org

We are looking forward to seeing you at the retreat!

A lotus to you,
A Buddha to be

For the Weekend Retreat Registration Team
Carmen and Carol