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Children's performance at the March 2009 Retreat, The Kadoorie Institute - Shek Kong Centre

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

May 13, 2009

Dear friends,

We are happy to invite you to join us for the regular quarterly weekend retreat organized by Plum Village Hong Kong.  Five monks from Plum Village Hong Kong and two nuns from Plum Village Viet Nam are invited to lead the retreat.

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.

Our happiness depends on how we look at things.  "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so" - William Shakespeare.  We often have wrong perceptions about how things are.  We give them a label, a form and attach our feelings to them.  How can we look at things the way they really are, as their "suchness".  In this retreat we will learn about the wrong perception of "a self, a person, a living being, or a lifespan" - which causes us so much suffering -  and how to transform those illusions to the realization of an interconnected and interpenetrated world, which liberates us from the fear of birth and death. We will refer to "The Diamond Sutra (Vajracchedika Prajñaparamita Sutra Taisho Revised Tripitaka Sutra No. 335)" 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:  Five/Six-person Dormitory Rooms, Two/Three-person Guest Rooms, Two-person Guest Suites, for a total of 93 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: June 15, 2009. Cancellation after June 15, 2009 is not refundable. Please register early because The Kadoorie Institute - Shek Kong Centre now requires us to have an exact number of persons two weeks before the retreat begins and we only have 86 spaces instead of 110 as before.  For enquiries, please contact us at retreats@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

Anita and Carol