Last week the nuns at Santi entered their traditional annual vassa retreat. Winter time is a conducive time to ‘hunker down’ and focus more on practice and meditation in solitude. And its pretty cold this winter here in the forest in Bundanoon! Thankfully we have a good store of firewood to fuel the wood-burning stoves to keep us warm. And, with the fallen trees from the bush fire earlier in the year, we’ll have plenty of firewood to replace it for many winters to come!

This year of course, things are pretty quiet. And though the reason for that is the unfortunate situation with the pandemic, it nevertheless allows for all of us, wherever we are, to have a quieter time for reflection and meditation practice. The nuns are very grateful to have this opportunity to focus more on meditative development, as they can allow each other to be in full solitary retreat for several weeks – taking it in turns to hold the more active side of the monastery functioning.

As many of you know, Ayya Nirodha is enjoying the vassa retreat in warmer climes, as she is still in Thailand at Ajahn Gunha’s monastery, until early next year. She is safe and well there, and feels very happy to have the opportunity of practicing there too.

During this vassa, for our friends and lay supporters, there is still the opportunity to visit Santi and the nuns during our restricted open hours, which are on Saturdays from 1-3pm. Please see this post HERE for further details about that.

Due to the coronavirus situation and ongoing restrictions and government regulations, we won’t be holding the usual Kathina celebration here at Santi this October. Instead, we have a different online offering planned, which we’ll post further details about in the coming weeks. So please come back to the site to see what we’ve got planned for October’s Kathina season, online.

Wishing all of our friends and supporters a wonderful winter opportunity to develop the Buddha’s path of practice, in whatever situation we find ourselves in. There is truly always an opportunity for practice wherever we find ourselves… we just need to look with ‘right view’ to see where and how we can apply and actualise the Buddha-way in the here and now!

With all blessings of the Triple Gem to each and every one of you.