About - Sangha

Virupa - a great place to live

* by Ani Nangtong

If you are interested in living in a place that is conducive to practice, Virupa may well be the place!

I have been living at Virupa Retreat Centre since 2003. This is a peaceful place although, to encourage a smooth retreat, sometimes it needs to get quite busy! The phones ringing, computer keys clacking and nuns-a-whirl! This is to prepare for the incoming of a diverse range of people who come to listen and practise the words of our teacher – which are his teachers’ and so on.

Virupa changes to be a space filled with up to 70 quiet retreatants. There is depth in their silence, their sensitive eyes gazing – which, after lunch, turns into loudness of joviality and release – then once again ebbs out to a silent and darkening night.

We become a rather large, but cosy and harmonious family! Everyone looks deeply - some struggling, and some finding a place within themselves, their pool of calm. Then beyond the last session, beings vanish and a hollow cave is left…

Between group retreats it can seem almost vacant – the wild, howling wind enveloping our enclave. The rattling sound of the damaru, a shout from down the valley, a passing aeroplane – sounds that seem to fall into the background of this space dedicated for practice.

This is a very sacred place. I have witnessed spiritual masters to tradesmen comment on the energy, the view, the feel of this place. Freshness in the air reminding me to freshen my mind – wake up! Vista of an arising potential.

Then there are the little huts with someone hoping to change, to transform the problems into solutions, the metal into gold. Thumping it out with prostrations, gently chanting a solemn prayer, throwing into the sky everything they can – to let go.

There are some who come for two days, some for much longer. The benefits of their retreat written into their glowing face as they return to the place they were before – home or whatever it might be called.

It’s an intensive place, and a beautiful place, filled with surprises. With my Dharma brothers and sisters it is the place I love to be!


* Learn more about Virupa Reatre Centre or ordination