Practical & Useful Info about Leading Retreats at Taraloka

Support and resources available for your retreat

Order support   The Taraloka Retreat Team (Maitridevi, Maitrisiddhi and Mahamani) are available before, during and after your retreat to provide Order support if and when needed. If you need any help or advice, please do send a note over or simply come over and find one of us to talk to.

Shrine items  Many rupas, thangkas and other ritual objects are stored in the community, so please do ask for what you would like.   Do contact us before your retreat if you would like to know if we have something in particular.

Library  We have a resource-rich library in the community which you are welcome to use during your retreat.

Travel Expenses  Taraloka will reimburse your travel expenses – by bank transfer where possible.  We do need receipts for this – please give them with completed travel expenses form to the liaison person while you’re here on retreat.

If you’re travelling by train please book your tickets as far in advance as possible.

Info about COVID 19 Precautions

Here is the COVID information for 2022 retreats.  Retreatants are asked to read this before booking.

Here is the COVID website information for current retreats.

Here is the current Taraloka guide to leading and supporting retreats during the COVID-19 pandemic.  What is needed in the way of precautions may well change significantly before your retreat, but this is what it looks like now.

Helpful info for your Programme

First Day Arrangements  On the first day of the retreat, retreatants arrive from 4pm and supper is at 6.30pm.   We suggest that the team arrives at latest 1pm that day.  The community liaison person will meet with the whole team at 2.30pm to go through COVID precautions, then the organiser(s) will stay on to run through some practical details.   Team members need to be free 4 – 6.30 pm to meet and greet arrivals.

Programme timings

Allow 15 minutes between the end of the session and breakfast to allow the porridge-maker to cook porridge.

Allow 1 hr 15 between the end of breakfast and the start of the next session to allow one hour for work rota jobs  (eg: breakfast 9 – 9.30, work period 9.30 – 10.30, morning session 10.45)

Allow 15 minutes between the end of the session and supper if there is a volunteer cook / Taraloka Community cooking.  The volunteer cook will need to miss the end of the afternoon session.

or 30 mins if retreatants are cooking (at present all retreats are being cooked for – we will let you know separately if retreatants are cooking on your retreat.)

Dana appeals and collection  On the penultimate day of the retreat, one or two community members will make a dana appeal to retreatants, then collect donations.

On weekend and long-weekend retreats (2 and 3 nights) the dana appeal and collection is straight after breakfast on the last day.

On longer retreats the dana appeal and collection is straight after lunch on the penultimate day.

Retreat ending times and final morning programme
In order to co-ordinate with train times we now advertise our retreats as ending at 10.30am for longer retreats (4 nights +) and 2.30pm for weekend/long-weekend retreats (2-3 nights).   The Operations Team will come in at the end of the retreat to set up and oversee a clear up with the retreatants.

On longer retreats   We now have a standard clear-up time of one hour between 9.15 – 10.15am.  Later clear-ups are not possible due to train departure times.

On weekend retreats the clear up is for 45 minutes, and you can let us know what time you would like us to organise the clear up, with the latest time being 1.30 – 2.15pm.

You are welcome to have a team meeting during or after the clear up, although we do very much appreciate the retreat team modelling participation in the clear-up when possible.

Other Things

Transgender women retreatants   Taraloka retreats are open to all women including transgender women. This is a legal requirement for anyone who identifies as a woman whether or not they have had hormone treatment or surgery.  If we are aware of it, we will contact you to let you know that there is a transgender woman on your retreat, as you may want to get in touch with them to discuss what things might be supportive for them, and also for the other retreatants.

Recording talks   Please record your talks!   It’s not so scary!  We are trying to boost the numbers of talks by Dharmacharinis on Free Buddhist Audio.  The operations team can help with how to use the recording equipment and we will upload them for you.  Please give us a title and blurb for each talk, along with the name of each speaker.

Ethical Policies and Safeguarding

Taraloka’s Ethical Guidelines, based on the Five Precepts, specify amongst other things, no intoxicants and no sexual activity in the retreat centre.

Taraloka’s Safeguarding policy is here.  If you become aware of any issues to do with safeguarding, please make contact with the Taraloka Retreat Team immediately.

If you have any questions, do get in touch with us.

With much metta,

the Taraloka Community