These are questions which various people have asked, either via my in-box on Facebook, or by directly emailing me, and the answers I gave them. I thought that since they asked these things, others may also be wondering, or at some point start thinking about that. So to prevent myself from becoming a parrot I thought it may be useful to compile them into an actual document which I placed initially on the A-cockin’ @ KA 27 8NX Facebook Group, so everybody who is part of the group can also be enriched, and which I have now copied to my blog with the same name. To start off with, there is a more general reply about various issues which somebody had asked.
In view of changing causes and conditions, and new questions being posed, these pages will be updated from time to time. I can not assure any regularity, but the whole idea is to not have this group to be static, but for new info to become available as time goes on. Whether it stays as a group on Facebook will all depend on Facebook itself, as this facility has become a lot less functional and useful from what it was a year ago, plus currently there are many bugs and issues with the way things are structured. If need be I may change it to a blog, but as I am not that familiar with those, I shall wait and hope that the Facebook creators revert to the old format.
I should also mention that I had initially enquired about doing the four-year retreat about twelve to thirteen years ago. Back then, as subsequently, causes and conditions were not right. In addition I had made a commitment to my children that I would be available and accessible to them until they finished school. My daughter matriculated at the end of 2008, meaning that now for the first time I could once again seriously try to make this happen.
There is a cost involved with the retreat, namely £4000.00 per year, plus an additional £2000.00 as ‘pocket money’ for toiletries, postage, personal shopping, incidentals, etc. That meant that the sum total that one had to pay up front (In case you die during the retreat! No, simply because once you are in the retreat you no longer handle any money, nor do you have much communication with the outside world. Also, they need the money upfront to do budgeting and planning of resources) was £18 000.00, which converted into Rand becomes a totally different story altogether. Also, when I initially again inquired at the end of 2008 I was given wrong information. In the past it was a three-year structured retreat, costing £2000.00 per year, meaning a more manageable £6000.00 plus the additional ‘pocket money’ at another £1000.00, giving you a sum total of £7000.00. At that time the exchange rate had also been just over R.10.00 to the £. Subsequently the retreat duration was changed to be a four-year structured retreat, and when we got closer to the time of the retreat it then emerged that the costs had increased to £4000.00 plus the ‘pocket money’ at another £2000.00. The exchange rate now stood at over R.14.00 to the £. That was a huge difference from what I was aiming for.
I attempted to find some sponsors to cover my costs and expenses, and though there were a few smaller once-off amounts (which were greatly appreciated as every little bit helps), it was not near enough to get even close to the total amount of around R.280 000.00 odd one was looking at -- all dependant on the exchange rate. I thus wrote to Lama Yeshe, explaining my predicament, and requesting consideration of a reduction in the retreat costs. His reply was that he would offer me to be the cook for the current retreat, and then I could do the following retreat for free. Though I agreed to do that, there were a couple of personal issues as obstacle being thrown into my path, the main one being that somebody owed me a substantial amount of money, which I had actually expected to be able to use to pay for the retreat. As that was not going to be forthcoming, I needed to concretise the verbal agreement we had. I have no doubt that the person would ultimately pay me, but my concern was that there was nothing in legal writ detailing the situation, and also getting a form of formal commitment. If something should have happened to me, my estate would not have known that that money was owed to me, and if something happened to him his estate would not have known that this money was due to be paid.
In terms of what was happening prior to the retreat I should ideally have been at the main monastery Samye Ling, near Lockerbie, from around middle to end of April. Accordingly I had hoped to be in Scotland from around March this year (2010). This pre-retreat period was for introductions and initiations, but as we all know now, I did not manage that one. For a while it even seemed that this was once again not going to happen at all. The person owing me the money had hoped to either secure a mortgage in time to pay me out, or else find some other means of settling it, but such was not to be. It was only about ten days before the final time for me to be in Scotland that we came to an agreement about the reimbursement of the money owed to me, have a lawyer draw up a contract, and sign it. Thus once that was actually sorted out it was time to move.
© ~ (Karma) Tsegyal [a.k.a. Peter G Just] ~
November 2010
!O-3|-W;-
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