But the wonderful news now is that the young people of the UK, fired up by the retreat with Thay in Nottingham, are planning a Wake Up Weekend Away in October. The retreat will run from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon towards the end of the month - hopefully coinciding with the half-term - so if you’re in the UK and are interested in coming, let us know which weekend is good for you.

The weekend will be a chance to practice joy, peace and community together and if enough of you come then maybe we (the monastics) will get to come and play too - then we could see about training you to offer deep relaxation to your friends, or to lead a sharing circle for example.

We can practice sitting and walking and listening to a Dharma Talk together - but we also want to adapt the practice to our situation as young people. It has to be fun.

So we can throw in some music or art or theatre too. Whatever is nourishing and makes us happy.

If you’re on FaceBook you can click here to see the event posting and find out more.

Let us know what you think!

And the other great news is that a Weekend Retreat is bubbling up in Belgium too - if you’re from Belgium and you don’t know about it yet then post a comment and we will put you in touch!