Last spring we started planning a mid-summer Day of Heartwork in Rochester. Sign-ups were sparse, Dale couldn't afford to facilitate it, but we decided to go ahead and hold a small event on our own. Thus the Day of Meditation and Inquiry came about. We had an inexpensive, quiet countryside location that was isolated and fairly assured of getting no casual visitors. We set the schedule for 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and asked people to bring a sack lunch and snack item. Water, a kitchen, and meditation cushions were available at the site, but we could have furnished that too.
Six or seven signed up, and five attended, plus a 16-inch tall Yoda doll who took Dale's place. I had asked Dale for a schedule of activities to follow, which we did follow, allowing things to melt into each other and stretch or shrink as the day progressed. As the ringleader, I kept time and made suggestions on what to do next, based on how the group seemed to be feeling and comments during group discussions. The schedule was basically a period of meditation, followed by inquiry in 2's and 3's, followed by group discussion, followed by a short break. We repeated that pattern 4 times. The periods of meditation grew longer as the day progressed. Pleasant weather encouraged meditating and working outside. Dale had included a session of unwinding towards the beginning, but that mostly morphed into meditating-listening-to-music-while-lying-down.
In advance, I had flipped through "Space Cruiser Inquiry" by A.H. Almaas and picked out 4 readings looking at inquiry, each one going progressively deeper into an aspect of inquiry I was thinking about at that time. We used most of them and they helped focus the group discussions and inspired inquiries. Despite and perhaps with the help of the distractions afforded by a beautiful view, hummingbirds, and an invading chipmunk, we felt ourselves drawn deeper and deeper into the process and the silence of the place. At the end we all agreed that it had been a wonderful way to spend a treasured summer day, and that the depth of inquiry and presence that we all experienced surprised us. Three of us met at a diner on the way home for dinner afterwards, and my one regret was not planning that in as an option for everyone.
So I encourage readers in other places to try out this low-overhead way to deepen your practice, practice as a group, and intertwine it with your life. Even Yoda came away visibly more centered and present!