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2013 Family and Teen Staff Application

go as a river - experience the joy and growth of togetherness and service

Our staff program for these retreats is a great opportunity for us to come together as a four fold community. We will practice to nourish our joy and peace and to serve the friends that come to us to discover the wonders of the present moment.

This year we offer a special program for those members of the greater Sangha who apply and who are accepted to serve as staff for these retreats. Everyone that has been accepted as staff is invited to come to stay complimentary of the monastery the Friday before the retreat begins.

community sitting in circle together

Concretely these dates are:

  • Family Retreat: June 21 - July 1
  • Teen Camp: July 5 - 15

This year we will try to organize the children's program during Family Retreat based on interest and will have four groups:

  1. Theater and music
  2. Visual arts and crafts
  3. Nature
  4. Movement and Sports


We see each of these full-ten-day programs as a thorough course in training where we deepen our practice and learn to share our happiness and joy in the Dharma with friends both young and old. They are also rare opportunities for the two folds of the greater Sangha—the lay and the monastic—to join together in harmony to organize, to clean, to chant, to smile and to just be together.

We look every year to enhance the experience of the young people and families who come to take refuge in the monastic community of practice. Surrounding them with seasoned practitioners is one way of doing that.

As part of the five days before the retreatants arrive we will meet regularly to shape aspects of the retreat according to our vision and our capacity. These days make up essential “nowhere to go, nothing to do” time, so that we may transmit a grounded energy to all our friends upon their arrival. If you are unable to make it for the whole of the staff program, then we encourage you instead to join us for the Family Retreat (or Teen Retreat if you are a teen) as a retreatant.

If you would like to join us for the entire staff program for either Family Retreat or Teen Camp or both please fill out the short questionnaire below, so that we may better get to know you.

Please choose the staff program you would like to apply. Note that if you are accepted as a staff member, your stay will be complimentary of the monastery. We ask that you do attend for the whole length of one program. If you are accepted to serve for both staff programs you are also invited to stay at Deer Park for the time inbetween the two staff programs.
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What education, work, personal experience do you have that will help you support the teens and children during the retreat(s)? What are the areas you enjoy to engage and support the children or teens in?
The staff for Teen Camp will sleep in tents or on cots in the respective teen campground together with some monastics. Are you ready to help support the teens in getting to bed, maintain noble silence and in waking up?
Some staff members will support the children's program and teen program. Some other staff members will help lead a group (Dharma Sharing Family) in Service Meditation. Please mark all areas that you are happy, comfortable and confident to serve in.
Please list any staff program you have participated in:
Share your aspiration in participating in the staff program you apply for.
Please give the name of a monastic or lay sangha member with whom you are familiar, who may serve as a reference: name, e-mail & phone.
Share any additional information that would help us to process your application for this/these staff program(s).

Thank you for your interest in offering service to our growing community. After submitting the form, if you receive no response from us within two weeks, please e-mail us.

We will let you know if you have been accepted as a staff member no later than May 14, 2012.

A lotus for you, a Buddha to be,

Brothers and Sisters at Deer Park Monastery