Balajit

Hello. I came to live at Vajraloka in Jan 06, following many years of busy city life. My main role here (apart from the pursuit of enlightenment!) is to cook the lunches and evening meals for people who come on retreat. We have a spacious light kitchen, and a great storeroom full of different foods. It’s up to me to decide what to buy and what to cook. All the food is vegan and where possible I try to select stuff that respected life and the environment.

The kitchen is often quite a focus for activity here- with the sounds, smells, temperatures and moods of the cooking process mingling, though the open window, with those of nature outside. Amidst this cocktail, I try to rustle up food that is nutritional, attractive, tasty and varied. With life here being relatively simple- lots of silence, nature, and a programme to engage with- mealtimes can be quite a big part of peoples’ day-to-day life on retreat.

Overall, I hope my role as cook here compliments the bigger picture of Vajraloka as a place offering inspiring conditions for people to practice in. It’s these conditions that stimulated me to move here, and leave behind all the charms of city life, even those tantalising coffee shops and multi-screen cinema’s!

I very much feel I am on retreat here. I like the ethos that, when people come on retreat here, they join the people who live here who are also on retreat. So our community expands to include people who come and stay. We can then mutually grapple with the mystery of ourselves and life in the beauty of this area of north Wales and in the illuminating context of the dharma. It’s always fascinating and heartening to so often see people become more engaged, alive and inspired during the course of a retreat.