Brizzy wrote:A retreats purpose is to foster an environment where one can calmly deal with the ups & downs of meditation, including investigation of vedana. If that environment adds stress rather than decreasing it then it becomes a problem. To cultivate calm is not to run away from unpleasant vedana, rather it is a pro-active way of dealing with them. This process is not a picnic, any extraneous difficulties that are deliberately made part of the retreat cannot be conducive to development. Being chanted to is not a problem for some people, for others it is an un-wished for intrusion. It might be better, if one could opt in or out of the chanting.
I'd agree with you that the chanting is an un-wished for intrusion for a lot of us. However life is full of un-wished for intrusion and if one can't learn to deal with un-wished for intrusion in a calm way while on retreat what hope is there for busy day to day life.
Personally I choose to go back to my room during the big session before breakfast, I also choose not to create aversion at other times, it doesn't have to be a big deal.
One can choose whether sense contact is classed as intrusion or not, for example car horns are often classed as intrusion whereas birdsong is not and yet the same process of hearing is taking place.
Ultimately if one is practising insight meditation rather than concentration meditation nothing is classed as intrusion.