Hi Janah4,
Jhana4 wrote:I'm a huge fan of Ahahn Brahm's youtube channel.
I've thought about going on one of his meditation retreats. I live on the east coast of the United States, so I would need at least $3k just to get there and back. I have only found once review/account of what retreats of his are like. I would love to hear more. Something tells me I wouldn't get more "content" then what I already get from his books and videos. I would love to meet him, but I wouldn't know what he would say to me beyond "Hello and thank you for the compliments on my videos".
Ajahn Brahm was in Hong Kong for a weekend when I was staying in Hong Kong in 2007. I attended several talks, a one-day retreat, and his visit to the meditation group that I was involved with there. It was these contracts that convinced me that he has a real skill in instruction, and I'm sure a retreat with him would be a very useful experience. [Before that, my impression from recorded talks was that he was interesting but somewhat lightweight.]
I'm not sure what you mean by "content". To me, the key skill a good teacher brings to a retreat isn't information (which, as you say, you can read or listen to any time). It's about setting the conditions, motivation, and feedback on specific problems. I'm convinced he'd be great at that, though I didn't really have a chance to experience the latter in such short sessions.
Having said that, I don't practice his particular approach much (though his instructions on "settling down" at the start of a meditation session are excellent, no matter what approach you use, and I do make use of those), and I don't believe that you need a famous monk to get excellent retreat assistance (most of what I consider to be useful I've learned on retreats with "no-name" monks).
So, absolutely, I think a long retreat with Ajahn Brahm would be great, especially since you already find his approach helpful. It just depends how it stacks up financially and against what you have available locally.
[I should add that AB is far from local to me. He lives on the western side of Australia, and a trip there is only slightly shorter for me than a trip to SE Asia.]
Mike
