Gardening, Vegetarian Cooking, Art Projects at Buddhist Retreat Center

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This is a full-time live-in resident volunteer opportunity.

Do you love variety in your work, being outdoors, learning practical skills and big projects that challenge you?

Our team is seeking healthy, strong residents eager to engage a lifestyle of physical work, community living and self development through work.

Odiyan Retreat Center is located on a 1000-acre spiritual and ecological preserve in rural Sonoma County, Northern California. We are perched on top of a ridge overlooking rolling mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Odiyan is modeled after Tibet's first monastery-a three-dimensional mandala. This mandala strives to manifests a way of life that integrates work with a path of self-exploration.

Odiyan Retreat Center offers a challenging and rewarding live-work retreat program where work is the vehicle for your inner development. Your work at Odiyan will include beautifying and landscaping extensive gardens, huge Temples and multitudinous varieties of sacred art. You will work in our four vegetable gardens, our seven orchards, out on the land and in the shop. You will assist making Buddhist statues in the foundry, help develop the sacred architecture, care for animals, cook vegetarian food and help with food preservation in our gigantic kitchen. At Odiyan everyone does everything!

• Free housing in large room with balcony
• Free home-cooked vegetarian meals and beverages
• Free WI-FI and domestic phone calls
• A living allowance of $150 per month
• Free skill training in a wide range of trades and traditional arts
• Access to healthy setting of nature, hiking trails, wide-open spaces, sacred beauty, fresh air, clean water, and nutritious food.
• Free Classes on Development of Mind & Spirit, Tibetan yoga, Skillful Means, meditation and more
• Opportunity to engage in a wholesome lifestyle of self-sufficiency, meaningful work, inner development, and taking responsibility.

• Healthy and without significant mental or physical health issues
• Comfortable with heavy lifting, good manual dexterity and multi-limb coordination while using hand tools such as grinders, polishers, and sand blasters, able to bend and be on your knees in garden work
• Experience not required
• Eager for a hard-working wholesome lifestyle of service
• Minimum age of 24 years old
• Minimum commitment is 6 months
• The ideal volunteer is open-minded, self-reflective and ready to engage deeply on both inner and outer levels. Couples are welcome
• We cannot accept children or animal companions
• We are a smoke and drug free community.

We are seeking people who have a sincere interest in Buddhism and exploring work as a path to inner freedom. Our weekly schedule is rigorous (6 days a week) and rewarding!

Visit www.volunteer.odiyan.org for details, photos, application, and everything you need to know about living and working at Odiyan Retreat Center. Or follow us on Facebook: OdiyanBuddhistRetreatCenter.

Send your resume and clear photo of yourself to volunteer@odiyan.org. Or go to our website to download an application. If you have any questions or just want to chat about living and working at Odiyan, don't hesitate to call us! 510-981-1987