What is the value of Retreat?
Share this article:
I am just back from a weekend retreat. The retreat was actually a week long retreat, but we could only manage to be there for the weekend. It was still an incredibly valuable experience – and I use the word valuable with mindfulness. Over the last couple of months I have been exploring ways to determine the value of things that don’t require numbers. The experience of a retreat is not about the numbers:
- 40 people
- 1 teacher
- 7 meditations
- 7 teachings
Of course, that tells you nothing apart from the outline and structure of our weekend. What matters with a retreat is the inner journey, which is why silence is part of the process. Our retreat was led by Geshe Tashi Tsering of Jamyang Centre, London. It was organised by Jamyang Leeds – which is the Centre that we link to with our Study Group in Liverpool.
Geshe Tashi is a Tibetan Buddhist monk who has studied for 16 years to the level of Geshe. He has written a number of books on Buddhism. His teachings are crystal clear – a mixture of theory and concept with personal stories, analogies and narratives to help clarify.
The focus for the weekend was Altruism – cultivating an altruistic mind. This was an interesting synchronicity given that I have been writing on this blog about altruism as part of the Core Values series in recent weeks. Geshe Tashi’s teachings on this subject delved into great depth about the subject of altruism. One realises that there have been great thinkers writing on this subject for hundreds of years to develop a clear conceptual framework, building on the Historical Buddha’s original teachings.
Interspersed with the teachings was the opportunity for extended meditation sessions. I have been meditating for some years now – but am still only able to meditate for short periods of time. At the retreat meditation sessions were typically anything from 45 to 75 minutes long. The advice from Geshe Tashi for this was to break it up into shorter sessions. So, meditate for 10 to 15 minutes then stretch and relax for a moment before returning to the meditation.
There are so many different types of meditation. We spend the weekend working on Calm Abiding meditation, using an object of meditation that could be the breath, a visualisation, or a concept such as suffering or compassion. I still found it very difficult to avoid falling asleep. But meditation becomes the most remarkable thing when we achieve those moments of lucidity and clear thinking where we know that we are in the meditative state. Sometimes these moments last for just a few seconds – but they are the gold of the retreat. The weaving together of teachings and meditations creates the conditions for these momentary states to appear.
The value of retreat? It is the combination of great teachings, the lucid state we find in meditation and the space to go deep within and find aspects of ourselves that are normally drowned out with the noise of life.
1 thought on “What is the value of Retreat?”
I now have six permanent voluntary activities and on Tuesday went to another, recommended by my son: helping out at a job club. I helped a person with a mild disability who has been a full time carer for 26 years but not worked since before that, apply for three jobs. The two hours passed without me realising, a typical response to focssed work,even in a new environment