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For the next ten days, I’ll be living at a Buddhist monastery in Northern Vermont. The daily obligations are simple: attend the first meditation at 4:40am, eat breakfast at 8am, eat lunch around noon, and attend the evening meditation around 6pm. For the times in between, the menu is limited. Go for walks. Meditate. Think. Do some light exercise. And finally, listen to dharma talks (aka short lectures on meditation and Buddhism).
No podcasts, writing, reading, social media, or any technology in general. Sounds like a blast, right?
When I talk to friends and family about going on retreat, I’m usually met with concern or confusion. As I describe the day-to-day routine, their eyes begin to squint and their heads cock slightly to one side. The response is usually along the lines of “I don’t understand this, but I want to be supportive.”
Given the daily schedule and restrictions, I totally understand their apprehension. I had it myself. And, to be honest, I still feel some apprehension before each retreat I go on. It was only through testimonials from friends and mentors that I was eventually convinced to give it a try. After experiencing the benefits for myself, I've become an annual retreatant - eager to give up my PTO and cell phone to basically do nothing for a full week. I wrote this article to explain why.
So, why go on a meditation retreat?
Here are the benefits I’ve found from these experiences:
Big Picture Thinking. In my daily life, I tend to get caught up in short-term decisions, like what I’m going to have for dinner or how I’m going to spend my weekend. The big questions in my life tend to fall by the wayside. Meditation retreats are an opportunity to zoom out and consider the super-important-but-not-urgent questions. Instead of thinking about immediate concerns, I can step back and evaluate things on the timeline of my entire life. “What should I do next?” becomes “What would make me feel my life is a life well-lived?”
Marie Kondo for my mind. In one of my new favorite books, The School of Life (see “Read of the Week” section below), the authors talk about how we all carry emotional baggage that floats beneath the surface of our conscious experience, but still influences our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. The authors argue: “We pay a high price for a lack of self-knowledge. Much of what destroys our
lives can be attributed to emotions that our conscious selves haven’t found a way to understand or address in time.”
I’ve felt this directly while on retreats in the past. The lack of mental stimulation seems to create a container where these types of thoughts and emotions bubble to the surface. Questions arise like “why do I feel anxious so frequently?” or “why do I feel resentment towards this person that I haven’t seen in years?”. These moments have been painful and rewarding. As the hours of each day crawl by, the discomfort of confronting these thoughts and emotions starts to fade. And on the other side of the discomfort, I’ve found a surprising freedom and clarity. It feels a bit like Spring cleaning for my mind, where I can examine thoughts and emotions and ask myself, “Where did this come from? Is this mine? Is it serving me?” and hopefully come to a resolution.Rediscover presence. There is usually a moment about 3-4 days into retreat where my mind finally settles into the present moment. I can just sit and look around, without getting caught up in reveries about the past or anticipation for the future. I can just be, without being bombarded by constant mental chatter. These moments have been peaceful and serene; they’ve reminded me that I only have, and will ever have, the present moment. This state of mind, more than anything else, is the thing I miss most when I get back into the routine of daily life. (More on this idea in the “Listen of the Week” section below.)
Technology detox. If social media is modern day cigarettes, then I’m a smoker. I often spend over an hour a day on social media between Twitter and Instagram, and often notice the impulse to pull out my phone in brief moments of boredom. By removing technology entirely, meditation retreats have helped me break these habits in the past (albeit temporarily) and have provided an opportunity to foster a new relationship with technology.
Be reintroduced to boredom. One of the most prevalent feelings during past retreats has been profound boredom. There is, quite literally, just nothing to do. In those moments, I realize how foreign the feeling of boredom has become since childhood (especially since I got my first iPhone). Though it is, well, boring, I’m often surprised by something really simple and pleasant that emerges from the boredom. It’s a space that seems to invite calmness and creativity, almost like a massage for my mind.
Progress in meditation. I’ve been feeling like my meditation practice has plateaued over the last few months. When I sit, I usually get fatigued around the same time (15-20 minutes in) and start to lose focus. When I’ve felt “stuck” before, meditation retreats have been like applying jumper cables to my practice. By dedicating many hours a day to one skill, I can start to notice progress day-by-day instead of on a weekly or monthly basis. This brief stint of quick progress usually reinvigorates my practice for months afterwards and reminds me of the benefits of meditation. For weeks or months after, there’s an afterglow where I feel lighter, happier, and more present.
Seek the transcendent. As a result of everything else on this list, meditation retreats can invite transcendent experiences.. Moments where I feel joyfully overwhelmed by the seeming impossibility of my own existence. Moments where I’m in awe of the world and ordinary objects around me. Or moments where I feel connected to nature in ways that I didn’t think was even possible. These have been among the most rewarding moments in my entire life. Unfortunately, they are also elusive, and seem to hide particularly well when they are being sought after. The only way I’ve found to reliably facilitate these experiences is on retreat.
If I’m lucky, these next ten days will reinforce these benefits and hopefully add a few more.
Thanks for reading and have a great week!
Mark
Read of the week: Alain de Botton’s The School of Life: An Emotional Education is the best book I’ve read this year. If I could give one book to my younger self, it would be this one, and I have no doubt that I’ll come back to it again and again for wisdom and guidance throughout my life. I’ll write a summary in a future post, but in the meantime they also have a Youtube channel here if you’re curious.
Listen of the week: In this 10-minute clip, author and neuroscientist Sam Harris attempts to answer the question: “What is the meaning of life?”. I highly recommend watching the entire video, but here’s a one-sentence summary of his answer: the meaning of life is to inhabit a mind that is so present and in rapture with the world that the question of meaning doesn’t even occur to us.
Watch of the week: In doing research for this article, I stumbled on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows Youtube channel. I haven’t watched all of their videos yet, but this video on the experience of sonder is beautiful (and foreshadows an upcoming article!).