Retreat

Buddhist Stupa in Algarve, Portugal

Two weeks ago I went on a solitary retreat. There is a little dharma centre in the hills in Algarve where I am living. It costs 11 euros a night and is a quiet hut overlooking some mountains. To me ‘retreat’ has a specific focus - as a Tibetan Buddhist and meditator, giving myself a chance to do several hours of sitting meditation and ritual pujas with no distractions is invaluable to my practice. When I was 24 I was a Buddhist nun for a while and whilst I was training at the monastery, many other monks and nuns, and laypeople, went into the traditonal 3-year retreat. This involves being cut off from the outside world and is a common custom for spiritual practitioners in eastern traditions. Three and four-year retreats sound really tough and I am in awe of those who manage the 10 hours of practice a day and the few hours of sleep each night, sitting up in a box. I watched a documentary recently about Dianne Perry - the Londoner who became a nun and spent 12 years in a cave in the Himalayas. I did not do a 3-year retreat when I was 24 and it is still one of my life goals, if circumstances permit.

There is a misunderstanding about meditation and about being a nun. It was the time in my life when I really stood in front of the proverbial mirror and saw myself. As far from escapism as it is possible to be, I had to unflinchingly look at the state of my inner world as it related to the outer world, with absolute scrutiny and presence. I had to practise taming my emotions and getting my busy mind under control, as without this foundation, understanding the nature of reality, the focus of meditation, is tricky! As I practise meditation these days I still feel so grateful for that life-changing couple of years. In many ways, this spiritual ‘bootcamp’ was a watershed that put me on a path that has enriched my life and has even saved it. I have never wondered, since then, how to live a good life with compassion and meaning. I have certainly not always done it well, but I did know what I was meant to be doing! It was like someone opened a secret book and pointed and said ‘here - this is what it all means.’ In the Tibetan lamas, I finally met beings who knew what I did not, and could teach me. I mean they really know the scope of the universe, and will tell us if we ask.

That is the context of ‘retreat’ for me.

THE HIGH PRIESTESS

‘Here - this is what it all means.’

Last week I was sent an invitation to a retreat. it was called “7 day ‘Create Your Life’ Self-Development Retreat” and it promised it would also be life-changing. The venue was a ‘luxurious private villa’ with a private beach and swimming pool, and the cost for 6 nights was 2400 euros. It had chakra cleansing, a cacao ceremony, a dolphin meditation boat trip and the promise it would “activate the ‘NEW ME.” I’d socialise wth other women and make lifelong friends. It sounded like a super escape - a real holiday. But not a retreat.

Facing our shit is hard. It is boring. Changing habits is really time-consuming and uncomfortable. We are literally having to build new neural pathways that take us down the narratives we want and that bring us peace. And if we want more than peace, we have even more work to do. No amount of private swimming pools and dolphin-spotting boat trips can really change us at a cellular level. The current trend for relaxing well-deserved holidays, dressed up as a ‘retreat,’ does a disservice to both spiritual retreats and to pampering vacations - they have different functions. Chogyam Trungpa described ‘spiritual materialism.’ It can be seen as turning the pursuit of spirituality into just more ego-building, rather than true spiritual progress. Luxury holidays where we rest and recuperate and focus on ourselves have their place, but maybe rather than calling them retreats we should just call them ‘treats.’

treats