My First Retreat

By Venerable Sumati Marut

When I first heard about the practice of solitary, silent, meditation retreats, I was stoked. I had spent my whole adult life in the company of others – married at the age of eighteen, kids by twenty-one, graduate school until age thirty, then teaching students as a college professor. I had no time for myself. The idea of being isolated for awhile sounded really, really good.

I know that locking oneself away for several days, alone and silent, strikes some as the last thing they’d voluntarily choose to do.  But for me, it sounded like a dream. I soon had reserved my cabin and begun studying the instructions on how to do a Buddhist retreat.

There are many options for how to structure your time in retreat.  Certain rules or suggestions have been passed down through lineages that are important to practice. However, one should feel free to individually contour the retreat for maximum personal benefit. The best piece of advice I have ever received on this was simply, “It’s your retreat.”  It’s just you being with you on retreat. You should cherish this time and make it optimally productive and useful.

On my first retreat I learned, the hard way, the importance both of following the rules and making the necessary personal adjustments.

I took a plane and then rode a bus for several hours in order to reach a drop-off near the retreat location. Someone picked me up and we drove another 10 miles along a deserted, dirt road to my small, one room cabin. “Perfect,” I thought. “Isolated, stark and bare-bones - just like it should be!”

I began the retreat totally gung-ho and determined to be super hardcore.  For example, I had read that you should block off all the windows to not be distracted by the outside world. I had also heard that you shouldn’t go outside at all if possible. I had learned that you should schedule four practice sessions a day - the first beginning and ending before dawn - each session lasting a couple of hours.

Those were “the rules” and I upheld those rules from Day One.

I had also discovered that you should structure your time in retreat like the shape of a rice grain - going slowly into the retreat, then increasing the intensity in the middle, and tailing off slowly as you prepare to come out.

I didn’t bother with that rule. I was too excited, too eager to plunge fully into the most radical, extreme version of retreat I had heard about, right from the start. By the fifth or sixth day of my retreat, I was in serious trouble. Later, I discovered the Tibetan name for my troubling condition - lung.

All I knew at the time was that I was going stark, raving mad. Without any ramp up and without any relief from the excessive fervor with which I was pursuing my maiden retreat, I began to seriously lose it. Demons I thought I had put to bed years before came roaring back with a vengeance. I felt totally abandoned and alone - which I was, having put myself freely, even happily, into that situation. But all of that enthusiasm was forgotten amidst my despair. If I had come to the retreat center in my own vehicle, I definitely would have bailed.  But it was too embarrassing, too difficult to leave, since I was dependent on the retreat staff for transportation.

I was stuck and I was losing it.

Two things saved me. First, I asked for help. I learned what it really meant to “go for refuge.” Help did arrive.  It came, in part, in the form of my revised understanding of retreat.

Second, I uncovered the windows. I went outside for some fresh air. I dropped the early morning session and got my first decent night of sleep in over a week.  I went for a walk in the woods.  Soon enough, I felt much better. I finished the last few days with some great meditations. I left the retreat with a lot of valuable experience tucked under my belt.

I learned a lot in that first and most difficult of my retreats. I learned to follow the rules: go in slow, build up intensity toward the middle, and then take it easy during the last section as you prepare to re-enter the world.  I also identified the most important rule - “It’s your retreat.” Never again would I feel reluctant to make the necessary adjustments to keep my priceless retreat time pleasant and productive.