#1
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My Retreat Experience
Thought I'd write a proper post about this as a good way of reflecting on last weekend and celebrating the fact that I even went in the first place (sorry this might be a bit long!)
A couple months ago, I was on the website of the London Buddhist Centre and saw that they had young persons meditation retreats at this beautiful new, state of the art retreat centre in Suffolk in January of this year and thought about what a positive way to start the year this could be to try something like this out because I have been trying to meditate every day for a while now and since I went to Sri Lanka I have been very interested in Buddhism. Of course, I delayed for weeks actually booking it, but at the start of January, I actually booked it! And this is what happened... I arrived at the place on Friday night, most people were coming from London by coach, so there were only a few there at that point. I was directed to my room and found out that I was indeed in a shared room with 2 other guys which was obviously way out of my comfort zone, but hey-ho, that's why I was there. They started to serve dinner early, it was a nice bowl of soup to start us off and there was a bit of salad, lovely, until later on I realised that that wasn't a starter, that was the entire dinner lol All meals were communal, so it was a chance to get to know people, but that was undoubtedly the toughest part of the weekend for obvious reasons, I sometimes struggle sitting at a table with family for too long, so needless to say sitting at a table for over an hour with complete strangers was very challenging and I didn't say much, especially when they were talking about their careers and all sorts of corporate jargon (most people lived and worked in London with quite high level positions for their age) but I at least got to introduce myself to a few people and chat to one of my roommates as well. Before we went to bed though, there was time for our first venture into the main shrine room/hall where the meditation would take place and wow, as soon as I walked in, I was hit by how beautiful and peaceful a room it was (http://www.waltersandcohen.com/image...1471614834.jpg), it was custom designed, so it was very quiet and peaceful and we had an introductory session which was nice, before heading off to bed in a period of silence (at least that made it easier SA wise ) and turning my phone off completely for the rest of the retreat. I woke up day two 6.30am feeling rubbish, I had very little sleep because of someone snoring loudly (of course!), and very little food, and I had to be on the meditation mat at 7am for an hour and a half of meditation, so admittedly a fair amount of that time was spent half asleep lol. Then it was breakfast and this is when it got to me, sitting at the breakfast table too anxious and awkward to talk, while looking round and seeing how literally everyone else was comfortably chatting away, it's so demoralising and I had to get out of there with my porridge unfinished. I did the usual thing of hiding in the toilet cubicles and went for a walk too, and it took a while to get myself together, but I decided it would be best to miss the second morning session in favour for some much-needed sleep in the meantime and that really helped. In the afternoon in our free time period, I decided to go back to the main shrine room when it was empty so I had it all to myself and sat there for about an hour and it was so blissful, all the crap of the morning dissipated and I could finally enjoy myself and admire the huge gold Buddha statue at the front of the room (https://i.ytimg.com/vi/e_8ChKDR4e4/maxresdefault.jpg). That is until the workshop that afternoon… The guy helping lead the retreat told us to pair up with the nearest person (any kind of group work always fills me with dread), and to my horror, as a sort of communication exercise, we were told to stare into each other’s eyes for several minutes!! Stare into a complete stranger’s eyes, when I sometimes find it awkward to even maintain eye contact with my own family for a few seconds! It was agony (although to be fair, I spoke to a girl the day after who said she found it agony too, so I certainly wasn’t alone in not enjoying it at least), and then at the end we chatted about it, and then did it again, and then did it several more times repeating random meaningless statements at each other lol, it was quite the uncomfortable exercise, thankfully afterwards we went back to closing our eyes and meditating Then it was time for dinner and things took a turn for the better, it was a much more substantial dinner, two types of curry, along with rice and a very nice crumble, and I got to sit next to some new people again and it was better this time and I managed to make decent conversation with two very friendly people sitting next to me, it was really cool to be able to talk to others about Buddhism and meditation. After dinner, it was on to the final activities of the day, we listened to a few talks by some of the volunteers talking about how they discovered Buddhism and what it meant to them which was really quite inspiring and thought-provoking, and then it was onto possibly the most memorable part of the weekend, the last part of the day we would go outside to take part in a Buddhist ritual at the Stupa (http://www.waltersandcohen.com/image...1467296528.jpg) outside, and it was both surreal and amazing. They had lit little fires all around the stupa, it was a clear and cold night and the stars were out and we were all given incense sticks and invited to move round the Stupa and sing a Buddhist chant repeatedly as we walked round and round it, I’m struggling to properly describe it, but it was quite amazing, here we were in the middle of winter, in the middle of the English countryside taking part in rituals of an ancient eastern religion, it was something all right. Probably one of the longest and most surreal days of my life! I slept better that night, ready for the final day, although once again, an hour and a half on meditation at 7am was just a bit too much for me, I only did half the session lol. There was just enough time to chat to a few more people while I was there and I was sitting in the lounge on my own thinking ‘should I move closer to people and just try to talk to someone’, and then a girl sat down next to me after picking up a book and I thought I’d just ask her what the book she had got to possibly try to strike up a conversation, and then we chatted for half an hour! She was a lovely person, from Italy, living in London, we talked about holidays in Morocco, the day before, work and at no point did I get the usual feeling of ‘They seem bored of me now’, she just seemed so open to just chat to me which was such a relief and nice. It’s a shame the retreat wasn’t longer so that I could have gotten to know people like her a bit more, but it felt great to be able to chat to others there, even if I was shaking inside a lot of the time, perhaps the meditation and relaxing nature of the place helped me! So quite the weekend, a bumpy ride at times no doubt and I had to overcome some tough lows, but overall, a thoroughly useful and worthwhile thing to have done and a lot of positives to take away from it. I met and talked to some lovely, interesting, friendly, and intelligent young people, so it was very worthwhile SA-wise, I got a chance to learn about and experience Buddhism first-hand, and of course had some wonderful experiences in the rituals and the meditation periods and I will certainly go back for more retreats in the future and try to meditate more often from now on. I’m very glad I did it and I as I hoped, it was a very positive way to kick off 2017 |
#2
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Re: My Retreat Experience
That's great stuff Olly - it's amazing what happens when we go out of our comfort zones in a good way. And I confess to quite liking those staring in the eyes things though it can definitely be awkward too
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#3
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Re: My Retreat Experience
That's brilliant Olly, well done
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#4
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Re: My Retreat Experience
Sound great Olly. Well done
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#5
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Re: My Retreat Experience
Well done. Did meditation help your SA as I wanted to try it to help with this but it sounds like maybe not.
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#6
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Re: My Retreat Experience
It sounds like you Achieved a lot when you attended the meditation retreat, you did so well to go alone, communicate with others and to share a bedroom with total strangers so well done.
I'm glad you gained a lot from the experience and I hope the rest of 2017 brings nothing but good things for you |
#7
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Re: My Retreat Experience
Well done Olly , sounds like you had an amazing weekend.
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#9
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Re: My Retreat Experience
Thank you for all the kind words, everyone
And misska, meditation can help in all areas of your life if you're committed and dedicated to it. Of course, that's one of the most difficult obstacles, everyone (and I mean everyone) will go through a phase of 'I'm hopeless at this, what's the point?' and think that meditation is not for them and sadly many never go back after that, but if you can keep it up and commit to a regular practice, even if just for 15 minutes a day, then it can really help you in the long term with all sorts of issues, it's certainly helped me, but it's not a quick fix. |
#10
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Re: My Retreat Experience
Quote:
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#11
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Re: My Retreat Experience
Hi Olly thanks for sharing your experience. I was impressed at how you took the bold step to go there, stuck with it despite a difficult start and as thing fell into place and you found your feet, you did find some serenity and peace in a beautiful place, and got talking to complete strangers. Wow big achievements! ***55357;***56842;
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#12
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Re: My Retreat Experience
Well done and thanks for sharing your experience, I've been toying with the idea of going to a retreat but will probably bottle it after day 1!
Maybe I could try a 1 day or 2 day retreat rather than a whole week. |
#13
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Re: My Retreat Experience
^^/^^^ Thank you, it was quite a big step for me, certainly not done anything like it before
^ Yes, a weekend, or even a day would be an ideal starting point, I certainly wasn't going to do a week or 10 day retreat to start off with, that would have been too much. |
#14
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Re: My Retreat Experience
Thanks for sharing this Olly! I have big interest in meditation/mindfulness and have always toyed with the idea of going to a retreat. However, like GhostOnMagneticTape says, I think I would only do it for a day or two. Any longer would make me far too anxious!
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