Kurt Roth-Fauchère

You already meditate daily, but now you feel the need to go one step further. A suggestion: retreat, withdraw from your ordinary, noisy life for a few days. Be, quiet, simple and focussed in the moment. Turn into yourself and create out of yourself, sweeping like a fine wind through your world, your representations, touching deeper and deeper layers.

I withdraw once a month for three days at a time. This is always an exhausting and personally challenging time, which also keeps me quite busy and inspired beyond that. Just one or two retreats a year go a long way, however, and help you to bring your short daily meditations together.

My experiences and thoughts may inspire you to organise your retreat. However, this is not a guide. Retreat does not require a specific form or environment. Nor does it accept any specific predetermined goals, but rather unfolds anew each time.

what happens in the process?

As with any meditation, I first encounter myself, my egos, scenes and veils during the retreat. I am simply consciously in my world. Through this ‘being aware’ over the entire time of the retreat, however, the encounter becomes much more intense, more unavoidable, and it becomes necessary to explore and ultimately cross narrow ridges.

These intense encounters, even confrontations, and explorations are important and very personal stages on the spiritual path. They allow me to recognise – and accept! – my true nature ever more deeply and comprehensively, allowing it to free itself step by step.

environment

During the retreat, I want to be as isolated as possible from my ordinary surroundings, my ordinary life.

At the beginning, you may want to retreat to your own home if you have a separate room where you can be undisturbed. Of course, this requires a bit of consultation and mutual tolerance. The achievable intensity may be lower because the disturbances and distractions are greater. However, once you get over them, they sometimes open unexpected doors. The advantage, and the temptation, of the home retreat is that you can easily stop it if it becomes too much for you.

If you already feel more confident about your retreat, you can perhaps take a room in a quiet accommodation where you will also be looked after. This will give you a little more freedom and, thanks to the unfamiliar surroundings, more inspiration and fewer distractions.

For the most intensive retreat, it is best to retreat to a remote and vast landscape, a forest, by the sea, in the desert, in the mountains, … whatever speaks to you deeply. Perhaps you can find a small hut or pitch your tent somewhere. Maybe you even hike all the time, not as a sporting achievement, not as a tourist excursion, but because you are walking your spiritual path deeply consciously in the world. The one mirrors the other.

Finally, if you are several people retreating together, each person should have a space of their own. The necessary ordinary life (cooking, eating, cleaning) should be shared as silently as possible. This is about retreat with me.
Meditating and being mindful together also have an important function, but a different one.

I do my own retreat here at home in winter, also when the weather is bad. If the weather is good and warm enough, I go out on remote paths. ‘But you can also do that when the weather is bad and cold,’ you might say. Yes, of course. But it is not the aim of the retreat to demonstrate that I can defy the elements. The aim is to make progress on my spiritual path. Once I’m far enough along, then I’ll dance with the elements – with them, not against them. But I’m not there yet.

daily routine

It is helpful to set a daily routine. This should deviate significantly from the usual routine in order to open up automatisms a little and thus create space for something new.

In my own retreat, the day begins at 4 a.m. with the first morning meditation and ends at 10 p.m. after the last evening meditation. Spread over the day are 4…6 hours of meditation, shorter ones of 30 minutes and longer ones of an hour. However, a meditation lasts as long as it lasts. I stay until I feel that it is finished. This can be after 10 minutes or after 2 hours, even if 30 minutes are planned in the schedule.

There are also three meals, with the associated work. I use the rest of the time as it comes: walking, writing…, dozing and doing nothing, and also sleeping. I let myself be guided by themes that come up in meditation, that suddenly touch me in nature, and by the needs of my body. Everything that is primarily within me and out of me has space in my free time. In contrast, intellectual analyses of any sort, emotional fires of any colour, music or reading as a distraction and, of course, any activities on the internet are not helpful.

challenges

The challenges of a retreat are not fundamentally different from those of daily meditation. However, the greater intensity of concentration and meditation can greatly increase them.

expectations and pressure

A set schedule is not something to be ‘worked through’ and ‘fulfilled’. Rather, it is a guideline. For example, the first meditation in the morning is scheduled for 4 a.m., but I might wake up at 3 a.m. or even 2 a.m. and feel awake. Then I just get up, rinse my mouth with some water and sit down to meditate.

If, on the other hand, I’m still very tired when the alarm clock rings shortly before 4 o’clock, I give myself a little extra time, maybe 30′, but then I really get up, rinse my mouth and start meditating. Even if I’m tired, meditation can lead to sudden breakthroughs. But it can also simply burn up my energy and block my path – it’s a fine line.

Experiencing this tension between ‘wanting’ and ‘being able’, the fluidity of these two terms, perhaps also the turmoil it causes in my body and mind, is an important aspect of unusual meditation times. Again, there is nothing to show, impose, or achieve. It’s about exploring the narrow path as much as possible, sensing ‘if it can’t go any further now’, and letting go easily and equanimously… to be able to come back freely next time.

A similar situation occurs when I am emotionally stimulated – angry, frustrated, exuberantly joyful,… – which can all easily occur during a retreat. Also out of such states something can open up unexpectedly, or I can also become completely blocked. Again: a fine line – explore, feel when it is enough, let go with equanimity.

Expectations and pressure are completely useless in a retreat, in fact they are counterproductive. This is an experience that we encounter again and again on the spiritual path.

long meditations

Meditations lasting an hour or longer can also be a physical strain. I therefore interrupt sitting after 30…45 minutes for 5 minutes of meditation in motion. These can be movements inspired by Qi Gong, Tai Ji and similar lines, both sitting and standing, but also slow, concentrated walking such as Kinhin. This can be accompanied by deep bows, again sitting or standing, which, in addition to the deeper meanings I give them, also allow the body to loosen up. Do not belittle these physical aspects: we are all-encompassing beings!

Such physical exercises, always in the consciousness of meditation, also help when pain of any kind develops. These are often a sign of a cramped posture, which in turn points to an inner blockage. Releasing this on a physical level can be easier than on the level from which the blockage actually arises.

Finally, movements are also a way to quickly reach the concentration of meditation. Our body is an efficient way of communicating with our mind.

thoughts, feelings ignite fire

Thoughts and feelings inevitably arise during meditation. I notice most of them without them affecting me any further. However, some are persistently attractive, perhaps have a connection to my retreat or touch deep layers, both uplifting and depressing. In any case, they begin to disturb my concentration and they are too strong for me to simply let them go. I call them ‘fires’.

I make a note of these fires immediately during meditation in a short voice memo on the smartphone lying next to me. This allows me to let go of them, including the memory of them. It is important not to fuel the fire with the note. A short note is enough to remind me of it again later.

Such fires are valuable windows onto my true nature, whether I realise it immediately or not. I therefore keep a brief journal during the retreat in which I note them and other perceptions, including those outside of meditation. Writing this down helps me to remember and record additional aspects that I may not have realised in the moment. I am careful not to sink into interpretations or analyses, let alone start researching the topics somewhere. All of this would create structures in my world that could spill over into meditation and thus block new things. Retreat is being and perceiving with equanimity. Everything else can follow afterwards.

prerequisites

You should only consider a retreat if you already have a lot of experience with daily meditation and feel the need to deepen this path for yourself. ‘Experience’ means

• that you can ‘sit’ for a longer period of time (an hour or more) without physical pain, and
• that you are already sufficiently ‘familiar with yourself’, i.e. you already know your superficial egos and scenes well.

If you do a retreat without sufficient experience, there is a danger that you will cement your egos with their scenes and even create some new ones. In doing so, you block your true path, perhaps forever, instead of opening it up.

To gain such experience, you are sure to find appropriate groups in your area, e.g. for Zen meditation, Qi Gong, Tai Ji,…, but also for Christian and other meditation, whatever attracts you. Perhaps the introduction to the departure points, as well as the exercises there and in a way will also help you.