Use Retreats to Deepen Your Mindfulness and Teaching
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Welcome to the Mindfulness Exercises podcast, your space to deepen your presence, elevate your mindfulness teaching, and embody mindfulness with confidence, authenticity, and integrity. Join us as we explore insights and tools to transform lives, including your own. Hi, I'm Sean Fargo.

Today we're going to dive into maybe my favorite thing as a mindfulness teacher and also practitioner, which is the power of retreats. It's probably the most transformative practice that we can undertake as a practitioner or as a teacher. We're often seeking ways to deepen our practice and support others on their journeys, but

And while daily mindfulness practice is essential, there's something uniquely transformative about retreats, where we step away from the busyness of life and really fully immerse ourselves into a dedicated space for practice. So today I'd like to talk about a practice that's profoundly shaped my own journey into

and that of countless others. This practice of going on retreat, whether it's two days or three months, where I've done a couple of three-month silent retreats as a Buddhist monk. I was at Spirit Rock Meditation Center supporting tens of thousands of people going on retreats just about every week, and been on many one-week and two-week retreats, and

I would not be the same person I am without them. And as a mindfulness teacher, they're actually not as difficult to lead as most people think and are probably the most rewarding thing that I do. So whether you've experienced a retreat before or are curious about what they entail, retreats offer a unique opportunity to cultivate awareness

a deeper, more sensitive awareness. They help us to explore our inner landscape and find clarity in ways that are difficult to achieve

outside of retreats. So I hope you enjoy this episode. So without further ado, here we go. It'd be an opportunity for us to talk about something that's really important for us as mindfulness practitioners and teachers, which are retreats. I think in a perfect world where we all have the time and the resources,

We would do many retreats. Unfortunately, for a lot of us who are working professionals and parents, for those of us who have limited income and resources or certain trauma sensitivities,

Retreats aren't always possible. In my view, retreats are some of the more powerful trainings we can do for ourselves and for teaching. So today I'm going to be talking about my experience with retreats. In a way, I've been on retreats for maybe two and a half years of retreats.

formal retreat. I'll be talking about how they can be worked with to enhance our own practice and also our teaching to help others. For me as a mindfulness and meditation teacher, quite honestly, they're my favorite thing that I do. As a practitioner, I

and as a teacher. And so some of you may be called to lead retreats. Some of you may already be leading retreats. Some of you may be curious about whether you can lead a retreat or how you might lead a retreat. Some of you may be just curious about being a practitioner in someone else's retreat or leading your own retreat for yourself, which is also very valid.

So we'll be talking about many of these aspects today. My mindfulness practice started in Asia. I was doing business stuff, was traveling around Asia, ran into some Taoist masters and Buddhist monks and caught the meditation bug and found it fascinating that it was so simple, yet maybe the hardest thing I'd ever done. And that combination of simplicity and difficulty has always been

fascinated me. I found a teacher who I trusted, which I think is maybe the main criteria for, say, choosing a teacher. This element of trust. Do I trust this person? It may not be the most entertaining, may not be the best storyteller. Maybe they are. But do I trust this person? And largely for me, that trust is

based on whether they've walked the walk with sincerity. And are they teaching out of a sense of compassion? Or are they teaching, say, from the head because they think they know a lot? So I found a Taoist teacher who I could feel in my heart and trusted them because they had done a lot of practice. And once I had logged enough hours with them and sitting and discussion, practice,

He invited me on retreats in Northeast China. And so we went to various hermitages and temples for one to three nights at a time where I was invited to be a part of different communities and just practice, even though I didn't speak Mandarin and they barely spoke English. As many of you know, as mindfulness teachers, a lot of what we're teaching is

A lot of what we're transmitting is not solely in our words. Are we present? And are we meeting this experience with gentle awareness moment by moment without

say a harsh expectation or judgment. Easier said than done. And on retreats, you kind of learn this the hard way. When I first started doing these retreats in northeast China, I didn't really like the food. You know, it's not like there's Panda Expresses everywhere where you can get orange chicken every time or egg rolls. You know, to me, it seemed like boring food.

There are lots of mushrooms and I really don't like mushrooms. No TVs, no sports. You know, the beds are hard. Usually there's no pillows and, you know, soft blankies, teddy bears. You're kind of stuck. This morning I was with my daughter, my five-year-old daughter, and we're getting ready for to go to school. And, uh,

I said, Sasha, today I'm going to be talking with people about meditation, what it's like to go on retreats. And she said, what's a retreat? And I kind of gave her the simple gist of it. And she's like,

You're going to jail? Like, no, you're going to jail. What do you mean? Like, well, you can't go anywhere on retreat. Are they in trouble? I was a monk for a couple of years. And like in my second year as a monk, it felt like being in a monastery as a monk

in some ways, almost like quote unquote worse than a jail. And I've taught in prisons and I can go through this analogy a little bit more, but retreats are meant to limit our distractions. They're meant to help us understand our own minds. And if we're kind of always thinking about entertainment, if we're constantly listening to music,

If we have access to unlimited podcasts and dinners, you know, a lot of retreat centers don't serve dinner. If they do, it's a very, very, very simple dinner. Then we may be missing out on being with ourselves.

and tuning into the workings of our patterns, our mental patterns, and noticing what are my patterns. And it's extremely difficult, especially in the beginning, at least for most people, to remove distractions and have this constant

invitation to bring gentle awareness to each moment's experience. So when I was traveling around Northeast China with this Taoist hermit, it was very difficult for me to accept that lifestyle.

I would judge it as being boring, dogmatic, because there's different traditions that each temple or monastery or hermitage would follow. And it's like, well, it seems a little rigid, seems unnecessary. I would plan what I would do when I got back home. I'm going to go, when I get back to Beijing, I'm going to go to Outback Steakhouse. I'm going to meet up with certain friends.

Wonder how that girl's doing. You know, wonder what kind of movies are out. In some ways, I think what I was doing was kind of in this...

It felt kind of like romantic in a way to be in isolated hermitages and mountain ranges I had never heard of before. But there are moments in these retreats that felt extremely cleansing, illuminating, because as difficult as they were, if I just kind of sat with those fantasies, those judgments, kind of have a...

perspective of what my mind was doing in the midst of this very simple work. I would inevitably kind of reach the other side. I would have this gentle awareness of

of what my mind was doing, and then I would learn how to surrender to it. Understand, yes, that's what my mind is doing, but I don't necessarily have to believe these thoughts. I can sense into the suffering of that itself with a sense of gentleness and learn how to bring self-compassion to myself in those moments of

suffering and breathe and allow myself to feel these feelings and in a way just surrender to them without identifying with them and then be curious about what's coming now. And I start to feel a sense of freedom and agency since that I can choose to say not be a victim of this and

but I can choose how to respond. So it's not that retreats are inherently suffering, but if we remove all of our normal habits that we think that we need to be happy, we learn that we don't need all those things to be happy. Retreats aren't retreating from reality. They're retreating from, say, distractions or, say, problems.

how we've set our life up that enables a lot of distractions. But in a way, retreats are actually kind of the opposite. They're coming home to our hearts, to ourselves, where we shed some of the unhelpful patterns of our life because we start to see through them. We break various addictions of mind, or at least we start to unravel them a little bit. I like to read a quote

Rumi said, your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. One of the powers of retreats

is to sense into our patterns, our habits of how we might judge, how we might guard our heart from ourselves or from others. In my view, that love is already within us. It's not something we have to necessarily cultivate, although I believe in cultivating sense of care. But a lot of that is...

by noticing what gets in the way of that care, that joy, that sense of ease. So for a lot of us on retreats, we might need a couple boxes of tissues, maybe a teddy bear, maybe a good friend or a teacher who can remind us that we're okay, that any shame that comes up

can be met with care, that it's okay to cry, it's okay to grieve, it's okay to forgive. This is a lot of what happens in the first few days of a retreat for most people. It's kind of this difficult territory. It's not for everybody, but for most people, these first two to three days are the difficult journey of meeting

Some of the stickiness like, oh, I, you know, why can't I go anywhere? What am I doing? This place sucks. This teacher doesn't know what they're saying. I'm not good enough to do this. I'm not strong enough. This is boring. Can't wait to get out of here. And then usually after the second or third day, light usually comes and we start to find that freedom.

that I mentioned. Most is when Jack Kornfield talks about the Vipassana facelift that after several days of retreat, you know, if you have a before and after picture of retreatance, the before picture is like people are tired, they're exhausted, they're a little guarded, they're haggard, or they're scared. You know, after the third, fourth, fifth plus day,

oh wow, like open, they feel rejuvenated. They can't wait to live this way in the real world, so to speak. All things are simple. Things are clear.

So very in tune with the energy in and around them. But these retreats are what kind of convinced me to choose to become a Buddhist monk, where I was basically living on retreat for a couple of years. And each of those two years, there are three months of complete silence and just quietness.

full retreat mode. The other nine months of each year were dedicated towards cultivation of either concentration or mindfulness in different ways. And then after I was a monk, I worked at Spirit Rock Meditation Center for five years.

And went on lots of retreats there and supported retreatants there. One of the more common questions I get is, you know, how do you prepare for a retreat? One sound piece of advice is to try not to have any expectations because you don't know what's going to come. Every retreat is very different. Sometimes things from childhood comes up.

Sometimes, you know, if you think it's going to be difficult, sometimes it's the exact opposite and vice versa. But if you have expectations, then that might limit your ability to actually be present for the mystery of what happens. And quite honestly, that's one of the common hindrances to what it's like to be a mindfulness teacher. When we put on the teacher hat,

It can be very easy to think we know what's happening. We know what people are experiencing. We know what's right for them. This is what they should do. This is how I should be. And that can get very sticky very quickly. It's not to say that we can't trust our own wisdom or the wisdom of the practice. But if we start to have expectations,

We think we know what's coming that limits our ability to actually be present, teach with presence and care in meeting whatever comes together. So whether we're a practitioner or a teacher, it's very helpful to

Notice whether we have any expectations and see if we can soften them a little bit and see if we can open to or surrender to some of the mystery. What may happen or what is happening? And so Sharon Salzberg.

Talks a lot about this gentle awareness. I think that's her latest sort of definition of mindfulness. I haven't asked her that directly, but it seems like she's using that phrase quite a bit. Jack Kornfield and Ram Dass, he's loving awareness quite a bit. I like this sense of gentleness. As a practitioner, and especially as a teacher in retreats, it's really helpful to remind ourselves to

to be gentle. As retreats are already hard, can we meet that difficulty with gentleness? Some of you may be very fond of fierce compassion, which I am very fond of that. And I think that for most people, especially on retreats, a more gentle approach can be helpful because sometimes that ferocity can be a bit

much for some people when they're already going through withdrawals. So I think gentleness can be really helpful. Let's talk about, say, agendas of retreats and types of retreats for a moment. You know, there's usually no right or wrong for a retreat agenda or structure. I've seen many different kinds.

At Spirit Rock, kind of one of the leading meditation centers in the world. A lot of the top Western teachers teach there, but Thich Nhat Hanh is taught there and lots of esteemed teachers. Typically, they'll be between three to ten nights, usually. They have accommodation. I'm not promoting Spirit Rock, but I'm just sharing a common structure. But

The way they do it is it'll be three to 10 nights. You have breakfast and lunch and dinner. They're very, very simple, clean food. But you wake up in the morning and go to the retreat hall where you all practice together between 50 to 100 people with usually four or five senior teachers on hand.

You'll say meditate together quiet as the sun's rising, say at 7 a.m., give or take. And then there might be like oatmeal served in the dining hall. It's all in silence, except for teachers teaching from time to time. There usually will be a common theme around where to bring your awareness to, whether it's in certain parts of the body, heart,

um maybe cultivating love compassion joy equanimity forgiveness gratitude or generosity maybe it's cultivating concentration oftentimes there's mindful movement retreats where you bring mindfulness to certain movements and anyway so you'll do like a morning meditation then maybe go get some breakfast in silence

Maybe go back to your dorm, maybe take a shower, clean your room, go back to the meditation hall and sit for another 45 minutes. Maybe an hour of mindful walking where you can walk indoors or outdoors, paying attention to the sensations of the bottoms of your feet as you move. Go back to the meditation hall for another 45 minutes. You basically keep toggling back and forth between mindful walking

mindful sitting. Maybe you might have an afternoon interview with one of your teachers, either in private or with a small cohort, have another meal, another meditation. Maybe there's an hour-long talk to help you, support you at night where the teacher might share some wisdom, some stories, some support, another meditation, and then sleep.

You basically repeat that. Other meditation centers might have very unstructured time where you can kind of choose what you want to do. There's a meditation hall over there when you want it. There's a walking path over here under the redwood trees if you want that. You can be in your dorm and lay down and nap. There's a yoga studio. You can do yoga. I recommend home retreats.

where you create your own structure at home and tell your loved ones or your family, look, I'm going to be kind of in my room or in the garage or hotel or something for a little bit. I'm going to be limiting conversation to what's necessary. No screens, no books, maybe a journal just for a few bullet points each day, music.

Everyone has different takes on whether they allow music or screens or books or journals. Again, there's no right or wrong with this. My personal preference is to limit those things as much as possible. In many traditions, those things are called golden handcuffs. They're shiny and gold in the sense that they seem like they would be helpful.

They seem like they would be supportive of the retreat. It's a book on meditation. It's a journal about how I'm doing. It's music that's soothing. Again, there's nothing wrong with it. And if the intention is to understand the mind and to be as present as possible, and I'm not saying that's the best intention or the only intention, but if that's the intention,

then journals, books, music can handcuff you, like keep you away from exploring what the mind is doing right now. There was one retreat in particular I was doing. This was after I was in monastic. It was a, I think it was a two week retreat at spirit rock. And I was journaling a lot and I was like, wow, this is so profound. I'm like really, really,

uncovering so many truths here and learning so much. I might write a book on this. This is amazing. I can't wait to share this. This is great. And I brought it to one of my interviews with one of my senior teachers. They said, Sean, when you're writing this, how much are you in your head analyzing, thinking, figuring everything out? Or how much are you actually present?

in an embodied, open, heartfelt way. He's like, I'm so in my head. And usually, this is very common, usually for people, like when they leave the retreat, and then they go back to read their journals, a lot of people are kind of embarrassed. Like, I thought that was profound. Like, that seems so obvious, or self indulgent, or not saying that's always the case. But

But we can use these things, music, journals, books, as distractions themselves, even if they seem forward-leaning, leading. So just to be careful of that, notice, you know, am I using this to distract myself? Or is it actually part of the overall intention that I set for myself in this retreat? So they can be helpful if they're part of your four intentions.

intention but I generally prefer to limit those things because they tend to transform more by trying to be as present as possible which for me is harder and that's where a lot of the healing comes in one of the most under looked things for

practitioners and also teachers is that at the end of a retreat, we're usually extremely sensitive. We open our senses. We notice more nuance of what's happening inside us and what's around us. We notice sounds more clearly, smells. Our senses are heightened. We can taste things more clearly because we're really present.

Our hearts are usually a little bit more open. There's a sensitivity that's cultivated, whether we know it or not. And so when we leave a retreat and go back into society, big city, you know, back home, and we're met with so much stimuli and we notice different energies of people around us,

it can be shocking to our systems, to our nervous systems. And it's kind of like culture shock for many, most people. And so it's really important that after a retreat to try to buffer in as much time as possible in nature,

by oneself. It's important to have boundaries that if there's some very strong, overwhelming energy of people around us or, yeah, the energy around us that we take care of ourselves and we put up boundaries in a caring way. But we need to protect ourselves and to notice the workings of our mind after a retreat.

Because that can be just as valuable as what we noticed during the retreat. How do we relate to people that I haven't noticed before? How do I relate to my work that maybe I wasn't really allowing myself to notice, good or bad? How do I relate to myself in my house, in my neighborhood?

what comes up for me but remember that that sensitivity is normal that there should be a transition period after a retreat i say should but it's helpful if there's a transition period after the retreat that allows you some space to enter back into normal life slowly so that you're not totally overwhelmed and flooded and then um everyone's wondering

what's with them? No. I thought they just went on retreat and now they can't handle being back home. The first year is in a monastery where we woke up at, I want to say 530. And then the second year is like closer to

five or 430 or something. And I really disliked it. And I found it really helpful. You know, some of my more like delicious meditation sessions were early, early in the morning, I think partly because I didn't have that hindrance of like, flurry of activity in the mind, you know, it's more like on the slow side, but it was also like,

there was a sense of calmness and there can be a nice sense of peace, you know, before, you know, the city wakes up before the roosters crow before the peacocks or peacocking just kind of sense into the stillness of early dawn. So I think it can be very valuable in that way.

and can start help people start a habit of meditating first thing when they wake up, which is it can be a very valuable time for people's routines. You know, maybe wake up a little bit early before you have your coffee and wake up the kids and put on the, you know, work clothes or whatever, just to have some time to settle and

and to be before you start doing. Same for late at night as well. Similar, you know, it can be a great segue into sleep just to help you process the day. Notice what you're carrying in your, you know, your being. Practice being.

Settle. I keep threatening to do this, but as I said, like some of my favorite teachers are actually all my favorite teachers are very organic and they toggle between profanity and humor.

And again, they're not cracking jokes per se, but they can be very humorous and like something occurs to them that makes them laugh and they start giggling. And I love that. And I love like laughing and feeling super connected in the same meditation session. Those are like, we'll just repeat that on a desert island forever. One of my favorite books is a book called

food for the heart. And it's a transcription of teachings from an old monk master named Ajahn Chah. And Ajahn Chah was Jack Kornfield's teacher. He was my teacher's teacher. But he was basically this. But Ajahn Chah was very famous for being very organic. And he would not have anything planned.

And he was very direct. He had a sense of humor. But he would go into a session and not tell anybody, much less know himself, how long the meditation session was going to be. Or he would go into some teachings and not tell anybody or even know himself how long he was going to talk for. Sometimes it'd be five minutes. Sometimes he would have everyone there.

all night, like until 3am. And that was actually one of my practices as a monk was every like full moon and new moon, we would meditate until 3am. But with Ajahn Chah, it wasn't planned. It was just like, you have no idea what's coming. You might speak for five minutes and meditate for five hours, you might talk for 10 minutes, and then you leave. Zero clue.

And that was part of the teaching itself of uncertainty. Meeting each moment without having any expectation of what was going to come next. You might have hopes. Well, what does it feel like to have those hopes? Am I clinging to those hopes? So, you know, that was part of his genius in teaching is that there was no, say, expectation, right?

or like box that he would put his teachings in. It was very uncertain, which is kind of the whole point of mindfulness practice is to be able to be with uncertainty. Can I feel safe with uncertainty? Can I feel connected with uncertainty? And so that was like baked into his teachings and his leadership is like everything is uncertain.

I might send this monk to a different monastery and give him five minutes notice. I might say, okay, we're going to fast for three days with no notice. We might walk 20 miles over the course of three days with an alms bowl and an extra set of robes.

with no notice. I'm not saying that we all need to do these extreme things, but with retreats, I think it can be helpful to have kind of a structure. We're going to meet at this time, whether it's early or not. And sometimes we can surprise people

and bake that into part of the process if we feel like we're doing it out of compassion and not just to mess with people. You know, if there's kind of a purpose behind this and some gentleness around it, that we can kind of toggle between kind of adhering to form and breaking form as a sense of like growing to be able to be with uncertainty.

As we reflect on the retreat experience, it's important to recognize that retreats are not about retreating from reality. They're actually the opposite. They're about coming home to ourselves. They give us the space to shed distractions, meet our minds with brutal honesty, and explore the patterns that shape our thoughts, our emotions.

our behaviors. For those of you considering attending or leading a retreat, remember that each retreat is a journey of its own. It's an opportunity to let go of any expectations, to embrace the mystery of the experience, and allow whatever arises to guide your journey and your growth.

Whether you're on a structured retreat at a meditation center or creating your own retreat at home or at a cabin somewhere, the key is to bring gentleness.

and curiosity to the process by meeting each moment as it is. We open the door to this profound transformation that takes place. Even though it can be really hard, we usually feel much lighter and freer by the end. Not just during the retreat, but in the way that you approach life afterwards. Thank you for joining me in this exploration of the power of retreats.

Whether you're a practitioner or a teacher or someone just curious about the practice, retreats offer a profound way to deepen your connection with yourself and the present moment. If this episode resonated with you, we'd be grateful for a five-star review. And if you'd like to share mindfulness with others, please check out our Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification at MindfulnessExercises.com slash certify.

Until next time, stay present, stay grounded, and continue showing up with authenticity and compassion. Thank you for listening.