Contemplative Retreats | Dec 2023 Mindful Q&A W/ Wendy N #15

In this fifteenth installment of the ongoing live series with Wendy Nash inquiring into meditation practice on and off the cushion we explore meditation retreats both from our lived experience and otherwise including formally, informally, attending, teaching, what to look for, what’s important, what happens internally and externally, and how retreats “change” us and the world around us.

Transcript

Vintegrating presence and today we've got Wendy Nash again with me.

Wendy,

How's it going?

Good,

Good.

I'm on Gubbi Gubbi Country in Queensland,

Australia on the east coast and my cat is just next to me so I apologize in advance if my cat gets a bit grumpy.

She gets easily startled so she's right next to me and we're good.

It's warm,

It's tropical and I know that in the US and in the northern hemisphere it's not tropical at all.

So yeah,

But good.

I'm in a somewhat warm car here looking like a homeless person or something but due to the place where I live out in the sticks there's no internet so I'm at a park just for people wondering what the hell heck is going on with Josh in the car doing this.

So yeah,

Here I am and today's topic is about meditation retreats and it is a little chilly here but not too bad here in Missouri,

Somewhat rural Missouri.

So we thought we would just start off at the beginning of meditation retreats talking about our first meditation retreat experience.

I'm going to throw it right back to Wendy so then I can gather my kind of memories and thoughts on my own and then maybe we'll talk a little bit about the recent retreats that we did so we can catch up a little bit and feel free to add in comments and questions as we do this.

Yeah,

So just about the comments,

Feel free to put in comments or ask us questions or in any place that is possible during the live.

So just as a heads up on that because I will see them and respond to them so it's great to do that.

So my first retreat gosh it's 2003 it was an eight days end retreat so I went from doing kind of no retreats at all to an eight day like that was the first residential retreat I guess I said.

There was a one day retreat I did and it was mindfulness in the morning and then loving kindness in the afternoon.

Have you had a meditation practice at that point?

Did you have a practice?

No,

I just sort of check.

I'm not like that.

I just thought okay I'll just give it a go and I'll try it and actually I did it and then I didn't come back to meditation for a few years so it was probably before 2003 and I got to the end of the loving kindness meditation and he said the teacher said oh how did you go and I stuck up my hand and I said wow I didn't realise I hated everybody.

So it was a good mirror for me because it meant that I didn't feel any peace and love at all but I did see that I was the problem.

So that was really good and that it was up to me to change my attitude because I just didn't like anybody.

So that that was really useful to know but in terms of my I think then a few years later I was a bit ready and I I went on an eight day Zen retreat and I didn't know anything about Zen,

I didn't know about meditation,

Buddhism,

I didn't know any of that and I was just going to go in my gear and stuff and I was really unprepared and they said wear dark clothes because it's Zen it'll help you feel in place.

I didn't have a meditation things I didn't have an it was camping so I wasn't used to that and I went and I was how would I describe it I became sort of aware I just got really tired and I and I started skipping sessions actually and then the teacher said put out the message to one of the assistants to make sure I was first in queue for the retreat.

I was banging and crashing in the kitchen you know I'm supposed to help out I was angry and they should have done this and they should have done that all this stuff.

Anyway so I I was really angry I got home and I was talking with somebody at work she was a temp and she said something like oh you know you're not a nice person or whatever it is and I said you do know who I am don't you like but it was like do you know who you're speaking to it was I think I said that and I had this I was going in therapy at the time and I was and I had my therapist said I said oh my god I feel my ego is huge it's absolutely enormous and she said yeah I want to punch you on the nose.

I was really really full of my own self-importance and it wasn't that that was a problem it was that it was the first time that I saw it so it was good for me I really wanted to see where I was going wrong so all this all this these retreats helped me see that I was the problem and I had a lot of grandiosity and so that's what was coming up because that's what was there and yeah so that was just in terms of my first one I remember getting to the paddock I remember getting there and thinking it's a paddock and why is everybody saying it's really beautiful and then as the week went on I was like wow it's so beautiful so it was just transforming in that way and the other thing that happened is that my capacity to see trees changed so in the beginning it was just like just bush and then I started to be able to really see the trees because the zendo which is the meditation hall had windows looking out and so I was able to see it as the week went on and and became very curious to me that how much my mind changed because nothing in the outside world had changed it was only in me that this was happening so that that was really good and I actually met that meditation teacher a couple of years ago and you know I'm so much more chilled and I'm not angry anymore and she said yes you are a testament to practice so because she saw me that one bang crash I was angry I was always angry I went to loving kindness meditation not long after that it was a four day one and I was banging and crashing and I was so angry it was a loving kindness meditation I was just angry angry angry that was how I was so that was me at the beginning on my retreats.

That's beautiful and that's what loving kindness can do it actually brings up the things that need to be seen and purified oh yeah there was a oh yeah lots of messy stuff coming up when I first started doing that.

So the people in America that what is a paddock?

I should probably know that what does that mean?

Oh so a paddock is you know it was just how do you say that like a farm enclosure but it's not enclosed it's it's like a just grass if you a field in a farm what do you call a field in a farm?

Yeah that's it like a yeah a field in a farm yeah like where cows graze and animals you know roam around and graze fenced in area yeah yeah but there's no fence and there's no cows so okay so just like an open uh yeah field uh yeah yeah I guess a field is another way of saying yeah yeah and that's cool how your consciousness expanded basically right I mean to be able to see literally see something with your physical eyes that you couldn't see before yeah I mean we can notice we can see the the expansions in consciousness happen on retreats I know so my and then the other key distinction that I wanted that when you say you are the problem right so this is in context that I'm guessing that you always thought it was somebody else that was doing it somebody else was the problem right is that what that's what you mean right before that or yeah like I was angry all the time they did this and they did that and they were this and they shouldn't have done this and that's right people were like one woman uh a friend of mine she later became a friend and she said she worked with uh soldiers from the departments of veterans affairs so and she she worked so and she said she was not scared of many people but she was really scared of me I had this really uh volatile anger um that was just reactive and unpredictable and wow I was I mean I never physically hurt anybody but I had a lot of I spoke very ill to people yeah the reason I I chuckle here because I was in the same position you know I was uh in in the workplace where I was doing you know one of the most senior people they're doing one of the most low-level things and I was completely I mean you know this is ridiculous I shouldn't I'm I'm way above this I can't believe that they're making me do that you know this you know the self-righteous kind of thing and it's exactly where I need to be then you know and yeah blaming everyone pointing the finger at everyone you know now we this is this this bully this kind of victim victimizer thing we've talked about so many times and a lot of other people on the other end of this you know little me right oh it's always my fault I'm I'm to blame for every so it's it's the reverse so it's the the counterpart to what Wendy and I are talking about and I even see that more with meditators right even more oh I can never do and you know I'm always wrong you know it's always my fault this thing so it's an interesting balance but we're talking here about retreats and so mine's quite a little bit different story I had a practice on my own daily committed practice which is really rare on my own without a teacher other than a lot of YouTube videos and I've told this before but I think the first time I went I think I've told this before but I had a yoga teacher and she just came back came into yoga one week and she just seemed really kind of calm and peaceful and blissed out really and then really genuinely happy and I was like well what happened to her and she she told us about this meditation retreat that she did at mid-american buddhist association and uh you know and the only place really around and it's a unique thing because it's partially chon and it's partially theravada and so there was a weekend sashin which is basically a zen you know weekend retreat and I went there and I had I had these all these different romantic ideas about what a monastery was and what retreat was and but I also had my kind of weirdness and strangeness and doing the things I want to do in my way so when it came time for walking meditation I went outside and I took my shoes off and went barefoot and nobody else did that right and I was trying to find a patch of ground but there really wasn't any level ground I mean they let me do it I got a little you know some weird stares and things like this you know but I went through with it and I think the the the other week-long retreat I actually did in real life was there too and I don't think anything out of the ordinary happened too much because I had you know a really steady practice at that point you know it was more about oh look at all the books and these teachers here and learning about different asian cultures and oh wait a second I'm not supposed to point my feet I remember reading the re the the retreat things and it's it's disrespectful in asian culture to point your feet and being like a hillbilly from the country right I didn't I didn't know anything about this and so I was always I was overly hyper aware of which way my feet were pointing almost to ridiculousness and I do remember the noble silence though was really profound you know I like to talk and but communication doesn't stop right there is this continuing communication but on non-verbal levels and all the different ways we're communicating non-verbally become heightened and yeah it's amazing what I'm seeing in other people's body language that I don't normally see you know it's it's amazing that was some of the big things that stood out so we have we have a comment here and then I want to ask Wendy what are some of the um you know what are some of the common things that you wanted to know before you went on retreat or or did you you know and yeah so what we got here when I just didn't know what to expect or um where to to go with it or I I just was like okay well I'm gonna go and I'm a bit like that I just jump in and then figure out um figure out what to do later I'm a real that's how I am so yeah.

I like doing that too you know I usually have a plan A at least when I'm traveling or something which by the way we'll talk about meditation practice leading a nomadic lifestyle or when traveling too I think it's a really important part of practice that's our next show next month um but yeah you know just jumping in I mean that's some people would never do that you know they wouldn't even go to a new restaurant unless they read the Yelp review you know online reviews about it when I heard that I was like are you kidding me is that a thing people won't just go try something new without you know reading the reviews and things I mean yes we try to vet people and teachers and things like this but what about just being spontaneous uh every once in a while you know.

Yeah so yeah so in terms of more recent retreats how do you feel um now that you've been doing so how long have you been going on retreat for?

Well hang on I want to read um uh M Reid's comments here real quick she says hi Wendy your voice is much calmer and pleasant than months ago so yeah definitely well interesting so Wendy I think she just talked about uh this is a long time ago but I I see that too I mean Wendy's even gotten yeah even more so she continues to be I mean the the loving kindness practice speaks testaments you know um and then she's in Reid says a testimony to it thanks and she says she might go to Toastmasters uh all right well I still I'm still intrigued by this group uh and maybe we'll get a Toastmaster update from um Wendy later however I don't know I don't so you asked me so I was just sort of in response to M Reid and just kind of going yeah I guess we all have our good days and our bad days and often what you and I experience is a lot of technical stuff.

You're so humble Wendy.

We have a lot of technical stuff that goes on and I do get agitated by that and oh always you know so much um material to work with and and you know it's we're such a work in progress there's no final place you know that's the that's the thing you know and um and how boring would that be you know yeah if it was all sorted all the time that would be pretty boring yeah so I think I think you know just I think often maybe what my the changes in my voice are more to do with my general sense of irritation with the technicalities because it's not working and faffing about and things like that so that's definitely I've still got plenty of material to work with don't you worry about that it's coming up to Christmas and I just yeah it's not my favorite time of the year so there you go.

Yeah well and it's technicality has been good so far I mean this new computer helps a lot so I mean it was going on a 10-year-old computer so maybe that has something to do with it but okay so now back to the the question you asked me about now what do I look for now on retreats right is is is that what you you said yeah what's your experience now on retreat so when you you know what makes you want to book one retreat not another sure what makes you what's the experience like of it how do you feel now that you come afterwards so you know what's your experience if you compare it sort of before and after so all those years ago when you started and now what has changed in your in in that.

Good point and then I think this will be a good segue to go into our current retreats and and share about those as well so yeah right away well I'll just I won't say too much about the recent retreat I went to but I was overseas and there was a short time window so it was a convenience you know of what I had so there wasn't much available now quick side note I've heard some people similar to you but also never haven't done any meditation go into a 10-day Goenka retreat and for those of not familiar this is a super intensive as far as I know right I haven't I haven't done one retreat where you're pretty much meditating 12 hours a day and it's pretty intense from what I understand I haven't done one I and I was on a wait list for one but did or for or considering getting on a wait list but they were they were filled in the UK so what I the the retreat I went on I didn't know the teachers you know I didn't know them from Adam and who they were big students of another guy who I had chosen deliberately not to go into his teachings in order to have zen mind beginner's mind right and yeah I won't I won't say too much I can answer specific questions if asked about this but the the whole thing oh so so there's the there's different sides to retreat right we've got the food that's the biggest thing I think when you're on the retreat and you're keeping precepts so for those that don't know a lot of Buddhist retreats are you take at least five precepts if not eight so there's you know there's there's little distraction you're put in a situation where you're not able to really run away or distract yourself a lot and so food becomes like the especially in the Theravada you get like one big meal a day you get breakfast a lot of times and then then maybe a little short meal in the evening or a little snack or something sometimes depending on what it is or whatever so it's interesting to see the mind work around that too and center the day the the the life other than meditation around the food and then we've got the basics of sitting walking standing lying down right and you know there is there's just a basic kind of cookie cutter thing where it's it eliminates distractions then you've got the room set up right either you have a roommate or yourself and this is a standard living situation how do we live how do our preferences clash with others but more or less you're just on the cushion right and walking so to me it's obviously the facility the facility itself and how it's run and the teachers are another big thing so we don't need much as far as facility this is not a spa you know when and then let's just get clear what a meditation retreat is it's not just a thing where oh i'm just gonna go you know sit a couple hours of extra meditation a day i'm talking about a formal meditation retreat where everything's put aside and you know that's all you're doing basically now the other thing is cell phones so this recent retreat i had it off for six the entire time they have a ritual sometimes around putting your cell phone in a sealed bag and they go you turn it in in front of everybody and the teacher i didn't do that but i did keep it off voluntarily in my room the entire time and i haven't done that for years so i think actually that might be the biggest thing for most people you know this this lack if you're actually doing that cutting that off so that was one of the most interesting things too but yeah basically you just want um you know a clean room it doesn't have to be you know excessive um the the food if the food's good you know um and accommodations if things run well if it's managed well everything goes smoothly right but um that's that's one thing and then the teacher i think that the teachers and the teaching if they are giving dhamma talks during the retreat are very important because the mind becomes very malleable very uh open very flexible uh wide open so if you're not resonating with the teachings that are coming when you're doing intensive meditation practice it can be agitating and annoying and then distracting i find so it's very important that you i think that you're familiar with the teachers and that you want to be there or you use that as a practice too so i found myself actually going towards the four noble truths so the things i uh there's a lot of things that i weren't aligning with with the teachings at all and my mind was seeing into other deeper things and of course there was some doubt but there was also some some questioning you know but there was an opportunity not opportunity to do that we did have little group interviews that's another thing so maybe wendy can talk about interviews on retreat i think are very important as well so there are several different dynamics around this i think as the practice grows and enrichens um and enlivens there are uh all these different avenues in retreat and the one that go if something's really off it'll stand out a lot you know it's kind of about harmony and balance among these things but um as the rich inner world increases then you know how do we keep from uh wandering too much away from the core of practice itself uh into all these other things um and how much do we investigate and not you know how much trust do we have in the teachers and the teachings and the practice and how much do we not so i i'm kind of dancing around a lot of things here but i think that's a kind of a slight overview to to go into um what i look for when i when i go on meditation retreat you know yes so um what do i it was as you were speaking i was thinking what do i look for a how the cost because you know there's a reason why it's called the upper middle way you know it's like you have to be so rich to go on these these retreats i mean i don't know how much they are in the u.

S and but here they're like a thousand dollars for a week and it's a lot of money and then you're on top of that you've got dana the generosity practices and you've got transport to get there and you lose income so i'm self-employed so i lose income during that period it's just for the wealthy you know it's it's maddening um how much it it's expensive and then there's that question about well we we offer to people who are in need and then well what does what does uh that mean you know does that mean i mean i i don't have to pay for rent but i don't have you know a huge great big fat income either so i find that that that's a real hindrance and there's a lot of there's a lot of discussion about that in terms of race because if you uh have a lower income you just can't afford it and then it means that people who aren't white who have those higher paid paying jobs don't go on the retreats and it's part of the exclusionary sort of mechanisms about it all but so that's that's one thing is is price where who so i'll i'll be aware of i'll look at who um and i'll look at the tradition uh definitely um and yeah and and whether i'm part of that group or not so sometimes i'm part of a group here where i am here now in Caboolture there's there's no nothing and even in Brisbane which is just an hour away i asked if there are retreats there and the answer is no there is a group but they meet in the evening a lot of things have shut down over at COVID um yeah so i would say that's what i look for in terms of my experiences now what i i thought when i started the retreat so as we were driving up to the first retreat the zen one that i was talking about before i asked them you know what is what what's the retreat like for you and she said well it changes every time and i didn't understand that because i was like well you're not doing anything so how can it be different every time and now i understand that every retreat is different because my what's going on in my mind is different so that has been a big thing and i have found some now when when it goes awry the teacher says something that i don't agree with i i always bring it back to well i don't like them and what is it like to not like people and what is it about me how how do i feel when i don't like people and what am i struggling with so i was on retreat a couple of months ago and i just went straight into this awakened first day straight into this awakened mind for four days it was fantastic and i got back up on the questioning thing because that was at the at a question time and then four days later i was really reflecting on it and i wanted to share this great insight and she clearly in hindsight i think she just thought i was very conceited i had gone into this very conceited space and she just cut me right down and so i then i then was kind of reeling from that experience not only in the in the seat like in the interview i was at the front in interview between two people and then i just got somebody had had come on retreat with a cold and i got that cold because i was fully compromised in that space which caused a whole lot of problems so if you have a cold don't go on retreat because it's it as it happens the woman who i was sharing my room with who i could have easily given the cold with we had to get the whole place in you know infected and all the rest but we had to but she actually was going into a household where somebody was immunocompromised so it had huge implications actually so don't do that um and but what was really clear is i was in this heightened state and i was unwell and i was determined to stay to the end even though i was mostly in my room i thought no i'll go to the end and then i as soon as i got on the bus to leave on the last day i just started feeling better so what was very interesting about that experience is when i became unwell it was really very clear that i just wanted to get out of the place and that was my body doing its thing to tell me no you don't go there this is not a safe place for you so it's very interesting to look at it from that perspective and i was thinking about you know teachers where i haven't felt it's gelled but there aren't that many retreats and i want to go back so i thought next time i'll actually write them in advance and go look this was my experience with you last time i'm not sure whether i would want to come back this is this is my experience and depending on the reply i get i would or wouldn't go on retreat with them so i think with with teachers there's they are in the process of self-inquiry so i think it's okay to it's not a finale and if they say no this is your problem where you go yeah okay that's time out i'm done so that says more about them than it does about you so that that would be my experience that's brilliant that's a really good idea if there was some some kind of um something going on definitely yes email the teacher and see what they say about that i think that's a fantastic idea of considering to to return or not with that that teacher absolutely um now uh wendy when you were talking the the other question i had so you you were doing interviews in front of people like they put uh no what did you mean uh when you did interview how did that yeah so um on the first zen retreat that i did way back in 2003 uh that was in a private room and that was just the student and teacher but lately i've been to a few and what they do is they do inquiry practices at the front i mean you have those private conversations too just to check in everybody does it usually every second day but if you have a particular question then you can go up to the front you can they do an inquiry at the front and then everybody hears that and uses that it's a device it's a teaching device and i think it's a really good one definitely yeah so it's kind of like a group q a yeah yeah in a way yes very good yeah because we had we were in smaller groups i forget how many it was two four six eight maybe in the group with one of the teachers and there was a rotating schedule uh about this group and that was just a group interview there was no one-on-one interviews i guess it was so large the one i went to that they didn't have enough staff for that and but we got them too many teachers though so um well we're ready over time here um the only other thing i think i wanted right are we no no no we're only half an hour in that's right i keep thinking we we started the bottom hour great because i wanted to go into what if we were teaching retreats now um disclosure here i have done a very tiny little retreat uh at someone's house that i have led uh in someone's backyard during uh the um the fall i think the fall month or it was it was the temperature was enough to sit outside by a fire and we did do it was actually like a quarter day retreat you know it was several hours i've got it documented on my blog anyway of sitting and walking so i'm glad i had this experience you know so what i did is i did do a disclaimer obviously um or not a disclaimer a waiver right a liability waiver um so you know this is this is important in some instances too so make sure all the legal things are there and insurance if there's you know not so everything yeah besides all the the business end of it and of course i work on donation basis and let me actually backpedal a little bit to winnie's main point about fundage you know and since i don't make much on my uh my website i i don't have and since i do everything is from the spirit of generosity for me it's a little bit different so i don't have as many qualms as saying telling them what i do and this is you know this is what i do so this is a training for me you know i can contribute in other ways now most of the places that i did sign up they do have sliding scale but yeah there is this kind of kind of shame or blame or you know what is this low you know why is it to me uh to me what is the best way to go about that you know this it's called sliding scale right based on income but how do i thought the the organization i did fairly well so you can get like half price retreat no questions asked you know and i just told them that's what i did and they didn't so but then you could get a further discount but it was another process involved so i just did you know the first one uh and because of my situation and it went really smoothly it wasn't i didn't have to fill out anything like that you know i didn't feel less than or more than doing it i said okay this is a situation basic now there's all kinds of complications involved so i would like to know if there's a better way of doing this than some organizations do it some don't do it at all some do it i guess better than others i don't know if anybody does it perfect or if that's a you know not perfect but what's the best way to go about this now i've heard of go inca stuff which i think is really admirable they won't even it's all free it's completely donation based and they won't even this is the kicker though they don't apparently don't even accept donations until you set a retreat for free first which i don't think of any other organization i've ever heard of does that so that way there's i mean that lessens the corruption i would imagine so i think that's a really good thing um so yeah so wendy what would you can uh what kind of things would you need to know or want to know about leading your own retreat too and or what would you um kind of questions you would ask to to find out what's needed for that and would you consider maybe i'll put you on the spot here would you consider leading a retreat you know and what what would you need to make that happen so i've done one diploma in meditation teacher training and i've completed that and they're very clear it's we were allowed to do i think a weekly class drop-in or something like that um and i i didn't do that i did a we we had to write a program for it but we didn't run it so there was no practicum with it i'm doing a second one now with tara brack and jack cornfield which is much better organized and led and held i i have appreciated what i have learned i find it very structured and it's given a lot of yeah it's helped me in my own inquiry so i have actually gotten a lot out of it it's quite expensive but i i personally feel that it's a good course if you are interested in doing it and it doesn't allow a person to be what they call a dharma teacher so you're just strictly a meditation teacher and you learn how to do a talk and you have to in the practicum you have to do six a minimum of six students six people in a class and you do it for four to six weeks i think or a one day so you can you can either do mindfulness classes or um you can do a drop-in which is harder because you need to get feedback and things like that or a one day and they provide all the course material this is what you need to this is the program that you can follow if you wish and then all you need to do is basically fill in the blanks you know what do you want to teach on a particular day it's very good because it it records it gives you the capacity to gain confidence with teaching so i have already led i spend a year um giving teachings in for two hours a class so i do i lead a two-hour class and it has got a talk some guided meditations it's very interactive with just one or two people some friends that i that i have come to know acquaintances and now friends um and my partner comes so it's four of us three or four of us at a time it's very intimate which is very nice because i'm still i'm very much learning this game of not game process of of teaching meditation um so that i just i did that every second month and for three till 5 p.

M on a saturday next year i will step it up and i will do it every sunday afternoon every one one sunday a month because it's quite time consuming to write talks and and everything i have insurance so i can do that um and i do it all dana based and it's such an intimate group people are quite generous with that um i'm even at the end of this two-year training that i'm doing with tara bracken jack cornfield i'm not allowed to call myself a dharma teacher and they said i am not allowed to lead retreats so a one-day course is what you can do anything overnight you're not allowed to do i'm not allowed to to lead that and i think that's very wise because i've seen some people really go crazy on retreat not so much on a two-day one but you yeah i think you need much more support than what this course provides um if i were going to go on and become a dharma teacher or lead retreats i would i would seek uh some kind of support in that process but for me in my little community this is actually really good because i i do very basic stuff it's very applied and and people here it's it's not a it's not an intellectually oriented community it's i'm not in a university i i i'm in a suburb where there's a high level of um trades people who who live here and um we're actually in what's called the ninth centile for social disadvantage in australia so nine in ten australians are more more have some more social advantage than us so it's a very small number of people that who would be interested in the first place and it's a very but a lot of people want to do it but i can't be wafty and they wouldn't go on retreat they've got kids and jobs and that's never gonna work here so that's that's where i feel i'm i'm best placed for where i am very cool and that's it's kind of more practical like zen to imagine and but you write the talks huh you write the talk wow that's quite an undertaking wow do you do you publish them later wendy i haven't done that i haven't done that how many talks have you got you can put them on your website i'm amazing you spent all that time i think well that's cool hey and you mentioned uh it also reminded me of oxford so i think we talked before the show there was an oxford cue in there do you remember now what you wanted to say so keep that in mind but then the other thing was um um so okay you get this accreditation from the jack cornfield tara brock and um but let's say you did want to go on to so but you just can't say that i'm approved by them to do you know to teach a uh you know overnight retreat you can say i have this accreditation but you can't say i'm approved by them to do this right i mean they can't like you don't have to sign some kind of non-disclosure agreement so you can never ever do that until we tell you you can right just to make yeah so they did have a legal thing you are not allowed to use this and say that you are a dharma teacher you are not allowed to go on and do retreats so that that would be i mean i think lawyers would come back at you if they sure you know because you can really cause harm yeah well i totally get it but like let's say years down the road you wanted to do that uh you would have to get their personal approval before you could is that is that not the dharma teachers that's different but i mean just a retreat in any tradition you know well anyway i it would i would have to look at the legal stuff anyway i don't need to put you on the spot about legalese but i'm i i get the wisdom in it and at the same time you know um that what what i thought would actually be a building block towards something like that seems almost like a hindrance now you know in a way i mean right i mean no i not i wouldn't say hindrance but i mean if you wanted to lead retreat you know just either something on your own or in another tradition i think you would still be able to but you just couldn't say that they allowed you to do it or you yeah anyway i sorry i should have digging myself i think i think it's always really when it because you're dealing with people's mental health you may or may not know the person who's here who's come even my friends my acquaintances and friends i one of them alluded last time now we've been doing it for a whole year and she alluded last time that there was some deep childhood trauma we were doing forgiveness practices so i said start with the light stuff you know someone who i don't know cut you off in traffic or nicked your coffee cup or didn't pay an invoice start there don't go into deep deep stuff big stuff because you don't want to derail and if you're in a big retreat you need to have a team you need to have support you need to be aware of the impact of it yeah it's just it's it's important to be judicious and recognize your limitations there are too many people who are going out there and just doing weird stuff uh and i think they're causing a lot of harm i totally agree you know and then we throw people that are into plant medicine in there and you know it works really well for some people and other but there's just so much and i can't speak to that because i've never done that but i mean that's a direct substance and you know it's it's it's challenging enough without any substances involved so but i mean you know i just for for a few more minutes here you know i i'm curious now what would that look like you know if if you are you are and or i would want to go into or look at something like that in the future maybe even just a weekend you know so i think to consider we have to look at the the number of people involved yeah if it's a huge facility obviously i mean that's that's i mean starting small here um i think maybe um volunteering under a teacher or are just running as support staff for something like that or i don't know this word shadowing i don't really like that word but i mean um you know being there as an assistant or our trainee um also you know i i just um i think this this the the model you're using is great too just close associates or not associates i'm sorry close acquaintances and friends and then you know with trusted um vetted individuals that you know you really know each other and so i think that would be a good first test that's kind of what i did too with this this mini micro retreat i did and yeah um so i'm i'm thinking about you know what kind of extra training is needed uh what kind of uh boundaries and barriers need to be placed uh in any kind of safeguards extra training you know um and you know i don't think there really is a college course on i mean yes there there are accreditations for things like this but you know in the dharma world from what i understand you need to be have a dharma transmission right you have to be approved by a ready accredited dharma teacher to be a dharma teacher yourself and i don't have any you know i don't have any um aspirations to do that because i don't even consider myself a buddhist right um and i'm a little bit um a rogue in the sense too because i don't have any formal teaching training as of now my accreditation comes that i am open to questions and criticism always without me doing the same to someone else unless they are okay with it but so that's how people can keep me in check right i mean i don't know if that's helpful or not but that's that's the way it is and it it helps me with my own practice too and um to see that i'm on the right track and i like wendy said i'm dealing with very small clientele as well so at this point so it's not like we're we have potential massive uh opportunities for abuse and going off the rails here with like guru culture and huge communes or something like that so yeah so what comes to mind wendy i was just gonna say in terms of teaching i um i started teaching i did these courses because i had friends who were saying you really need to teach you would be you you really need to share this and learn how to teach so that was why i did i wasn't i think you do have to question what is it that motivates you to teach because and and when when people are going no you really need to do it and they say it for several years then then i think you're probably ready but i think to to do that because you want to and you've got this amazing stuff i think that's a really bad marker of that before we go because we're heading up to our last 15 minutes i wanted to talk to you about oxford and and yes before before you get into that i'll just lead this by saying yeah i don't really have much uh inclination to go up there and teach dhamma during a retreat but i would love to sit with people and if they wanted meditation instructions to to sit continuously throughout a certain time period i would love to be there maybe energetic support doing something like that but yeah teaching on on higher levels of speaking no i just just the practice that's uh but so and that's really good guidance i think that could be extended into politics too anybody that wants to be a politician shouldn't be allowed to be no i mean i'm joking a little bit but yeah so so just on that slight aside um it was actually quite funny because the our federal treasurer so i think the finance minister for the country happened to be up here it's an election a state election next year so he was here and doing his thing with you know doing the promotional thing anyway i told him my company my company is called kindly cut the crap and so i got a photo of me and him with my cup he loved it i actually got one done for him with yeah with sort of a little personalized message just for him that's great what a good sport yeah because he he just thought yeah i wish they'd do that in politics i'd go down and have that in my meetings and i could just put this cap at this cup on my knee he really loved that so yeah he'll probably probably be the next prime minister or the one after so yeah anyway so it's a digression cool wendy all right so oxford yeah so i i was living in oxford a few years ago in england and you know as an australian my parents are english and i thought i would be i'd lived in england for five years as a in london in my early 20s i was back there because my partner at the time got a job there i didn't particularly want to go but i i went because of him and i tried to make friends with the locals i couldn't i just found i couldn't figure out what what they were was important to them i couldn't even in the in the uh in the class in the meditation class we once a month i met these people and i would go there and there were like five people and then go home and and there was it was very uh i felt very alone very isolated very lonely uh it was really difficult i'd go to work i was working at the university of oxford it was very isolating i found it emotionally very very cold quite traumatic actually um and you know this is common for australians they go to england and they just go wow you cannot make a friend here i was going if the problem's me clearly because everybody else is doing that i think they just are incredibly lonely they just don't realize it you know so i was sitting there and i was trying to make friends with people i couldn't do it so i thought okay let's turn this negative into a positive forever the lemons to lemonades kind of approach i'm going to say i'm on retreat and so i thought i'm going to go away whenever i can to retreats weekend week-long retreats and i will just study the dharma all weekend in the morning in the evening i will memorize verses and slogans and texts so that when i'm having a really bad time with somebody at work i will just do that and apply it and and i thought it's a different sort of way of thinking about retreat but it's a daily life retreat thing and um so just you don't necessarily have to go away i didn't have a lot of money and i i didn't know anyone and it was very hard but i was in a situation and i just flipped it on its head and said i don't need to go to a retreat i can say this is retreat it's not that different and deal with the difficulties of my life on retreat and i knew and because i'd done so much study during that time three years then i i just got i had some really good insights i learned a whole lot of stuff i was it was really a very useful process and i knew that one day i would come back to australia and i wouldn't have that opportunity so it was good to make the most of that opportunity and by flipping what does a retreat mean on its head that's beautiful too and you know i'm not a complete stickler for the formality of this too there's a formal retreat but then yeah we just think about this term in and of itself retreat it means to to i think it's actually a military term right to to take where your troops are and you retreat back from some place you you withdraw you go back a little bit and you go into more of a safety area where you can kind of build up and fortify and you know or yeah withdraw this kind of seclusion or renunciation renouncing things minimizing things so yeah there's all these other words that are images and things that come up around retreat there's a formal meditation retreat and then there's just this notion of retreating or being on retreat i know i was in a situation in my life for for several years where i just it was i lost pretty much all my old friends and i completely changed but it was for the better it was a transitional period i listened to hours and hours and hours of dhamma talks you know that's how i learned a lot of dhamma with a daily sitting practice too so i it's in in a similar way as well yeah this and how about these lockdowns that we had right the cope the the retreat that no one really asked for so i would say general swaths of the population now had a chance to experience things like wendy and i had that we had been training for in a way make perhaps before these lockdowns because i don't think wendy and i were any stranger to spending alone time in in contemplation or dealing with difficulties when by ourselves and not doing some a lot of superfluous things in life as well and yeah so this is this notion of retreat it is indeed a fascinating one some people are probably absolutely terrified of it they might think that it's like some kind of probationary period or being in jail or being forced there by friends and family maybe all the way into you know leading retreats and opening a retreat center and you know this is my life i want to do this all the time type thing so there's so much variation to this and i love wendy's thing of about this this malleable perception of taking you know these lemons turning them into lemonade so instead of just feeling defeated and i um i can't ever do anything right and what's the point of being down on oneself actually uses an opportunity to go deeper and uh not only help oneself and then by that uh i think by default those we come in contact with can be benefited as well yeah yeah for sure for sure you wanted to talk i think before we wrapped up about now what was it you were you said you were going to talk about one other thing yeah i thought we covered most of them oh i know it was it was the difference between living in a monastery and being on a tree that's right so i'll tease it a little bit here because our next show is going to be about nomadic uh lifestyles but this was this was a common thing people confused and they you know i told them i was going overseas and i was going to go stay at buddhist monastery and you know and they just i think i might have mentioned and i'm going to be doing a retreat too uh so i think it might have been my phrasing but they might have thought that i was going to do the retreat at the monastery but it was actually a separate thing at a separate place but yeah i'll go into more next time on what life is like at a buddhist monasteries the two that i stayed at for extended periods in the uk and i did stay a little bit at the one in in missouri but this short short summation here it's not a retreat although there is meditation and there are periods in portions of the year where there are extended periods that approximate retreat right and there's also the winter retreat that some of them have where they pretty much shut down but that's these are all different things but basically you do get to meditate in the morning and evening most days formally with others in a puja style setting but the rest of the time you're you're doing service work you're either in the kitchen or on um you know taking care of the grounds and other projects but you also have free time as well so we'll get into all that and we'll talk to wendy about her different experiences meditating in various areas of the world and in certain life situations and how it's changed over the years depending on what she's been doing too right yeah i think we can you go go ahead i would say we can even wrap up a little a few minutes early to go on though yeah i just a little bit on that so i when i moved back from oxford to uh australia i stopped for six weeks in a nunnery and i did think oh there'll be lots of meditation and stuff so there was none of that and i know we hardly even had any teachings there was a meditation hall there were a lot of mosquitoes so it was in india in the north and there were a million mosquitoes and some people get affected and some people don't but i definitely got affected um and it was really um i was happy to have it was more just a general decompression from the time in oxford to feel like i was back as being a human being as opposed to this lonely little person on my own but yeah uh it was and you know there was a a russian nun her name was yankee she thought it was very funny because she was like yankee as a russian she thought that was very funny and she was she and the the abbess were fixing up all the buildings and doing all this stuff and that's actually what what most of the people the the nuns who lived there that's what they did they were just doing all that stuff they had a couple of guys to fix up the gardens and things but basically it was free labor in fact ajahn brahm he says he wants to start a um a monk's union because about the labor conditions of for for monks because it's so terrible because you just have to work and work and work and you don't get paid you don't get anything you just have to do it so that's ajahn brahm's take on it but yeah i that that's me so well that's lovely yeah maybe we can talk even more about that and and things like that too on on the next show and i will say though it does it is a contrast so even though it is kind of hard work and that going back into society after living there i mean even just down the road to the garden center uh one places it's just like people are living like this what's going on i mean because there is so much more cohesiveness and order and calm and peace but you're you're you know going about your day but it's completely different than the world's you know it's it's pretty wild i was just i was just thinking when i i did a 28 six day very early on i think soon after the the eight day retreat i did a 26 day silent retreat not it's quite similar to the goenka but so that sort of thing and my friend came and collected me because i would i never drive in those situations after a treat because i just think i'm bound to have a collision and and these people i was going and then you go right here and then you turn left here they said it was like have somebody having somebody on acid because i was just and then you go over here and look at that over there and that person's day they just thought it was so funny it is completely different wavelengths than most people yeah yeah when it comes yeah all right well thanks very much to m reed for our covet sorry about we didn't we didn't uh i think maybe you've probably gone to sleep by now because wherever you are it's half you haven't been on for half an hour so uh thank you very much m reed for joining us and for josh i think it's been a great conversation it has i'm so glad we did this and uh catching up on a retreat experience is a big part of practice so may you all sit well and uh all the best of um retreats uh present and future to you and integration of the past ones bye now definitely bye