How To Prepare For A Meditation Retreat At Home

This past Insight Timer live event was for planning the half-day meditation retreat on September 20th, featuring three sessions over six hours, but much of it can be applied for meditation retreats at home. Participants can join for any duration. While flexibility is emphasized there's instruction and encouragement to create a conducive environment, manage distractions, and be mindful during activities.

Transcript

Okay.

Yay.

Yay.

Yay.

Not the Fonz,

But Josh here,

Josh Dippold.

So welcome to this retreat planning live here.

So grab yourself a tea,

Sit back,

Make yourself comfortable as you consider joining this retreat.

I bring up my notes here and don't know,

I don't see any kind of feedback that's going on here.

If anybody's well,

Regardless,

Yeah,

Something's going on with insight timer here,

But it seems to be working okay.

All right.

So we're talking about planning for retreat today for September 20th and the times are posted in the description of this,

And I can't really copy and paste them all.

So if you look for the description,

Basically there's going to be three different sessions for six hours total during the day,

It's a mini retreat.

And so this is in central European time,

So you just have to do the conversions for your time zone.

9am to 11am will be the first one.

And then the second session I'll have to go off,

Have a quick break at the end and I'll go over more detail of the schedule at the end here.

But the second session is from 11 to one and you can guess it.

The third session is from one to 3pm,

Again,

All central European time.

And this is an entirely donation based retreat,

Meditation retreat that I'm going to be doing here and it's going to be on just as basic four postures of meditation.

So we'll be sitting,

Standing and walking.

And so what do we need to do?

What kind of planning do we need for something this basic for just six hours?

Right?

Well,

You know,

I guess you can wing it.

And of course,

I can't tell people,

Oh,

You have to commit to the entire time.

No,

You work this into what you already have going on that day.

You're welcome to drop in for five minutes if you want to.

There's no way to reinforce this anyway.

It's just,

It's just like anything else in life.

It's how much you put into it is kind of how much you're going to get out of it.

Right?

So the first thing I think is the environment you'll be in,

Even though a lot of it has to do with her internal environment.

So a lot of it's going to be all,

You know,

How we are internally.

Give me one second here for whatever reason,

My notes aren't moving around like I'd like them to.

Okay,

Here we go.

So what you want to do though,

Is consider this space you're in,

Right?

The physical space you're in.

Of course,

Most of the work will be done on,

Oh my goodness.

Now my,

My,

I've done moved my notes too far.

This is wild.

Anyway,

This is going to be good enough.

So what do you look for when your space,

A lot of you probably have a dedicated meditation space anyway,

Right?

So it should be no big deal for the sitting part,

I'd imagine,

And the standing.

These don't require a lot of room.

So what you want to do is you want to find kind of an ideal space that you can be in for six hours,

Basically,

A roundabout,

Of course,

It's not going to be continuous unless you want it to.

And then standing,

You can stand right kind of near your cushion.

So that's no big deal.

Now walking space,

Ideally,

It's going to be 10 paces one way and then a place to pause and then to turn back around and go 10 paces the other way.

They call these meditation lanes and this is going to be done outside too,

Which,

Which is nice about it.

You don't have to be strict about the,

But you want to be safe,

Obviously.

So you don't want to obviously close your eyes when you're doing walking meditation.

You want to keep your eyes open,

Relaxed and downcast.

You don't want to be walking really weird out in public either and drawing attention to yourself and have to explain things.

So if you're out and just walking regular and you want to do that,

You would just pay attention to the sensations on your feet,

Pay attention to your body,

Or if you're okay with it,

You can pay attention to the breath as long as it's not interfering with your safety and mobility.

But ideally you would have a lane outside away from kind of,

You know,

A busy traffic place and you can just do like in a yard or something,

The standard traditional walking pace.

And this is where,

I know it's so cliche if you guys have done retreats,

It's like,

Don't just blow off the,

The walking meditation.

And I have to,

I'm totally guilty of that in a way,

A manner of speaking that it just doesn't seem like the real thing,

But there's actually quite a lot of benefit and it's actually takes a,

At least for me,

It takes more discipline and training to really go deeper into walking and be mindful and present where it has benefits,

But it's just like anything else,

The more you train at it,

The more beneficial and skill will build up with it.

And I will demonstrate some different types of walking techniques too.

Probably the Tai Chi walk,

Which is kind of the most unique one that I have,

And it's not as complicated as it sounds,

Once you get the hang of it,

The standard lifting,

Moving,

Placing,

And then there's things like just,

Like I said,

Paying attention to the sensations on your feet.

There's other ways to do walking meditation too,

That don't involve the body.

You can work with the,

The eyes,

The sense sphere of sight.

So we can notice of seeing and looking,

You know,

We can just,

You can just repeat seeing,

Seeing and just be aware that the visual field is happening without necessarily having to look at any particular thing.

And then when you are,

You do look,

You can notice,

Okay,

Looking is intentional and you can determine when you're looking and when just there's visual data coming in,

Just remind yourself of mindfulness of seeing,

Seeing same way with hearing and sounds and can switch to that too.

Yeah.

And then there's just a full body awareness to when walking.

So go into more of those in detail when we,

When we lead the guided walking,

Which will be a challenge in and of itself,

Because my space,

I have a place dedicated outside,

But if for some reason,

The weather is not cooperating,

I have a shorter place where I don't even have 10 paces to step in.

So that'll be a challenge to teach and practice in that space.

Totally doable though.

Don't need entirely 10 spaces for walking.

We won't be doing lying down meditation formal,

But of course you're welcome to do whatever posture you feel is comfortable on September 20th,

If you join.

So that includes lying down other than to just say there's two easy techniques.

One is to keep your knees in the air and lay on your back,

Constructive rest pose.

If you guys are familiar with yoga,

That way when the knees start tipping over,

You kind of wake up.

The point is not to go to sleep.

It's not sleeping meditation,

It's meditation and sleeping is sleeping.

So the other one is to lay on one side and put a pillow in the stomach.

It acts as an extra aid to be aware of the body breathing and an aid in wakefulness to an awareness when we're working with the breath,

Lying down meditation.

But again,

That's only if you guys need it or want it,

I won't be demonstrating that at the time.

I don't have any plans right now anyway too.

Of course,

Make sure you have a decent internet connection,

Right?

Like I didn't do last time I was out and whatever reason the connection dropped off and it's better today.

So it shouldn't be a problem,

A challenge for most of you probably,

I would imagine have stable internet.

The intent beforehand,

If you'd like to kind of reflect on what intent you want to do around the meditation retreat on September 20th half day mini retreat,

Why are you doing this?

What do you hope to get out of it maybe or just any kind of intention,

It can be anything as simple as I just want to just sit here and meditate.

I don't have to have anything special to,

I want wellness for myself,

I want wellbeing for others that I love,

I want wellbeing for all beings everywhere.

It can be kind of as high minded and noble as you can get.

I don't think there's too many limitations.

I would just recommend guidelines of it being a benefit and skillful and helpful and non-harming.

Other than that,

Yeah,

You can even explore what intents you want to meditate on,

What intent you want to bring to the retreat.

Okay.

So the food preparation with the schedule,

Let me look at the schedule really briefly here.

There will be a half an hour mindful transitioning,

Walking and encouragement for mindfulness during this transition for food,

Drink and bio break.

So you have a half an hour,

So it helps to have one's food for that time.

It'll break up the end of the second session,

Central European time,

It's from 1230 to 1 PM.

Ideally,

You'll have everything ready to go because there won't be a lot of time there.

If you want to get the most out of this,

That's the best way to do it,

Have it prepared ahead of time.

Distractions.

This is a huge thing with home retreats.

I've only done maybe two,

Three,

Four extended home retreats.

I've done kind of half days like this before,

Actually,

Yeah,

Four to six hours once and they're not as big a deal during that.

But it's not that big a deal because I'm sure a lot of you would just want to get the most out of this.

And so there's not a lot of opportunity for such a short time,

I feel,

But there still will be distractions.

So a lot of the time I find it helpful not to put things in the room that will distract one,

You know,

Stay off the internet.

It's a tough one,

Checking this and that.

A lot of times when I'm sitting,

I'll think of,

Oh crap,

I forgot to do this,

I need to do this.

I would benefit from doing this.

I have this great idea.

What if I lose it?

That's another thing we can work with later,

But it really is beneficial to just take some time away for that.

So if that means preparing ahead of time to get kind of the ducks in a row or even put a like a way message on email or something like that,

Telling people what you're doing that day,

Of course,

And that goes into the next thing of posting your retreat schedule for those you live with and those who might be contacting you virtually,

It might be helpful to let them know ahead of time what you're going to be doing that day,

When you're going to be doing things.

And well,

Before we get into more of that,

Let's just say distractions,

What else could possibly come up?

Does anybody here have any insights on distractions?

What might possibly distract you and others?

I'm trying to think of some other ones.

Yeah,

Again,

Another one would be your roommates or people we live with,

Partners,

Not distraction,

You know,

They're a distraction,

But meaning that,

Okay,

So that will get us into the next one.

We talk about mutual expectations before the retreat,

Right?

So we kind of explain to who we're with,

What we're doing,

And then ask them basically,

What are their expectations about it?

You know,

What do they need?

And then we get to practice compassion,

You know,

We openly discuss supportive practices and boundaries for them and us,

Or for,

You know,

The parties involved,

Not them versus us.

And it really does help,

And I learned this the hard way,

To prioritize the comfort of others,

Because we don't want to make them feel like they're intruding on us,

Or we're intruding on them.

You know,

Some people,

My fiancee and I were staying with my folks when I was doing,

Recently,

And I was doing a retreat,

Actually,

After she left,

And my folks are boomers,

Right?

And not to stereotype and cliche,

But they just really didn't understand,

And I thought I had explained it,

But apparently there was other,

I don't know,

Misunderstandings,

Or I don't know what was going on.

I still have to figure that out,

But that probably won't be a big time thing,

But I'm open from you guys to tell me any experiences that might be helpful in your experience for home retreats of how you handled either preparation or on-the-spot things during a retreat where the other people you were with were either challenges or success stories,

Too.

So feel free to chime in there,

But again,

We do this with compassion,

And beforehand we kind of support,

We discuss supportive practices,

And then,

You know,

What more boundaries might need to be made,

Right,

And then the compromises or lack of compromises,

And that worked out ahead of time,

Ideally,

So it doesn't kind of,

Yeah,

And then posting the schedule so they know the schedule helps,

Too,

Depending on how things are in your living environment.

Pets,

I don't have pets,

But I want to take care of pet care ahead of time,

Pet arrangements to the best of your ability,

So that won't be taking away from either you or the pet,

And just realize that the whole thing isn't going to be as like a retreat center,

Right,

More than likely,

Unless you have really good circumstances and conditions.

Most retreat centers,

I think,

That are of a lot of use,

They're in use in retreat centers for a reason,

Right?

Conditions are ideal,

Sometimes the staff is amazing there,

Supportive,

Right,

People go out of their way,

A lot of places,

Money's involved,

So,

You know,

Some things by certain conditions in a way,

Other times people work selflessly to get the most out of the retreat space and the retreat experience,

And teachers,

And on and on and on,

Right?

So our home environment,

Especially since there's not a lot of conditioning and practice and,

Yeah,

Just time involved making it happen as a retreat center,

It's not going to be the same,

Right,

More than likely,

Of course I could be wrong about that.

I think one of the other things is being relaxed,

Of course it's a meditation retreat,

Right?

So this notion of gentleness and willing to compromise for the harmony in the home,

And this is as an act of generosity.

So just because if something were to happen,

Just don't look at it as,

Okay,

It's a failure of a retreat,

I can't do the formal thing exactly as I'm supposed to,

Then it's actually one of the reasons we're meditating is to kind of cultivate this gentleness and openness to compromise and especially harmony,

So harmony internally and externally,

And not just with people and animals,

Even our environment too,

Ideally,

Right?

And this is a gift of generosity,

So whatever happens,

You know,

We can,

It's all material for practice in a way.

Okay,

You can't,

We don't know,

I don't know anyone who can fully guarantee that any particular thing couldn't happen at any time,

Right?

There's this saying,

Anything could happen at any time,

So that's a good thing to keep in mind too,

And it doesn't necessarily have to be negative,

It could be absolutely amazing,

Incredible experiences and benefit,

You know,

Fruit and benefit,

And just really being attuned and aligned,

And that being so okay,

That it's not really that big a deal,

It's just,

Okay,

This is happening now,

I don't need to cling to this either.

And it's also helpful that nothing can really get perfect or permanent either,

So,

And that's the other nice thing,

So if anything challenging happens,

I'm listening to something right now,

Let's just say a media thing that I can't promote or anything,

But what I realized about this,

Some of these retreat experiences is,

Depending on the type of retreat,

But this one obviously,

If anything comes up that you just have this intuitive sense that,

Okay,

I need to stop now,

Please listen to your intuition,

Just get up and stop,

It's really that simple,

You know,

It's not that complicated.

If there's any kind of unforeseen hardship,

Something too weird,

Strange,

Something you sense is off,

Just to stop immediately,

You know,

Just no big deal,

You know,

You're not paying for anything,

You're not disappointing yourself,

You're not disappointing me,

You're not failing,

Anything like that,

Just at any side of anything at all.

That's what's so nice,

I feel about meditation,

It's if it's in that way,

There's really not much risk,

You just stop,

It's quite that simple.

For some people,

I mean,

There's other psychological things where people won't stop,

Right,

And things like that,

So that's something else,

And we don't really have time to address that,

But if it can be just that simple,

It really can be.

Okay,

But nothing is permanent,

Right,

And we can't make this perfect,

So I think that's really helpful to know that we can't make a home retreat perfect,

I mean,

We can't make anything perfect in life as far as I know,

Either that or it's all perfect because it's all unfolding due to causes and conditions,

So in that sense,

It's perfectly lawful in a sense,

Right,

It's not just happening at chance or randomly,

So in that sense,

It can be quote unquote perfect,

But permanent,

Right,

Something that happens,

You know,

It's not gonna be locked in forever as far as I know,

Right,

But again,

That's no excuse to keep pushing through something that's harmful,

Obviously,

We don't wanna,

As far as I'm concerned,

To be a strong commitment to non-harming here,

Right,

At the same time,

It's okay to find our edge and push towards that,

But just being mindful that we're taking care of ourselves and that no harm is being done,

Or the most,

Least amount of harm possible,

Especially with the choices we have.

Okay,

So again,

When,

For anybody that's not done a retreat,

Or has a steady meditation practice already,

You know,

Any number of thoughts and feelings and emotions can come up during retreat,

And that's okay,

There's no need to fight these,

And there's no need to seek after them either,

We just simply let them go and return to the practice,

Unless it's too much,

Like I said,

And then it's easy to end,

But again,

There's no need to fight or seek after any potentially challenging thoughts,

Feelings,

And emotions,

We just,

We just,

As soon as we're aware of them,

We can say,

You know,

Not now,

Just let them go,

Or,

You know,

If you're doing inquiry practice,

And it's okay,

And you feel it's helpful,

You can go into them a little bit,

It's usually not recommended to just kind of start thinking,

And reflecting,

And contemplating,

Because that can be done separately,

We really want to use this time if we can,

For our meditation practice,

So you can note them,

And say,

I see you,

I acknowledge you,

And now's not the time,

We can come back later,

And you know,

Go back to them later,

After the retreat,

And explore them,

And if you need a partner,

Or someone to talk to about them,

Debrief,

There'll be a little bit of that at the end,

But I,

This is why spiritual friends,

And teachers,

And guides are so helpful for working with challenging,

If there's any kind of challenging experiences,

And especially integration into daily life,

But again,

This is just a six-hour retreat.

Okay,

So I think we're going to go over the schedule a little bit,

Since it's already 21 after the hour,

And is it,

Oh,

Is there any questions so far,

Does anybody have any questions,

Thoughts,

Recommendations,

Anything like that,

Please chime in.

Okay,

Now the first session,

Excuse me,

It's scheduled for 9 a.

M.

To 11 a.

M.

Central European on the 20th,

Again,

Of September,

So I'm going to do a welcome from the first half hour,

An introduction preparation,

So probably go over kind of a little bit of what we did here,

I don't want to go into too much,

Of course,

People usually,

A lot of people show up a little bit later,

And that is what it is,

You can spend that time,

If you're there in time,

You could,

You're welcome,

Of course,

To just jump right into meditation,

You can kind of ease into it,

And spend extra time relaxing,

This is a time when,

If you have any questions or concerns,

Anything like that,

I think that would,

Might be the time,

Definitely the time to do it as well,

And here too,

And then I'll go into minimally guided sitting meditation,

And I think I'm just going to leave that to kind of the spur of the moment,

And whatever feels helpful,

Beneficial,

Skillful in the moment,

Depending on kind of who's there,

To the best of my ability,

Tuning it energetically to,

You know,

The nameless,

Faceless,

Pretty much internet,

Right,

At least in the context that we're doing it here,

And then we'll do 15-minute minimally guided walking meditation,

Hopefully everyone can hear me when I do this,

I might just end up giving the instructions before we start walking,

And then maybe check in throughout it,

But we'll see,

And then the next half hour,

10,

15,

45,

Another minimally guided sitting,

And then a bio break in this term,

Interesting term,

Right,

For 15 minutes to 11,

Then what we'll do is we'll have to,

The links will,

Should be on my profile,

And you'll see those,

And you'll just have to come back in,

And yeah,

So that's what it is,

That's,

This is how it is,

I'm pretty sure that it's kind of limited to two-hour sessions,

So come back in from 11 to 1 after the bio break,

And if you don't need it,

You can keep meditating,

So 11 to 11 45,

I'm going to do another minimally guided sitting meditation,

So this is the bulk of the practice,

And I should probably put on here,

Continue in any posture,

I did the other one,

So yeah,

Any time you need to get up,

You know,

It's good,

So there's a balance between,

You know,

Really sticking with it,

And not giving into the restlessness automatically,

And then there's another one where,

You know,

If it's going to completely turn you off to doing it whatsoever,

Then,

You know,

I feel it's better just to change postures,

Positions,

Or do what you need to do to stay with the practice overall long-term,

And of course,

Since I'm not there watching,

I can't really do much about that,

So leave it up to you guys,

And just give encouragements to trust yourself,

And know what your body needs,

And what you need to be well,

Okay,

So 11 45 to noon,

There'll be a minimally guided standing meditation,

That will be,

That will be fairly easy to do,

Standing is an amazing practice,

Amazing way to bring more energy into the system too,

Balance and stability,

Then from noon to 12 30,

Another silent sitting,

Or this is where I start saying you can continue any posture,

If you feel standing meditation is good for you,

Then you just,

You can continue standing,

If you want to do more walking,

Can continue,

You can just go to walking instead of sitting,

So there's no,

Yeah,

No regrets,

Or shame,

Or anything like that,

And it's kind of what's needed,

And then from 12 30 to 1,

Again,

I said,

Like I said earlier,

We'll do mindful transitioning,

And I'll encourage this,

And while we're walking around to get our food,

And drink,

And bio break,

Half an hour,

So really be encouraged during this time to be mindful,

Especially one of the ways to do it,

I was taught,

Is be mindful of the hands and feet,

When we're moving,

And then mindful of the breath,

When still,

But basically,

You will kind of want to know what the body is paying,

Being aware,

Observing what the body is doing,

While the body's doing it,

Without turning into some kind of weird robot,

Right,

We can still be natural,

And just constantly bringing the intention,

And the instructions,

And encouragement,

Okay,

Being aware of what's happening in the moment,

As the body moves through space,

As the arms extend,

As the arms contract,

As we lift a spoon,

Or fork to the mouth,

As we get food out of the refrigerator,

Or where it's at,

As we eat mindfully,

And there's a whole guided mindfulness eating practice,

I won't go into now,

Then as we get up,

And then as we move towards the sink,

And clear,

Or throw things away,

And then as we go to the bathroom,

While we're going to the bathroom,

Right,

To be mindful,

And aware,

While we're doing that,

It's a practice,

It's not like something we have to beat ourselves up,

Oh god,

I was just,

Wasn't mindful the entire time,

You know,

It's a training,

So we just,

Again,

And again,

Just to be aware,

That way we have more continuity in the practice,

And it helps build mindfulness,

And awareness,

If we can,

The more we can continually be that way,

It will have an opportunity here,

Set aside to go deeper into this,

And a chance to,

To try this out for ourselves,

Because the conditions are there,

The time is set aside to do so,

Okay,

Session three will be from one to 3 p.

M.

,

And from one to 1 30,

Another guided,

Guided,

Mentally guided walking,

It might be hardly anything at all at that time,

So hopefully everybody will kind of be in the swing a little bit of things,

And then 1 30 to 2 30,

This is going to be where it's going to be the whole hour,

So you can challenge yourself to sit the entire hour silently,

This is kind of what we built up to,

But of course,

You're welcome to do any,

Any posture,

And of course,

If you can only sit five minutes,

And you need to get up and stand,

Walk,

Do walking meditation,

Please do so,

It's not like a strict military style thing,

Where you have to do this,

But the opportunity and the space is there to do so,

To sit the full hour,

Okay,

And then after that,

I know it'll be a little bit of an abrupt change,

Maybe we'll kind of go really,

Really deep,

And then deeper at the end there,

And then we'll have a whole half hour to kind of transition out,

To decompress,

To ask questions,

To talk amongst each other in the chat,

You know,

Right,

Q&A,

Sharing of experiences,

And then I'll maybe guide you through how to kind of transition and get some benefit,

More benefit out of what you just did,

Into taking it back into everyday life as well,

All right,

Well,

Wow,

It's been almost a half an hour,

And now's the time for questions,

So anybody have any questions,

Concerns,

Thoughts,

You know,

Is it enthusiastic,

Perhaps,

Maybe a little dreaded,

And this might be daunting,

I don't know if I could do it,

Doubts,

You know,

Anything like that,

All right,

Well,

Thank you all,

Guys,

All for joining,

And the hearts,

And whatnot,

And may you all find your most optimal,

Ideal practice in and out of retreats,

For your long-term benefit,

And for the long-term benefit of others,

May all beings everywhere realize awakening and be free.