The Pros And Cons Of An Online Meditation Retreat

Having just completed an online silent meditation retreat, I'd like to share my experiences as well as some pros and cons of taking an online meditation retreat, so you can consider whether it's a good fit for you!

Transcript

Hey,

This is Ish and I recently just completed a 10-day meditation retreat which was online and I want to talk to you a bit more about my experiences and how the retreat was structured as well as some pros and cons so you can decide for yourself whether an online meditation retreat would be a good fit for you.

So the online retreat that I took was on mastering the jhanas and jhanas are essentially just meditative states of absorption in which your mind is super concentrated and there are various levels of jhanas.

So you have four jhanas which are material jhanas and then you have four immaterial jhanas which are formless and each state of jhana gets even more concentrated as you go up.

And this was a topic that I was very interested in and I had originally saw this retreat online and it was actually set to be in person but for whatever reason the circumstances changed and it switched to being online.

So this was new to me and very interesting because I've never done an online retreat before.

I'm very used to going in person for retreat and actually sitting there in a meditation hall so this was a new experience for me and I wanted to check it out anyways because the teacher was really reputable and really proficient at what he does.

The teacher by the way is Lee Brazington and I was studying under him for learning the jhanas.

And I wanted to say that this retreat that I took was pretty well organized so it may vary between retreats if you're looking into different options because some may be completely unstructured while some are a bit more structured in a sense.

So with this schedule it was pretty predictable so in the morning we would have a dharma talk or instructions where you'd learn various techniques from Lee or he'd be reciting the suttas and this is just the Buddha's teachings on different pointers or instructions and different guidelines to follow.

So this is very informative.

And in the context of time this morning talk started around 10 30 a.

M.

My time.

So it started then and lasted for about an hour and a half or two hours so around 12 p.

M.

Would be when we were supposed to meditate or you could get lunch if you wanted to.

And then we'd have another meeting at 7 p.

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My time.

So you have this gap in between your day and every third day you would have a one on one with the teachers.

This would be with Lee.

And this is where I could ask him any questions that I had or anything that I need to improve on or any pointers and really talk about anything related to my practice or how it relates to outside my practice as well or any questions just about what we're learning.

And typically most online retreats will have some sort of one on one with the teacher.

And I would say if you are looking into online retreats and they don't have a one on one I would I would recommend staying clear from that because it is very important to have a teacher there and they're able to guide you because if you didn't have that feature of having a one on one with the teacher then you might as well just take an online course or do something different.

So the purpose behind a retreat is to deepen your practice and there's no better way to do so by starting with the teacher and you know working with them to help clarify any things that you have with your practice or anything you're doing wrong they'll be able to clarify whereas a course or an online learning thing won't actually help you with.

So that's just a key distinction to keep in mind.

And just before we go into the pros and cons I just want to say that the retreat that I took was very informative and I have really good reviews about it because it was well organized and the teacher that I was studying under was very very knowledgeable and was able to help me out a lot.

So I felt that within this 10 day timeframe even though it really isn't a long time in comparison to other retreats it was very helpful for me and I grew a lot.

So that's just my personal opinion but I wanted to go over now the pros and cons of an online retreat.

So the first is that online retreats you have access to any all kinds of teachers that you want because you're not confined to your location.

So I live here in Austin if I was only looking for places in my area I would only be confined with you know a one hour radius or maybe even two hours if I'm going to do the drive but that limits my teacher pool that I can study under.

But in an online retreat it is online so there is no restriction in that aspect.

Sure if you can even study with someone who is in a different country but then you have to deal with the time zone there but it is certainly possible.

So that's wonderful that you can study under any teacher any lineage any particular style that you're interested in.

And if you don't happen to live in a big city what an online retreat can do is that it allows for you to study under a style that you wouldn't normally have access to locally.

The second big advantage of having an online meditation treat is that it's considerably cheaper than going to a retreat in person because typically if you are going to a place for a treat and it is longer so say it's two weeks or so you'd also need to pay for lodging and that'll obviously cost you you know hundreds to even thousands of dollars.

So these expenses add up you'd also have to pay for meals you can eat from your house obviously because you're traveling and you have all these other expenses and things that are involved with boarding accommodation and the things that will go with you know actually practicing in the studio.

With an online retreat that's not the case because it is all virtual so there's no cost extra added cost on top of that so you'll find that the online retreats are a lot cheaper than the pricier options of you know flying out or driving out to a place and incurring all these additional expenses such as gas food accommodation transportation and all these other factors that you probably didn't really think about.

The next great advantage of having an online retreat is that it is very flexible to your particular schedule.

So although I may be single and have a very easy job a lot of people might have you know kids that they're looking after or families or different responsibilities outside their work so they may be unable to really take the time for themselves to just drop everything and just go stay at some kind of monastery or a meditation hall hours away.

So an online retreat allows for you to work with whatever schedule that you have.

So like I was mentioning in the retreat that I took I had a morning meeting which was around you know 10 30 that lasted until like around 12 and then I had an evening one which was around 7 p.

M.

But during in between those times I had that those free times so if I wanted to go for a walk at 2 p.

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I could.

If I did have any pets or anything like that I could you know take them out or whatever the cases throughout the day whereas I couldn't have if I was in a retreat in person because the in-person retreats are very regimented and scheduled.

So for example if you go to a Zen meditation treat they might have you wake up at 5 a.

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Every single day and exactly at 7 a.

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You'll go for a walk for 20 minutes and then you'll come back meditate then you'll have breakfast exactly at 10 a.

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So it is very structured every single day.

Not so for an online meditation treat because as I mentioned there is some flexibility.

Sure you may have some one-on-ones with your teacher or some instructional meetings but other than that you have the whole day for yourself to schedule your meditation.

Another thing I found very valuable about an online retreat is that it gave me the confidence to deepen my home practice and the reason why is that you are in your house most likely if you are doing an online meditation treat so you are getting the confidence and the skills that you basically prove to your brain that you can do this because in a meditation retreat you're probably meditating upwards of six to eight hours so that is you know considerably long time right so it'll actually prove to your brain that you can do it so the next time you're you know at your apartment and you're trying to meditate and you can barely do an hour or two hours you have the confidence because you know that you've done six hours in your place so you know that it is possible obviously and there may be some kind of disconnect when you're in a meditation hall like in person because you're in a separate little bubble where you're with other meditators and monks and it's a I wouldn't say artificial is not the right word but you're in a different environment and it may seem like a disconnect when you actually come back to the to your house and go about your activities because it just seems like it was a nice little vacation and now you're back to the world so you're unable to replicate that same amount of hours put in well if you train yourself to meditate in your place and you've done this retreat you can prove to yourself that you've you're able to meditate for that long and another pro of being in an online meditation treat is that you just have the essentials in place and you do skip the more the fluff that happens in a in person meditation retreat so for example in a in person meditation retreat you might have to wait for everyone to be served before eating or you might have to do some chanting that you probably have no idea what it's all about or maybe you don't have any interest in chanting but you kind of have to do it anyways because you're there in person well in an online retreat you're just doing whatever is essential for you so you're just meditating or going for meditation walks and you know eating and you can do that on your own time so you don't have any added on things that aren't really required because you're an online retreat so you don't have that in place and if you're in an in person meditation treat they might have you do things like rake the leaves outside or you know wash everyone else's dishes or something like that but if you're at home you'll just wash your own dishes so you're just sticking to just meditating and just essentials in a sense the next thing is this is more of a personal thing but I typically found that it is easier to ask questions in a online retreat on zoom as opposed to being in a meditation hall where it may be a bit harder for you to do so and the reason why is that in both online meditation retreats and in person you do take a vow of silence like a noble silence so there is the added pressure of speaking up in a room where everyone else is silent in person and the second thing is that you may also feel uncomfortable asking a question out loud in front of everyone else so for people that are maybe a bit more shy or just don't feel as confident just speaking out loud and just saying what they want an online retreat is perfect because you can use that feature on zoom if you're using that where you can raise your hand and the teacher can call upon you rather than just wave your hand in person and hopefully that teacher will see you and then you have to speak up so it may be a bit more nerve-wracking in person to ask questions or anything in general about your practice whether it's a bit easy whereas it's a bit more easier in an online retreat and the last great advantage I like to say about online retreats is that you can really see how the improvements will affect your daily life so as I mentioned earlier there seems to be some kind of disconnect between being in your room and meditating here compared to you know in person retreat I know monastery or meditation hall where it just seems like it's a different world altogether and now when you come back you tend to lose that so when you are in your own house in the comfort of your own house and you're meditating you can clearly see how the practice benefits you because you're encountered with the same triggers over again and you can see how you can overcome it so if you normally have a loud neighbor that walks past your your door every day at like 5 p.

M normally where you would have gotten triggered or annoyed now you wouldn't because you've encountered that every single day over the course of your meditation and now it just doesn't bother you anymore or if you go out for a walk and you hear some loud cars whether what if it was before you might have gotten distracted or got annoyed but now you've done a couple hours every day you're kind of peaceful and now when you go for the same walk as you've done every single day before it just doesn't affect you anymore so you can clearly see how the practice affects you for the better by going back to the same triggers or the same situations that you normally do and approaching it with the new pair of eyes so now that I've gone over the pros I wanted to go over the potential cons of an online meditation retreat and do note that I do say potential cons because it's really up to you and your self-discipline that you have in play because that is what is most important here in terms of the cons and whether you will fall into distractions or any other negative things during an online retreat so obviously the main thing for online retreats is that it does rely on your discipline and your self-discipline so it's very easy to pick up your phone next to you and check your phone or look at emails or say that you're going to put your phone off and then end up putting it back on because there's nothing to stop you really from doing that at home because in an in-person retreat you can't really just pull out your phone in the middle of meditation or if you you're just not going to do that or check your emails you know during meditation that's really not going to happen but if you are doing an online meditation treat you can simply just turn your shoulder over pick up your phone and check your emails so the distractions are always there and even if you say that you will turn off your phone you might end up doing it anyway so this is why you do want to be very disciplined in that sense and actually make sure that you aren't exposed to any distractions and need to have a good sense of discipline in order to do that so you do want to keep the retreat mindset because it is a retreat not to check your phone or look at emails or you know talk to other people just make idle gossip that will actually mess up your meditation so you do want to be very serious and mindful in that regard and in terms of the structure since it is an online retreat and it is less structured than an in-person retreat you do want to be on top of things to make sure that you are in fact getting enough meditation in the day because as i mentioned my first meeting was at 10 30 and it was very easy for me to just sleep in until like 10 a.

M.

And then start the morning meeting whereas that time could have been used for meditation during the mornings and you know in an in-person retreat there's no avoiding it you kind of have to be there so you can't just sleep in or do you just do other things because you have to be there in person so you do also want to make sure that you're very diligent about your time then make sure that you are very structured and actually meditating like you said you were going to do rather than do other things like sleeping or walking around or just not doing what you're supposed to do so it is important to be very mindful of your time and one thing that you typically find in an in-person treat is that you do have an element of social pressure and many people think it's a bad thing but in this context it's actually pretty good because when you have people sitting next to you in a meditation room that will encourage you not to move around or wiggle because you're distracting them you don't want to do that so that'll encourage you to sit a bit more or longer than you thought you were going to do simply due to the fact that there are people watching you there's monks behind you meditators next to you so that'll encourage you to sit a bit longer now one way to do to replicate that is to have your video on in an online meditation treat so when you have your video on you do have that social pressure in because you know that at any point maybe someone could be looking at your screen although they probably won't but that added pressure might help you stay in place and sit for longer periods rather than give up and go for a walk or do something else so there's something to keep in mind the next potential con is that if you do have bad internet or just any kind of technical difficulties yeah that may be unfortunate because there was about two or three participants that had video errors or audio difficulties and as a result we weren't able to see them or we weren't able to hear them sometimes you know there was also some awkward situations where someone was trying to talk over the other and they couldn't hear the other person so just make sure that if you are doing this that your internet is well set up and everything is working on the technical side so you don't run into these difficulties and one thing to avoid in your retreat which I talked about earlier is if your online meditation retreat doesn't do one-on-ones I would look for other options just because it is immensely valuable to have a teacher talk to you one-on-one to help you out and this is something that's done quite often in an in-person retreat because you can simply just go up to the teacher or schedule time with them but if your online retreat just doesn't have this feature then you know that's something you probably want to steer away from now the next potential con is the lack of structure in place means that you may not know what to focus on as well so if your teacher gives you a couple different techniques well now you have just a bunch of options and now you're overthinking things you're considering different options during your meditation and now your mind is getting even more distracted so you can see where I'm going with this so it is important that you do simplify your options and you create that structure for yourself so you know where you're going what you're doing rather than entertaining a lot of different options and a lot of different teachings and getting confused and lost in the mix so for example if a teacher taught you focus on the breath and that's your particular meditation well do that for a bit and then maybe do another technique such as a body scan technique or doing a contemplation of the elements that's another contemplation technique so do that instead of thinking oh my teacher taught me body scan they taught me loving kindness they taught me meditation of the breath they taught me hearing meditation which one should I do I'm not sure maybe I should switch switch to this and then go to this one afterwards after 10 minutes so you don't want to confuse yourself so keep it very simple stick to one or two exercises per sit so you don't get distracted and your mind doesn't wander as well so I hope you like this talk and hope you find this helpful I definitely recommend online meditation treats especially if you have some kind of practice and you're establishing your practice so you're able to have that discipline in place so you can sit for longer so I do recommend that you've done some kind of in-person retreat before so this way you have the discipline to carry over because I can definitely imagine an online meditation treat being a bit challenging for brand new beginners simply because you know they don't have the discipline in place to keep that going for long periods of time but yeah if you're used to meditating for say eight hours in person well then meditating in a retreat setting online may be a bit easier because you have that skills to bring forth and you can stay disciplined and also online meditation treats are amazing if you just have any kind of other responsibilities during your day where you can simply just get up and go and leave leave your other responsibilities behind for the time being so you know if you're a parent and you can't just leave you don't have anyone babysitting your kids or other responsibilities online meditation treats are perfect because this way you can still have your life it may be not as involved but you still have your life there and you can also dedicate the time for yourself for an online meditation treat as well so again I hope you found this helpful and let me know if you like similar talks of this in the future thank you.

Reviews

Appreciated this talk, this is not something I’ve thought to do I’ve done a silent retreat and done one by myself as well three times…interesting perspective to consider. Thank you!