Sometimes I get drawn to the warmth of good communication with spiritual friends, and at other times I get drawn towards the bliss of solitude.
In this post, I want to talk about various times of my life I have chosen to be alone for extended periods. Some of these times I refer to now as “solitary retreats”. I did not use that term then. It just felt really natural and useful to spend days or weeks as alone as was practical.
The first time was in 1984. The previous year I had passed my final professional exams to be a chartered accountant. I also went on a 3 week retreat at Vajraloka that was mostly silent. I loved it a lot and I wanted more. So I resigned my job and bought an open return plane ticket to Mumbai. I had been living with Buddhists for a few years, and was highly inspired by the Buddhist path, so a solo trip to India and Nepal as a spiritual quest seemed to be the obvious next step.
I absolutely loved it. I had with me the FWBO Puja Book, and photocopies of another book called “The Pilgrims’ Guide to Planet Earth” which listed many addresses of monestaries and retreat centres in India. The trip lasted 4 months, and I was alone for most of it. I met Ashvajit and Lokomitra in Pune. I also did a pilgimage to Lumbini, Bodhgaya, Sarnath and Kushinagar. Plus I did some retreats with a Tibetan Buddhist group (FPMT) at Kopan Gompa in Kathmandu and Tushita Retreat Centre in Dharamsala.
My next experience of solitude was a 10 day Vipassana retreat at Goenka’s monastery in Igatpuri near Mumbai in 1987. I shared a hut with a fellow meditator, but the entire 10 days I followed noble silence, which meant I did not even exchange eye contact with anyone in that time. To be honest, I struggled in that retreat. I did not like that style of meditation. It was a lot of hard work, I had a lot of resistance to it, and I did not really feel much benefit from it at the end.
Then in 1990 I did a 10 day silent sesshin at Vajraloka led by Satyaraja. It was hard work, and I had a bad cold during most of it but I absolutely loved it. I wallowed in really pleasant meditative states. I was not working at the time, and I felt it was time for another solitary spiritual quest in Asia. I was planning to go to Suan Mokh (a Theravadin monastery in Thailand which gave Vipassana retreats to Westerners, and was also home of Buddhadasa). I spoke to Satyaraja about this and he gave me the contact details of a friend of his who had recently come back from there. I phoned him up and got some encouragement.
Then in 1991 I bought an open return ticket to Bangkok, and flew out there alone. When I got to Wat Suan Mokh, the next retreat was oversubscribed, as it had recently been featured in the Guardian. So (together with three others I met at Suan Mokh), I travelled down to Wat Kow Tham – a monastery on the island of Koh Phangan which also offered Vipassana retreats to Westerners. I did the 10 day retreat, again with noble silence. I got a big sense of aloneness, and did feel I got a lot out of it. I stayed on another week after the retreat ended, and narrowly missed Jack Kornfield who popped in to meet the retreat leaders.
The retreat was done in the style of Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein with alternating periods of walking and sitting. I chatted with the retreat leader about Triratna, and he explained to me that he thought that his style of retreat led to wisdom and that Triratna’s did not, because Triratna’s style was focussed more on the pleasure that comes with meditation which leads to attachment to it.
I believed him. Several years later I realised that it was a bit mistake. But it led to me dropping out of Triratna and doing 3 retreats at Gaia House, and a Forest Sangha retreat in Northumberland over the following few years. All in noble silence, and all for 10 days.
After the retreat in Koh Phangan, I travelled alone for the next 2 months through Thailand, Malaysia, Java, Bali and Lombok. I loved the aloneness, and the sounds and the smells of South East Asia.
The year after that I moved to Peterborough, got a job as an accountant and met my partner Sallie. After a while I decided to go on a solitary retreat in Baga, Goa for two weeks. I took my puja book, a journal, some cassettes and a cassette player, and a yoga mat and I had an amazing time. I hired a cheap apartment there. My only negative experience was my first night, when I felt a bit lonely and craved company, but that feeling passed the next day.
A few years later I had another solitary retreat. This time it was combined with a package holiday in Oludeniz in Turkey. I took the same things as for my trip in Baga. This time it was for a week. I had my meals in the dining area with the tourists, but I did not speak to anyone for the whole week apart from ordering food etc.
Both these solitary retreats were really lovely. I just got into relaxing, meditating, doing yoga, listening to my cassettes, journalling and doing puja etc.
For the next few years I focussed on 10 day Vipassana retreats with noble silence at Gaia House and Forest Sangha. On the last one of these I had a strong memory of all the Triratna retreats I had been on, and a strong desire to go back to them.
So my time of solitary retreats and retreats with noble silence came to an end about 1998 I think. After then I just went on organised group Triratna retreats at Vajrasana, Padmaloka, Dhanakosha and Vajraloka etc which I really enjoyed.
After I asked for ordination in 2012, my focus was on trying to do the core GFR retreats. I did speak to someone on the ordination team, and they said because of my strong background in meditation retreats, the GFR retreats should be my focus, and I did not need to do any more meditation retreats till I was ordained.
That was a bit of a disappointment to me as my stongest, most beautiful retreats have all been meditation retreats – especially my three retreats at Vajraloka.
So my next retreat will be another solitary retreat. As that is what has been recommended to me. Watch this space!