Deepen your practice and join dedicated practitioners in this work-compatible retreat!

The new edition will probably happen in January or February 2025, add your email to get notified of new dates

So what’s a Life Retreat?

A Life Retreat is an opportunity to put meditation practice more at the center of your life for a few days, while benefiting from the support of friends on the Path.
It’ s a blurring of the lines of what’s a formal meditation retreat and what is daily “regular” life. The expectation is to have more formal practice time than usual but not be fully secluded at all time (though you can if you’d like) and use that opportunity to bring mindfulness to our relationship, work, and activities – integrating and gaining insights from the world.

What does it look like?

We’ll each share our retreat plan at the start of the retreat (what we want to do as formal practice, informal practice, and how we plan on handling technology) for friendly accountability.
Everyday there will be a ~1h30 call where we share around what happened during our day of life retreat, and we’ll listen to a recorded Dharma talk together. On the first and last day, those are replaced by ~1h intro and closing calls.
During the day we’ll each be free to meditate, use technology, talk to friends or partner, go to work… hopefully with a little more clarity and wisdom than usual!
Optional 1:1 interviews with me are also available.
The rules to attend are:
  1. You have to commit to practice more than usual (or more than you would have if the Life Retreat didn’t happen). Some people like to aim for 4h+ to get the “minimum retreat volume” Shinzen Young talks about, but it’s fine to do whatever is possible for you as long as it’s more than usual.
  2. Partial attendance is OK as long as you attend at least one call  – you can come for a single day, miss a day, practice for a day but not come for a call, or any other combination. The intention of this retreat is to encourage practicing more, so it’s pretty flexible!

Price: at the moment the retreat is completely free to attend, as are the 1:1 interviews with me.

 

Previously watched dharma talks

Doing the Real Work to Free Yourself from Michael Singer, on letting go of our personal preferences and walking the path in daily life. He has a quite unusual and lively style of teaching that points us back towards our own responsibility in caring for our experience, with humor and kindness, and a no-nonsense attitude.

The Immediacy of Experience from Daniel Ingram, in a podcast interview that gets weird rapidly where Daniel points towards everything arising and shifting and gives “pointing out” instructions, deconstructing the present experience of the interviewer in real time.

Introduction to Dependent Origination from Leigh Brasington on Dependent Origination, from a series he did on the topic. It changed and clarified my understanding of DO when I heard it in retreat and I really recommend it, as well as the next one in the series on General Principles of Dependent Origination. (Mild warning, it will probably make more sense if you have heard of the 12 links of dependent origination before, though he introduces it and talks about a simpler version in the suttas.) His book on the topic is really great and I definitely recommend it.

In Praise of Stillness from Akincano Weber, a beautiful talk on the experience of Samadhi and deep settling of the mind. The talk really embodies those qualities.

Reflections on Suffering (mp3) by Ram Dass, on opening to suffering as a pointer to liberation. He has worked with lots of NGOs/foundations helping people going through deep crises, and really is masterful at conveying his experience in letting his heart break in the midst of deep equanimity. Be warned that some parts of the talk might be a bit intense. (For reference the mp3 is stitched together from two podcast episodes – one, two – feel free to skip the long intro if you listen to those.)

Crafting a Live of Deep Dharma by Kim Allen, on the topic of wholesome desires, the joy and potential of renunciation, and how to dedicate one’s life to deep Dharma while remaining a lay person – a very rich talk for dedicated practitioners. This is my favorite version of her talking on that topic, from an unlisted recording of a retreat she co-taught with Leigh Brasington for the Dharmachanics sangha. I got her generous permission to edit it and post it online.

The Third Characteristic of Non-Self by Christina Feldman, a great talk on what non-self means and how to see it in ourselves in our everyday experience. This is part of a longer talk on all three characteristics, but to tighten it down to one hour the link points to a playlist of 3 three video sections: the first on the process of Insight and an intro to the 3 characteristics, the second on non-self, the third on the process of conceit creating a sense of self.

Several Ways to Meditate by Vince Horn, a clear and practical talk categorizing meditation practices into six buckets and giving a good framework on how they interrelate, and important tips on how to practice them. Vince is a very innovative teacher and the founder of the Buddhist Geeks podcast, among many other initiatives.