Multiday Non-Residential Retreats

Non-residential retreats are held in the Community Meditation Center at Spirit Rock where meditators spend their days practicing mostly in silence and then spend their nights at home or in local accommodations that they arrange on their own (and at their own expense). The intention is to integrate your practice into your daily life, and the supporting teachings for this format will often address the best ways to bring your practice into your everyday life. A retreat provides an opportunity and a caring container for undertaking intensive meditation, like an immersion course in a language. The central practice on retreats is mindfulness, which enables us to see the ways we create difficulties in our lives and to discover a freedom of heart in the midst of all things. The mindfulness practice on retreats is often accompanied and complemented by training in loving-kindness meditation. Most of the retreat is held in silence and we encourage participants to maintain silence from the start of the retreat to the end of the retreat because, in this silent and mindful environment, awareness sharpens, the body quiets, the mind clears, and space opens for insight and understanding to develop. With no diversions, there is nothing to distract us. Since there is no place to hide from ourselves, there is a good possibility that we will know ourselves better after a retreat than we did before. Self-knowledge and understanding grow as we see that we can live each moment either with inattention, fear and judgment or with clarity, kindness and wakefulness. By cultivating the power of awareness, clarity and kindness, we discover our path to liberation, inner freedom and a peaceful heart.

Who is it for? 

• Newer practitioners to add another level of extended guided meditation into their practice.
• Experienced participants who want an opportunity to supplement practice throughout the year.
• Perfect for parents so that they can return home in the evenings to attend to family life.

Retreat Schedule

The daily rhythm of a retreat usually involves alternating periods of sitting and walking meditation, eating and work meditations, as well as practice meetings, dharma talks and rest periods. The first sitting usually begins at about 10:00 am, and a typical day includes seven sitting and six walking periods of 45 minutes apiece. Each morning the teachers offer continuing meditation instructions for the day. The whole retreat is a succession of mindfulness training, breathing practices, deep awareness of the body and environment, meditations on the nature of feelings, and awareness of mind and the laws that govern it. These are the same fundamental teachings of insight meditation offered in the traditional Buddhist monasteries of Asia.

Sitting Meditation: Sitting meditation is a beautiful practice, at the heart of silent retreats. In sitting practice silence and stillness develop, concentration deepens, and awareness expands. The training of the heart brings kindness and compassion for all that arises. In sitting we can find for ourselves the wisdom and freedom discovered by the Buddha. Beginning meditators are encouraged to use the breath as a focus for mindfulness. The arising and passing of breath shows us in a direct way the universal truth of impermanence. After an inner calm and steadiness are established through breathing, the meditation is systematically opened to include mindfulness of all experiences, external and internal, of body sensations and emotions, of thoughts and the nature of mind itself.

Walking Meditation: Walking gracefully and wisely on the earth is also one of the great Buddhist meditative practices. On retreat, periods of walking meditation alternate with periods of sitting meditation. Just as in sitting meditation, where attention is brought to the rhythmic pattern of breathing, in walking meditation, mindfulness is cultivated by resting the attention on sensations of the body as one walks. In walking meditation, we become aware in the midst of activity. Sometimes a slow, careful, practice walk is taught. At other times retreatants are encouraged to walk more leisurely or move at whatever speed cultivates mindfulness for them. Throughout the retreat we learn to cultivate a mindful awareness in all postures prescribed by the Buddha--sitting, walking, standing up or lying down.

Eating Meditation: An awareness of food and the mindful understanding of the entire process of nourishment and eating is included in the practice at retreats. Retreatants are encouraged to bring the same calm, focused attention to eating as is brought to sitting and walking. Mindful eating is a wonderful context for the arising of insights. The simple, mindful eating of an apple connects us to the orchard far away from our dining table, to the sun and rain and earth that nurture the tree, to the grower, the picker, the trucker, the grocer, to the truth of the interconnectedness of all existence.

Dharma Talks: Dharma talks are the vocal heart of a retreat. Each day, for about an hour, the teachers present a different set of teachings from the central practices of Buddhism, offering ways to apply them to our own experience. Sometimes the talks focus on retreat practice, and sometimes they offer teachings for wise living in the world. In the talks, the teachers may speak about the nature of wisdom or address Right Livelihood, explain the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, explore the Five Hindrances, speak of loving-kindness and equanimity, or tell stories from personal experience that help illuminate practice. The dharma talks are not Buddhist tenets to be believed but are spiritual principles offered for students to consider and use in ways that bring benefit to their daily lives.

Leaving the Retreat: Whatever you think a retreat is going to be like, it will probably be different. Most participants find it deeply refreshing and healing, often life-transforming. While spiritual truths can be seen every day of our ordinary life, the stillness and simplicity of retreat bring a wonderful and unique possibility for renewal. At the retreat's end, talks and instructions are given for wise ways to leave the retreat and continue the practice at home. Our task is to return to our communities and bring a reawakened spirit of awareness and compassion to all we touch.

View our multiday retreat calendar