Retreating

Above the clouds in a Welsh valley, September 2025

The retreat went very well, thank you for asking. It was a 'serious' type of retreat and is linked with my path towards future membership of the Triratna Buddhist Order. In the past I have found the pressure cooker atmosphere within this retreat centre, which is a little bit too small for the number of people there, quite hard to deal with, and was not entirely looking forward to the experience.

This time I coped much better despite there being even more retreatants than usual (there were three in my bedroom including one person in an upper bunk bed). I believe it's a combination of factors - I have become a lot more patient and tolerant  of other people in the last few years; the topic is not for beginners, so everyone has some years of practice under their belt; and there was a lot of intellectual effort required and not too much demand for spirituality, which suits me. And the weather was very uncharacteristically dry for Wales, so I could get out and do some long walks, which happened to include some of the best fungus ever. The longest walk is one that I try to include each time I'm there, and last time I did it I remember feeling my strength running out for the last stretch. This time, having been seeing Muscles for a year, I did the walk in less time and extended it even further.

We were studying a very hefty work of theology and philosophy ('A Survey of Buddhism') which is written in a literary style that requires a dictionary. I felt for those whose first language is not English. But alongside the impenetrable text was the additional challenge that a couple of people brought coughs and colds with them and generously spread them around, then there was a minor outbreak of diarrhoea and vomiting followed by confirmation of at least two people with Covid. Somehow I dodged all the bullets and came home well.

While at this retreat centre several years ago, I came upon a 'community library' of second hand books on one of my walks, housed inside a bus stop. I couldn't resist taking a book, but had no book to leave behind on that occasion. It remained on my mind, and on this retreat I returned to the bus stop library and gave it back a book. Unfortunately I stayed to browse, and found another book I wanted to read so I still owed the library a book. This carried on when I took another one but put two back and at the end of the day I think we're square. And I had lots of books to read on the retreat.

Coming home to the hundreds of emails and other messages took a full two days to get through. Life on retreat weighs so little - the only responsibility being to turn up for things and to do the small jobs you sign up for - chopping veg or washing up or cleaning, maybe an hour each day. My responsibilities at home take up so much more time - the boiler needs more work, there were messages from the orthodontist and the optician, I need to contact a roofer, I have to shop, and cook, and do the laundry, and book trains, and attend to things to do with UJ's visa extension, and check my gas and electricity contract and mum's, to see if it needs to change to a cheaper one. Being on retreat is quite attractive, as long as the people are nice, the subject is accessible and I don't get ill.