In the early days of silent retreats, for me they were definitely more about having a break from “life” — especially with young children. After a few years, they became more about self-improvement… becoming a better meditator.
In the last few years, as meditation teacher Bob Sharples says, I’ve been attending retreat as an act of “deep warm friendship” to myself. And like any good friendship, there are layers. There is pain and joy.
On this particular — relatively shorter — seven-day retreat over New Year’s, one of the layers I met was this: despite me teaching to the contrary, something in me still saw my suffering — emotional or physical — as a personal failure. As if I had got it wrong in some way. The diligent mindfulness practitioner in me also still believed I needed to “drill deep” into the pain. To get somewhere.
Towards the end of the retreat, an insight emerged. What my pain actually needed or deserved from me was usually one of three things:
Compassion for often young parts of me; sometimes there were lessons to be learned; and very often it was simply recognition of how human it is to feel irritated by mosquito bites, tired, “hangry” (as my son calls it), or any number of other mind states. It felt far less personal then — more like a shared human experience.
There were also beautiful states of calm, kindness, joy, delight, curiosity, balance, inspiration, creativity, and real “food for my soul”.
A metaphor emerged from my unconscious (I suspect I may have borrowed it from someone else!). I saw buds of joy in the ground of my mind. When my pain and suffering was met with compassion and care – like the sun shining – my tears watered the buds, and my pain became compost that fed them.
And the big take-home — literally a laugh-out-loud moment for me (there’s not much stimulation on retreat, so it doesn’t take much!) — was this: too much compost will suffocate the buds. Just a thin layer would do, thanks.
As the monk Thích Nhất Hạnh answered when asked how much a meditator should feel their suffering:
“Not much.”
If this blog has inspired you in any way, perhaps you might like to join me on a day retreat this year, or a three-night retreat over the long weekend in June 2026. If you haven’t previously done MBSR, MSC, or Pain to Peace with me, please check first that the retreat is appropriate for you before registering.
Hope to see you some time!