100-Day Solo Retreat: Practice

Several readers have asked, "What actually happens on a solo retreat?" It's a good question, so today's post will describe the practice and structure of the retreat.

First, every day was exactly like every other day - same schedule, practices, food, and sleep day for 100 days.

During every part of the retreat, day and night, I repeated the Great Dharani, a 450-syllable mantra that takes away the holding and checking mind. Sometimes I said it out loud, other times I repeated it silently.

I took all my food into the retreat at the beginning. Breakfast was steel cut oats with dried fruit and nuts. Lunch and dinner were brown rice and lentils. Unfortunately I couldn't digest the lentils and after 60 days of acid reflux and diarrhea, I made a call for peanut butter. I also had carrots and apples. These simple meals took about 20 minutes to prepare, eat and clean.

The daily schedule was:

12 midnight - 1 a.m.     108 bows, sitting meditation
4:30 a.m. - 7:30 a.m.    108 bows, chanting, sitting meditation
7:30 a.m.                      Breakfast, work period, break
10 a.m. - 12 noon         108 bows, sitting meditation
12 noon                        Lunch, break
1:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.   108 bows, sitting meditation
3:30 p.m. - 4:15 p.m.    Walk outside
4:15 p.m. - 5 p.m.         Sitting meditation
5 p.m.                          Dinner, break
6:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.    Chanting, 108 bows, sitting meditation, chanting        

In the weeks leading up to the retreat, I found it impossible to imagine sitting for 100 days - the time span was just too vast. But once the retreat was underway, all I needed to do was follow the daily schedule and then my idea about 100 days evaporated.

Long solo retreats are commonly undertaken by seasoned practitioners in the Korean Zen tradition (as far as I know, Japanese and Chinese Zen traditions don't generally include retreats of this type), but anyone can create a shorter solo retreat. It's a remarkable way to investigate this precious human life.

Comments

[Fa]

Strange. Your last sentence is tempting, a short solo retreat, of course I can not skip work, but still it can work.

[jill i]

I'm curious about the possible effects of sleep deprivation, looks like you only got 3.5 hours a night? Health experts talk about the negative effects on our body of not getting enough sleep (e.g., growth hormone disruption, just read about that yesterday, etc.). Did you nap at all?

BUT your statement about the simplicity is appealing. Thanks for sharing your experience to those of us who haven't undertaken such a long retreat.

[Barry Briggs]

Jill, at night I got a 2.5 hour stretch of sleep between 9:30 and midnight (actually, about 2 hours), and a 3.5 hour from 1 -4:30 am (actually about 3 hours). So that's five hours, plus a 45 minute nap in the afternoon. Enough to get by, but also pretty disruptive.

[Openbuddha]

Why not just budget six hours of straight sleep from, say, 10 PM to 4 AM or (for night owl's like me) 12 AM to 6 AM or even, go crazy, and sleep until 7 AM?

As a Zen guy who has a sleep disorder and is a night owl, this is one thing that bugs me about most Zen retreats (not yours, it is for you so do what works for you!). People often seem to confuse sleep deprivation for intense practice.

For myself, when I go on retreats and sleep less than six hours a night, all that means is that I get to fight to stay awake on the cushion by late morning and definitely by late afternoon. Trying stay focused and awake does not lend itself to good practice (at least for me).

[Joseph Bengivenni]

I don't know about solo retreats but I know images and this is a beautiful one! Thanks for sharing, image & experience.

[jellybiologist]

I feel like sleeping 4.5 hours is a really bad idea. Especially when one is alone with no social support, in the middle of winter when sunlight is scarce. Isn't anyone concerned about the physiological consequences of this?

[jellybiologist]

I read wrong, 5 hours and 45 minutes, ok that's a little better. But I'm still gonna echo the concerns above. That seems rough.