cover of episode Lead a Mindfulness Retreat That Fits Busy Lives

Lead a Mindfulness Retreat That Fits Busy Lives

2025/2/12
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Sean Fargo
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@Sean Fargo : 我探讨了非住宿式静修是否能像传统的住宿式静修一样有效。对我而言,住宿式静修确实非常强大,但非住宿式静修,例如在线静修或日间静修,为那些无法离家或负担高昂费用的参与者提供了更便捷的参与途径。我认为,设计良好的非住宿式静修同样可以带来深刻的体验。在设计上,我建议在引导冥想、沉默和自然之间灵活切换,并为参与者提供处理信息和放松身心的空间。最重要的是,要创造一个不是活动清单的空间,而是让参与者真正地沉浸在当下,体验正念的真谛。

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This chapter explores the advantages of day-long mindfulness retreats, comparing them to traditional residential retreats. It highlights the accessibility and flexibility of day retreats, making them suitable for individuals with busy schedules or limited resources. The discussion also touches on the potential impact and structure of such retreats.
  • Compares residential vs. non-residential retreats.
  • Discusses accessibility and flexibility of day retreats.
  • Explores the potential impact of day-long retreats.

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Welcome to the Mindfulness Exercises Podcast, your space to deepen your presence, elevate your mindfulness teaching, and embody mindfulness with confidence, authenticity, and integrity. Join us as we explore insights and tools to transform lives, including your own. Welcome to the Mindfulness Exercises Podcast, your space to deepen your presence, elevate your mindfulness teaching, and embody mindfulness with confidence, authenticity, and integrity.

My name is Sean Fargo, and today's episode comes from an online meditation retreat that I hosted a few years ago, in which people from all around the world came together to meditate for several days, all day, on Zoom. And so during this online retreat, one of the participants asked an important question. Can these kinds of non-residential retreats

Be as impactful as a residential retreat where people are together in person, staying in one place all day and also at night. Many traditional retreats involve several days of immersive practice in a secluded setting.

like at a monastery or a retreat center where everyone gets their own bed and you're basically with these people for several days, if not several weeks. As a Buddhist monk, retreats were maybe the most powerful thing I had ever done where we did multiple three-month silent retreats together

as well as several week retreats together. And I can tell you that in-person residential retreats are extremely powerful. But now, you know, in this age of like post-COVID and everything's online, can online retreats be just as powerful? Or can retreats where people are

come together in person to meditate together during the day, but then they go home at night, can those be as powerful too? Or can a day-long or just a small weekend retreat offer the same depth and connection and impact? So in this episode, I'll share insights on how to design meaningful non-residential retreats

ones where participants engage deeply during the day and then they go home at night where they log off and just kind of reconnect with their home at night and return the next morning to the retreat refreshed. Can these kinds of retreats offer just as much impact? Especially because these formats of non-residential retreats can be much more accessible.

to people who can't afford to spend time away from home or afford the fees of a retreat center. So let's dive into this discussion and explore how to create powerful non-residential retreats and compare it to residential ones. I just was looking for your thought on doing day retreats

without the overnight. So I found a fantastic space that is like 15 minutes from my house. It's everything that I was looking for.

I've never run overnight retreats before. So I think for my own comfort zone and to just kind of feel out how does this space flow and is the energy like what I think it is, I'd like to do something a little bit smaller first. So to have like a weekend retreat that's, you know, all day Saturday, all day Sunday, but you go home at night and then come back. So, yeah.

So anyway, just looking for your thoughts or insights on that. Right. Well, I'm very happy for you. I hope it works out. That sounds really smart to just do a couple of day longs like that or like a connected, you know, two days kind of connected. I think that's that's really smart to try. I think a lot of people appreciate being able to go home.

you know sleep in their own beds you know eat their own dinner it shifts that was like we would probably do dinner there okay um but just just because i've never held that or used this space before either and i know it would shift the dynamic and sort of break um the environment by having everybody sort of you know disband and then come back um but i

I thought it might also be more available to people if they don't have, if they've got little kids, say for example, or pets or whatever, they don't have to have somebody looking after them overnight. And so, yeah. So just looking for, if you have any sort of suggestions and how to structure that with that break in between where they've gone for the night and then come back and then there'll be that, that,

transition period to settle back in again right or you know a sample structure that i might consider would be you know in the morning eight o'clock nine o'clock or something to welcome people and invite people's voices in the room like what brings you here what are you hoping for what's your retreat experience but to invite voices into the room so we get a sense of like

How are people feeling? What's here? I think it's helpful for strangers to get a sense of who's here. In many ways, that helps people feel safe and connected. And then to establish some ground rules, some, you know, what is the structure? What's okay? What's not okay? You know, we don't want people counseling each other during the retreat.

Usually, you know, we want to create a safe environment for everyone. I'm on hand to answer questions. If things are overwhelming, please back off and

let me know or go to the bathroom or change the practice. Like some trauma sensitivity language, where are the facilities? What's my intention as a teacher? And to speak from the heart. I personally like toggling between sitting

Sometimes with guided meditations where you guide it, sometimes in silence, sometimes just a big mix of voice and silence. It's a beautiful space where there's loads of nature options as well. So that can also be absolutely filtered in. Yeah. And you can invite mindful walking, maybe

kind of giving an example of what it means to do mindful walking in like where everyone's standing up and just kind of, what does it feel like to be standing, feeling the bottoms of the feet on the ground? So it feel like when I put weight on my right foot, feeling the weight there, does it feel like to kind of move the body in space?

Can I keep awareness in the bottoms of my feet? What happens if I walk one step forward? Sensing of the bottoms of the feet, heel, arch, toes. So doing kind of like a mindful walking tutorial, like in the room and then invite or outside the room if everyone can hear. And then inviting that outside or inside if there's enough space.

But yeah, you can have like a free choice time. You can do walking, sitting inside by yourself, yoga. - I know for me, the retreats that I've been to where they've tried to like jam so much information and you lose the processing time, which is so valuable. Like you said, the nothing time, right? Just go be in your own stillness and not always being instructed.

So do you have a like a suggested length of time for something like that, like eight in the morning to 8:00 PM kind of thing? Or like, is there a standard industry standard, if you will, for that? Well, like at Spirit Rock, they're day long, basically nine to five or 8:30 to five, basically, partly because

They didn't want to serve dinner to everybody. Sure. I mean, if you want to have dinner there, you can do like mindful eating or mindful sharing or reflection.

and then go until they start yawning or something. And some places will be much more loose and have some sort of like not exactly like entertainment, but something that kind of like they have an indoor pool. They have a sauna. There's a jacuzzi. There's lots of options to build that in. But I just wasn't sure how much of that

do you just kind of go and do your own thing for a little bit and then come back? I guess you just kind of have to build it and see how it goes. Yeah. I mean, I think you might be iterating

to sense into what works for you and what works for other people. Usually with this stage of things, I would invite you to consider like for you, what would feel like really good? And you might make your own agenda that's never existed before. Like what brings life to you?

What could you see yourself having fun with or feeling really nourished by as a teacher? Okay. You know, maybe you want a lot of interaction or none at all or silence or a mixture of discussion. Like what would feel really good to you as a teacher? Okay. That's a great way to look at it. Thank you. Because if you feel enlivened by that and excited by it or super like present with

what you came up with, people will probably feel that and feel nourished by that too. Okay. Without feeling like you have to be within a certain structure. Yeah. I know I'm coming from sort of a conservative Orthodox background here, but I think that when we're teaching, it's important for us to feel connected with, with it. And so to kind of create like

a tabula rasa blank page and like what can i imagine that would feel um really rewarding okay and everyone's going to be very different on that based on their experience their personality i would invite you to start from scratch and throw out any rules that you feel like you have to follow yeah and it depends on the goals and the intentions of the retreat

But at Spirit Rock, you know, I coordinated

I don't know how many day longs, like what you're talking about, many of which were connected from a Saturday and Sunday. And I've seen teachers do extremely different styles. But I think that what you commented on, like with where so much is being thrown at people with concepts and teachings, like it can, my sense is that two days later, most people are going to forget 95% of what was said.

Which is honestly why I started this company, Mindfulness Exercises. It's not called Mindfulness Theory, Mindfulness Concepts. Yeah, yeah. It's Mindfulness Exercises. Because I saw too many day longs where that happened, where people were going to forget 95% of what was said. But in the day longs, they felt like a retreat where there was space for people to be and

and not have the expectation to think or do or talk or figure things out, that's where you kind of feel the energy ground. And people are like coming home to their bodies. Yeah. And in today's Western world, we need that. Yeah.

Yeah, my intention is to create a space that's not like a checklist of did all the activities, right? Like, because that's often what happens is like, hurry up. I found myself doing it with the teacher training. I was like, would you stop like actually be in the practice? What are you doing? Like, that was like a one of those.

Like, oh my gosh, what a hypocrite. But it was a huge learning curve for me to go, oh, yes, set it up so that you can actually

be in the experience. Yeah. Not just outside of it going check, check, check. Right. Right. Totally. Yeah. I mean, I've thought about doing day long like that where I have a name for it. I've never shared this publicly or anything, but I call it just sitting together. Nice. And we're just sitting together.

And I haven't done this. I don't think I've ever seen this, but like the idea is that you get people in a room and you can sit on a chair or a mat or the ground or whatever, but you're just sitting together in the room and that's it. You can close your eyes or not. You can look around or not, you know, but no one's like knitting or reading or writing. Yeah. We're sitting together.

And maybe, you know, as a teacher, I would say sitting together and every once in a while, just kind of like giving voice to what's happening. It's noticing our experience, feeling what it's like to be here.

Nice to show up with no agenda. Yeah. And just experience whatever it is you experience, right? That's beautiful. And those are my favorite teachers. That's why I love my Taoist teacher in China. Zero agenda. Zero. Like every time I'd go sit with them, you just make it up as we went along. Sometimes we'd go for a walk in the woods. Sometimes we'd just sit there in silence. Sometimes he'd pour tea.

with broken English and talk about the mind or the heart or whatever. There's a guy close to me named Anam Thubten, who's a Tibetan teacher, and he'll give big talks and retreats, zero preparation. And it's beautiful. Yeah.

And like, sometimes he'll talk for 17 minutes about something he's been thinking about. And then he'll sit in silence for five minutes, just looking at everybody and everyone just kind of sitting there. We don't know how long the silence is going to last. It's not a meditation. He's just pause. He just stopped talking. Okay. And then, but it's not awkward. It's just connecting in real time sitting. And then 11 minutes later, something new will pop up.

and it'll crack a joke, not like sarcasm. It's just funny. Something humorous occurred to him. And now we're all laughing. It's like organically weaving between silence, you know, stream of consciousness, quoting ancient teachers, you know, and it's beautiful. And my, I love those teachers, like the teachers who come up with the,

50 bullet point outline. We're going to go from here to here to here to here to here. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with it. I personally don't resonate with that as much. And I know some people do, and that's fine. But anyway, I'm just like, yeah, testing the process of its own organic nature. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And that's being present with whatever comes up.

Thank you for joining me in this exploration of day-long and weekend mindfulness retreats, or just non-residential retreats in general. As we've talked about, this format offers a more accessible and flexible way to support people in deepening their mindfulness practice while also fostering a deep sense of connection and presence.

If this conversation resonated with you and you're ready to take your mindfulness teaching to the next level, consider joining our mindfulness meditation teacher certification where you can join our program in an affordable, accessible, self-paced way to certify to teach mindfulness in professional settings.

You can learn more at mindfulnessexercises.com slash certify. Until next time, stay present, stay grounded, and continue showing up with authenticity and compassion. Thank you for listening.