6 Signs You Need A Retreat – Pronto!
[Written by Admin]
Ever felt like you needed a break?
All that you hear is the nagging from your mother (in-law), nagging from your boss, nagging from your spouse. All. Day. Every. Day.
Phone notification’s ringing, cars honking, people gossiping… and if you’re a parent, baby’s crying and screaming.
Yes, it’s all part of life. But who are we kidding; you desperately yearn for some PEACE and QUIET.
You tell yourself, “I need to get away”. And yet, years pass and you’re still telling yourself the same thing.
Below are 6 more signs that you’re in a real need to get away; you need a retreat – PRONTO.
Every weekend looks the same: cafes, movies and restaurants.
All of us look forward to the weekend. It’s Thursday, and we’re already thinking about what to do after work tomorrow night, Friday night.
Options: Where to go for dinner, which friends will be up to hit the clubs, what new cafes are there to check out, what movie is on that you haven’t yet watched.
Sure, there were weekends that were unforgettable. But most of the time you’re simply struggling to find things to do. Not even exciting activities, just something to do.
You’re bored of the same old thing, and want to try something new.
Stressed
Datelines to meet. Bills to pay. Unending emails to reply. You hate your job. Kids won’t stop screaming. Could your boss get any bossier?
You mind is in a constant state of negativity, and you haven’t a clue how to snap out of it.
You’ve said the words, “I need a drink” too many times to count. And anything that makes you happy doesn’t last long. You drink that second pint, and only have work the next day to return to.
Inner yearn to just get away
Most of us are holed up at the office for hours upon hours. Whilst half our mind is completely focused, the other half yearns to be anywhere but behind a desk.
Anywhere but in the concrete jungle – a place to reconnect with yourself, to get reconnected with nature.
Wouldn’t it just be refreshing to hear the sounds of birds and crickets, and not of car’s honking and people gossiping? Yes, please!
Cluttered mind
When work is unending and house work keeps piling, you find that your mind is everywhere but, as Zen masters say, “in the now.”
Even when there’s not much going on, the mind seems to be buzzing here and there, with no direction or results.
We think we need some “me” time to calm down and relax. So we endlessly scroll through YouTube videos, watch TV, play video games, window shop at the mall.
And yet, our mind remains just as stressed and cluttered as before.
Spent so much on holidays, yet still remain stressed.
Ah, finally the time comes. You’ve saved up a few hundred ringgit and feel that it’s necessary to splurge on a holiday. After all, you deserve it.
So there’s the packing, the traveling, the checking in, the soaking of your feet in the warm sand, the beachside dinners, the checking out, the traveling home, the unpacking.
You thought you’d be rejuvenated, and yet you’re back to square one. Stressed, and tired.
Personal development
So there’s the routine Monday to Friday, and the weekend of random activities.
Within the sea of people that’s part of the morning rush, a handful of us questions, “Is this all to life?”
There’s this lingering feeling in your heart that you’d love to explore something a little more meaningful. A little deeper than the rice bowl your chopsticks are digging into.
You look into the mirror, and hope that you’ll find someone with a purpose in life staring back at you.
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For more interesting lists:
1. 5 Practical Tips For A Spiritual Retreat
2. Do You Know What These 3 Millionaires Did?
3. 5 Unexpected Women Who Became Buddhist Nuns
4. 10 Incredible House Blessings by Kechara Pastors
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Thanks Admin for this 6 points to guide us in knowing when we need to go into retreat. In this stressful world, I think that it would be good if we were to spend our spare time in retreat as it rejuvenates our minds as well as helps us keep focus to manage obstacles better. In the long run, we may gain the merits and attainments towards the inner peace we seek.
Retreat is indeed a great way to breakaway from our busy schedule to seek for a calm and peaceful mind. Not only that, it is a great way to connect with the Buddha for a few days without any disturbance, just us and Buddha. We are all very fortunate that Rinpoche created Kechara Forest Retreat where we have a conducive environment for retreat. Thank you Rinpoche for your kindness.
Thank you admin for this article on retreat. Looks like its time for me to go for another retreat soon. Have been feeling very tired and stressed up all the time on the internet.:)
Boy oh boy do I need to go into retreat! Aside from the fact Dorje Shugden instructed me to do a Singdongma retreat, I just really enjoy retreats. The first couple of days are always difficult. I’m itchy, fidgety, can’t keep my mind still. For whatever reason, I become hyper-aware of everything…or rather, I become more easily distracted.
It’s in those moments you realise how much your mind is always looking for stimulation, to distract from the suffering we abide in. And when it has none of that stimulation, that’s when the withdrawal symptoms manifest…the fidgeting, the itchiness.
Everyone should go into retreat from time to time. We go on holiday to take a break from our lives but the problem with holidays is that they end and invariably, we have to go back to our lives…and we enter into the same cycle again, where eventually we feel we need to take another break from our lives and go on holiday again.
What’s so bad about our lives that we need to leave it behind? Wouldn’t it be more effective to find a way to approach our lives with a different perspective, so we don’t always feel like we have to escape from it?
That’s what a retreat is for. If you’re going to take a holiday, you may as well spend it in retreat and come away better equipped to deal with your life and mind, than go on holiday and come away with nothing more useful than some photos.
We all experienced the signs described in this article, some of us even experienced all 6 signs at once. But not many of us do something about it. We tend to simply continue to endure these symptoms until its too late. Until it gets too much and it pushes us to make the wrong decisions.
I think it is important first of all for us to acknowledge that we experienced these signs and that it is okay for us to feel this way. Experiencing boredom, stress, yearning, confusion, frustration, etc is fine. How we deal with these experiences or emotions is what set precedent to whether we will label these experiences as positive or negative.
Sometimes we need to step away and take a break. And I don’t mean go for a holiday because often we go for a holiday and when we get back we felt the need to have a break from the stress of the holiday. The break we need is to take a step back away from the sources of our symptoms, to momentarily withdraw from the world so to speak.
Everything is fast paced these days and nothing feels secured. We are often afraid to take a break because we think if we do, the world will move on ahead and we get left behind. That’s precisely why we need to step away and take that break.
A retreat doesn’t take us away from the world we have to live in but it actually enables us to silent some of the noises, to clear some of the fog and allows us to gain better clarify about the world we have to live in. This clarify will help us better handle what we are faced with and be happier in the world we have to live in. It’s not about going against the world, it’s about living in harmony with it.
This is the season of retreats. While we consider retreat as a getaway from the daily grind, there are a few useful tips prescribed by His Eminence the 25th Tsem Rinpoche for us to make our retreat a more efficient one. Check out the line below:
https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/kechara-13-depts/5-practical-tips-for-a-spiritual-retreat.html
Geared with these tips, I am looking forward to my next retreat.
Thank you Rinpoche for your kind advice, they are very useful and helpful, as always.
Humbly, bowing down,
Stella Cheang
The above article is so true. When we’re stressed, we often think of how to distract ourselves further rather than get to the root cause of the stress. For me, watching a movie helps and going for a massage. It helps me relax my mind.
But what really helps is a retreat. In my experience, it’s the prayer retreats. I noticed how my mind really calms down eventually. The first day of a prayer retreat is usually quite a struggle because the mind and body are so restless. I’m so used to moving around all day and mu mind is always thinking of what’s next, that stilling it somehow is a shock to the system.
But once the mind and the body are calm and still for the next few days of the retreat, the end result is much better than going on a vacation. My mind is very calm and collected after the retreat and whatever I’m stressed or unhappy about melts away. It feels like the mind is well rested and I’m ready to work again.
In Kechara Forest Retreat, we have basic meditation programs called Inner Peace Retreat for city people who’d like an opportunity to this calmness. Click here for more info http://retreat.kechara.com/inner-peace-retreat/
There is the ‘doing mind’ and it compels us to fill it constantly with an activity… chasing the next rainbow or the next deadline. Our life is spent chasing the next rainbow.
I have never engaged in a retreat but the benefits as told by some of the people above makes me want to participate in one!
Apparently I need a retreat. I need a lotta things. Im behind where I should be in Dharma but I CAN do it. Thats my saving grace.
Dear Rinpoche,
This article was quite a downer but none the less true. I have felt like a few of those points up there before, mainly stress and boredom sometimes and you are right about the holidays. But my family always help me out with these, I am grateful to have such a wonderfully chaotic family. 😉
Personally, i think i would go to a retreat because of stress xD
Even when i go to pujas, i feel so relaxed. I don’t know why, but when i get out of the puja, i feel so good about myself. I feel like i have been cleansed. A kind of sense of freedom, like i can do anything and i don’t have to care about what people think. Especially with all the school work i have, it can get very stressful for me. And i know that this is just the beginning of my life and that there will be a lot more work for me in the future, but still stress is stress.
So therefore, i think that retreats and pujas are very good ways to relieve stress and to generally just make yourself feel happy 🙂 🙂 🙂
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing the 6 signs of we need a Retreat.
Many times we will become more focus, more alert and feel less burdened after we have meditated and participated in retreats to remove the barriers inside our struggling mind, which are so condensed with worries about our daily routines, house works, working schedule and all the things that bother us every second.
During the retreat, we are given the opportunity to be released from all the outside connections, where we can free up ourselves from worldly commitment and focus on the meditations and prayer to understand more of our inner self. There is no better reward for ourselves after some tiring and exhausted weeks or months other than the peace of mind achieve during the retreats, which can help us to cope with the worldly problems and keep ourselves protected by our Dharma practice and mindfulness with our body, speech and mind.
The feelings of a retreat is just so great! I love the kind of peace that one can find when they do a retreat. When we do a retreat, we would be able to better understand ourselves as well. It is just a great thing to do to unwind ourselves when we are feeling all cooped up in our busy schedules.
The last time that I did a retreat, I truly enjoyed the whole experience. It allowed me to have a better understanding of myself. Understanding why I would be doing things in a certain way, and not be able to do things in a certain. Through the retreat, it would also allow you to be a better and fresher person all together. It would help you to be able to think more clearly and also boost the creativity in you.
I cannot think of anything negative that would happen to anyone after they have done a retreat.
It amazes me how a weekend at Kechara Forest Retreat can immediately have an positive impact on the retreat participants. Participants share that the meditation classes and practical workshops are very helpful to get them started with a journey to achieve some inner peace. At the same time, guests were amazed how healthy and kind vegetarian cuisine is so delicious.
We, at Kechara Forest Retreat look forward to welcoming more people to join us for the retreat so that they learn the techniques and lifestyle methods that can bring peace and joy.
Don’t we all need these badly? It is not just a time of our own, but rather a peaceful mind to find our inner self which is long overdue. Having a retreat is like a a husk (densely clouded by delusions, negativities) that needs peeling off. I am very thankful that Rinpoche has these visions manifested out in Pahang … The Kechara Forest Retreat. I am sure that many will find peace, inner solace here. For those who can’t join in, perhaps a quiet time at night will do the trick.