Retreat Report: Awareness in the Everyday

Shawbottom Farm 2024, Leaders Juliet Hackney and Alysun Jones

In order for me to go on retreat there had to be a negotiation with those I would leave behind, my wife and my stepdaughter. It is all too easy to forget the personal cost to others of the absence of those going on retreat. The initial reluctance to let me go, in time moved to acceptance that I could.

This was my first retreat and it was “Awareness in the Everyday: The Four Foundations of Mindfulness”. The retreat was led by Alysun Jones and Juliet Hackney. Happily I had already met them both through Zoom.

I had joined Alysun’s course, “Introduction to Meditation, Buddhism and Chan” in January. This was important for me as it opened a door of interest and encouragement to delve that little bit deeper into Chan. Juliet I met through zoom when I started to attend her Dales Chan sitting group that meets on a Wednesday evening.

So the day dawned for the retreat. The weather was good. It was dry and sunny. This was especially important to us as my wife was to drop me off at Shawbottom Farm in the middle of a remote moorland location. It has a certain raw beauty and poor weather would have made getting there difficult. We found it and how lovely it is. All modern well-kept accommodation and a beautiful Meditation Hall.

I was welcomed, and after a brief introduction to the others taking part on the retreat, the rules were explained and the retreat began. It was a silent retreat, which in one sense was a great relief. No need to explain who I was or why I was here. The silence gave us all space to focus on our practice and to appreciate new dimensions to it that we could not have imagined or even discovered by ourselves practising at home on our own.

There was a certain rigour built into the day and gave it structure. Silence, early rising, outside exercise in the open air, and lots more meditation periods than I would ever contemplate doing at home. And, for me, herein lies the beauty. A physical challenge hand in hand with thoughtful guided meditations on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness to our everyday lives. Each day was dedicated to one of the four. Each was not an abstract lecture about the Satipatthana Sutra but rather each was directed personally at us so we could reflect upon each in turn and allow them to touch our own lives.

In truth these were uncomfortable moments for me. I had to face the reality of the obstructions I had put in place in different ways. But then came a palpable softening in my attitude to be really open and loosen my grip on a well-maintained grudge.

Somehow it worked. A change of perspective. What was in effect a petty grudge, when set against the enormity of all the problems in our world. It was a movement towards a diminution of the self. Can I call it relief? Maybe not, but something had changed.

My interviews with the leaders allowed me, maybe for the first time, to articulate the things I would not normally talk about to anyone. Painful things which I saw as separate from my practice, and which, in fact the leaders pointed out should be the very heart of it. I now see the painful struggles I have endured are the very root from which all transformation and compass can grow.

As the retreat continued I had a very real deepening sense of silence and a new depth to the meditation itself. All I can say now is I have changed. I know I have. I have, for now at least, a calm determination that will not let me let those I love down.