Answering the Call
Reconnect with your innermost nature by going on retreat.
By Sarah Powers
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For thousands of years, retreat has been a crucial part of yogic life. All
over Asia, whether in mountain caves or lush forests, seekers striving to
free their minds recognized the importance of renouncing the worldly life,
temporarily or permanently, in order to concentrate more fully on meditative
practices.
Although there are still lone ascetics and communities of monastics, today
most practitioners of yoga and Buddhism choose to remain in the world. As
lay practitioners, we are blending the insights and openings we garner from
these paths with the numerous responsibilities of a life that includes
business and family. We live in a fast-paced digital era, but there is still
no better way for devoted practitioners to encourage spiritual unfolding
than to relinquish busy schedules and practical concerns and go on retreat.
Whether we go for four days or three months, these periods of uninterrupted
practice and quiet reflection allow us to melt away the distraction of
compulsive busyness. On retreat, we give ourselves (and everyone else) the
gift of stripping away the mind's obsessions and revealing what Buddhist
sages call our undistracted and compassionate Buddha nature.
In both the Hindu and the Buddhist spiritual traditions, 99 percent of
practitioners have a need for retreats. A gifted few, with an abundance of
spiritual karma from past lives, realize enlightenment with a minimum of
practice and exposure to the teachings. But most wise teachers do not
recommend simply wishing and waiting for this; instead, they advise seekers
to repeatedly go on retreat to strengthen their understanding and to rest in
the spaciousness of uninterrupted practice. The last teaching the great yogi
Milarepa gave his chief disciple was to turn and show his student his
behind, deeply calloused from long years of sitting on the granite of the
Himalayas. Milarepa's wordless message: You have to practice.
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