Retreat at a Center for Contemplative Research

Apply for short-term and long-term retreat

It takes years of careful preparation to enter a long-term solitary retreat successfully. One must be deeply grounded in the teachings and practices of a time-tested contemplative tradition, and this requires in-depth study and consistent daily practice. The heartfelt aspiration to spend months or years in solitude and silence must grow over a long period of time, becoming a steady and determined intention—far more than a mere pipe dream.

Miyo Samten Ling in
Crestone, Colorado, USA

Sita Tara Villa in
Castellina Marittima, Italy

Preparing to become a qualified applicant

Building Confidence

One gains confidence that one is ready to enter a long-term retreat when one’s practice already so completely suffuses one’s days and nights that there is no doubt one could sustain a continuous stream of practice in solitude when most forms of external stimulation and activity are removed. That is, does one wake in the morning with the aspiration to be of benefit to all living beings? Does one go to sleep at night in a mode of honest self-reflection, dedicating all the virtues of one’s day to a higher and more encompassing goal?

The application process for entering a long-term retreat at any one of our Centers for Contemplative Research is rigorous and highly selective, with many qualified applicants seeking places in a limited number of cabins.

Preparing with Patience and Deliberation

Since current retreatants remain in retreat for many months or years, applicants should be willing to apply for a place long in advance, often waiting a year or more before a cabin becomes available. This is normal, and can be a welcome part of the process, as the more vigorously one practices meditation and virtue when not in strict retreat, the more this can lead to ever greater readiness to enter the depths of practice in full-time retreat, once the outer and inner conditions are complete.

Since our contemplative research observatories are designed to provide the most conducive possible circumstances for sustained, silent retreat, it is relatively rare for formal teachings to be given on site. That is, one should already be very familiar with the contemplative methods that one will be practicing in retreat before one begins. Ongoing guidance from resident teachers focuses on helping retreatants to navigate the difficulties and triumphs that arise while in full-time practice, but it is expected that everyone at a CCR is already well-versed in the array of practices in which they will be engaging. Occasional teaching events inspire and take us into new aspects of the practices, but are not the primary source of training for long-term retreat.

Short-Term Retreat

In order to prepare fully to enter a long-term retreat with the goal of achieving the sufficient stability of mind—shamatha—with which to fully investigate the nature of reality—vipashyana—and thus proceed along a path to irreversible freedom from suffering, we highly recommend that aspiring contemplatives first engage in one or more shorter retreats, each one of 2–3 months, or else 6 months in duration.

Two- to Six-Month Retreat

A two- to six-month retreat is an optimal period of time in which to focus on supportive practices in conjunction with shamatha, thus building a balanced retreat practice in which one cultivates both the heart and mind, in harmony with the body, in order to learn how to spend time in retreat in the most meaningful way. Ask yourself, can you be utterly content practicing Dharma all day, prioritizing genuine well-being that comes from within over temporary, stimulus-driven pleasures? Can you take joy in following an array of nourishing practices to balance the mind and heart, without access to internet or regular social interaction? Can you find inspiration by taking long walks in nature and then simply returning to meditation practice within a solitary cabin?

Throughout such a retreat, one especially cultivates the sublime intention of bodhicitta—the resolve to realize the state of total perfection of a buddha in order to benefit all beings. With this motivation, one develops ethical intelligence, becoming keenly aware of one’s actions of body, speech, and mind throughout the day and night, taking great care never to harm any sentient being and doing one’s best to be of benefit even in the smallest ways.

Attentional Intelligence and Balance

Upon this foundation one develops attentional intelligence and balance, specifically through the practices of shamatha. Then one develops the heart and mind—emotional and cognitive balance, respectively—through practices that increase one’s compassion and faith in the path precisely through deeper understanding of the nature of the mind and all phenomena, especially through the four applications of mindfulness.

From here one begins to hone the subtle spiritual intelligence that will enable one to maintain spacious, joyous spiritual balance through the more intensive periods of retreat that come when one settles into the single-pointed practice of shamatha for many months at a time in long-term retreat.

While the core focus of the CCR Mind Labs is on long-term retreat, we welcome applications for shorter-term retreats of 2–3 months or else 6 months in duration, especially when these are designed in preparation for long-term retreat.

Long-Term Retreat

Once one has gained experience in full-time, balanced, solitary retreat practice for a few months at a time, one may be ready to enter into a much longer-term retreat focused on gaining the groundbreaking stability of shamatha. In order for such a retreat to be oriented towards reaching the path to enlightenment, it must be grounded in and continuously fueled by bodhicitta, which is rooted in the Four Immeasurables, that is, immeasurable compassion, loving-kindness, empathetic joy, and impartiality.

In consultation with one’s teachers, there is a point in one’s long-term retreat when the broad array of practices described above will be streamlined into a deeply nonconceptual flow of shamatha practice, both during formal sessions and between sessions. Classically, this single-pointed practice then needs to be sustained continuously without a break for six to nine months or more in order for shamatha to come to fruition within one’s mindstream.

Given the stresses and scars of modern life—with which each of us enters such long-term retreat—it can often take much longer to prepare fully for such a truly unbroken stretch of single-pointed shamatha retreat, while still remaining in a state of balanced retreat the whole time. Thus, while “open-ended” retreat certainly does not mean a commitment to lifetime retreat, it does mean that one has arranged one’s life circumstances in such a way that there is no firm end date by which one knows one must emerge from retreat, whether or not one has reached one’s goals.

Rather, one commits to remain in retreat as long as is needed to completely balance body, mind, and heart, thus achieving a sublime state of mental stability and balance, which will then be made irreversible through insight into the actual nature of reality that comes from practices of vipashyana. From here, one will then have choices about how to continue on the path, whether in solitude or in a more socially engaged way of life and service that does not lose the meditative stability of shamatha.

A Six- to Eight-Year Contemplative Training Program

We are in the process of developing a six- to eight-year curriculum of study and service that each long-term retreatant may follow at his or her own pace—in a way that complements but does not detract from the flow of meditation practice that will culminate in ever-deepening periods of silence and solitude. Our aspiration is for this curriculum to fully prepare contemplatives-in-training to emerge as qualified teachers and professional contemplatives prepared to conduct their own research. Analogous to a PhD program, whether in the humanities or sciences, where it is typical to expect a period of six to eight years of intensive study, field or lab work, and a synthesis of one’s experience that reveals one’s proficiency in the field, the training program for professional contemplatives is expected to unfold over at least six to eight years for them to become certified as qualified teachers and contemplative scientists in their own right.

Recommended Retreats

2018 8-Week Retreat
The Sharp Vajra of Conscious Awareness Tantra and Düdjom Lingpa’s commentary (edited by Pema Tashi) entitled The Essence of Clear Meaning
2019 8-week Retreat
The Enlightened View of Samantabhadra
2019 Week-long Retreat
The Way of Shamatha: Soothing the Body, Calming the Mind, Illuminating Awareness
2020 Week-long Retreat
A Meditation Retreat on Shamatha, Vipashyana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen
2020 8-week Retreat
Phase 1: “Taking the Impure Mind as the Path” and Phase 2: “Revealing Your Own Face as the Sharp Vajra of Vipaśyanā” in The Vajra Essence: From the Matrix of Pure Appearances and Primordial Consciousness, a Tantra Self-Emergent from the Nature of Existence with B. Alan Wallace, Glen Svensson and Eva Natanya.