At the end of last year, I made an ambitious plan for a whole series of Substack posts I wanted to write in 2025. So far, I’ve finished exactly zero (more on that in another post…).
So here I am, finally breaking my silence - with a post about silence. Or more specifically, about the silent meditation retreat I just completed last week.
I wanted to write about it while the experience is still fresh - partly for my own records, but also in case it’s useful to anyone considering a retreat themselves.
The short answer: it depends. Even with the same teacher and retreat name, no two retreats are exactly the same, but of course there are some general principles and structures they tend to follow. This particular one was a six-day retreat with Burgs called “The Art of Meditation Foundation retreat”. The group I was part of turned out to be very experienced, with most having worked with Bergs for 10+ years, so we spent less time on foundations and went quite deep quite fast.
A typical day on retreat looks like this:
6.45am Wakeup
7am Morning Meditation
7.30am Breakfast
8.30am Morning session (instructions and meditations)
11.30am Exercise session (chi kung / yoga)
12.30pm Lunch
2.30pm Afternoon session (clarifying discourses and meditations)
5.30pm Exercise session (chi kung / yoga)
6.30pm Soup
7.30pm Evening Discourse and Meditation (generally of a motivational and inspirational nature)
8.30pm Bedtime
Participants are asked to adhere to a simple but powerful code of conduct while on retreat to support their practice (the Five Precepts in Buddhism):
To abstain from killing any living being;
To abstain from taking what is not given;
To abstain from sexual activity;
To abstain from untruthfulness (noble silence to be observed outside of Q&A during teachings;
To abstain from all intoxicants.
Additionally, no technology, reading or writing is allowed to limit distractions and allow the participants to be fully present with their experience. For a lot of us, this alone presents quite the challenge!
The retreat progressed in stages:
Day 1: Learning to rest in the body and “turn the mind around”, whereby we learn to establish direct perception of our experience rather than watching ourselves have the experience and telling ourselves a story about it.
Days 2-3: Building concentration, mostly through breath-focused meditation
Days 4-5: Practicing Vipassana - learning to observe sensations, thoughts, and emotions non-judgmentally and letting them go
Day 6: Loving kindness meditation. Building on all our hard work, we connect back to ourselves and the world around us through expressing gratitude and love. We discuss how to bring back the insights and teachings back to our daily lives.
One of the foundational ideas behind all of this work is that we create the vast majority of our suffering with our minds, through either clinging to or resisting our experience. When we learn to simply be with what arises without judgment, without attachment, and without aversion, then we experience true freedom and limit suffering for ourselves and others. Easier said than done, but through a retreat like this one can start to get glimpses of what that feels like.
This was my second week-long retreat - my first was seven years ago. Since then, I’ve done shorter retreats and other types of deep-dive personal work. I was pleasantly surprised to see that even though my meditation practice hasn’t been especially consistent, I was able to drop in quite quickly.
I was much more comfortable being with myself.
I wasn’t afraid of the silence this time; I welcomed it.
I didn’t mind sitting still for hours (despite being 20 weeks pregnant!), whereas seven years ago, I was sneaking out for lunchtime runs to take the edge off.
Of course, there were challenges too. At the start, I could barely stay awake - my body finally relaxed after months of being on high alert and the fatigue caught up with me. The concentration practice was a real struggle at times - my mind was racing, and I was getting frustrated both with myself and the experience.
As we went into the Vipassana practice, initially I tried to apply my Type A approach to it - I wanted a major breakthrough on every sit, and got frustrated when that didn’t happen, thinking “I must be doing it wrong”. Of course, as soon as I let go of any expectation and surrendered fully to each sit, including the boring ones, the breakthroughs came. I laughed and cried, felt happy, angry and afraid, and a lot of the time I had no idea why. Emotions just passed through me and got released, which was beautiful and liberating.
I found the retreat ending quite abrupt this time - I was in the middle of pulling back another layer when we had to bring ourselves back, and it left me anxious and angry, if I’m honest. As a result I didn’t come home in the best shape - I found reintegration back to Central London extremely jarring, really struggled to sleep for the first 2 nights, and struggled to connect back to my loved ones. But after a few days, it felt like some pieces fell into place and I felt lighter, clearer, more present and more open.
In my view there are a few layers to this”
The Surface-Level Recharge
A tech-free, wordless week to reset your body, mind and nervous system. Even if nothing “deeper” happens, this alone makes it worthwhile.(Re-)Building Meditation Foundations
As our teacher Burgs says, while meditation and mindfulness have gained popularity, most apps and courses out there don’t teach the basic foundations of meditation first, meaning that most meditate with our mind without learning to disengage it first, and are not able to go much further that simple awareness of our thoughts (which is helpful, but far from the end goal). A retreat like this helps to lay the right foundations for your practice that you can then maintain and supplement yourself.
Emotional Processing Without Words
As a coach, I clearly believe in the value of talking through our issues. But sometimes we over-talk. We analyze and intellectualize our pain instead of just feeling it. Our brain builds barriers and defences that are very difficult to penetrate with words alone. This retreat reminded me that profound healing can happen without a single word - just by fully feeling what’s there, and letting it go.
Realignment with values
While I am far from a Buddhist, I do aspire to adhere to Buddhist principles in many areas of my life, and this was a timely opportunity to reflect on where I’m falling short. I would like to be someone who treads lightly on this planet, who is of few needs and easy to serve, and who leads a life of service. I realised that my environmental footprint is much higher than I’d like it to be (driven mostly by travel, my diet, and child-related consumptions) and that I had gotten a bit lost again in stories about what I need materially to be happy. This retreat served as a reminder that I’m happiest when my life is simple, and built around service and connection.
I think almost anyone could benefit from such a retreat. Especially if:
You’re burnt out or overstimulated
You’re stuck on a big life decision
You’ve experienced a recent life transition or loss
You want to deepen your meditation practice
You’re simply curious
It doesn’t need to be “remedial.” It can be an act of exploration and deeper self-knowledge.
Retreats aren’t magic pills. They’re powerful containers for insight and transformation, yes - but only if we integrate the insights and maintain our practice when we come back. Otherwise, it’s just a nice break, and can actually leave you feeling worse because you will be much more aware of how you’re feeling and the role you’re playing in that, but without consistent enough practice of approaching life differently. You will likely find yourself itching to sign up to another retreat in a few months’ time - which isn’t the point.
I do think retreats, in addition to a regular practice, are more essential now than ever. We rarely get uninterrupted space to reset our nervous systems, and reflect on our lives without distraction. To simply be with ourselves.
My current goal is to do one long retreat each year, with shorter weekend top-up’s as time allows, in addition to a daily practice.
If you’ve been thinking about going on a silent retreat - or are just curious - I hope this gives you a bit of a window in. It’s hard work. It’s not always pleasant. But in my experience, it’s always worthwhile.
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