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The Great Retreat

The first Great Retreat lasted from 8^th December 2014 to 1^st April 2018.

During the months of June, July and August a Washing Out followed up; and a second Washing-Out during some weeks in 2019.

I started the second Great Retreat on 31^th December 2019 at my hermitage. It will last until 24^th April 2023.
During this time I'm not reachable, for my administrator Chorherr Daniel Salzgeber will answer.

Cave in the Snow

The Great Retreat is known in the Tibetan Buddhism. It lasts 3 years, 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days. During this time the monk or the nun lives totally cut off from the world. The day is filled by meditation and spiritual exercises. The night lasts only a few hours; sleeping while seated.

The goal: the constant whirling of the mind will be brought to an end. With that the mind turns away from the ever changing world and focuses on the unchangeable, on the Absolute – or in religious terms: on God.

What exercises have to been done and what struggles have to be overcome, there is only very few published on the internet. Why? Because there is nothing to do, nothing to attain, nothing to become – and there is also nothing to lose. No activities are possible. All is about being aware.

Some insights are given to us by the nun Tenzin Palmo who has gone through this process. Her book: “Cave in the Snow” (chapters 8 and 10) or a video with the same name. The video can be found in the download area.

Her two big questions were:

What is perfection?
And how to attain it?

From Tenzin Palmo I got the following personal advice:

«No matter what happens in retreat, don’t leave!»

Make sure you got the double meaning! Not to walk away from the place and not to give up the retreat.

The Three Main Points of the Great Retreat

To reach this absolute state (in religious words: the unio with God, the Union Mystica) a certain environment is needed. It is necessary to free oneself from all systems of this world completely. This is why, in the Himalayan Mountains one withdraws to a cave.

totally focused

I have lived with the world and I have reached what I wanted to reach. Now it is enough. That which is constantly changing does not bring about a constant satisfaction. The sense organs do like something today, but tomorrow something else. The more wood is given to the fire of the cravings the more it burns. The more the fire burns the more wood is needed.
The whole life is attracting likes and avoiding dislikes.

God is perfection. Who has tasted once never will refrain.

nothing to do
nothing to obtain
nothing to achieve
nothing to become

It is the easiest thing and at the same time the most difficult thing to keep quiet. Just to sit there, bodily and mentally still. To be at peace with oneself. Independent of activities and of what one has reached. The deep peace surfaces from the inside and does not come from outer things.

If one keeps quiet for long enough activities no longer are possible. And it is no longer necessary to do something because one is at peace with oneself and with the world. Nevertheless if one does something, one does not gain anything. Even if one does not do anything, one does not lose anything.

To become silent and to stay silent, to let rise the inner peace is the only thing that counts. Everything else is unimportant. Nothing is more important than that. Therefore one can stop doing anything else. (The only “variety” in my days is the study of the Holy Scriptures completed by researches on the internet.)