How long? Why? Are you mad? What did you do in there?… and many other questions from the people around me are most likely waiting for me when I get home. For that reason I decided, on my journey back, to write this short retrospective reflection, to save myself energy, to make answering what will probably be the most frequently asked questions more efficient, and to sort out my thoughts and feelings. Also, since I’m a forgetful person, I wrote these lines as a practical archive of my experiences.
When did I first hear about dark retreats?
I first heard about dark retreats in my final year at university. Back then an external qigong teacher mentioned it to us, in a charismatic way, with wisdom and awareness in her eyes. She was 70 at the time, which hardly anyone would have guessed, physically but above all mentally. I remember that her talk really interested and fascinated me at the time, but the spark of the idea to try it myself passed me by back then.
Given my nature and my appetite to try everything in life that’s possible, I now ask myself why? Is it really true that some things in life come at the right time? Lately I’ve been coming round to the view that there is an abundance of information, impulses and inspiring stories around us. Impulses that could change us, influence us, move us forward in life in a radical way – there are plenty of them every single day of our lives. But we somehow don’t see them. We perceive them superficially. We absorb them and, somehow in the spirit of the consumer way of life, move smoothly on to the next and the next, without these prompts touching us any more deeply.
Many of us dismiss it out of hand
Surely it’s not possible to be in the dark for a week, two, seven. To go into icy water in winter and not fall ill. To take in no physical food. Personally I think that the human being of today’s type, Homo Sapiens Domesticus, living practically all the time in the blissful feeling of his comfort zone, has not and cannot have any idea of what his body is capable of, and so the reasoning and setting of limits that he so often likes to spread to those around him is not his to do at all.
There is a Chinese proverb that says: “Let the one who says it cannot be done not hinder the one who is doing it.” But unfortunately the common practice in our society is to pass on to each other fear, worry and the false assumption that something is impossible and wrong. On the one hand it is certainly good to sift information carefully in life; on the other, I have the feeling that the overwhelming majority of people, under the influence of subconsciously acting fear, live their lives dozing, unknowingly behind the bars of a prison of their own making, which symbolises their comfort zone, from which, in a seemingly blissful and contented experiencing of the present, they watch life literally flow past before their eyes.
In all that affluence we reassure one another. We create a collective “consciousness” of the things that are possible in life, and those that would probably require a pinch of effort and firm will on our part we gradually sweep off the table. We don’t realise that we are in fact suffering from that affluence, losing our natural abilities, and as humanity gradually growing weaker in every respect, which of course is grist to the mill of many of today’s societies worshipping the economic religion, whose aim is precisely to keep us in this feeling of affluence and dozing. But enough philosophical words.
I carried the information about dark retreats around in my head for about two years
From time to time I noticed an interview in the media with people sharing their experiences, which often differed greatly. Moreover, as they say, lived experience cannot be passed on, and there are 7.5 billion ways of perceiving in the world. The funny thing is that the fateful spark of the idea to have this experience myself came during one of my cold-water immersion sessions in January 2019. To be able to stay in icy water for a certain length of time, it is very beneficial and desirable to disconnect your head and mind from the current perception of subjective feelings of unease and discomfort and, if possible, rid yourself of all trains of thought in your head – in other words, a clear head and a calm mind.
Why hadn’t I tried it long ago?
And so on a January evening you’re spending time in icy water. Listening to meditation music. Trying to think of nothing, and suddenly the thought and the moment come, the spark, at which you say to yourself: “Why haven’t I tried this long ago?”
Believe it or not, that very evening I came home and started searching for a place I could turn to, because I place great trust in these sparks and in intuition.
My ideal was a place where people run it above all with their heart, out of their own conviction, and not merely as an easy, low-cost line of business. The couple Tomáš and Lenka from Lomec near Kutná Hora impressed me with a very pleasant manner and way of communicating that I found close to my own. Besides warm and friendly communication, they also stood out from the competition with a low level of costs, which consisted of a 1,000 CZK booking fee. The rest of the amount was voluntary.
For comparison, in the negative sense, I’d mention for example Čeladná, where they charge 2,000 CZK per day. So my choice fell on Lomec near Kutná Hora. Each of these retreats ends with the morning sunrise, which symbolises the idea that something new is beginning again. In terms of the seasons, that is also what spring represents. So I chose springtime, from 27 April to 4 May.
But why did I want to try a dark retreat as such at all?
I must admit that my first thought was a personal challenge, whether I could manage it, because I’d heard plenty of assumptions by then about how crazy and almost impossible it is. But I was also interested in whether this experience would somehow shake me up inside, whether it would hold up a different mirror from the one I’m used to seeing myself in, or whether it would change or overturn some of my principles, which in a certain sense also form my iron shirt.
I’d start the whole story from the day before I arrived
It was a Friday, when I started with the morning shift at the rehabilitation clinic in Holešov. I finished at 3 pm and by 4 pm I was driving over to my practice in Zlín. There I carried on with my clients. I got home around nine in the evening, unloaded my things and took the car to the mechanic. You see, I wanted to treat my car to a week’s spa rest as well. I got back after ten, made myself a light dinner, played the guitar, put on Jan Kraus’s talk show. No rush at all, in short. Despite the fact that at half past one in the morning I was setting off towards Lysá hora, to keep to the schedule of activities I’d set myself.
So in the morning I set out for Lysá hora, to work up a bit more of a “hunger for rest” and also to borrow, on the way, from my friend Barča (to whom many thanks are due – ed.) a Tibetan singing bowl, which was on the modest list of things I wanted to take.
I got home from Lysá at half past eight in the morning. I had a bath. Packed my things, put on The Simpsons with breakfast (so I’d have something stored up in my head…). And at half past nine my friend Radka picked me up. She gave me a lift to Kutná Hora, where, to our shame, we both discovered, with astonishment on our faces, the cultural and historical centre with the Cathedral of St Barbara, which is apparently even on the UNESCO World Heritage list.
We had lunch and drove on to nearby Lomec, where we arrived at about 4 pm. Here Radka’s path and mine parted, and I went through the gate and across the long garden towards the house, where Tomáš was waiting to welcome me.
The gingerbread house
It has to be said that the house where Tomáš and his family live looks like a larger wooden gingerbread house, trimmed with white lines along the sides and around the windows. Tomáš and I shook hands, went straight onto first-name terms, and then he went to show me my cabin. He kept being amused that I’d arrived two hours early. At the same time, though, he added that I was welcome to spend the time in the garden. Meanwhile he’d see to repairing the lawnmower and then come and give me the practical information. But I, without much dawdling, waited for Tomáš to finish talking, threw my rucksack in the corner and collapsed onto the bed with the phlegmatic awareness that “he’ll come back and wake me anyway”.
After about 2 hours Tomáš really did come to my cabin. He was clutching his belly with laughter when he had to wake me up in bed already. So he explained the basic practical instructions to me, how he’d be bringing food, the cabin’s equipment, the emergency escape passwords (a joke). In short, everything that might come in handy!
And so my retreat began
After Tomáš left I went into the little hallway, where the light switch was behind the boiler, switched it off without hesitation and went to sleep.
The cabin, then, consisted of one main room, the size of a smaller bedroom, equipped with a bed, air conditioning, a sleeping mat, a meditation cushion and classic tractor-driver’s ear defenders for when you need absolute silence. At first sight of the ear defenders I was slightly amused. On the other hand, I think the ear defenders are needed especially in cases where you’re on a retreat of 14 days or more. This year a lady had already been there for 7 weeks – 49 days, which is apparently the time needed for the rebirth of your spiritual essence. On such longer stays the cabin probably needs a proper airing from time to time, and now and then Tomáš has to mow the grass around the cabin and so on.
Those, then, are the situations where even the ear defenders can come in handy for absolute calm and the elimination of disturbing factors. The cabin also had a small hallway with a shower cubicle, toilet and washbasin. This is where Tomáš brought me food. Tomáš came with the food at random, whenever it suited him during the day, which throws your sense of time off a little. Every time he knocked loudly three times and waited for my knock, which signalled that I was ready – the door to the main room closed and ideally my eyes covered, since a small amount of light got in under the door from the hallway.
I enjoyed the food
On this occasion I must praise the quality of the food brought. I’d asked for vegetarian meals, which consisted of soup, a main course, dessert, fruit and often also a tub of classic sweetened muesli, which under normal circumstances I’d have refused with disdain, but under the prevailing conditions it was a very pleasant pastime and a treat for the taste buds, so I always accepted it gratefully.
With it I got a thermos of herbal tea, which was different every day. That had to last me until the next day. I must say that “feeding time”, combined with the pleasure of taste and the limited amount of food, was for me a euphoric climax of the day, which I always looked forward to very much.
Under conditions like these, when nothing distracts you from the food, you have a certain limited amount of it and you devote all your attention to the present moment and to the food itself, you treasure such moments and eat with a pronounced experience of taste.
Memories of the canteen
You’re probably now picturing the way we eat in our everyday lives. I remember my days of eating in the university canteen. Many students came in with headphones on, which they sometimes didn’t even take off while talking to others. Others often slumped in a kyphotic posture, staring at their phones laid on the table next to their plate. All the while shovelling mouthfuls in, nearly poking their own eye out with the fork in sheer unawareness…
Unfortunately I have the impression that among younger generations we can see these bad habits even more often. Unconscious experiencing of the present moment in practice. I don’t like the question of whether something is right or wrong, because each of us can come up with plenty of eloquent answers in our heads, so no clear answer emerges, and so I prefer to ask: is it natural?
When we answer this question honestly, we often also answer whether it’s good for our body or not. One wise man, a Tibetan master, when asked “Master, how do you manage to meditate practically all day long?”, replied: when I sleep, I sleep; when I eat, I eat. In other words, doesn’t meditation and conscious living rest precisely on this principle?
The first days I rested
The first two days were purely about rest and passed very quickly. Every time I was surprised that Tomáš was there with food again. After the first days of rest, which consisted mostly of sleep, the intervals between meals began to lengthen and the subjective flow of time slowed down a great deal.
In my view that is the moment when the period of passive resting and catching up on sleep ends. The moment when darkness combined with silence really starts to work on your mind. From my point of view, the main effect of a dark retreat and silence is calming the mind, getting rid of all the centrifugal impulses that pull our attention away from the centre, meaning our inner self. This is where our authentic self and consciousness reside, and at the same time our emotional memory.
Repressed memories – have you ever heard the term?
Repressed, fine, but from where? Perhaps that is exactly the reason why a dark retreat fills so many people with fear and apprehension. Whatever our emotional inner world is filled with, whether behind it all lie our failings, bad intentions we now regret, feelings of injustice, betrayal or anything else, I find it a very interesting thought that, paradoxically, the biggest bogeyman for ourselves is in fact we ourselves, in our inner world.
Whether we have financial independence and indulge every desire with a mostly short-lived feeling of satisfaction, or we’re dealing with existential problems. These are always centrifugal situations. Neurophysiologists claim that the capacity of our emotional brain is infinite. That’s why a good regression psychologist is able to take you back to any stage of your life. To bring back exactly the feelings you had at the time and to “unblock”, as it’s called, the emotions that arose there.
If we drag a lot of such suppressed memories and the emotions linked to them through life, that in my view is the reason why many people are afraid of this retreat and subconsciously afraid of themselves, which can also result in a lack of self-love – and if we don’t have it in ourselves, we can hardly show it to other people. You’ve surely heard of all kinds of experiences such as hallucinations, vivid dreams and the like that people often have during a retreat like this.
White light
I must say that from roughly the third day I occasionally began to have visual perceptions that looked like a pulsing white light with a certain frequency, coming sometimes from the right, sometimes from the left. Personally I’d liken it to a glittering water surface with the sun’s rays falling on it. What was interesting, though, was that the perception of this light didn’t respond to closing or opening my eyes, but it could very easily be breathed away consciously.
One conscious, smooth, full breath in – ideally using the breathing-wave technique from the belly gradually up into the chest – was enough and the light was gone. I had no other esoteric experiences during the whole week.
For example, my neighbour from the next cabin, an older gentleman, described before we left a great many vivid dreams. On the last night his daughter apparently came to him too; he repeatedly covered his eyes with his hands, but she was still there.
In my opinion, vivid dreams and various hallucinations are a manifestation of your emotional inner world, which is trying in this way to tell you something, to communicate with you. I think such experiences can sometimes be very intense. They can also have a significant practical impact on your life even after the retreat is over.
It affects everyone differently
A dark retreat, then, can affect a person in a very individual way, depending on the above-mentioned state of your emotional inner world, your experiences so far, your sensitivity and your moral qualities. Please don’t form assumptions on the basis of my experiences or the experiences of others, because every person is an individual with a personal life story, and so everyone will probably experience this retreat differently.
In my case, cold showers helped a lot towards a feeling of good mood and wellbeing, and I can only recommend them. So my daily programme consisted of cold showers, one meal a day spread out, a bit of yoga, playing the guitar and the singing bowl.
Besides that I had plenty of time left for simply lying and staring at the ceiling, conscious breathing and also my memories. For example, I reminisced very nicely and in detail about my secondary school years, which until then I’d somehow “not had time” for.
Another common assumption is losing your sense of time and space. Personally I didn’t examine the cabin in any detail beforehand and I had no problems finding my way around. Admittedly, I moved along stereotyped routes, and it’s a good idea to put things in the same place. On the other hand, it was often fun hunting for a sock or a guitar plectrum.
With my sense of time I did have a problem to some extent
Because of the circadian rhythm, at certain times I had a greater need to sleep or to be awake. I was also able to estimate by feel whether it had been roughly 24 hours since the last meal. Of course it wasn’t like clockwork, but an hour, two or three doesn’t matter under those conditions.
An advantage for time orientation, as I discovered during the retreat, was the spring season. When I became absolutely still, it was possible to hear birdsong during the day and the croaking of little frogs at night. Towards the end of the retreat my food was also brought by Tomáš’s wife Lenka, whom I hadn’t met until then. She asked whether she could come in, introduced herself and began explaining the instructions for ending the retreat
How did the end of the retreat go?
It was very amusing to become aware of the encounter taking place between two people who have just met, are talking to each other, but have absolutely no visual image of each other. So the end of the retreat went like this: Lenka brought me a pre-set digital alarm clock that gave off no light at all and put it in the hallway.
The alarm was set for 4 o’clock in the morning, and my task was to get up at that time, slowly open the cabin door and sit down in the doorway. The purpose was the gradual adaptation of the eyes during the morning dawn. I must admit that I modified these instructions a little too.
It was quite cold outside, you see. I’d slept relatively little that night and suspected I might get a bit more sleep towards morning. But I had no source of light and I needed to reset the alarm to 8 in the morning. So, shivering and sipping tea from the thermos, I had to wait for at least the faintest dawn, set the alarm and went back to lie down.
In the end I slept beautifully until 8. In the morning I got up cheerfully, opened the cabin door slightly and, now in faint light, went to have my last cold shower. Then I gradually started packing my personal things, tidied the cabin… Cheerfully played the guitar. At that time my great favourite was a song by Tomáš Klus – Napojen (Connected), whose words felt very timely and meaningful to me.
Farewell
Then I said goodbye to the cabin and the very positive local climate of Tomáš’s garden full of fruit trees, bushes, the vegetable patch and hens running about. After that I asked Tomáš for a lift to the nearby railway station in Kutná Hora. From there I continued to Olomouc, where the opposite programme was waiting for me, a night-time one, so that, so to speak, everything would be in balance again. But more about that perhaps another time.
CARPE DIEM
