• The best way to prepare for a retreat is to do the following:
  • Keep your ethical precepts very clean. Take care of unfinished business so that you can enter silence without worry; settle worldly matters so that you don’t feel a need to check in on work or home concerns. (Be sure to give our emergency contact information to any vulnerable family members. Knowing that your loved ones will be able to reach you in an emergency can help you to let your phones stay off throughout the duration of the retreat.)
  • Avoid TV and movies in the weeks prior to the retreat and reduce nonessential social engagements, if possible.
  • Get enough sleep so you enter the retreat balanced and refreshed.
  • Maintain a daily mindfulness-based meditation practice, and if possible increase your daily meditation practice in the weeks prior to (and also after) the retreat. If your daily practice does not include the primary object of the breath at the nostrils and upper lip area, then include this focus as a feature of your daily practice in the weeks prior to the retreat. This can help your mind become familiar with the breath as the meditation subject.
  • Read Focused and Fearless if you have not previously read it, or review parts of it as a refresher and inspiration before the retreat. Bring a good attitude to the retreat. Enjoy the opportunity to work with whatever conditions you may find internally or externally.