WE WENT TO ANOTHER WORLD TOGETHER

May 17, 2025

If you follow us on social media or read our newsletters, you’ve probably seen that our team just completed a 5-day meditation retreat.

Two years ago, we went on a spiritual trip to India and Nepal, but I hadn’t done this kind of sealed, immersive meditation retreat in a long, long time!

It is quite something to sit in meditation for 5 days straight.

There are, of course, the common discomforts:

From your sacrum to your hips, thighs, knees and ankles - it aches.

You detox and all kinds of funny things come out of your body.

You have unusual dreams.

You feel exhausted. You cry. Things come up.

And then – in moments, the clouds part, and you can see the sky.

A relief floods in and suddenly you feel better than you have in years.

It’s as if you dropped off some old, heavy luggage a few stops back on the train tracks.

You feel lighter, freer, more joyful.

You feel more connected to yourself and everyone around you.

You’ve acknowledged and met with your pain. You’ve sat with yourself.

Realizations arise. Insights arise. You experience more spaciousness.

Everything settles down inside you, somehow rearranged and more orderly.

You realize how precious life is.

And throughout the whole experience, even during discomfort, there is an acute sense of how rare the opportunity is.

And when I say discomfort, I’m also fully aware that –

We're in our own backyard, in a beautiful building with air conditioning, running hot water, chefs cooking all the meals for us and a meditation retreat master who speaks fluent English, with 40+ years of meditation practice and monastic accomplishments under his belt.

To have true, authentic teachers appear from the other side of the world, and make themselves at home in our home, has been divine and profound.

So many times during the retreat I looked around me in disbelief. It almost didn’t seem real or possible.

How could almost the entire LOTUSWEI and SAN Center team come together to devote SO many hours to meditation, motivated to spend hours & hours making prayers for our loved ones, for the earth and for humanity?

Absolutely surreal. That we could so profoundly be on the same page.

And all of that with a good, hard look at the fact that: yes, we will die one day, and we’re devoted to making the most of the only thing we can take with us beyond this life.

We will awaken the internal strength to not only help ourselves and others through challenges in life, but also in facing the ultimate challenge: leaving this body, or watching loved ones do the same.