RED LADDER STUDIO NEWSLETTER

Dear Subscriber First Name,

At the end of a recent retreat, someone shared their usual dilemma: choosing between going on holiday or going on retreat. But this time, they said, it felt like they’d had both. They called it a Dharma holiday.

Why do we go on retreat? There’s a yearning to go deeper, to get beneath the surface of our distracted, busy lives. We go for the teachings, for the meditation sessions, perhaps hoping these will create the conditions for insight to arise. Yes we long for this in our lives, but sometimes we feel we just need a holiday instead!

A holiday is time for rest — time to simply relax. Nothing to do, nowhere to be, no one to be. We want a week with no rules, no demands.

It’s clear we need both: time for retreat and time for rest. But what if it were possible to combine the two — to have a Dharma holiday?

Rather than compromising the depth of a retreat, it might be that turning it into a holiday allows you to go deeper still. One of the key conditions for insight — for going deeper — is relaxation. The more we relax, the more our defences drop, the more the Dharma can truly enter our hearts.

On this latest retreat, there were very few rules. We began each day with open practice: each person designing their own morning rhythm — taking their coffee and a notebook to the woods, doing qigong barefoot on the lawn, coming and going in the meditation room. During the day, there was a loose programme of activities that everyone was free to join or ignore, with plenty of space in between.

People went through a process. First, the thrill of freedom — “Wow, I can do whatever I want.” Then, the gradual realisation — “Oh… that means I’m responsible for my own retreat.” Freedom can be challenging.

I know that when I find myself on a retreat with lots of rules and expectations, my inner rebel wakes up. There’s something to push against, and that reactivity keeps me on the surface. But on a retreat with no rules — what then? I’m thrown back on myself. What do I want to do with all this time? How do I want to practise?

Eventually, the excitement and discomfort of freedom gave way to something else — a sense of ease, of self-trust. People started finding their own rhythms: walking in the woods, sitting in meditation, resting on their beds, drawing in notebooks, staring at clouds. The retreat stopped being something that was happening to us, and became something we were quietly creating, alongside others creating their own retreats.

We now have a place to run a few retreats in our own way here in Sweden, and that means asking: what kind of retreats do we really want to offer? When someone referred to the last retreat as a Dharma holiday, I might once have worried that it wasn’t serious enough, that I was being too lightweight. But what I felt in that moment was joy — that we’d helped create the conditions for a Dharma holiday: a week where people could truly relax, be themselves, and deepen their practice in meaningful ways.

Seeing people relax into their own rhythm, completely at ease, I realised this is what I most want to offer — a space where practice feels natural, where doing the dishes or even just sitting in the sun carries its own meaning. A retreat where you feel you are coming home to yourself.

Have you ever had a retreat that felt like a holiday? Or a holiday that felt like a retreat? How do you combine those two needs in your own life? Hit reply and let me know. Your reflections will feed into our future retreat plans.

On my radar this month

Book – A Simpler Life:
This book from The School of Life, edited by Alain de Botton, looks at first as if it might be full of clichés — but it’s surprisingly original. I’ve just finished it and already feel tempted to start again. A Simpler Life is an easy read, yet genuinely thought-provoking.

With chapters like Becoming More Straightforward, How Many Friends Do We Need? and How to Read Fewer Books, it offers fresh and often unexpected reflections on the theme of simplicity. And it’s funny — you’ll laugh out loud.

A perfect gift for yourself, or for someone who could use a little simplicity in their life.

TV Drama – Riot Women:
I was so looking forward to Sally Wainwright’s new drama, Riot Women, that I was certain I’d be disappointed. I wasn’t.

The premise: a group of middle-aged women, each wrestling with their own problems, come together to form a punk band. It’s funny, yes — but also dark. And the writing is extraordinary, especially the dialogue, so real and yet not at all what you are expecting.

There’s one scene between Beth and Kitty in the Indian restaurant that took me right back to the conversation between Catherine and her sister Clare in the café in Happy Valley — that same intensity, that same raw honesty.

Food – Christmas Chutney:
It’s true — you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. For me, that’s chutney. I seem to have moved to a chutney-free country.

Yesterday on Instagram, I watched a Finnish woman living in the UK make a cheese and pickle sandwich — clearly a very strange experience for her (especially the addition of crisps), but for me, reassuringly familiar.

Rather than head to the English shop, I’ve decided to make my own. I’ve started with a spicy apple chutney, using up a glut of apples. Next is to make a large jar of each of these to put away for Christmas.

Movie - My Favourite Cake:
The nights are drawing in, and if you’re like me, compiling a list of films to get you through to spring, My Favourite Cake is a good addition. A gentle, touching comedy set in Iran, it’s the sort of film I might show on one of my wabi-sabi retreats — quiet, funny, full of small, human moments.

This Guardian article tells how the Iranian government prevented the directors from travelling to Berlin for the premiere, presumably offended by its themes of love and freedom, as well as its humorous critique of Iran's morality police.

Happenings:

Creative Monday Club
A weekly date with your creative self

Every Monday evening on Zoom
27th October 2025 - 23rd March 2026

FIND OUT MORE HERE

Wabi-sabi and the 3 Doorways to Freedom
5 days of meditation and reflection

An online retreat, 21st - 25th November

FIND OUT MORE HERE

A quote I’m thinking about:

“We do not 'come into' this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree.”

- Alan Watts

May you find beauty in unexpected places,
Vajradarshini

Hello, I’m Vajradarshini — a British Dharma teacher living in the south of Sweden with my Swedish wife, Dhammasiri. Our home, The Guesthouse (named after Rumi’s poem), is a place for creative, down-to-earth Dharma practice. From here, we run retreats and workshops, and I also teach internationally, both online and in person. I’m glad you’ve found your way here.

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