Autumn gardening retreat
Venue - The Guesthouse, Southern Sweden
“The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes. If you foolishly ignore beauty, you will soon find yourself without it. Your life will be impoverished. But if you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life.”
Our gardening retreats weave together mindful work, meditation, and Dharma study. Each day includes around four hours of hands-on time in the garden—planting, weeding, and pruning—supported by short Dharma talks exploring how we can make our work part of our Buddhist practice. Alongside the garden sessions, there will be periods of meditation, reflection, and group discussion. A we'll be in silence for a good part of each day. In the evenings, you can unwind in the woodfired sauna overlooking the garden.
On this retreat the we'll draw inspiration from the Zen tradition, especially Dogen, with it's emphasis on work as a spiritual practice.
We offer our gardening retreats at a reduced rate, in return we appreciate your helping us to create a beautiful environment here at The Guesthouse.
Who's this retreat for?
Our gardening retreats are for those who want to explore work as a spiritual practice and enjoy spending time outside in nature. You should be reasonably fit, though we have a variety of jobs to suit different abilities, such as weeding, mowing the meadow, raking leaves, and clearing the beds ready for winter.
We will be looking at Dogen's Tenzo Kyokan, a 13th-century Zen text on work as practice, full of teachings on how to practise in the nitty-gritty of everyday life. There will be short periods of meditation, suitable even for those new to meditation.
What will a day on retreat look like?
A typical day:
7.30 Open practice
8.30 Qigong, intro to the day's theme, and led meditation
10.30 The Big Brunch
11.30–2.30 Garden work
Free time
4.30–5.30 Work period
5.30 Three-course dinner
7.00 Dharma study - Dogen's Tenzo Kyokan
8.30 Closing ritual
The day starts with open practice: time to design your own practice, whether that's meditation, walking meditation, writing, or bodywork. We then move into our collective programme with qigong — over the week, you'll learn a flow, a sequence of movements to take home with you. From there we move into led meditation, with an introduction to the day's theme.
Then it's time for the big brunch: home-baked bread, eggs, cheese, kimchi, fruit, nuts, yogurt, and kefir. Each day looks a little different, depending on what's in season and what we've been inspired to make.
Next comes the main garden work session, three hours long with a break in the middle.
After some free time, we come together for another work period: the small jobs that keep the community running. Cooking, though, is taken care of for you.
In the evening we gather for a leisurely three-course dinner, followed by Dharma study, and close with a short ritual.
What we hope you'll get from this retreat
Nourishment for your body, heart and mind
We hope you'll leave nourished, in body, heart and mind. At the heart of the week is garden work and learning how to make our work a spiritual practice. That work is supported with qigong, meditation and study. Around that, you'll find good food, beautiful countryside, the sauna to relax in, and the new friendships that develop when a small group works and practices together.
A fresh and creative look at the teachings
At Red Ladder Studio, we're all about bringing the teachings alive, so they feel fresh and exciting again. It's easy for practices we once loved to lose their fascination over time, but with a little help, it's possible to fall back in love with them. We hope you'll leave with a renewed love for the Dharma, and real excitement about how to weave it into your work and everyday life.
Practical ways to take the teachings back into your everyday life
Going on retreat, we often feel we're leaving our lives behind. But if practice is going to make a real difference, we need to bring our lives into the retreat, not escape from them. Many aspects of our retreats are rooted in the everyday: physical exercise, good food, garden work, conversation. You're encouraged to work with the challenges of your life at home here with us, to gain perspective, and to go back resourced.
September 5th - 12th (7 days)
Cost £200