What’s a meditation retreat with Tucker like?
The retreats are held in Noble Silence. This means that while you’re on retreat, you’ll abstain from communicating with other students, though there will be plenty of opportunity to interact with the teacher(s). And if there’s something urgent to say (like asking the chef about food allergies), that’s totally fine to do.
We’ll have three meals per day, plenty of time for sleep (usually around a nine-hour sleep window), exercise time, and a nightly dharma talk. While the schedule will suggest meditation times throughout the day, most of these are optional. So if you want to do a super-long meditation sit, or take a nap, or go for a hike, that’s possible during much of the day.
What’s the meditation technique we’ll be using?
Unlike most teachers, who teach one particular technique, Tucker supports people using a wide variety of techniques. They tend to fall into the categories (followed by a few examples) of focused attention (shamatha, anapana, jhana), insight (vipassana, noting, choiceless awareness), cultivation of positive states (metta, karuna) and non-doing (shikantaza). If you don’t know what technique to do, this is a great thing to talk to the teacher(s) about on retreat.
What are the retreat rules?
They’re posted over here, and they include that you cannot use any communication technology (phone, tablet, etc.) while we’re on retreat.