Looking Deeply – Retreat with Thay in 1992

In September 1992, I had the very good fortune to attend a six-day retreat, led by Thich Nhat Hanh, at Battisborough House, on the south coast of Devon. I was 24 years old at the time, and I’d never been to anything remotely like it before.

Probably like a lot of people of that age, I was curious as to ‘what’s it (ie life) all about?’.

I’d read some of Thay’s books, including ‘Being Peace’, ‘Breathe, you are Alive’ and others, and was generally interested in meditation, and how to cut through the chatter that seemed to be constantly going round my mind. A friend pointed out an advert for the Looking Deeply Retreat, and after thinking about it for a week or so, I booked myself a place. Thinking about this in the years following, I realised how remarkable it was that the retreat wasn’t instantly booked up – as I’m sure it would have been more recently.

When the time came, I packed my camping gear and headed off from Surrey, where I was living at the time, down to Devon. The first night was a bit of a disaster as I recall – the location of Battisborough House is quite stunning, with beautiful views down to the sea, so I pitched my tent in a really quite exposed place near a cliff-edge, where there’d be a fantastic view on opening the tent in the morning. Unfortunately, I didn’t get chance to see it – in the small hours, a storm ripped my (fairly old) tent to shreds, and I spent the rest of the night in the back of my car! Thankfully, next day, I was loaned a (much better) tent by someone who’d come prepared, and I passed the rest of the retreat in relative luxury.

The retreat schedule was fairly gentle and was pitched at a level that made it very accessible for a novice like me, with instruction being provided for people who were quite new to it all. Periods of sitting meditation were broken up with walking meditation, either around the Dharma Hall, or down a beautiful footpath to the coast nearby.

As I remember, meals were mostly taken in silence, with the aim of being mindful about how the meal had arrived on the plate. I found this quite a powerful practice, with the silence being more of an aid to mindfulness, rather than a restriction on what we were allowed to do. One of the retreatants was given the job of ‘Bell Master’ – she could ring the bell whenever she chose to. Whatever we were doing, we had to stop and take three slow breaths, being mindful of our breathing as we did so.

As the week went on, and I got absorbed into the retreat experience, I found it easier to quieten my mind to some degree during meditation, or at least to be aware of when it was running off on its own course, and to gently refocus. This felt like a significant thing for me at the time – a feeling that in some small way, I’d been able to control my mind’s activity, or at least be aware of all the chatter that was going on!

There was also a Dharma talk each day, given by Thay, with Sister Annabel Laity stepping in on one of the days. I found these very inspiring, and I still remember the last one that Thay gave on the retreat being a particularly powerful experience – as someone said to me at the time, ‘he really had fire in his belly’!

The talks were all recorded onto cassette tape, being the technology of the time, and I was able to order a set of eight cassettes for delivery some weeks later. Amazing to think about this today, with the Internet now allowing such recordings to be made available to everyone almost instantly. [Andrew was kindly able to digitise the cassettes and offer the recordings for us to enjoy. Here you will find the files with talks by Thay and Sister Annabel: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1qsP8iMfsKTHT3sfiee9NTJdp4oDa7Hmj?usp=share_link]

The retreat schedule also included free time for relaxation, or reading, or for exploring the area around the centre. Thankfully, I took a few photos, capturing images of the coastline, as well as the retreat centre itself. Towards the end of the week, Thay led a tree-planting ceremony, a symbolic ‘giving thanks’ to the centre where we’d stayed. I’m glad I got a photo of the occasion to remember it by.

Leaving at the end of the week, I felt quite changed by the whole experience. I came to value quietness more than I believe I had done before – it was difficult to drive home with any speed, feeling as if my whole system had slowed down by several degrees!

Back home, I was just about to make a career change, following my dream by heading off to catering college and starting to work as a chef. In that sort of work, you often find yourself performing repetitive tasks, like preparing vegetables or salads, and I’m quite sure that the retreat helped me to approach these with a different mindset from how I might have done otherwise – I really came to enjoy peeling a whole sack of carrots!

I do hope that anyone reading this will enjoying listening to the recordings of the Dharma talks, and perhaps recognise some of the ‘first retreat’ experiences I’ve described. It’s a pleasure to revisit these memories after so many years, and to remind myself of what a remarkable teacher and human being Thay was, and how fortunate I was to have encountered him on this retreat back in 1992.

Andrew Woodward

Birsay, Orkney