What can you (and your team) get out of a mindfulness retreat

We develop customized meditation programs for clients around the world. We help high performers get an extra 10% better to beat the competition, help teams stay focused and agile, and give creatives the tools they need to escape burnout and stress. 

What can meditation do for you?

Over 14% of Americans have tried meditation at least once. It’s a business worth over 1 Billion in the US and 9 billion worldwide. It’s also expected to double in the next couple years. Now why is that? Simply because it works. The numbers don’t lie; this isn’t a fad but a sea change in how we take care of ourselves. 

• Meditation improves anxiety levels 60% of the time.

• Meditation can reduce the risk of being hospitalized for coronary disease by 87%.

•  Meditation can reduce the wake time of people with insomnia by 50%, according to mindfulness meditation stats.

• School suspensions were reduced by 45% thanks to meditation.

• Meditation engages the prefrontal cortex, the area critical to higher order thinking, processing of complex, abstract information, and metacognition. 

It affects the soma motor cortex, increasing tolerance for pain and unpleasantness. 

It effects the insular cortex, involved with focus, body awareness, compassion, empathy, taste perception, motor control, and self awareness. 

It can lead to structural changes and even increase grey matter in the hippocampus, which may explain how it leads to stress reduction. 

It enhances the activity of the anterior cingulate cortex, crucial for self control, focused problem solving, and adaptive behavioral responses. 

It also leads to enhanced emotional regulation, via the connections between the sensory organs and the orbitofrontal cortex. 

How does this play out in the real world?

• Meditation can increase employees’ productivity by 120%.

employers who introduced meditation to their employees claim that work absenteeism decreased by 85% while profits increased by 520%.

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• 60% of employees experiencing anxiety in the workplace showed marked improvement upon practicing meditation.

Corporate meditation Programs usually have a 200% ROI because of increased competitive advantage

So we can see that it improves the bottom line too. Which is important. Personally, I like to work with the high performers. I like to see people become even more amazing. Thats my goal, and why I choose this work.

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How does our it work?

ĀRA Meditation is a technology. It utilizes simple tools - logic, observation, our organs of sense input, imagination and memory. By using these tools we change our mind and body, just like we do with exercise. 

We approach meditation from a research and development perspective, we’re interested in developing the technology that will bring about fast, lasting, individualized positive change in line with our clients' goals. 

In the physical sciences, we observe the interaction between objects and forces, and from those observations we hypothesize and derive rules that are common across physical reality. 

Our meditation toolkit allows us do observe the mental world in the same way. Over thousands of years, practitioners have described it in different languages, but it is absolutely possible to synthesize and develop some broad rules, just like in the physical sciences.  

These tools enable us to pursue our interests with curiosity, levelheadedness, passion, and without fear.

The technology for navigating this realm was not traditionally taught to everyone - they were taught to the kings, the leaders who needed to stay in peak performance for the good of all. My teacher in Bali, for instance came from a long line of therapists and teachers who used their techniques exclusively on the royal family. 

A meditation retreat in Bali can be a life-changing experience; stepping out of our everyday environment opens up our senses, waking up our consciousness to form new neural pathways, which in turn gives us the opportunity for regeneration, rebirth, and initiatory experiences. We've prepared this FAQ for those who are contemplating joining their first retreat, so that you can decide if this is the best choice for you and your path.

A Meditation and yoga retreat in Bali is a way to connect with your true self, and with others along the path, in a stunning and peaceful natural environment.

Why do people go on a meditation or yoga retreat?

The specific reasons are, of course, as varied as the number of people who attend meditation retreats each year. Many people go on retreats to:

• Start a new chapter in life. 

Traditional societies enact a number of initiatory experiences to guide individuals through different stages of life. For those on a spiritual path, these are doubly important; they help anchor the quest for knowledge, give one confidence in their accomplishments, and illuminate the next steps before them. In many modern societies, unfortunately, these experiences are crucially lacking. For many people today, a meditation retreat can mark a transition in life, and create skills and habits that will aid them in that transition.

In our retreats, we bring this element out by creating unique initiatory experiences; informing the unconscious that a real change has occurred. It is time to form new, healthier habits, to be reborn into a new life, and to drop outmoded, limiting beliefs.

• Engage with a community. 

Some of us are lucky enough to have a group of friends with whom we can discuss our meditation practice and related philosophical ideas. Many, however, practice alone and have few opportunities to engage with others on the path. This is especially true for newer practitioners. This practice is experience-based, and we need a community to share those experiences with. Retreats are a great way to meet new friends and fellow travelers whom we can stay in touch with for a lifetime. In our retreats, we provide enough discussion and community time to form those bonds, and host online groups where everyone can stay in touch after the retreat is over.

• Reinvigorate, heal, and re-energize. 

Modern life exposes us to burnout, stress, and a whole host of related mental and physical health issues. Many go on retreat to put a pause on their hectic lives, to reconnect with nature and their own center of consciousness. Meditation and yoga help a lot with this, of course, but we also provide plenty of time for walks in the woods, journaling, or just staring off into the cloud forest, letting those naturally healing experiences arise naturally. We also provide one-on-one mantric healing sessions for each participant in our retreats, to smoothen and aid the natural healing process that a retreat brings up.

• Learn personally, one-on-one. 

Meditation may look simple, but there are still plenty of difficulties, not just for novices but for experienced practitioners as well. Having a teacher on hand to provide examples and answer questions as they arise can be invaluable.

• Take a mindful vacation. 

Retreat centers are often in gorgeous, exotic locations around the world; you can choose from beach resorts, traditional monasteries, private villas, and just about any other locale imaginable. We built our retreat center high up in the mountains of Bali amidst coffee farms in a cloud forest.

What is the point of a retreat?

The essential point of any meditation retreat is to engage deeply with a specific set of practices for a specific length of time. Though nearly everyone comes out of a retreat with a change in worldview, we should avoid putting too much emphasis on the results we want to achieve. Engage with the practice and the experience on its own merits, with the ‘beginner's mind’ of openness, curiosity, and exploration. As the retreat affects our day-to-day life, we often find that the experience led to effects that we were not even looking for before going in.

Should I go on a meditation retreat in Bali?

On the whole, we believe the answer for nearly everyone is an emphatic ‘yes’! When you choose to go on a retreat is probably more important than if. If your goal is to open new avenues for personal development, bring your meditation or yoga practice to a deeper level (or simply to start a meditation or yoga practice), connect deeply with the core of your being, develop healthy habits through good simple eating and spending time in nature, and enter a community of practitioners, it is definitely the right time for you to go on a meditation retreat.

What do you feel after a retreat?

You may leave a retreat walking through life like a blissed-out Rishi for the next few weeks. You may also be hungry to dive into busy traffic, parties, and fast food! There is no right answer, ultimately.

You will feel how you feel, and what is more important is to take the insights that you gained into every moment of your day-to-day life, whether you wake up feeling like an enlightened master, a professional with a full schedule of meetings and tasks to complete, or just sleepy and hungry for eggs and bacon.

What happens when you go on a retreat?

When you decide to go on retreat, you tell your body-mind, “We are stepping out of our normal life and we are going to profoundly change how we relate to ourselves and the world”. This is incredibly powerful. The potential for enlightenment is in every moment; it must be because it is fundamental to our humanity. When we go on retreat, we consciously decide to search out this spark and expand that light.

How will you prepare yourself for a meditation retreat?

• Detoxify 

A retreat itself is a detoxifying experience, but you can often make faster progress by preparing the ground beforehand. At least a few days before your retreat, review your current practice or studies, spend some time in aloneness and quiet to prepare your mind for the transition, cut down or cut out alcohol, tobacco, and any other substances that affect your body-mind.

• Journal

Write down a few notes to see where you are before entering the retreat. This will help you track the changes that occur via the practice, and put you in the reflective mental space that will help you dive deeper into the practice.

• Rest up

Many retreats involve waking up at the crack of dawn, and though it may look easy, meditating and yoga for hours a day can be physically taxing. In our retreats, we include quite a few hikes through the forest; some monastic retreats including chore time each day. The mental changes that a retreat encourages also tax the physical body, so make sure you’re coming into the experience in good condition.

How many days is a meditation retreat?

Some retreats or masterclasses only take a single day. On the other hand, many monastics and yogis go into retreat for years on end. Many silent vipassana retreats last 10 days. The retreats we host can last from 3 days to 2 weeks. You may wish to engage in an organized retreat for a few days or a week, and follow up with several weeks of semi-retreat at home as well.

What is a silent vipassana retreat?

Though the word ‘vipassana’ has become almost synonymous with 10-day silent retreats, it is simply a method of meditation broadly outlined in the earliest Buddhist sutras. The idea of teaching vipassana through the vehicle of a 10-day silent retreat became popular through the Thai Forest and Burmese schools of Theravada Buddhism and has since come to be taught in many secular settings as well.

The basic method of Vipassana runs through all of our retreats that I teach, and we often alternate between periods of silence and mindful conversation throughout the day.

How many people should be at a retreat?

Large retreat centers, ashrams, and monasteries can host dozens, or even hundreds, of participants at a single retreat. Some practitioners prefer solo retreats in nature or simply at home. We believe retreats work best with 5-20 participants; just enough so that we can all engage each other meaningfully throughout the experience, and be exposed to multiple points of view and life experiences.

What do you eat on a meditation retreat?

In traditional village monasteries, all food is donated by the local community; on holidays, this can become a veritable feast; on other days it might just be a little sticky rice and curry dipping sauce. At our retreats, we prepare light but fulfilling vegan or vegetarian meals from wildcrafted ingredients sourced entirely from the local village.