The source of inspiration for doing my retreat began with Milarepa’s life story. When I was young, my mom would do bedtime reading. In my hometown — I was born in the northern parts of Nepal, right in the middle of the Himalayan mountains, our culture, lifestyle, and everything else, was just like in Tibet — we had an ancient lifestyle. For lunch, we would have a lot of food, but our dinner would normally be light — mostly we had soup. At dinnertime, our family got together around the fire — we made a fire which we sat around — most of the time it was my grandpa, grandma, mom, and me, and we all sat around the fire and we would drink the soup. Having finished the soup, my grandpa went to meditate, and my grandma, me, and mom were together. My grandma did not know how to read and I also did not know how to read at that time, so it was only my mom who knew how to read. She would read different books. Most of the time, she read Milarepa’s life story — slowly, slowly. Sometimes, when Milarepa was facing problems, my grandma cried, then I cried, and in the end my mom cried — we cried, and cried. Then, we cleaned our eyes and began to read again — it was so nice! I really liked Milarepa’s life style; to practice, to do retreat in the mountains — in the caves — I liked that.
Later on, I learned meditation from my father. My father also did a lot of retreat. He did retreat for three years in Tibet. He put himself in retreat and he sealed the door. The toilet and everything was inside. There was only a small window from which he received the food. He did like this for three years.
My other teacher, Saljay Rinpoche, did threeyear retreat a few times. Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche, another teacher of mine, did formal retreat first, in Tibet, and later on he came to India and did wandering retreat. He went from place to place. Sometimes he mixed with the sadhus. His story is fantastic! It has really been an inspiration to me.
When I was young, I grew up with these great masters around me. Although I had these panic attacks and it was miserable, I was inspired by the people around me. When I was thirteen years old I thought, “I should do retreat.” I was having these panic attacks, and these panic attacks was, normally what I call, “following me like a shadow.” When I was nine I learned to meditate. I did my daily practice and I did not do retreat until I was thirteen — before that I never did retreat. When I did my daily practice, it sometimes helped, sometimes not, it was on and off. But sometimes I even forgot to do daily practice. It was really difficult to keep it up continuously, so when I was thirteen I thought, “I am going to go to do retreat for three years. This will be good for me. My laziness will not be there, so I can be free of my panic.”
Then I went to retreat. But, at first, my panic got worse, because my laziness followed me into retreat. So, I was in the gym, but I was not doing any exercise. (Laughs.) Then, my panic got worse. Later on, I really tried my best to follow the retreat schedule. When I followed the retreat schedule, I really applied my meditation with the panic. I accepted my panic and continued to do so. Then, later on my panic my best friend and my teacher. I think that was because of my retreat. It really helped me. It changed my life. Retreat changed my life.
After that, I have been quite happy. I am not saying I did not have any panic again, I did, but even when I had panic, it was not a panic attack, but sometimes you feel fear, everybody feels fear, right? When I felt panic, I remembered my meditation practice, and it really helped me. If I would not have done retreat, perhaps I may not have completely transformed like that. So, for me, retreat is really important. That has impacted my life. It completely changed my life. Therefore, sometimes I recommend people to do retreat; but, to do retreat with good quality is really important. Even if you do daily practice for one hour, trying to fully practice for one hour, will really make a change and be of benefit.
Nowadays, some people do retreat for a long time, but they do not know how to gradually develop the experience of retreat, so they push it — just like I did. I suddenly went into retreat, and my laziness came back in the retreat, and my panic became worse.
Therefore, if you do a good quality retreat — even for one week — it may change your entire life experience. Therefore, it has been of real impact to me, and I hope it will be for you to. Also, do not worry if you cannot do long retreats, but try to do good quality retreats — even for two days — and it may change your life.