Into the Silent Land: Five Day Meditation Retreat

Due to high demand, we are delighted to announce that we will be running this retreat again…

Into The Silent Land: A Five-Day Meditation Retreat – 14th – 18th July 2025

“We are built for contemplation… Communion with God in the silence of the heart is a God-given capacity, like the rhododendron’s capacity to flower, the fledglings for flight, and the child’s for self-forgetful abandon and joy.”

With these words, Martin Laird begins his classic book Into the Silent Land: The Practice of Contemplation – widely recognised as one of the best introductions to meditation in the Christian tradition written in generations. He brings together an engaging introduction to the Christian contemplative tradition for people inside or on the margins of the churches who feel drawn to the world of silent prayer.

Martin Laird shows how silence and meditation can offer a remedy to many contemporary dilemmas and emotional struggles. Writing with great clarity, poetic depth and authority, Laird examines central meditative methods and traditions found within contemplative prayer. Exploring the role of breath in the spiritual life and the nature of awareness – so often associated in the minds of many with other spiritual traditions – he shows that this is also an ancient concern of Christian thinkers.

Into the Silent Land offers profound insights for the student of silent prayer but is especially intended for the non-specialist who feels drawn to discover the deep wisdom of the Christian contemplative tradition.

Retreat focus

How do we enter the “Silent Land” of Divine presence?

“By the silence of surrender,” says Laird: “The contemplative discipline of meditation…is not a technique but a surrendering of deeply held resistances that allows the sacred within to gradually reveal itself as a simple, fundamental fact.”  

“The more we realise we are one with God the more we become ourselves, just as we are, just as we were created to be. The Creator is outpouring love, the creation, the love outpoured.”

In this unique experiential retreat, we will explore the essential skills and wisdom of the art of meditation as set out in ‘Into the Silent Land’, including:

• cultivating gentle concentration (attentiveness) and the opening of awareness
• the subtle challenges of stilling the mind and the interior skills to meet them
• how our deepening silence reveals “the overflowing vastness” of our deepest identity in God
• becoming windows of light and places of peace for the world

The retreat has been carefully crafted to be relevant and accessible to anyone searching for truth and peace, regardless of their faith, beliefs or previous experience of meditation.

Words of support from Martin Laird

“The School of Contemplative Life will surely rate among the most significant responses to the spiritual longings of the people of this nation and abroad [and] directly nourish and cultivate the depth-dimension of life through its well thought out programme of retreats, guidance and other opportunities, to the wellspring of silence and compassion flowing within.”

Schedule

A detailed timetable for the retreat will be sent to everyone attending. The retreat will start at 14:00 on the Monday and finish and 15:00 on the Friday and involve extended periods of meditation practice and silence. Each full day of the retreat will include:

• 06:30 Sitting meditation & walking meditation
• 08:00 Holy Communion (for those who wish to attend)
• 09:00 Talk and sitting meditation
• 10:30 Private practice time and opportunity for one-to-one spiritual counsel meeting
• 12:30 Sitting meditation
• 14:00 Private practice time and opportunity for one-to-one spiritual counsel meeting
• 17:00 Talk and sitting meditation
• 19:30 Sitting meditation
• 20:00 Group conversation

Early morning practice is a wonderful way to greet the day together. While we very much encourage everyone to attend the 6:30am practice session, if this is difficult for you for any reason please don’t worry. It is always enough to do what we can – or what our life allows.

One-to-one spiritual counsel meetings are not counselling or coaching, but provide a dedicated opportunity for someone to explore a question or two about their meditation practice, or how practice relates to what they have heard during a talk or to daily life. Lasting approximately 15 minutes, meetings are deliberately short to provide focus.

Attending a silent retreat

Being on retreat is a precious opportunity to be still, to be silent, to practice living simply and peacefully and cultivate the gift of loving-awareness as we devote ourselves to the depth-dimension of faith and life.

The focus of the retreat is silent meditation practice and we will practice bringing loving-awareness to all our daily activities – while sitting, while walking or eating, when we are simply enjoying a glass of water. We will practice living each moment deeply.

The practice of silence will commence when the retreat begins at 14:00 on the Monday and continue until lunchtime on the Friday. Although the practice of silence may be new to some, most people find this a powerful and wonderful experience. Maintaining a quiet and peaceful environment – walking, moving, and doing things quietly – is important for our practice and a gift we can offer to each other.

The retreat timetable includes periods of private practice time for sitting and walking meditation. Some people find it helpful to bring a craft activity to accompany times of private sitting meditation. If you decide to do this, the craft should be very simple and not likely to stimulate thoughts. The Desert Fathers and Mothers were famous for weaving baskets!

You may wish to bring warm, comfy clothes and a waterproof jacket/umbrella for walking meditation in the event of inclement weather. A notepad and pen will also be useful.

Opportunities for light work in the grounds of Launde Abbey during the private practice periods will also be available to practice weaving the attentiveness and awareness you will cultivate into the fabric of daily life.

Retreat Leader

Chris Whittington is the Founder of The School of Contemplative Life. He was introduced to contemplative practice during several years of formation when he lived at the Benedictine monastery of Prinknash Abbey. Chris’ monastic teachers, including Sylvester Houedard OSB, taught meditation as a universal wisdom found within all the great spiritual traditions, a pathway to peace and solidarity with people of all faiths and none. Following an introduction by the Abbot of the Prinknash community, Chris subsequently studied at the Dalai Lama’s monastery in Dharamshala, India. Chris regularly delivers talks, workshops and retreats and has introduced the practice of meditation in the Christian tradition to thousands of people in the UK and abroad.

For information about the School of Contemplative Life, please visit: www.schoolofcontemplativelife.com OR https://www.youtube.com/@schoolofcontemplativelife 

Retreat price: £620 (standard room) or £680 (character room)
EARLY BIRD RATE: £580 (standard room) or £640 (character room) if booked by 5th May 2025!
Price includes en-suite accommodation, all meals, and all retreat resources.
It may be possible for you to extend your stay with us by adding an extra night before or after this retreat. Please contact the Abbey directly if you would like to extend your stay.

Click here to book your place on this retreat now:

For any questions, or queries or if you’d like to know more, please call  01572 717254 or alternatively email us: [email protected]