Tim Geil leads retreatants wearing masks, separated by 8 – 10 feet of social distancing and with open windows, in Cloud Mountain’s Diamond Hall.
Laura Hauer, Steve Wilhelm

Amid the flux and change of COVID-19 conditions, Cloud Mountain Retreat Center has been incrementally re-opening its doors for onsite retreat activities.

Beginning in August staff began offering what they call “supported self-retreat.”  In November Cloud Mountain managed to safely offer its first group residential retreat in eight months, then was forced to reverse after new pandemic restrictions were enforced on the West Coast.

Cloud Mountain Retreat Center, in southwest Washington state, is a residential, non-sectarian Buddhist retreat center that has offered Dharma retreats for over 35 years.

Prior to the first group retreat Diamond Meditation Hall was set up to provide well over 6 feet of spacing.

While other Dharma centers and organizations throughout the U.S. have responded to the pandemic by halting residential retreats and shifting to online Dharma only, Cloud Mountain has taken a different path. Staff has been developing safe, on-site retreat opportunities that are deeply committed to retreatant safety amid ever-changing COVID-19 conditions.

When COVID-19 first appeared in Washington state, Cloud Mountain was one of the first Buddhist retreat centers to cancel retreats and temporarily close its doors.  Staff and board recognized the potential dangers of the coronavirus and understood cooperation was needed to stop it. But the same leaders also started developing new ways to safely welcome retreatants for residential practice.

During the spring statewide stay-at-home period, Cloud Mountain Executive Director Laura Hauer searched for safe strategies to open the doors again to on-site practice.

“This is about living from a sense of possibility rather than from impossibility,” she said. “Learning how to safely function amidst difficulties like a pandemic is vital.”

Hauer added that the difficulties of the pandemic are in a sense preparation for coming disruptions from climate change.

Social distancing in the dining room, with open windows providing cross-ventilation.

“Our commitment to learning how to safely and wisely move forward isn’t just about responding to this pandemic. Climate change, our 21^st century ‘heavenly messenger,’ is still speaking in whispers compared to what it will grow into,” she said. “Does anyone really think that the massive environmental disruptions long predicted by climate scientists are going to leave Dharma communities and activities magically untouched?

“Social and political unrest is growing. Living and practicing in the midst of disruption and even danger will be the new norm,” she said. “COVID-19 is just the first teaching of this kind, and is where we have to learn to find courage within profound uncertainty, which may get worse rather than better in the future.”

Cloud Mountain staff created the term “supported self-retreat,” to describe the first onsite practice opportunity offered following the spring Washington state Covid shutdown.

To guarantee safety retreat center staff carefully crafted `“safety bubbles,” so five to seven individuals could simultaneously complete personal retreats of one to three weeks. A key was keeping retreatants sufficiently separated from one another to avoid infection.  Teachers’ retreat guidance came from offsite, via cell phone.

Sneeze guards along the serving tables are a new addition to meal service.

Participants from three multi-week periods of self-retreat were universally enthusiastic about the value of the new form of retreat practice.

“I felt very safe with the pandemic protocols that were in place,” said Bella Nelson, a former emergency room doctor who joined the very first self-retreat in August. “That was of paramount importance for me, for others, and for respecting the public health protocols in place at large.”

Retreat center staff still cooked for retreatants and supported their practical needs, with additional new duties to sustain a healthy environment. The small groups of seasoned retreatants made it relatively straightforward for staff and retreatants to collaboratively follow recommended public health measures.

“The staff have done a thorough job of developing and implementing health and safety protocols,” said Lynne Hyerle of Seattle. “I felt completely at ease during my time there.”

A spacious outdoor meal during the August supported self-retreat.

Peg Masters of Port Townsend, Washington, said, “The measures in place at Cloud Mountain gave me a sense of safety that was more than just physical.”

Looking ahead, staff plans to create multiple opportunities for this kind of personal retreat. A hope is to always bring a highly qualified Dharma teacher on site, to offer light guidance for people working through any practice obstacles.

A 28-day retreat of this kind is scheduled to take place from February 23 – March 23, 2021. It will be led by Ayya Santussika Bhikkhuni, a Buddhist nun from Karuna Buddhist Vihara in California.

Cloud Mountain also continues working to re-open for group retreats, utilizing understanding gained from the November group retreat. During that retreat Tim Geil, co-guiding teacher of Seattle Insight Meditation Society, led 11 people for three days of practice.

On self retreat, one retreatant converted an upstairs Alder Lodge room into a meditation room.

Feedback from Geil and the participants was that the retreat was a success. It was an opportunity to test the COVID-19 protocols developed for self-retreats, to discern what worked and where we needed to make further refinements to enhance safety for groups.

Currently three group retreats are scheduled for January and early February, 2021, unless made impossible by pandemic conditions or by state and regional guidelines.

Returning to a significant retreat schedule has all along depended on building confidence and consensus among everyone involved: retreatants, teachers, and Cloud Mountain’s board of directors and staff.

“Laura’s approach of maintaining ongoing dialogue with all stakeholders, finding creative solutions to problems, and complete transparency in all aspects of the process, is making it possible for us to safely open our doors for intensive onsite retreat practice,” said David Dhammadasa Branscomb, co-founder of Cloud Mountain and president of its board.

Cloud Mountain Executive Director Laura Hauer hopes Cloud Mountain’s careful but innovative strategies around the pandemic are noticed elsewhere in the Dharma community.

Among the first self-retreatants in August were a former ER doctor and an RN.

“As a Dharma center we’re all about supporting depth of practice. Encountering and overcoming obstacles helps individuals to grow, but also organizations,” she said. “Part of what motivates me to work so hard to keep our doors open is not just to support individuals, but to offer a model for others out in the world suffering from the constrictions and suffering from fear.”

Hauer said she sees a “polarized response to COVID-19,” in which one extreme is that it’s all a hoax, that the economy’s health should come first, and that personal freedom counts more than limitations posed by a cooperative public health approach.

“What people don’t see as clearly is the other end of the spectrum: where everything feels dire, risky and frightening to the point of paralysis,” she said. “Many people carry the unchallenged belief that we need to hunker down behind closed doors until someone in authority gives us the green light to emerge.”

Hauer said she’s been surprised how pervasive is this attitude within the Buddhist community.

“It’s a collective and reactive fear that goes unseen and unquestioned,” she said. “I hope to show with what we accomplish at Cloud Mountain that a balanced and rational middle way can be found that cuts through the fog and confusion of this pandemic, and allows us to meet other kinds of challenges yet to be faced.”