Hermitage on the Hill

A place to withdraw for a while

We are slowly becoming ready to welcome a few guests.

The hermitage is intended for people who already have some experience of meditation and are comfortable practising on their own. There is no organised programme here, and very little guidance. The idea is simply to provide a quiet place where you can continue your own practice.

As the Hermitage on the Hill is a monastic place, closely connected with the local monastery and Buddhist culture here in Sri Lanka, it is currently open only to male practitioners.

My meditation and Gestalt therapy retreats, however, are entirely separate and are open to everyone, regardless of gender, faith or background.

The hermitage is still very much a work in progress, as life usually tends to be. But for our purposes, it is starting to be quite enough.

This is not a retreat centre, and we do not organise retreats here. There is no programme, no course and not very much teaching. It is simply a small Buddhist hermitage in the mountains of Sri Lanka where a few monks live in peace, happiness, and every now and then hopefully even bliss— and where you are welcome to come and do the same for a while.

You do not need to be Buddhist.

You do not need to belong to any religion at all. Whatever you believe — or don’t believe — is perfectly fine.

The idea is simply to withdraw from ordinary life for a while, live quietly, meditate, and practise together in silence.

Of course, silence does not mean that nobody is allowed to speak. If you have questions, we can talk. But there will be no daily teachings, organised activities or attempts to make you spiritually better than you already are.

Staying with us

We hope that guests will stay for at least one week.

This is not because we particularly enjoy making rules, but because we would like to keep the hermitage genuinely peaceful. A constant stream of people arriving and leaving rather quickly defeats the purpose of having a hermitage in the first place.

For lay guests, the cost is €30 per day, including a simple place to lay down your mortal remains during the night and enough nourishment to keep them functioning during the day.

The body is, after all, the vehicle we have for enlightenment, so there is probably no great wisdom in neglecting it. We eat properly, rest when needed, and even move the limbs every now and then.

Life here is simple. Very simple.

We also have a rather wonderful little jungle pool, where you can take your morning bath.

There is only one minor disadvantage. Last time, a leech attached himself precisely at the point where the back ceases, technically speaking, to be the back.

This provided an excellent opportunity to practise letting go of disgust — and, perhaps more importantly, to stop taking leeches as a personal insult.

A surprisingly useful morning teaching, courtesy of the deeply Buddhist nature of the local wildlife.

Phones, computers and the outside world

We hope that computers can stay at home.

Phones are best kept in flight mode within the temple area. If you need to use your phone, please do so privately in your room, or preferably outside the temple area.

The intention is not to make technology into an enemy. It is simply rather difficult to withdraw from the noise of ordinary life if we carry all of it with us in our pockets.

For monastics

Monastics are welcome to stay without charge.

Nothing much happens here

And that is rather the point.

You can meditate. Walk. Sit. Look at the mountains. Listen to the rain. Help with something if you feel like it. Or simply leave yourself alone for a while.

There is nothing particular you have to achieve, nothing you have to become, and nowhere you have to get to.

Just a little time, a little silence in Sri Lanka, where you can practise this easily overlooked but profound art of sitting still.

Sometimes that is quite enough. Actually, quite often.

A Small Matter of White

There is, however, one small concession to local monastic culture. While staying here, I would ask you to wear white. For reasons that are no doubt profoundly spiritual, monks and ordinary laypeople are not really supposed to live together in quite this way. So, technically speaking, you may find yourself temporarily promoted to the noble position of anāgārika — someone dressed in white who lives alongside and helps the monks.

I can assure you that I require very little help.

It is mainly a matter of respecting the local customs and avoiding unnecessary misunderstandings. When in Rome, as they say. Or, in this case, somewhere rather high in the mountains of Sri Lanka.