Want A Meditation Retreat At A Japanese Farmhouse? Go To This Remuera Home

Fancy finding your zen in a 16th-century-style Japanese farmhouse? A meditation retreat at this Remuera home could enlighten you.

When meditation teacher Susan Allen recalls the times spent at her Aunt Robin’s Remuera house, it’s the raucous dinner parties the family used to hold that spring to mind.

They’re scenes that couldn’t be further from the experience she’s offering later this month when she holds a meditation retreat there, its serene spaces overlooking a zen pool and Japanese gardens.

Built in 1987, Robin, herself a meditator, had spent years envisaging and researching the design of the home, enlisting high-profile architect Robert Railley to create a sanctuary that would mimic a traditional 16th-century Japanese Sukiya farmhouse, a timber and clay design that epitomises rustic simplicity and harmony with its surroundings.

Robin passed away earlier this year, aged 84, but before the house is possessed by its new owners, Susan will use it as a base to guide practitioners, beginners or otherwise, through Tibetan Buddhist tranquillity and insight meditations.

“My aunt and I shared a very beautiful relationship,” says Susan, from her home in Wānaka. “She was very dear to me, and we used to talk a lot about meditation and yoga. This house is her absolute domain and a symbol of her creativity.”

Robin was a trained physiotherapist who had a successful teddy bear, doll and puppet business — she and husband Bryan (who is now in care) spent a lot of time in Japan. During the export boom of the 80s, they held Japanese business etiquette lessons in the house and hosted Japanese tourists at their Clevedon farm.

“The house was in contrast to Robin’s personality because she was actually very eccentric and creative and like lots of people like that, she had an extremely busy and over-productive mind,” says Susan. “But then she created this house that was like so zen and spacious and open and clear.”

Yet Susan says she often sees students struggle to learn to meditate this way. While books and apps can provide valuable tools for cultivating mindfulness, many may find themselves “stuck” or unable to progress beyond therapeutic benefits, like finding relief from stress, she says. This is where the immersion of a teacher-led retreat can be life-changing.

Susan has taught a wide range of meditation styles over the past 22 years, but the retreat teachings, taken from the Mahamudra and Dzogchen tradition, are considered to be a lineage practice, their wisdom passed down from teacher to student over millennia.

“They have a much deeper purpose of being truly transformational in your life, not just for something minor, like getting to sleep better.”

Tranquillity practices bring calm and quietness to busy minds, while insight practices reduce our reactive tendencies such as anger, attachment, greed and fear.

“We also unpack experientially how these states of mind lead to suffering and how we can learn to operate from a place that is beyond that identification with those negative states of mind.”

Robin would have “adored” the opportunity to attend the retreat, says her daughter Jackie Rive, just as she adored Susan.

“It was always her fantasy. She’d say, ‘Maybe we don’t have to sell; we could set up a yoga retreat in the house.’ She would be so thrilled Susan is doing it.”

Her mum’s foray into meditation came about after her dad experienced a heart-health scare. They took a course in transcendental meditation but Jackie suspects Robin tweaked the style to suit her own ambitions. They’d sit up and meditate in bed every morning, Robin with a notepad ready to jot down the stream of ideas she generated.

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While the retreat offers the chance to experience the couple’s passion for Japanese design, Susan hopes it will help attendees take their practice to the next level. Meditation has been transformative in her own life, she says, particularly through its ability to shift away from a state of self-centredness.

“[Through meditation] we become less obsessed with constantly building and maintaining our views and opinions, likes and dislikes — if we look carefully we can see that we are bound by these. This relaxing around ‘self’ brings an opening and a freedom that always results in being more caring, more empathetic to others, more aware of others — something that will go a long way to solving the sorry state of the world today.”

Susan Allen’s top tips for reviving a meditation practice, or beginning one

Find a teacher. A teacher will inspire you and give you instructions relevant to your personal practice so you can keep progressing. Often, when you find a teacher, you will also find a community of practitioners that helps to further inspire and support your ongoing practice.

Do a course, learn a specific technique, then stick with it. Only when we stay with one technique can we develop the depth and, consequently, reap the benefits of that practice. Jumping around from app to app, from technique to technique will always keep you on the surface.

Develop a vision. If you want to bring meditation into your life in a long-term, committed way, it is essential to have a motivation, a vision, that is deeply meaningful. Meditation will change the direction of your life. To find this motivation for practice, it is worth spending time to contemplate your aspirations and vision for how you see your life unfolding and the part that meditation can play in that — to formulate a vision that is deep and unshakeable, that is aligned with your values and the direction you want to take in this life. This vision then becomes the fuel for practice, for learning and for change, each day cultivating the type of person you aspire to be.

The Tranquillity and Insight Meditation Retreat with Susan Allen will run from August 24-27 in Remuera (accommodation not included). For more information, visit Retreats.nz. Susan’s next retreat is in November at Cross Hill at The Camp, Lake Hāwea, on the lakeshore.