Tarpa's three retreat cabins serve as educational laboratories where students engage in intensive, structured contemplative education under direct instructor guidance. Like field stations for biology or practice rooms for music, these facilities provide environmental conditions necessary for developing educational outcomes impossible to achieve through classroom study alone.

Our cabins, which are located in a secluded area with peaceful views of Vermont's rolling hills, opened in 2024. Since opening, we have hosted students for 30 educational retreats ranging from one week to over three months. 

The cabins function exclusively as educational facilities for Tarpa guided solitary retreats with a daily schedule that includes eight hours of learning through meditation exercises, study blocks, and one hour of hands-on compassion practice through community service.

Why This Solitary Learning Environment Is Educationally Necessary

Contemplative education requires learning mindful awareness in all daily activities—not just formal meditation. Students learn to maintain investigative attention while walking, preparing meals, washing dishes, showering, sleeping, and managing daily routines.

The pedagogical challenge in normal life is that we operate often on auto-drive, for instance, cooking while planning tomorrow's meeting, showering while rehearsing conversations, or eating while reading our phones. These ingrained habitual patterns make learning sustained mindful attention nearly impossible in everyday contexts..

Solitary retreat serves two pedagogical functions:

Environmental mirror for self-observation: The absence of other people's actions, voices, and dramas naturally amplifies awareness of one's own mental and emotional patterns. Without external stimulation competing for attention, students discover their own thoughts, feelings, and their habitual reactions become remarkably vivid and observable. The simplified environment reveals what busy daily life obscures.

Focused conditions for skill development: Students develop new attentional habits without competing demands, practice bringing awareness to routine activities systematically, and build foundational skills before applying them in complex environments. This mirrors how basketball players practice free throws and layups without defenders or crowd pressure before playing in actual games—building fundamental skills in controlled conditions before applying them in complex, high-pressure situations.

The solitary cabin retreat isn't isolation for its own sake—it's a pedagogical device that simultaneously reveals hidden mental processes and provides optimal conditions for learning transferable skills that will be tested upon return to daily life.

The Educational Transfer Model

Retreat is not the goal—it's the learning laboratory for applying what students study online.

Tarpa's curriculum—the Palace of Learning—progresses through five floors (Foundation, First Floor, Second Floor, Third Floor, and Golden Roof). Students study each floor's content online through video lectures, readings, and reflective exercises. Then, when ready, they apply that learning through intensive retreat corresponding to that curriculum level.

Curriculum-Retreat Integration (optional):

• Foundation Floor: 2-3 day introductory retreat to improve their ability to maintain the basic meditation posture and engage mindfully within the solitary living environment

• First Floor (Small Vehicle): 7-10 day retreat applying shamatha (calming) and vipassana (insight) practices in the Four Applications of Mindfulness studied theoretically online

• Second Floor (Great Vehicle): 14-28 day retreat deepening Four Immeasurables practices and progressive stages of meditative investigations into “emptiness” 

• Third Floor (Diamond Vehicle): 30-90 day retreat for experimentation with preliminary practices aimed at reframing identity through visualization exercises

• Golden Roof: 90-120 day retreat for practices integrating the student’s recognition of the nature of mind

This progression mirrors how chemistry courses progress from basic lab experiments to advanced research—each level building on the previous, with retreat durations matching pedagogical complexity.

Phase 1 - Retreat Learning Laboratory: Students study the online content for each curriculum floor, then enter retreat to apply that specific learning in a distraction-free environment. Then, they practice bringing awareness to routine daily activities as taught in that floor's modules. They build attentional stability matching that level's requirements. They identify habitual patterns in this simplified context. They receive expert coaching through weekly one-on-one meetings reviewing both theoretical understanding and practical application.

Phase 2 - Transfer to Daily Life: Students apply skills learned in retreat to home environment. They practice mindfulness while managing work, family, and relationships. Students maintain awareness in complex situations. They continue development through daily practice. When ready, they study the content for the next curriculum floor online, then return for next-level retreat.

This progression resembles how basketball players practice free throws without defenders or crowd pressure before playing in actual games—building fundamental skills in controlled conditions before applying them in complex, high-pressure situations.

Why Facilities Must Be Fully Functional Living Spaces

The curriculum teaches exercises in mindful living across all activities—not just formal meditation sessions. Each floor's retreat component requires systematic practice applying mindfulness to daily life:

Food and Nourishment: Planning meals mindfully, preparing food with present-moment attention, cooking while maintaining investigative awareness, eating slowly with full sensory attention, cleaning up with non-distracted focus.

Physical Care: Morning routines without automatic pilot, showering with sensory awareness, personal hygiene with mindful attention, physical movement with body awareness, preparing mindfully for bed, and entering sleep with awareness.

Space and Environment: Maintaining a clean, organized living space, having a mindful approach to possessions, having environmental awareness and care.

Emotional Regulation: Recognizing emotional patterns as they arise, working skillfully with difficult emotions, cultivating positive mental states.

Formal Practice Integration: Applying specific meditation techniques taught in that floor's online content—concentration (shamatha) and investigation practices for First Floor, four immeasurables and tonglen for Second Floor, visualization techniques for Third Floor—practiced multiple times daily.

This comprehensive approach explains why retreat facilities must be fully functional living spaces rather than just meditation rooms. The residential nature is pedagogically essential—students must live in the learning environment to practice the complete curriculum: formal meditation techniques PLUS mindfulness in cooking, eating, sleeping, cleaning, and all daily activities in order to gain a degree of mastery that will be sustainable when they return to their daily lives.

Educational Program

Structured Daily Curriculum (8-10 hours): Formal contemplative practice sessions (specific techniques from that floor's curriculum), mindful daily living practice (cooking, cleaning, personal care), systematic self-study of that floor's course materials, regular individual instruction sessions (2-3x weekly), reflective writing assignments connecting practice with theoretical content, one hour daily of community service.

Expert Instructor Guidance: Students work directly with Dr. Gregory Seton, who assigns specific contemplative exercises and “experiments" matched to their curriculum floor, provides individualized educational guidance through regular meetings, monitors progress in both theoretical understanding and practical application, helps identify habitual patterns, connects practice experiences with philosophical frameworks studied online, and prepares students for transferring skills to their home environment.

Curriculum-Matched Progressive Training:

The retreat durations above correspond to pedagogical requirements for each curriculum floor—not arbitrary time periods. Just as chemistry lab sessions grow longer as content becomes more complex (introductory chemistry requires 2-hour labs, advanced organic chemistry requires 6-hour labs), contemplative education requires progressively longer uninterrupted practice periods as curriculum sophistication increases.

Students typically complete the Foundation and First Floor online before attempting First Floor retreat. Second Floor retreats come after completing Second Floor online content. This ensures students understand theoretical frameworks before intensive application. However, students, who have background knowledge and experience connected with the learning to be done on the foundation level or other floors, may skip ahead. In such cases, prior consultation with the instructor is advised.

Practical Information

Enrollment: Open to all members of the public—no membership, religious affiliation, or prerequisites required. Free access with voluntary suggested donations. Prospective students work with Dr. Seton to assess appropriate retreat length, develop individualized curriculum plan, and schedule retreat dates.

Cabin Facilities: Each cabin is fully equipped to support the comprehensive daily-life curriculum, including kitchen facilities for learning mindful food preparation, bedroom space for developing mindful sleep practices, and study desk for coursework and reflection.

For detailed information about what to bring for your retreat and specific cabin amenities, please see our FAQ page.

Location: 317 North Road, Vershire, Vermont (on-site with instructor residence ensuring ready access for educational guidance).