With the virtualization of a retreat, not only does the physical context change, but changes also occur in the practices that lead to introspection and the mutual, face-to-face communication. For some participants, it was this lack of “interphysicality” that led them to describe their experiences of the offline retreat as less direct, intuitive and spiritual than a previously experienced offline retreat. However, their accounts did not suggest that the online retreat experiences where completely disembodied and less real. As we judged from some of the posts on online retreats, the body still took center stage in online interactions:
“I try ‘to play’ with the practices because I notice that my head keeps trying to make something serious out of it, and I believe that it does not work. Sometimes I get all sorts of physical sensations/complaints — not comfort-able, but it is just as if that is a small beginning of the difficult descending from head to heart”.
“At the end of my summer course I noticed that I have experienced the offered material as very inspiring and educating and that I find the Starpractice a very efficient exercise. It makes my body transparent. The breath goes in and out in a ‘free flow. It lets me experience that I am more than my material body, that I am more spacious and broader than that which is visible of me”.