HippieHusband and I just got back from three weeks of vacation. The adventure involved BigCities, hiking and camping and a 10-day silent meditation retreat amidst the redwoods. There are no cell phones, no internet, no communication with the outside world. They ask that you don't read or write during the 10 days you are there. Primarily it is a sitting and walking meditation but there is also an eating meditation. At the end of the night one of the teachers gives a talk. These are people just like you and me, except they are so wise and insightful.
BFF tells me that going to these retreats officially makes me a hippie. While that may have been true in the 60s and 70s, I think now there are people of all kinds that come to the retreat, including, gasp, republicans. Side by side we sat together and meditated republicans, punks, old hippies, young wannabe hippies, and scientists. Ah, you ask, but how would I know since we didn't talk for 10 days? After we broke silence you get a chance to talk and let me tell 10 days of silence is sometimes not enough. Clearly, I'm still working on the whole compassion thing.
This is the second retreat of this kind I have done. The first one, I did immediately after my PhD. The silence and quiet was brilliant. My thoughts thinned out and by the end the internal chatter that borders on dementia was mostly gone.
It's amazing how wonderful the simplest things like eating and walking become when you learn presence. Before the retreat, I couldn't count how many times during a day I'd space out or my eyes would glaze over or I'd be lost in thought. I don't think there is anything wrong with daydreaming but I'd like to be aware and know when I am. I still space out but now I catch myself (most of the time).
I realize that these retreats are not for everyone. It's a mental and physical challenge. What makes it incredibly hard is that as you sit, the main thing you face is your mind. Imagine sitting still, watching your breath, for just 5 minutes let alone 45 minutes. As I sat there, my back began to hurt, followed by my stomach and then my my knee. I thought that I had permanently damaged my knee forever and that in addition to having had to recover from a brain tumor, I would now have to face a disability... oh my god I think there's a spider crawling on my ear and what if it decides to make a nest inside my head, I think I'm going to die of a heart attack what will they do if I die meditating...I wonder what we're going to have for dinner because yesterday's meal was so good I'll have to get that recipe...that girl beside me was covered in tattoos why does she have one that says hellbound.
You get the picture?
Knowing what causes your suffering is the first step to reducing it.
So after taking my first step toward enlightenment, I came back to SmallTown and a distended email inbox.
Somewhere amidst the junk, I found out that my manuscript is in press and the journal is writing a perspective. I received requests from two different journals to review manuscripts. Early Monday I have another phone interview and I was shortlisted for a job I had applied for before we left for vacation.
I should go away more often.
*******
I've always wondered why the housefly,
trapped indoors,
spends most of its time flying up against a window.
Cautiously crawling, it examines the glass
As if it might escape through a small opening.
Gathering energy and focusing on the target,
The fly dashes into the window.
Resting in disappointment, its legs tremble.
Flying a short distance from the glass, it hurriedly returns,
As if its heart will break to leave prison.
I want to pick it up by the wings and stop the stupidity.
Why does it do that?
If it only it would turn away from the glass, it could find a way out.
And then I remember,
Ah, isn't that the way it always is?
5 comments:
I like the sound of your retreat, especially as my "vacations" are always taking up visiting family and having to do stuff and meet people and chit chat to people...I always feel like I need a vacation when I get back. Actually a retreat like yours sounds like exactly what I need!
P.s I love how you describe mediation - my mind seems to lack breaks or the ability to focus, but I should practice more.
As much as it does sound like I'd have a hard time with it, part of me wonders if that could finally stop my incessant inner monologue from getting so damn wrapped up. Sounds like it was a wonderful time.
Wow, good for you! And welcome back! Someday I will go on one of these retreats. But not yet... right now I think I would most appreciate the actual quiet. I'm finding I have less and less tolerance for outside noises like neighbors and construction. Like right now, I don't think I could really sit and meditate without becoming increasingly angry that there is so much banging going on that I can hear even with all the windows and doors closed.
And congrats on the paper & job stuff! I'm afraid to take actual vacations. I usually come back to piles of disasters. It would be SO wonderful to have the opposite. Like several dreams came true, actually.
@ Dr. Girlfriend
One thing I do at school, is on my ITunes, I have a chime that goes off every hour. At that point, I sit in my chair and take just 5 breaths. I do that throughout the day. It really helps with the focus and presence.
@rocketscientista
I did.
Unfortunately, I haven't stopped the inner monologue but at least now I'm aware of how much importance I seem to have given it in the past. First step in the reduction, right?
@Ms.PhD
Thanks!
It's anything but quiet at the retreat. In fact, you wouldn't believe how amplified noise becomes (inner and outer). I sat for 5 of the 10 days with incredible anger and anxiety. At one point I was so anxious/fearful, I thought I really was going to have a heart attack. Apparently, others had similar experiences.
Some of the reason why I got angry was exactly what you described. But I found for me, that the meditation was super useful because I was able to identify my relationship to whatever thought I had, where it was in my body, and how to just let that be.
For example, at one point there was so much shuffling and coughing in the meditation hall, especially this one person who kept making so much noise, and then outside there was this pounding from god knows what. In my head I was like, "hey motherfuckers I'm TRYING to get peaceful here!"
As soon as I had that thought, I noted it, "There is thinking" and then identified the feeling that came as a consequence of that thought, "There is anger and frustration." I then located that frustration in my body, the gut. Turns out it was the same place in my body where I get frustrated by work related situations. I sat with it for a while, breathing into that part of my body. And then poof! it disappeared. For me that was the visceral lesson I had over and over until I really got it - Let it go because nothing is permanent.
it sounds a bit scary, yet good. My inner thoughts might shut uop if I lasted 10 days... sort of wonder about that though.
I have done silent retreats for a weekend and I think partly the "being in the now" has been my experience of hiking in the mountains without cell phone and too much talking.
I realised though, when reading your post, that this might be exactly what I have been missing the last couple of years. Even two days without a phone connection. Partly since I've been scared of turning of the phone since that is my only connection to older parents on the other side of the world... the worrywort I am. Maybe there is such a thing as a "phone watcher in case something fatal happens"?
hm, maybe this can be something for the fall time... thanks!!
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