Despite the fact that I had never meditated in my life, I went on a 10-day Vipassana Meditation Retreat. For 10 days, I accepted a vow of complete silence: No talking with others, nor any silent communication by gesture or eye contact. Further, no cell phones, computers, TV, radios, music, no alcohol, no reading or writing. NOTHING. No input, no output. Except 100 hours of meditation.
Here follows the story of my experience: Part 4. Previous entries are posted here.
~~~~~
After six days of meditation, I wonder what is happening to me. I’ve gone from the lowest of lows to the highest of highs in a few short days. At the end of the course, I tell a fellow meditator: “This is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.” His response: “Really? Ten days of sitting is the hardest thing you’ve ever done?” Short answer: absolutely. The long answer requires some philosophy.
The Vipassana meditation practice – and the ten-day retreat – works on a variety of different levels. The teacher instructs us to simply remain aware of sensation, exploring every inch of the body to observe what sensations arise. Some sensations are pleasant, like the full body buzz I wrote about last month. Some are painful, like dull and sharp back aches, and some are unpleasant, like intense itches or a foot falling asleep. The teacher instructs us to not react to any of these sensations. So I do not move to scratch an itch on my nose even as it goes from mildly annoying to a tiny volcanic hot explosion of electricity.
Every emotion has a place that it manifests in the body. When I’m angry, if I pay attention closely, I’m able to feel the physical sensation of that anger in my body. Maybe it’s in the pit of my stomach, like a ball of acid. The subconscious or “unconscious” mind is always aware of this and every sensation on the body (and therefore, every emotion). I sit watching a movie, engaged in the story unfolding, and I have an itch on my arm that I scratch. I may not even be aware, consciously, that I did so. It’s my subconscious mind that did it. It is always awake, even during sleep, and aware of the sensations everywhere on the body. During meditation, I feel sensations and my subconscious mind wants to react. By not reacting, it’s like I’m pulling on the reins on a wild horse.
That’s how Vipassana meditation is meant to work. I pull the reins on my animal (subconscious mind) to teach it to no longer react unthinkingly to every sensation or emotion. I am training my subconscious mind to observe and accept.
And as I remain totally silent over the course of a ten day retreat, I have no output to express my emotions. Without a phone, computer, radio or TV, there is almost no distraction; there is no input. Without input or output for ten solid days, I begin to release some of the things that have been buried deep inside my body.
Little emotions… like the hurried stress and twitch of shame I feel when I arrive late to a meeting, or the quick jolt of anger when a driver does something stupid on the road. These emotions, which seem minor, find a place in my body and remain there. They build up as more and more emotion piles up and isn’t addressed. And that’s just the little hits. There are also a lot of deeper, powerful feelings that get buried in the body. This happens to all of us.
All these things shake loose during ten days of no input and no output. There is nothing to distract me from myself. Once the “noise” from the hubbub of daily life begins to die down in my head, I am left only with who I am and what I carry. Emotions come out after they have lingered and built up for so long, after they have become much bigger than the original emotion because they are stored in my body and, over time, cause me more pain than the original transaction. During the retreat, I wasn’t the only one to break down and cry. It was a regular occurrence. The emotion pours out in surprisingly powerful ways. So, attending one of these 10-day retreats isn’t an escape from the real world into some haven of silence and peace; rather, it’s a painful and difficult journey. Fortunately, it’s worth it (more on that next month).
~~~~~
Follow up notes to this month's column:
1. The "tiny volcanic hot explosion of electricity" cannot be stated dramatically enough to match the experience. It was summertime hot, 100 degrees every day, so I'd naturally have a little sweat on me. Sitting down to meditate, the sweat settles and dries as I cool. And the itches that would come up, especially on my face, were unbelievably irritating. There were times I wanted to scream as I fought off the urge to itch. Other times, I'd successfully watch and wait and the itch would die down, only to come back stronger and more fierce than ever before. I could swear that there was a tiny person on my face stabbing me with a red hot pitchfork, twisting and laughing as I struggled. I wanted to kill that person.
2. I've learned so much by going back. After my first retreat, which seemed to knock me off a lot of bad games I was playing, was too emotionally powerful for me to fully understand. I understood some of what happened to me, and some of how the retreat works.
But it wasn't until I went back for another 10-day retreat seven months later, and then again on a 3-day retreat just last month, that I began to understand what this thing is all about. That's how this month's column came together... while it's "about" my first ten day retreat, it's really fueled by understanding that came in later retreats.
3. I find the "chemistry" of how this experience works fascinating. How, after ten days of shutting down the noise of the world, so much naturally comes out of your mind and body. How the experience is meant to be painful, because it's a purging of emotions stored in the body. How it's like a cleansing in that way, and how I felt so much lighter when it was over. Like the baggage I was carrying with me was gone. The point of going is not to relax and enjoy, but to go through pain in order to come out on the other side freer.
4. Going to these retreats has not removed my reactions to little things in life. I still get angry, frustrated, sad, in response to some of the stupid little drama things in life, in addition to bigger, more challenging issues. But I am much more aware of how that works, and I can step back and watch myself. It doesn't make it go away all that easily, but it does make it easier to cope with it.
I will cover, in future columns, how I did successfully live without emotional reactions to things, for a solid four months after my first retreat. It was a wonderful time. Unfortunately, it didn't last. But I'm still far better off than I was before all this.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Part Three: Buzz
Here's my column as published in The Noise in September 2011. See below the column for my additional blog notes about this one.
:::::
TEN DAYS OF HELL
Despite the fact that I had never meditated in my life, I went on a 10-day Vipassana Meditation Retreat. For 10 days, I accepted a vow of complete silence: No talking with others, nor any silent communication by gesture or eye contact. Further, no cell phones, computers, TV, radios, music, no alcohol, no reading or writing. NOTHING. No input, no output. Except 100 hours of meditation.
Here follows the story of my experience: Part 3. Previous entries are posted here.
After three and a half days of absolute silence, inward focus, and nothing but me, myself and I, I’m at the brink of madness. I have no confidence in myself to continue. I am miserable and I do not want to be here. I want the comfort of my home and the peace of domestic distractions. Nonetheless, I enter the meditation hall for the afternoon group session on Day Four. We are told, by way of a sign outside the meditation hall, that we’ll learn the Vipassana meditation technique in this session. Until now, all we have done for ten hours a day is Anapana meditation, paying attention to the sensation of breath on our nostrils. It’s very focused, very simple, and very boring. Most of all, it’s hard to do. So this new technique – it’s my last hope.
A sign outside the hall informs us that we’ll sit for two hours. It instructs us not to leave the meditation hall, and not to move during this two-hour session. That’s not happening. I’m overweight, uncomfortable in my body, and probably have undiagnosed ADHD. So, they can dream all they want, but I will move.
The teacher begins the session by instructing us to begin Anapana meditation. I focus my attention on the movement of breath at my nostrils, where oddly, it feels a little raw. Then, we are told to move our attention from our nostrils to a “quarter-sized circle” at the very top of our heads. At this point, something truly amazing happens. A small section – the size of a quarter – on the very top of my head “lights up” with a tingling sensation. It’s unbelievably vivid. It’s like I can feel the molecules of that particular patch of skin bouncing around wildly, so strong it even hurts a little. The teacher further instructs us to move that quarter-sized patch of awareness, slowly, over our entire bodies. I move the attention around my whole head, over my face by individual part: left ear, temple, cheek, nose, lips, etc. Everywhere I turn my attention, that area of my body “lights up” with high vibration and tingling sensation.
I am fascinated by this and continue with intense focus, moving over my entire body. At the end of the session, I’m shocked to realize that I did not move at all for the last 30 minutes.
The breakthroughs continue on Day Six. I begin morning meditation by moving my attention, part by part, over my body. But something really cool starts to happen. As I move my attention from my left shoulder down, suddenly, my entire arm lights up with energy and vibration in one fell swoop. I approach my upper leg and then the whole leg lights up in one smooth motion. Now I'm sweeping the vibration over larger parts of my body. By the final few minutes of the session, I don't need to move my attention; my entire body is simultaneously buzzing with delightful sensation (I’m told later this is called “dissolution”). I’m glowing with energy, and I’ve sat for the entire hour without moving an inch. Having spent a good part of my more youthful hippie years experimenting with various substances, I can say confidently that this natural meditation “high” is the way to go.
I’ve decided to stay. I’m finally feeling good here, and I’m eager for each session, craving the warm buzz feeling that will come. In a private interview, the teacher has told me that the dissolution I have experienced isn’t discussed in the course until Day Nine. So, I’m ahead of the class!
I didn’t know it at the time – I was so happy just to feel like I was getting something right in the midst of my own personal hell – but this combination of craving and pride was a perfect set up for further suffering.
:::::
Follow up notes to this column:
1. The buzz was very real. As I'd move my attention, I'd be seriously perplexed at how powerful the vibration sensation would be on each new part of my body. So much so that I worked hard a couple of times to see if it was my mind "creating" the sensations rather than my attention sharpening to a level that could feel more than I do at any other time.
I did this by jumping my attention quickly. I'd "jump" from feeling my toes up to my elbows. If there was a significant lag, I convinced myself that that meant I couldn't be creating the vibration, just watching it. I'm not sure that works logically, but I was convinced at the time.
2. It's not been said yet (and I'm sure it will be in later versions of the column), but this stuff comes across as intellectual game-playing to some degree. I don't mean to demean my own writing, but Vipassana is an experience. What I went through may make for a good story, but the actual experience is at a whole other level. The teacher also kept stressing this: he would say that we are re-learning how to control our own minds experientially... if we were to only talk about it and understand it intellectually, it would lead us nowhere.
3. I've recently returned from a three day retreat. Three day retreats are only open to those who have completed a ten day course. The Vipassana folks are very strict about this... there's no 'beginner level' indoctrination. The ten day retreat IS the beginner level. And the intermediate level. Advanced level involves further exploration and longer retreats... 20 or 30 days. I shudder at the thought. But I'm also a little curious.
The three day was nice. Relaxing is the word I would use. It'll probably be the topic of a column later, so I won't spoil it all now. But I will say that without the specter of ten full days of absolute silence and isolation lingering over my head, it's easy to simply relax and get into the spirit of a calming retreat.
4. I also just signed up for a third ten day retreat this winter. Yes, I'm going yet again. I go in December 21 and come out January 1. This timeframe, and the thought of being 'off the grid' completely over the holidays, has completely lit me up. What a great time to disappear, eh?
5. There are some things you must promise in a ten day retreat at Vipassana. They are
- to abstain from killing any being;
- to abstain from stealing;
- to abstain from all sexual activity;
- to abstain from telling lies;
- to abstain from all intoxicants;
- to abstain from eating after midday; (although we are allowed fruit at 5pm)
- to abstain from sensual entertainment and bodily decorations
- to abstain from using high or luxurious beds.
6. Also, here's the daily schedule during the ten day retreat:
4:00 am Morning wake-up bell
4:30-6:30 am Meditate in the hall or in your room
6:30-8:00 am Breakfast break
8:00-9:00 am Group meditation in the hall
9:00-11:00 am Meditate in the hall or in your room according to the teacher's instructions
11:00-12:00 noon Lunch break
12noon-1:00 pm Rest and interviews with the teacher
1:00-2:30 pm Meditate in the hall or in your room
2:30-3:30 pm Group meditation in the hall
3:30-5:00 pm Meditate in the hall or in your own room according to the teacher's instructions
5:00-6:00 pm Tea break (and we could have fruit)
6:00-7:00 pm Group meditation in the hall
7:00-8:15 pm Teacher's Discourse in the hall
8:15-9:00 pm Group meditation in the hall
9:00-9:30 pm Question time in the hall
9:30 pm Retire to your own room--Lights out
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Part Two: No Comfort (August)
For those of you who read my posts on Facebook last summer about my Vipassana experience, you'll find that this entry is somewhat familiar. In fact, the first three entries (July, August and September) will be that way. However, I do insert a bit or two that is new - for instance, this one features a nickname (my favorite one) that I forgot to include in my original Facebook posts.
However, beyond September, I will begin to explore some of the philosophy and nuts/bolts of the Vipassana meditation process. I will explain, as best I can, how it's meant to work. How did it work for some newbie like me who had never meditated before? How did I spend four months after my first retreat on Cloud Nine, after nearly spending a year on the border of Cloud Eight (Nervous Breakdown)? I'll get into all that in the October, November and December issues of this column, as published in The Noise.
Plus, I will be writing about my experience taking a second journey to Hell. I took a second ten-day Vipassana Retreat in March of 2011. Also, I'm taking a three-day retreat this September, and planning yet another ten-day trip to Hell in December. For that one, I'll be going into retreat on December 21, and not emerging from my cave of silence until January 1. So, there will be a lot of ground to cover in coming issues.
:::::
Here's the August column as printed in The Noise:
Despite the fact that I had never meditated in my life, I went on a 10-day Vipassana Meditation Retreat. For 10 days, I accepted a vow of complete silence: No talking with others, nor any silent communication by gesture or eye contact. Further, no cell phones, computers, TV, radios, music, no alcohol, no drugs. NOTHING. No input, no output. Except 100 hours of meditation.
Here follows the story of my experience: Part 2. Previous entries are posted online.
There is no comfort here. It is the morning of Day Four of my 10-day Vipassana Meditation Retreat. It is too hot. My quarters are in a doublewide trailer with 17 other men who snore and slam doors. I can’t sleep. And the meditation practice is absurd and pointless. I had such high hopes when I came here, but now, I just want to go home.
My first three days at the Retreat Center in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains have been hell. I arrived with an open mind, hoping for instruction and guidance. Instead, I feel disoriented and lost. The opening “orientation” session featured an older man whose voice cracked with uncertainty as he read from a sheet of paper. He gave us the same information I had already read on the website. Just what had I gotten myself into?
During the first meditation session, I sat in the hall with 125 other participants without any initial instruction. After what seemed like an eternity, the teacher, whose voice beckoned to us via audiotape, instructed us to focus our attention on the sensation of our breath touching the edges of our nostrils. That’s it, nothing else. We did this for hours and hours on end, interrupted only by short breaks. There is no visualization, no thinking about Chakras, no chanting “OM”, and no imagining the Buddha, some goddess, or light around my body.
This practice – Anapana meditation – is unnervingly difficult. After just a few breaths, my mind wanders to all kinds of fleeting thoughts. After two long days, I begin to question my sanity. I drift into waking dreams, where I am visited by strange creatures. On Day Three, I meet one that’s half-man, half-rat. The creature’s face is covered in dirty fur, and he talks like Pendleton from Charlotte’s Web. But I don’t remember what he says to me, because the teacher has instructed me that anytime I become aware of my mind wandering, to simply re-direct my attention back onto the touch of breath on my nostrils. No matter how weird the vision, just come back to my breath. I am bewildered by the places my mind is going, but I am trying to follow the instructions.
I keep myself from going crazy in between sessions by thinking up names and stories for the other people at the Retreat. I can’t talk to anyone, so I know nothing about them. There’s a guy who looks like Shaggy – he must have come here after solving another mystery with Scooby Doo. And there’s a guy with an obnoxiously thick beard that grows way too far down his neck. He carries around a giant soft meditation chair that outsizes any other meditation pillow in the room by a factor of four. I name him Neckbeard the Great, captain of the famous pirate ship, Neckhair.
Despite these distractions of oddity and humor, I am miserable. I’ve decided to leave without completing the course. Realizing the failure this represents, I curl up in my bed and begin to sob uncontrollably. My emotional reaction is large and unwieldy – a much stronger reaction than I typically have when I face failure. Clearly, three and a half days of no input and no output has removed all distraction from my mind, which makes me feel things much more deeply. I am failing this course, and the shame and fear associated with that pours out of me like a waterfall.
Two things, however, are keeping me from leaving: I am more fearful of admitting defeat than I am eager to get out of there. And, Day Four is “Vipassana Day”. We have been told that we will learn Vipassana meditation this afternoon.
I didn’t know it at the time, but the change in meditation would change everything for me. It would be the kind of break-through that not only gave me the strength to stay through ten full days of this hell, but also would change my life.
----
Follow up notes to this column:
1. I was far more miserable and angry than I could really fully express in my word limit (the column is 750 words or less for publication). In my original free-flowing posts on Facebook about all this, I wrote about a fantasy sequence in which I jumped the Course Manager and repeatedly punched him in the face. I had many similar fantasy sequences in my mind, in which I hurt or attacked others. Yet, I am not a violent person; in fact, I've never been in a fight in my life. I'm a pacifist, mostly. So, to have this level of intense anger coursing through me was unusual and uncharacteristic. That's part of what the "Hell" is all about: when you shut down all input for ten full days, and cannot express yourself (no output), all the crud and emotions stored in your body start to come loose and find their way out. It's not pretty, but it is liberating... at least once you come out on the other side of it.
2. Neckbeard the Great, who I met on the final day of the course, turned out to be named Sean. Oddly, Sean took a bunch of us to a hidden look-out spot just outside the Course Boundary to show us a place he would go to sit during breaks. There, he found several clumps of human hair. It looked like someone chopped their hair off during a retreat a few moons back. I find it more than appropriate that Neckbeard is the person who showed us this great offering of human hair.
3. More nicknames:
-Steven Seagal (the ass-kicking movie star - spitting image)
-Mr. I'm Too Sexy (by the end of the Course, I would be singing this horrible song in my head each time he walked in the hall. Sometimes it was hard to keep from laughing out loud.)
-Frog Man (thus named for the frog-hop-way he would adjust his position in the meditation hall)
-Doc (wore smocks throughout the course)
-RunDMC
-Bubble Butt
-Bad Guy (looks like a random bad guy in a Jackie Chan movie. Hope he doesn't run into Steven)
-Mohawk (who I also called "NIN" because he wore a Nine Inch Nails t-shirt, very peaceful)
-Thunder Girl
However, beyond September, I will begin to explore some of the philosophy and nuts/bolts of the Vipassana meditation process. I will explain, as best I can, how it's meant to work. How did it work for some newbie like me who had never meditated before? How did I spend four months after my first retreat on Cloud Nine, after nearly spending a year on the border of Cloud Eight (Nervous Breakdown)? I'll get into all that in the October, November and December issues of this column, as published in The Noise.
Plus, I will be writing about my experience taking a second journey to Hell. I took a second ten-day Vipassana Retreat in March of 2011. Also, I'm taking a three-day retreat this September, and planning yet another ten-day trip to Hell in December. For that one, I'll be going into retreat on December 21, and not emerging from my cave of silence until January 1. So, there will be a lot of ground to cover in coming issues.
:::::
Here's the August column as printed in The Noise:
Despite the fact that I had never meditated in my life, I went on a 10-day Vipassana Meditation Retreat. For 10 days, I accepted a vow of complete silence: No talking with others, nor any silent communication by gesture or eye contact. Further, no cell phones, computers, TV, radios, music, no alcohol, no drugs. NOTHING. No input, no output. Except 100 hours of meditation.
Here follows the story of my experience: Part 2. Previous entries are posted online.
There is no comfort here. It is the morning of Day Four of my 10-day Vipassana Meditation Retreat. It is too hot. My quarters are in a doublewide trailer with 17 other men who snore and slam doors. I can’t sleep. And the meditation practice is absurd and pointless. I had such high hopes when I came here, but now, I just want to go home.
My first three days at the Retreat Center in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains have been hell. I arrived with an open mind, hoping for instruction and guidance. Instead, I feel disoriented and lost. The opening “orientation” session featured an older man whose voice cracked with uncertainty as he read from a sheet of paper. He gave us the same information I had already read on the website. Just what had I gotten myself into?
During the first meditation session, I sat in the hall with 125 other participants without any initial instruction. After what seemed like an eternity, the teacher, whose voice beckoned to us via audiotape, instructed us to focus our attention on the sensation of our breath touching the edges of our nostrils. That’s it, nothing else. We did this for hours and hours on end, interrupted only by short breaks. There is no visualization, no thinking about Chakras, no chanting “OM”, and no imagining the Buddha, some goddess, or light around my body.
This practice – Anapana meditation – is unnervingly difficult. After just a few breaths, my mind wanders to all kinds of fleeting thoughts. After two long days, I begin to question my sanity. I drift into waking dreams, where I am visited by strange creatures. On Day Three, I meet one that’s half-man, half-rat. The creature’s face is covered in dirty fur, and he talks like Pendleton from Charlotte’s Web. But I don’t remember what he says to me, because the teacher has instructed me that anytime I become aware of my mind wandering, to simply re-direct my attention back onto the touch of breath on my nostrils. No matter how weird the vision, just come back to my breath. I am bewildered by the places my mind is going, but I am trying to follow the instructions.
I keep myself from going crazy in between sessions by thinking up names and stories for the other people at the Retreat. I can’t talk to anyone, so I know nothing about them. There’s a guy who looks like Shaggy – he must have come here after solving another mystery with Scooby Doo. And there’s a guy with an obnoxiously thick beard that grows way too far down his neck. He carries around a giant soft meditation chair that outsizes any other meditation pillow in the room by a factor of four. I name him Neckbeard the Great, captain of the famous pirate ship, Neckhair.
Despite these distractions of oddity and humor, I am miserable. I’ve decided to leave without completing the course. Realizing the failure this represents, I curl up in my bed and begin to sob uncontrollably. My emotional reaction is large and unwieldy – a much stronger reaction than I typically have when I face failure. Clearly, three and a half days of no input and no output has removed all distraction from my mind, which makes me feel things much more deeply. I am failing this course, and the shame and fear associated with that pours out of me like a waterfall.
Two things, however, are keeping me from leaving: I am more fearful of admitting defeat than I am eager to get out of there. And, Day Four is “Vipassana Day”. We have been told that we will learn Vipassana meditation this afternoon.
I didn’t know it at the time, but the change in meditation would change everything for me. It would be the kind of break-through that not only gave me the strength to stay through ten full days of this hell, but also would change my life.
----
Follow up notes to this column:
1. I was far more miserable and angry than I could really fully express in my word limit (the column is 750 words or less for publication). In my original free-flowing posts on Facebook about all this, I wrote about a fantasy sequence in which I jumped the Course Manager and repeatedly punched him in the face. I had many similar fantasy sequences in my mind, in which I hurt or attacked others. Yet, I am not a violent person; in fact, I've never been in a fight in my life. I'm a pacifist, mostly. So, to have this level of intense anger coursing through me was unusual and uncharacteristic. That's part of what the "Hell" is all about: when you shut down all input for ten full days, and cannot express yourself (no output), all the crud and emotions stored in your body start to come loose and find their way out. It's not pretty, but it is liberating... at least once you come out on the other side of it.
2. Neckbeard the Great, who I met on the final day of the course, turned out to be named Sean. Oddly, Sean took a bunch of us to a hidden look-out spot just outside the Course Boundary to show us a place he would go to sit during breaks. There, he found several clumps of human hair. It looked like someone chopped their hair off during a retreat a few moons back. I find it more than appropriate that Neckbeard is the person who showed us this great offering of human hair.
3. More nicknames:
-Steven Seagal (the ass-kicking movie star - spitting image)
-Mr. I'm Too Sexy (by the end of the Course, I would be singing this horrible song in my head each time he walked in the hall. Sometimes it was hard to keep from laughing out loud.)
-Frog Man (thus named for the frog-hop-way he would adjust his position in the meditation hall)
-Doc (wore smocks throughout the course)
-RunDMC
-Bubble Butt
-Bad Guy (looks like a random bad guy in a Jackie Chan movie. Hope he doesn't run into Steven)
-Mohawk (who I also called "NIN" because he wore a Nine Inch Nails t-shirt, very peaceful)
-Thunder Girl
Monday, June 27, 2011
Part One: Breaking the Silence
Thus begins a twelve month journey to tell my on-going tale. Welcome.
I shared my story with the editor of The Noise, the local arts & news monthly, asking if I could write a feature article in an issue about my experience. He instead asked that I turn the story into a twelve-part series over the course of a year. The title of the series is: "Ten Days of Hell: And Why I Keep Going Back For More." I will publish the series on this blog, too.
I will be chronicling my story of attending a 10-day retreat of meditation and silence. I attended my first retreat in July 2010, and then went back for another retreat in March 2011. I anticipate attending another 10-day retreat in December 2011, when I am halfway through telling my story in The Noise. So, I enter this journey with a story to tell (my experiences thus far), but also unsure where it will finish as I continue over the course of a year with new stories to tell (my next retreat experience).
Let me begin by saying that I do not look forward to December 2011. In fact, it scares the crap out of me. It will indeed be hellish... painful, difficult, and mind-numbingly boring. But I'll get to that part of the story in good time.
Here's how this will work: My Noise column is limited to 750 words. I'll re-publish it here, but I'll usually add comments both before and after the column that could not be included in the print version. Oh, and a plug for The Noise, who I genuinely thank for understanding the power of this journey and sharing it with their readers: it's an awesome publication, whether you reside in Northern Arizona or not. You can see the awesome photo/art they are using along with my column when you grab the print version. It's in newstands, coffee shops and fun places all over N. AZ, from Prescott to Jerome to Flagstaff and beyond. Pick one up.
Now, on to my published column for the July 2011 issue of The Noise:
I shared my story with the editor of The Noise, the local arts & news monthly, asking if I could write a feature article in an issue about my experience. He instead asked that I turn the story into a twelve-part series over the course of a year. The title of the series is: "Ten Days of Hell: And Why I Keep Going Back For More." I will publish the series on this blog, too.
I will be chronicling my story of attending a 10-day retreat of meditation and silence. I attended my first retreat in July 2010, and then went back for another retreat in March 2011. I anticipate attending another 10-day retreat in December 2011, when I am halfway through telling my story in The Noise. So, I enter this journey with a story to tell (my experiences thus far), but also unsure where it will finish as I continue over the course of a year with new stories to tell (my next retreat experience).
Let me begin by saying that I do not look forward to December 2011. In fact, it scares the crap out of me. It will indeed be hellish... painful, difficult, and mind-numbingly boring. But I'll get to that part of the story in good time.
Here's how this will work: My Noise column is limited to 750 words. I'll re-publish it here, but I'll usually add comments both before and after the column that could not be included in the print version. Oh, and a plug for The Noise, who I genuinely thank for understanding the power of this journey and sharing it with their readers: it's an awesome publication, whether you reside in Northern Arizona or not. You can see the awesome photo/art they are using along with my column when you grab the print version. It's in newstands, coffee shops and fun places all over N. AZ, from Prescott to Jerome to Flagstaff and beyond. Pick one up.
Now, on to my published column for the July 2011 issue of The Noise:
The windows are down and I’m driving down a two-line highway in the idyllic morning sunshine of a California valley. I have just come out of the gorgeous rolling foothills of the Yosemite wilderness from a retreat. I’m feeling great, free and alive – more alive than I have felt in a long time. Nothing could break me from this fantastic feeling.
Suddenly, an oncoming car moves out to pass, but doesn’t have the space. It’s coming right at me and can’t get back into its own lane. I don’t have enough time to move my car completely out of the way. My car is straddling the yellow centerline, and all I can do is hope we don’t collide.
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This is my first column in a yearlong series that explores my experiences with a ten-day retreat of meditation and silence. The retreat requires participants to remain totally silent for the full ten days. They call it “noble silence” which does not allow for any communication: no talking, no gestures, and no eye contact with other participants. Further, no cell phones, television, computers, alcohol, drugs, reading, writing, or contact with the outside world. To top it all off, there are ten hours of meditation each day.
Before going, I had never meditated in my life. Not once. I don’t do yoga or any other kind of spiritual practice that might have prepared me for what some call “Meditation Boot Camp.” Why did I do this to myself? How did I survive ten days of total silence and marathon meditation sits? Why did I go back for a second retreat? That’s all part of the story yet to come.
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Right now, though, I have a head-on collision to avoid. By the time the car gets near the collision point with my car, we both slow down enough that the car misses me by half a length, but hits the gravel shoulder on my right. It spins around and smacks into a barbed wire fence.
Now, I hadn’t yet spoken to anyone outside of the retreat center yet. I had just spent ten days in total silence, and I am a bit curious what it will feel like to talk with others, or to enter the hustle and bustle of a grocery story or restaurant.
I pull over, get out and approach the spun-out car. Five kids are slowly getting out, looking dazed and wobbly in a cloud of dust; all of them appear to be under 21. Fortunately, they appear unharmed and signal that they are okay. But when one of them speaks, I have trouble understanding her. Her voice is muffled, like she has a napkin in her mouth, and I quickly understand why. She is deaf. In fact, all five of them are deaf.
So. Let’s pause here, because I think we need a moment to process this: I spent ten days in total silence, and the first people I talk to upon leaving said retreat are… deaf kids. Deaf kids I have a near-head-on collision with. Now, you might think that’s a remarkable thing. And I agree with you. But I don’t think it is the most remarkable thing about that incident.
To me, the most remarkable thing was how I responded to everything that transpired. As the car was heading right for me, knowing that some kind of accident was inevitable, I remained calm. My heartbeat did not rise. After the car spun out near me, I calmly pulled over, checked traffic before exiting my car, and without fear, moved swiftly towards the accident, in hopes that the people involved were safe. I’ve been in accidents before, and plenty of near-accidents. Each time, I was frazzled, shaking, angry, and in shock. This time, my response was different. I was calm and acted without emotion or panic. It was instinctive; I didn’t control my breathing or consciously attempt to remain calm. This was my natural response.
And I drove off from my near-accident without having lost my feeling of freedom. I didn’t know it at the time, but that feeling would stay with me for months. My life had been powerfully changed. It had everything to do with The Ten Days of Hell I willingly put myself through just before this incident. The story begins next month with Day One.
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So, a couple of post-column notes and additional backstory:
1. Yes, it's totally true. When I left the retreat center that Sunday morning in July 2010, the first people I spoke to were deaf. None of this is fictionalized for effect.
2. The kids were shaken up, and I was there for awhile, waiting for the police to come. Right after I checked to see if the kids were okay, a woman approached who was a former EMT. She was poised and helpful in making sure the kids were taken care of. I stepped into the role of trying to slow down traffic. There was gravel all over the road from the car's spin out, and it created a dangerous situation for the kids and others on the side of the road when cars would speed over that gravel and send it flying outward.
Slowing down traffic was difficult, because few would actually slow down. At one point, I walked out into the middle of the road to force cars to slow down. That was not my smartest moment.
3. A fellow meditator who had left the retreat center after me pulled over when he saw me slowing down traffic. He recognized me, because we had actually spoken at the end of the retreat (meditators are permitted to speak in the afternoon of Day Ten). His name was Pierre. When I told him what happened, and that the kids were deaf, he said to me, "The universe is trying to tell you something, brother." Then he drove off.
4. After 10 days of silence, my own voice sounded so strange and foreign. Speaking for the first time had an "out of body" feel to it. Like I didn't know who it was that was speaking the first time I spoke.
5. For those of you who have read my account of this experience on my Facebook page, this new telling will be different. I'll be covering much of the same ground, but from a new approach. And there will be new elements to the story as I discuss my second retreat in March, and then my third retreat coming up this winter.
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