One Week to Retreat

One week to my departure to Club Med.  Club Meditation, that is.

For the month of February I’ll be immersed in a Vipassana Retreat in the canyons of Northern California at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, about 45 minutes north of San Francisco.

The setting is fantastic.  The retreat is up a side canyon and backs into what seems to be square miles upon square miles of open land.  Steep hills, deep, rutted arroyos, a blend of grassland and trees of all varieties.  Deer and wild turkey nonchalantly wander through the campus.

I will be living a stripped down life.  Sitting meditation, walking meditation, meals in silence.  A ‘yogi job’ for one hour a day either working in the kitchen or doing household chores.

A teacher of mine once said that we don’t gain anything by adding things to our lives.  The value comes when we take things away.  I go on and on about ‘restraint with awareness’ as part of the path.  This is a pretty ‘restrained’ month.

No speaking.  No eye contact.  No email.  No vmail.  No web.  No iPhone on my hip.  No reading beyond one or two classical dharma books, if I read at all.  Writing will be restricted to taking notes on dharma talks or scribbling something down that just HAS to be recorded.

Other than two 15 minute interviews with a teacher per week, I’ll be in silence.    The last month-long I sat I croaked for the first few minutes of my interviews as my vocal chords felt so out of use.

It’s kind of fun to pack for a trip like this.  How many clothes does one need if no one is looking at you for a whole month?  I’ll do my ‘one bag’ travel thing and bring the absolute minimum, hand-washing my clothes daily as part of my routine.  A few quick-dry t-shirts, underwear, some long underwear, socks and some light wool sweaters that I’ll layer.

It’s the rainy reason, so I’ll bring full rain gear for hiking in what will probably be pretty soggy hills.

It’s hard to get excited about a meditation retreat.  I suspect, if it’s like retreats I’ve done in the past, that I’ll go through some extreme fatigue, a period of intense mental/emotional and physical turbulence and settle into a stillness and subtlety impossible to replicate in the outside world.

I’m bursting with gratitude to have a month like this to pause so deeply.  There is nothing like a retreat where you feel so supported.  People are cooking for you, cleaning up for you, concerned for your welfare and well-being and your only ‘job’ is to be fully present to what is.

The New Year's Retreat

Today we pack up and head out to the New Year’s Retreat.  This year we’ll have 120 people attending for the whole five days.  I suspect we’ll have both sides of the coin.  A large group builds a lot of energy as we practice for five days in silence together.  We’ll also probably be treated to an unprecedented symphony of sniffs, coughs and sneezes.

I’m looking forward to the week, which will be paradoxically quite busy for me.  I’ll be leading mindful movement sessions twice a day, facilitating group interviews, private interviews, leading some sits and giving a talk on “Impermanence and The Body.”

Enjoy your week.  Happy holidays!

Assorted Links You Might Enjoy

Evidence that meditation helps the heart A really cool piece on bio-diversity.  Amazingly creative.

A Compassion Gene?!?  Mind-blowing.

The Charter for Compassion

You are Nothing.  Find yourself on this 648-megapixel image of our galaxy

(Thank you, Sylvia, Linda and Christa.)

A Way Cool Mindfulness Aid: Nick Chang's Online Meditation Bell

In the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh's communities, a random bell sounds during the day.

When you hear the bell you are invited to pause, take a breath and reconnect with the Here and Now.

Many years ago I got inspired by this practice and set my digital wrist watch to go off every half hour.  To be honest, much of the time I was annoyed, but other times it served as a powerful moment of waking up out of whatever trance I was in.

My friend Nick Chang has designed a website that provides this service for you.  You can choose your bell, how often it sounds and whether or not you'd like it at random intervals.

You can access the meditation bell here.

Thanks, Nick!  Awesome!

The Founder of MBSR on Meditation

Jon Kabat-Zin has been one of the most influential people in the west when it comes to bringing meditation to the mainstream.  Way back when meditation was seen as an exotic and weird practice, working through the University of Massachusetts, he was looking at how it would be quantified as being of benefit.  Below you'll see Jon on Mindfulness. [youtube]3nwwKbM_vJc[/youtube]

(Thanks, John!)

Dreading and Loving Your Meditation Retreat

Robert Wright has been on the airwaves of late promoting his new book, The Evolution of God.  I heard him interviewed on NPR as I was driving up to New England earlier this summer.  I was tickled that when pressed about his own spirituality and mystical experiences, he spoke of his time at a rural meditation retreat center in Western, MA. Not too much sleuthing revealed that place as The Insight Meditation Society (IMS) and his meditation retreat as Vipassana.

This piece from the New York Times speaks so well to our love/dread affair with all things meditation.

(Thanks, Holly!)

How Does This Moment Want You To Be With It?

I'm just home from leading a nine-day training on teaching meditation.  This is part of a 500-hour Advanced Yoga Teacher Training program at Kripalu Center.  This group of 40 was made up of active and experienced yoga teachers.  The retreat was deep, still, filled with tears and laughter. I kvell when I think of each of these gifted and dedicated leaders taking meditation out into the world.

We covered a wide variety of techniques:

• Breath-based Meditation
• Sensation-based Meditation
• Mantra Meditation
• Walking Meditation
• Standing Meditation
• Body-scan and Lying Down Meditation
• Conscious Eating
• Open-eyed Meditation (Tratak)
• Loving Kindness Meditation
• Slow Motion Prana Meditation

We focused on core, simple techniques that help practitioners shift from thinking to 'being.'  Through the days of practice and sharing about techniques and their effects, I'm reminded how each moment requires caring attention and a question of 'how this moment wants me to be with it.'

The yogic approach to meditation speaks of the balance of 'chitta and prana.'  Chitta is mind and awareness.  Prana is energy and feeling.

We are constantly seeking balance between the two.  If you come home in your head and wound up tight from a hard day at work, you'll want to do something to loosen up:  go for a run, do some yoga, pop a beer, take a nap, cook a meal.

Signs of 'too much prana' are those times when you are over-emotional, have 10,000 idea but just can't complete one, feel confused and lost.  You'll want to get your 'chitta together' and focus on what's most important.  You might talk to someone to get some perspective or try to get centered, get some perspective and cultivate a sense of priorities.

Some meditation techniques, like counting breaths or steps when walking, are designed to cultivate one-pointedness and concentration. Other techniques, like slow-motion moving meditation and chanting, can open us up to a greater sense of flow and expansion.

I'm honored to have had this time with such dedicated and sincere teachers.  More photos at my flickr site.  I've got a lot of shots here so folks can pick the ones they like best.

I Believe

A wonderful, lively and articulate interview with Hyan Gak Sunim, passed on to me from my friend Francesca Vanegas, director of the Florida Yoga Institute.  This interview is with Hyan Gak Sunim, her first meditation teacher in RI at the Providence Zen Center  back in 1990. He now lives in Seoul, Korea and has become well known in the international community of this Kwan Um School of Zen. As Francesca invited me, have a cup of tea and enjoy this 26 minute interview!  The "I Believe" series with Dennis Wholey, part of PBS, is quite ambitious.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3661730521946953220

Meditation Hits the Schools

A new article on meditation in the schools in USA Today entitled, "'Mindfulness' Meditation Being Used in Schools". And in case you're interested, here is an article from the Washington Post (front page!) that drew on a training that yours truly leads at Whitman High School in Bethesda entitled "Overachieving Students Hear a New Message:  Lighten Up."

Five Months of Silence

There is an aspect of any spiritual discipline that entails restraint with awareness.  When we step away from habitual activity and pay careful attention to what arises and our relationship to it, we become more self aware.  This is a short piece on someone who practiced silence while on a five-month retreat.  It's here on the Huffington Post. Thanks, Janice, for the link.

The "What Am I?" Retreat

An important aspect of the "What Am I?" retreat we did on Saturday is the principle of "interpersonal meditation."  In addition to silent practice, participants sit quietly with another person.  The questioner asks, "Please tell me what you are."  After a sincere inquiry into what happens inside contemplating the question, the speaker shares what arises in the mind and body. Because we hold a commitment to confidentiality and do not 'discuss' what arises, participants feel free to openly share what they notice internally when they take on this most challenging inquiry.  What happens for many is a sense of safety, trust and though there is no 'discussion,' a deepening sense of intimacy - with ourselves and each other.

I'm struck by the following poem by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, which speaks to the connection possible between us:

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love for your dream for the adventure of being alive. It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon... I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain mine or your own without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy mine or your own if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful to be realistic to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure yours and mine and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Living in the Body: A Dharma Talk

At our retreats, I lead mindful movement twice a day, help people with their seated posture and often give a talk on the first foundation practice of mindfulness of the body.  I love feeling how my years of yoga training are integrating with the Buddha dharma. If you'd like to listen to my talk, you can download it or listen to it live here at the IMCW website.

"There is one thing that, when cultivated and regularly practiced, leads to deep spiritual intention, to peace, to mindfulness and clear comprehension, to vision and knowledge, to a happy life here and now, and to the culmination of wisdom and awakening. And what is that one thing? It is mindfulness centred on the body.” Gautama Buddha

Thanks, Janet, for your quick as a bunny service!

Back from the Spring Retreat

I am just back from the IMCW Spring Retreat.

It rained for seven days.  Every day but the final morning.  No doubt the grey skies and downpours helped draw our practice inward and into the quiet.

A lot happens in a week of silent practice.

The first few days are often an internal bog of drowsiness and recognizing how depleted and exhausted we are.

The day starts with a wake up bell at 5:45 for optional yoga and ends at 9:30 after a half hour of sitting and chanting.  In between, the day is highly structured.  It's spacious, but we flow from event to event: yoga, sit, eat, rest, sit, walk, sit, walk, eat, rest, sit, walk, sit, yoga, sit, walk, eat, rest, sit, walk, listen to a dharma talk, sit and chant, then more rest.

The regularity of each day begins to soothe the nervous system and calm the mind.

"Doing nothing" can be surprisingly tiring. We fall into bed exhausted. As the days pass, though, inevitably we start to feel both a sense of deeper and wider relaxation as well as a greater capacity for concentration.

We notice things we had not noticed before. Sensations inside.  The connection between thought and feeling.  Moments of feeling tight inside completely tied up in a story give way to wafts of spaciousness - then back again into contraction.

The heart feels buoyed up by the steady presence of fellow practitioners around us. The daily guided compassion meditations touch tender spots.  A sob heard in the room reverberates in our hearts.

The unseen, unfelt, undigested content of our lives finds its way to the surface. Some of what arises is incredibly sticky and remains in our awareness for days, cycling back again and again. Some of it arises and effortlessly glides away.

We begin to sense a quiet behind the noise inside. A little more space.

In the final circle when we speak again, I can see the radiance that has been revealed through practice. Eyes are bright and soft. Voices resonate with gratitude and wonder.

For me, as a leader, these days are incredibly full.  I lead the movement classes twice a day, do private interviews and prepare an evening talk. I too fall into bed exhausted for much of the week.

If you ever have the opportunity or inclination to take some time on retreat, consider it as one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself.

Not only do you step away from the habits of your current life, but when you step into an environment dedicated to fully supporting you as you explore what it means to be alive and awake in the body, heart and mind, you not only begin to sense what is no longer needed in your life, you return to your worldly life more aware of what is possible.

Working with Desire

 

Buddhist psychology speaks to cultivating healthy desires, minimizing unhealthy desires and ultimately going beyond desire.

Willpower determines how energy flows. Healthy desires lead to gratitude, joy, generosity, stewardship and service.  Unhealthy desires lead to greed, compulsion, self-centeredness and suffering.

I remember years ago on a retreat going through the food line and realizing that what I'd choose to eat would have three potential qualities.  Anything I ate would either give me energy, be neutral or drain my energy.  I'd either feel uplifted, the same or worse.

I started to slow down my food selection.  I'd look at the dish in front of me and ask my body if it was going to give me energy, be neutral or be a drain.  (I soon realized it wasn't just what I chose, it was how much as well.)  That slowing down helped me quite a bit.  I learned more about the difference between satisfying my mind and listening to my body.  

The choices we face each day have the same possible outcomes, though the results may not be so immediate. 

One of the most striking things about the potency of Buddhist psychology is how much emphasis there is on cause and effect.  

We are invited to reflect on the consequences of any action.

If I restrain from a habit I know is not life-enhancing and pay attention, I notice some kind of compulsion or need arise.  When I pull myself away from getting lost in internet surfing, for example, I notice a restlessness ... a desire for entertainment to satisfy a hungry, unsettled mind.

Stepping away from addiction reveals a 'hungry ghost,' some form of craving that gnaws from inside.

The Buddha put it this way: 

Everything is based on mind, is led by mind, is fashioned by mind. If you speak and act with a polluted mind, suffering will follow you, as the wheels of the oxcart follow the footsteps of the ox. Everything is based on mind, is led by mind, is fashioned by mind. If you speak and act with a pure mind, happiness will follow you, as a shadow clings to a form.

I heard Joseph Goldstein make a nice distinction about this quote.  When we act from unhealthy desire, just like the wheel of the oxcart, suffering will follow.  But there can be a little lag time.  When you speak or act from healthy desire, happiness follows like a shadow.  Less lag time.  The experience of  happiness is more immediate. --------

Ultimately we can go beyond desire altogether.  When we release grasping and greed the opposite states can arise:  generosity and abundance.   When we desire nothing other than what we already have, the moment, in it's fullness and emptiness, is complete.

Meditation in Motion

I'm just back from nine days at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health where I led a retreat and training for the Advanced Yoga Teacher Training program on the topic of meditation.  

What a treat to be with such deep, authentic and caring people.  We balanced our time between understanding more challenging postures and techniques for assisting, but the overall theme was about meditation.  Each morning we chanted prayers in the Kripalu tradition and explored various doorways into meditation ranging from sense-based practices as breath, slow motion movement, walking and scanning to approaches such as mantra and metta.

While my first take on spiritual practice was through meditation, I found the embodied practice of yoga to be grounding and balancing.

The two work together beautifully, though there are traps in both.   A yoga practice unto itself can reinforce the idea that we need to do something to improve our experience.  All the techniques can lead us to believe that we can subtly (or not so subtly) manipulate our way to feeling better and better inside.  A meditation practice alone, if not connected with the wisdom of the body, can lead to a sense of disengagement and delusion.

I celebrate the blending of yoga and meditation and am thrilled to have shared nine days with fellow teachers exploring how we can offer this to a suffering world.

A fellow teacher who has been teaching meditation for over 30 years said that each time he ends a retreat he feels like he just barely has his fingernails in the iceberg.  It's daunting to take on even the idea of teaching meditation.

One thing I tend to repeat, ad nauseum perhaps, is my definition of a teacher.  "A teacher is one who shares the radiance of her own discovery.'  When we share what we're most lit up about, the result is not so much teaching as a transmission of energy and inspiration.  

Jack Kornfield was asked his advice on being the best teacher one can be.  His response:  "Be Yourself."  

Now there's a lifetime inquiry.