PART ONE - My ten days meditation retreat... in a few words
I have to start by saying it will be a challenge to put into words, by writing, that experience. I will also start by saying it was amazing, I am happy I have done it, I certainly will do something similar again, and I think it was the best time to do it in my travel journey. It was certainly a challenge, at time, yet for ever I will remember some powerful moments experienced in these ten days.
So on the 28th of February I showed up sometimes around 1PM to the retreat center to register and “secure” my spot for the next ten days. It all started with a document to read, which somewhat explained how the next ten days would be. Then we had to get a face to face interview with a monk or a nun in who emphasized the fact that it was not going to be easy, that we would only get two meals a day, and that we would be sleeping on a wooden bed, with a wooden pillow, and no fan in our room (30 ish degrees Celsius during the day, with humidity, cooler at night, yet still warm). After that we got the ok to pay, get our room, go unpack, walk around until tea time, and then a first get together to talk about the next ten days and be sent to bed around 8 PM with a bell signaling the beginning of the silent period. I have to say that I was somewhat nervous during the day, getting there, and I did get a certain… tightening of the whole body when that bell rang the first night.
The bed… well, a picture is worth 1000 words so here is a picture of the room, bed and wooden pillow that I was going to use for the next 10 days, and 11 nights.
Not as bad as it looks actually. The pillow was somewhat bearable when lying on my side but I mostly slept on my back, since the bed was also wood, so I ended up using a sweater that I folded. As for the bed, we were given a blanket that I used under my body, it was hot enough anyways, and I used my silk sleeping bag to keep from the mini breeze of the later night when it would almost get cooler. The first night was the worst, getting to understand the limitation of that bed versus my body, that on the side I had to bring the shoulder forward in order to not squeeze it between my weight and the hardness of the bed, and that on my back I had to be mindful of how I would rest my sacrum, whish was directly on the wood, with a mini layer of skin in between the bone and the wood. But I have to admit I got use to it, it was not that bad, I actually slept pretty well. Now the fact that we would get up at 4 am and go back to bed only at 9:30 pm also contributed to the sleeping well on such a hard surface.
Food was simple, vegetarian only, yet good. In the morning, at 8 would get a rice soup, with a little bit of vegetable in it, raw leafy veggies on the side, like cabbage, salad and other leafy greens that I didn’t really know, bananas, and weak green tea. For lunch at 12:30, we would get brown rice, one or two kinds of cooked veggies, again the raw leafy veggies and either something sweet or a fruit, and weak green tea. For “diner” at 6 pm we would get soy milk, chocolate soy milk or a sweet fruity tea. We would be excited when it was chocolate soy milk of course!
So 4:30 am every morning we would have someone from the group who would read an inspirational text, we could sing up for morning reading on day one, which I did of course and read the text on day 10. After that we would meditate for about 30 minutes until yoga class at 5:15. From day three on I decided to do my own yoga practice, we had a hall for those of us who would prefer that rather then joining the group with a teacher. Since the yoga that was thought was more of a beginner level I opted for my own practice. So yoga from 5:15 to 6:45, then 15 minute to watch the sunrise, and then back to the meditation hall for instruction, inspirational talk (instructions on the first few days, then more of inspirational talk) for about 30 minutes, then meditation until 8. After breakfast we would each have chosen a chore on day one, so we would go do our chores, and then had free time until 10 am. I chose cleaning the men’s bathrooms of the main meditation hall, which was a great choice because it would take about 20 minutes to do, then I had the rest of the time to walk around on the beautiful property, have a mini nap, or enjoy the hot spring, which I did most of the time.
I really enjoyed watching the sunrise every morning, especially where we were, it was rising behind two medium size ponds, with a row of banana trees behind them. We could see the reflection of the sky in the ponds when a bit cloudy, it was majestic every morning, like a painting being painted before our eyes, the clouds changing colors on the background going from dark black/blue to bright light blue in a mater of a few minutes, then the sun would show up, directly in our face, passing from red, to orange to yellow to bright white. And to top it off, nature was waking up with it, different kinds of birds taking there first flight of the day, singing to glory of the morning light, it was very inspiring.
From 10 to 12:30 we would gather in the meditation hall to get instructions, inspirational talks, sitting meditation, standing meditation, and go for walking meditation. It was kind of divided in blocks of 30 minutes so we never would have to sit for too long, but we could always remained sitting instead of standing or walking meditation. I opted for walking meditation most of the time, day 8 and 9 I did longer sitting periods of sitting still, which was hard on the body. An intense pain in the middle of my back got quicker to form and make itself felt everyday, getting harsher as the sitting meditations would succeed one an other from morning to night. But apparently it is all part of the process; you just have to trust that the body will be ok with you enduring it.
LUNCH, I was always excited for lunch. It meant that half of the day was done, it meant I would quenched my hunger on certain days, because two meals a day was easier by the four but the first few days I was hungry, and it meant an other break until 2:30 and an other hot spring session. I was also always excited to see if we would get something sweet, and was extremely excited on the few days we got watermelon or pineapple. By day five I started reducing my food intake, to try to help with the meditation, and I didn`t know it then, but I was also preparing for day 9, which was a special day, for which we didn’t have the schedule in advance, and we found out on day 8 we would only have one meal on that day. One big breakfast at 8:30, containing a bit more substance then our usual breakfast, more similar to our lunches was going to be served to us, and soy milk for lunch, and chocolate soy milk for diner. It was actually pretty ok for the whole day, yet I was dying for food by the morning of day 10!
From 2:30 pm to 6 pm we would have 1 hour of instructions and or inspirational talk and or teaching on Buddhism, 45 minute of walking meditation 45 minutes of sitting meditation and 45 minutes of chanting. Day 8 no more talk, only meditation, and day 9 was complete silence all day with periods of both sitting, and walking meditation. I loved it actually, was quieter.
Evening was quick, after tea and hot spring we would regroup for 7:30 for 30 minutes of sitting meditation, then we would do a group walking meditation around the pond, then 30 minutes sitting again, and head out for bed.
That could somewhat rap up the schedule and activities, all that in complete silence of our part except during chanting, where we would chant but not talk. We started being a group of 114, I don’t know how many finished actually but we last a few players from day 4-5 and on. Also, some people started to “cheat”, reading, taking notes, even chit-chatting here and there, skipping a practice here and there, so on and so forth. I bothered me for a day or two, but then I let it go, and used it to motivate me not to quite, not to cheat… except a few notes taken here and then as of day 5, stuff I really didn’t want to forget, thoughts or “insights”, stuff I wanted to share and take away as learning. But for the rest I was pretty good and committed.
So the silence part was certainly the easiest part of it all. I guess after over five months of traveling mostly alone, not talking most of my days, that prepared me well for it. The schedule was a bit harder for the first two days, following the clock, back in a world where time exists. The bed was hard, but not so hard to sleep on it, like I said before I guess I was tired enough so it helped. But meditating was hard. It was hard to sit for long periods of time, because of the pain caused by stillness, being sitting on the ground, and to stay mindful for long periods of time, from sitting to walking, to standing, to sitting again, always keeping the mind quiet during all of that. Maybe because I was not talking at all, maybe because I wanted to “succeed” at meditating during these ten days, not sure, but my mind was running, was noisy and busy more then when I would sit to meditate regularly during my travel of the past few months. It was also a new technique, a new approach to meditation for me. I did have my few moments of calm and a few moments of quietness, but not the brake through that I had … expected. Which was also part of the problem may, expectations, it is the greatest enemy of meditation. I was at least comforted on the last day when I shared with a few people to realize I was absolutely not the only one. Still I am walking out of there with having gone through the longest period of meditating up to now, I am happy and proud of that. I also have the certainty that I was to continue meditating regularly for all its benefits.
That's it for now, but more to come soon... (to be continued!)
Metta all!
Charles
