Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Meditation Retreat - ponderings

The week long meditation retreat recalibrated me, body, mind and soul. It was a very emotional time for me. I cried on a number of occasions, uncontrollable tears pouring down my face, but that happens to me sometimes when I meditate, or am awed, so it wasn't entirely unexpected. I would never have thought it was possible to bond with 25 strangers as I did; to feel wrapped and protected in the arms and affection of people whom I had known for simply a few days, but that is exactly what happened. I am not ready to put it into words, that joyous experience up on that mountain.

To give some sense of it at this time I will share that we spent much of the time in silence. The Tibetan gong, we knew in advance, would be played at 7.15 am and by 7.45 am we needed to be on our cushions (or prayer stools or chairs) ready to meditate together. Since the walls were paper thin in the rooms in which we slept we waited for the gong before we turned on showers. Well, my friend in the room beside me who worked at the retreat as a psychotherapist showered before that, but that's another story.

Breakfast of a lacto-vegetarian kind came after that and we gathered our food in silence. We ate in silence. We prepared for the morning teachings and the meditations session after that in silence. We ate lunch in silence. It was not until afternoon tea that we were given permission to talk and that's when we got to know one another, not so much at afternoon tea which was not a particularly leisurely time and occurred prior to evening teachings, but over dinner.

Really, where we got to know one another was in the teaching sessions when everyone bravely shared their innermost thoughts and showed their true selves. There was very little talking - we were encouraged to make notes as prompted - but what talking did occur was the sharing of key words brought up from within ourselves - our strengths, our weaknesses, our hopes and our fears. We went to dark places before we quite naturally reached up to the light.

I doubt I need to say to anyone who has done the scantest reading of this blog that I luxuriated in the silence. This being the fourth day home, it comes as the understatement of the year to say that I miss it. People speak too many words. The world makes far too much noise.

To counteract this mental upheaval of leaving behind the world of the retreat I begin my day on my cushion. The days are not my own - not yet - but if I begin the day on my cushion I can enter the stillness of the still mind in the early morning, before the household has woken up, and this settles and soothes me for a day in the real world of words, bustle, opinion and ego.

If you don't believe in the power of psychotherapy then think again. I had three group psychotherapy sessions with the goal of motivation for daily meditation and so far every day I wake with the script running in my head, 'You have an irresistible desire to go to your cushion'. Indeed, I do.

I'm a lucky gal to have come across a man who has been taught by the highest spiritual leaders of this world the portals into the stillness of the natural mind. The opportunity to share time with him, and for him to be at the place in his life where he is ready to reveal that knowledge to those ready to hear it is the greatest gift I could ever have been given. Having been offered a glimpse into the power of the still mind, I will pursue my practice with vigor.

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