Retreat
I remember when I first heard about mindfulness in university. It didn't make much sense to me. When you are sitting, know you are sitting. When you are walking, know you are walking. When you are touching a doorknob, know you are touching a doorknob. Be with whatever experience is happening. It sounded interesting so I tried it but very quickly I realized it didn't make any sense to me. What was the point? It was so boring, and not only boring, painful. I didn't know that I had to accept and pass through that pain in order to see the fruits of the practice. To me it just felt like touching a doorknob and feeling it, and what could be more boring than that? I felt incapable of simply experiencing what was already here and enjoying it. I felt called to adventure, to the more intense and beautiful experiences in life, so I quickly lost patience with the practice.
There was so much resistance to it that I took it as truth: I needed to add *more* to my experience. While I was wasting my time on this banal activity of feeling what's already here -- duh -- I was missing out on what I thought was real life. Thinking about ultimate reality, having wonderful experiences, insisting that there was magic and beauty everywhere even though, deep down, I may not have believed it, and I certainly didn't think it could be found in something as silly as "when you're walking, know you're walking." Little did I know this practice would take me to exactly where I wanted to go. I wish I had started this practice much younger now. I guess I'm fortunate to have started as young as I did, but still... I wonder what I might have been able to avoided if I really did pick it up in college.
I love the days after a retreat. I become so centered and aware after 7 days of meditation that coming out of the world, in some ways, I feel my old patterns more strongly than ever; but then in other ways, I'm able to be aware of these patterns, see them so clearly and sharply in the moment, that I can say, "oh, it's just that pattern coming up again," and I can notice my response to that pattern, and somehow and there is more space for choice of what I *really* want to do in my heart. Sometimes my mind is so sharp in that sense that it really feels surreal. You hear meditation teachers talk about this kind of thing, but it's pretty amazing when you're able to write about it yourself, not intellectualizing at all but speaking from pure experience. I think one famous teacher, when asked, "What is enlightenment?" simply answered, "An appropriate response." And I find, coming into the out-of-retreat world, that often, my responses are so much more appropriate and natural -- they come more from the depth of who I really am, rather than out of delusion or suffering. You know that person you deeply know you could be, that yearning for authenticity and that spark that comes from acting on what you really love and makes you feel GOOD in the simplest way? Have you felt that sometimes -- maybe a simple action that just felt right and natural that you knew was coming from your real self? That is what gets revealed through meditation practice. You don't lose your personality. You really connect with who you authentically are... with who a part of you has always known you are... and it's so beautiful. This authenticity that is revealed, I realize, there have been times in my life when sparks of it shone through. Those were times when I just felt really good about what I was doing and it was so natural because I was just expressing my life energy.
Another thing I notice being out in the world after retreat. It becomes so much easier to notice even the simplest kindness of another human being. You start to notice all the little kindnesses that people, even not-so-nice people, put into the world -- that all of us really have that capacity and desire for kindness in our hearts. Being so sensitive after retreat I see these little bits of kindness all over the place -- love actually is... all around. I also notice the ways that people are mean to each other. In the park, I heard someone say, "What, are you an asshole?" And I heard someone else shout, "What is wrong with you?" That's a phrase that's usually very charged for me since my mother says it without realizing how hurtful it is. Overhearing these little meannesses in the world, they didn't phase me much. I could see them clearly as delusion, suffering, the same sort of thing I struggle with in them, and I knew that the capacity for kindness was in them just as it is in me. It wasn't an intellectual knowing at all; it was just, what I naturally knew with no effort whatsoever, as natural as my body knows how to breathe. And it didn't hurt as much to hear these things; there was more of a softness in my heart and a willingness to just let it go; to accept it just as I'm learning to accept the deluison that is in me. It's a very different way of being conscious: noticing and being touched more by kindness, and letting meanness just pass with an awareness that it is delusion.
Then the social event started. It was a potluck at the park followed by a Beatles tribute concert, a Club 21 whole club gathering -- the club I joined in April in which we partner with somene with fairly severe mental health issues who is ready to start forming relationships and being part of the world. It was pretty awesome to notice with such clarity the nature of my social anxiety. To notice the thought, "I shouldn't be just standing here, I need to be talking," to clearly notice that as just a thought, and then to relax and accept myself even when I'm just quiet. Learning to accept that, there is anxiety here, there is the thought here that "I should be trying harder to interact," but to see all that as what it is, formations in the mind that arise and pass away, and then, when it's appropriate, when it feels good, to take some time in relaxed quiet in the presence of other people. And then, when it feels appropriate, to engage in conversation. I notice that thoughts like, "I should be trying to prove myself," "I should be doing more to engage with this person or something horrible will happen" come up quite frequently. Those kinds of thoughts when you're not sharp enough to see them for what they really are can very quickly spiral into panic and then the fight or flight response kicks in: either saying something stupid or wanting to run away and tune out. But when there is acceptance and clear seeing of what is, these thoughts can be there, this anxiety can be there, but miraculously they don't have to get in the way of having a perfectly wonderful time. They just arise and pass away, and you become interested in them, just as you might be interested in all the diverse people you notice at a social gathering.
It even got pretty intense with the sort of social stuff that usually drives me crazy. What really overwhelms me typically in these kinds of social settings is when I hear several interesting conversations going on and I feel like I'm missing out if I choose one or the other -- there is such attachment to making the "right choice," to choosing the more interesting conversation, or the conversation partner that I'll really connect with -- and that's suffering. Then I'll be having a wonderful conversation with someone and someone interrupts and it's like musical chairs where the conversation partners suddenly switch. I notice there is aversion to change, annoyance at being interrupted, even the worry, "I might hurt this person's feelings if I stop talking to them now, but I might hurt the other person's feelings if I don't engage them in conversation." There's a sharpness that develops in the mind: notice the aversion, notice the fear, space opens to make an appropriate response, and I can make whatever choice I like without getting too caught up in it. I can flow with life, being in each moment as it comes.
Sometimes it almost feels like being on drugs because it's certainly not the way I usually am in the world. But it feels freer, more authentic, more creative. A joke spontaneously emerged from me, and just being with life you can start to connect wit hthe humour of it: Nat, the program coordinator, mentioned that we had a special moon for this event and showed us the crescent moon that was in the sky. It just came right out of me without even trying, "And we have to return it by nine." I'm not sure if the humour in that carries over here, but Nat and I laughed a lot about it. There's a concept in Buddhism of the "stream-enterer," the Sotapanna, one who has entered the flow. This is the first stage of enlightenment, and though I really have no idea what that's like and I know I'm so far from it, there are moments and times when I think I have a small sense of it. It's times like these when I feel that way -- and yet, amazingly, I know I can go so, so much deeper still!
And it's amazing, once again, that I can feel so much more at ease socially by softening, by being sensitive, by feeling my social anxiety fully, by being present! Usually we think the solution is to suppress the anxiety and then go into the social world pretending that anxiety is not there. And yet, this seems to work far, far better! I'm excited. I hope I don't lose my faith in the practice so much, that I'm developing enough experience with it to see how valuable it is. That it's just living life, in a way, but actually living life, being in the flow of it, being in the mystery and magic of it. Most of the time I'm really stuck in the delusion that living is thinking all sorts of thoughts and getting caught in them.
And you know what? Being really sensitive after retreat is awesome. You know another thing that you can feel more deeply than ever when you're really mindful? Just the absurdity and playfulness of life. And you know what helps more than ever to open to the absurdity and playfulness of life? Singing Weird Al Yankovich songs loudly. I had some digestive issues during the first couple days on retreat and the parody of "Complicated," "Constipated," kept running through my mind. And now I listen to it and wow, the joy, the awe, the playfulness, it's so fuckin' beautiful, you know? And so are you. I almost can't help overflowing with laughter and tears and the whole smorgesbord of wonderful absurd human existence when I listen to him in this state. And who I am really starts to shine, who I've always known I am, even those parts I've neglected, playful, absurd, intimate, uninhibited -- the true me is the part that connects and takes such joy in connecting with others.
I actually sent her an ecard after the retreat was over, short, sweet, just what felt like appropriate response. Gaby just emailed me. I could have felt anger, but being really aware, I was able to acknowledge the more proper emotions of tenderness, some sadness, and even feeling something I never would have imagined a week ago in all my anger and hurt: I can actually see that, even though she's in a relationship with someone and maybe I wished things had been communicated better, she cares about me. And there is tenderness in me towards her caring. I'm trying to express as well as possible how this practice totally transforms your very consciousness. How beautiful it is, and how sometimes we have these fears that it will make us into something we don't want to be, or whatever -- there are all sorts of them -- but how it's just so not true. It just makes life so beautiful. You're a Christian? Whatever. The practice will purify you so you can be a Christian who's more fully and authentically connected to God. I realize how silly it is that I've feared it so much. It really is a path of wonder.
Here's what I wrote on Facebook:
I am back from my fourth mindfulness meditation retreat (I've done 3 eight day silent retreats, and one 10 day silent retreat.). I thought I'd share my experience in case anyone else might be interested in this kind of meditation (and I'd encourage you to try it out! I'll support you in whatever way I can.) People often ask, "How was retreat?" and there's no simple way to answer that. Maybe one answer is, "It was life. BUT -- have you really, really felt life lately?" I think the way I described the retreat on the last day was: "An amazing blessing that I sometimes hated intensely." It's amazing that these 2600 year old techniques for exploring the mind and dissolving the very mechanisms that lead us to suffer can be as relevant as ever today. It just gets deeper and deeper in such profound ways. The way Janet talks about the soul vows just getting deeper and deeper and meaning more and more reminds me of the way that some of the Buddha's teachings have been for me. At first there was such resistance and I thought they didn't apply to me at all. For example, I consider myself a joyful person, passionate, and this seemed to be about suffering and, in ever-so-naive understanding, how emotion and wanting is "bad." And yet it's been an amazing process that actually helps me be the joyful and passionate person I am more often; one of my teachers who is from Hawaii said that a native Hawaiian told her our hearts are like shining bowls of light. Then we fill it with stones until this bowl is dark and heavy. This is a process of removing those stones, one by one, and remembering who we really are. Can you remember who you were before your bowl filled up with all these stones?
Retreat sounds peaceful. You just go for a week without a care in the world, sit and walk mindfully, sit and walk mindfully, eat, sit and walk mindfully, sleep. It sounds like a glorious, peaceful experience, and the silence, the not having anything to do but sit and walk slowly and eat, was often something I found myself extremely grateful for. But at the same time, it's amazing how much trouble you can get into in your own mind when all you have to do is sit and walk and eat and sleep!
But then your mind starts doing things. Not liking the boredom, feeling a back pain and rebelling against it like it's the end of the world; wanting something to happen; feeling peace and wanting more of it and so suffering. Just about anything can actually happen. We start to see all the ways we cling and push away, and the practice is just to notice that happening, not to intentionally add anything extra. Just notice. We think it's just sitting, peaceful -- we have some expectation -- but it becomes anything and everything. It becomes life itself. Becoming really aware, you had no idea that you were capable of so many deep emotions both lows and highs, such anxiety, such absurd thoughts and mental states that at times I thought I must be going insane, such peace, such clarity, such confusion, such meaning, such loss of meaning, pushing away the loss of meaning, noticing how that pushing away created more suffering, such deep sense of shame that you think will never pass, followed by such deep sense of self-acceptance even an hour or two later. We become sensitive and fluid, open to all life has to offer. I told my teacher there that on the last day alone it felt like I had lived through many lifetimes. The more you practice, you realize on deeper and deeper levels the truth of impermanence. It was amazing for me sometimes on this retreat to notice when things I thought were permanent were NOT there. For example, I thought I would spend the retreat feeling obsessed with my business, worrying about whether a crisis might arise without me there, pretty much the whole retreat; about losing thousands of dollars because of unhappy clients. But when life unfolds, that's not what happened at all. In fact, that worry only came up very strongly once or twice (and once, when it did, it led to an amazing release). I noticed there were times when I didn't feel identified at all with my business, with money, that I honestly couldn't have cared less if I left the retreat and my business and all my money was gone. Before the retreat I would have thought this impossible. Seeing this was very liberating. In daily life there are things we think will never change; that just are the way things are for us; but practice especially on retreat helps us see that even this is changing. Even what we identify with, though we like to tell ourselves our identity is constant, is always changing. We can see that deeply and clearly on retreat.
So these things we've identified with that feel so permanent usually, we find, when we pay very close attention to experience, really arise and pass away. There is a time for every season under heaven, and when you're truly aware of every moment, they pretty much all happen within the course of a single day (even a single sitting)! And yet, every moment is always new, so you're always surprised (or can be, if you choose to cultivate interest and curiosity). It's never quite the same as the last. All this from little more than asking your body to do nothing for a half an hour and follow some simple instructions!
You become aware of the very subtle workings of the mind, aware of the most subtle ways in which we grasp at, push away, try to control even the most minute experience. The more you practice, the more you realize that this is happening on even the most subtle levels, but then the clarity you develop with just awareness of this... a sense of peace, and if not peace, equanimity with what is, peace with not feeling peace, appreciation for what is, the beauty of how things unfold even though there are so many subtle things in our experience that we're constantly trying to make different. And though sometimes I hit upon deep doubt, feelings of complete brokenness, places I couldn't face, it's like peeling away more and more layers of the onion of false self, until all there is is the beauty of what-is and love. We also cultivate love for these hard places, and for all beings. (These are two sides of the practice that I realized on this retreat more and more cannot be separated: seeing clearly, being connected to what is on a very basic level, and caring/love. When you're really connected, that caring/love cannot help but arise, I think...
And here's what I wrote in my paper journal during the retreat with anything I am adding now in brackets (in general, not writing or reading is part of the silence; but sometimes, it's skillful and helps us get more calm and centered. So I didn't write much over the course of retreat, except on the last night, when I gave myself permission, because I really needed to ground and begin to come back into the everyday world. I also mention retreat dreams since dreams during retreat can be especially poignant, I find):
7/29/2011
I'm on retreat right now. Had no idea if I even wanted to come since Gaby made it known on Facebook several days ago that she has a boyfriend and that, first of all, was completely unexpected, and given the nature of our relationship I felt she ought to have told me first. Fear, hmm, interesting that should just come up. I got quite upset -- the nature of our friendship. I don't understand it anymore and it wasn't even as though I wanted to be in a relationship with her -- this was just another reminder that I'm all alone. Everybody else seems to have somebody.
[here I write about a retreat dream but I edit it out of this entry because it's not really related to retreat experience]
Amita offered to talk last night after the last sit and what she said was really -- hard, but right. Accepting myself. I don't realize sometimes how difficult that is. How much trouble I really have with it -- I can pretend, but in the end, when someone like Amita says "there is nothing wrong with you... you are a child of God," it is so easy to feel uncomfortable. But isn't this something I need to do if I'm going to really help others? IF I want to be free of depression, anxiety -- shouldn't I choose to accept myself? Not that it's as easy as making a choice -- maybe it is -- but if I don't even have the willingness to do that, then what, really, am I living for? Do I imagine living and having some wonderful life while somehow avoiding the fact that I'm often filled with self-hatred? Is that even possible?
So what am I doing here if the one thing I need, willingness to accept myself, love myself, even -- is something that I can hardly fathom doing? Do I think I'll get there some other way? Amita also talked about accepting depression -- it is my path, because it's here right now! That's the same thing, accepting myself as I am without needing to change anything. Am I willing to do that -- would I be, if it were the only way? Accept myself as I am with all this mess? In some ways I'd rather die. If that means staying isolated, not being able to love... but it isn't the depression, it's the non-acceptance that is the cause of isolation, et a. So, anxious about being up at this hour, wish I could sleep more. I guess I could accept my natural -- or current -- sleep cycle, too. I asked myself, so if everything I've ever wanted required accepting myself, why am I unable to do that? In some ways, I'd rather die than face the possibility of loving myself -- "Okay, I quit. That's enough. This is getting too intense." But why? If I loved myself, or accepted myself, I'd feel even more silly and filled with shame/embarrassment when others don't... accepting myself is too hard, such a struggle, and I'm struggling enough as it is... then I'd have to face my emotions and it would be a lot harder to self-medicate with things that aren't good for me?
~ 10:45 am
More reasons, resistance to loving myself. I'll no longer be able to rely on habitual ways of reacting. Everything would feel new, scary. When others don't like me or criticize me, I can resist and fight the specifics of what they're telling me, but I don't realise, in one sense I'm completely buying into it, hating myself more than they ever could. Maybe I feel this is a protection -- if you're already wet the rain doesn't bother you sort of thing. Except it does... if I like/love myself even when someone else doesn't, they can just point and laugh and humiliate me until I'm unable to disagree. Hmm. I wish I didn't feel so sick digestively, but I guess that's part of what I can accept right now.
More resistance: what would I do with the time? What would I fill the space with? If I accepted myself, I wouldn't need anyone else -- no one would be there to help me when I needed it.
[This was the first time I actually acknowledged that I would rather die than face loving myself, and then, in seeing all the resistance I had, it just started to melt. I was able to look in the mirror and say, "I'm willing to resist any resistance I have to loving you." Later, I was even able to say into the mirror, "I love you. But it was hard to look in the mirror, mostly because I saw someone who was so sad, had been in so much pain.]
7/30/11
Here I was -- okay, this morning I started worrying about all the money I could lose on this retreat if a client is upset with me or I paid the wrong credit card... went into the bodily sensation of worry -- found there, somewhere, an understanding of all I've been through -- and cried, not tears of pity, of "why can't I be enough," but sadness for myself. [Simple sadness like, oh, darling, you've been through so much, I care about you. It was wonderful to be able to feel that kind of self care. And I came to bring gentleness and self-acceptance to such a new level on this retreat. I'm not sure I even knew what it meant before. And probably I have many levels of understanding to go through before I really get it, even now.]
I had forgotten -- I talk about Anna accusing me of rape as the hard part, but that's just the easiest to explain to others. The truth is, I was dissociating and shaking like mad on Renee's floor even before any of that happened -- how much I'd been through! It really was a nightmare. I don't know why the kundalini shaking... but I guess it was the only way my body knew to express that kind of pain.
Raphael, help me to heal and to accept myself truly.
7/31/11
Strange dharma dreams that seemed to carry truth but also obsession. That a single phrase that Amita said could carry me the whole way -- obsession about being gentle with myself which of course is not gentle. Need to let go because holding onto them is not doing any good, and trust that dharma truth here will reveal itself in my simple practice.
8/1/11
Deepening into retreat like deepening into life, a sweat lodge... incredibly aware, calm, peaceful today, despite thoughts still running like crazy. Weird with the thoughts -- if I remember last retreat in December, I told one of the teachers that thought didn't come up so much for me -- much more bodily sensations. Well, thoughts are all over the place this retreat!
To maintain noble silence, I wanted to just write a few words -- dream in a nap before the metta sit. I'm standing across from my grandfather, in his living room chair, and he reminds me about -- I don't htink this really happened, but it felt very real -- how when I was little I couldn't see my hands, or pretended not to see my hands, unless they were directly in front of my face. And I would be afraid of not being able to see my hands, and he went through this with me, out of curiosity perhaps, as to whether or not this was still true for me, and somehow, for the sake of connecting, I pretended it still was. I might have been pretending all along, but it didn't matter -- we connected that way. It doesn't matter if it was only pretending, just as it didn't matter to Amita that her last words from her father were a jumble of sounds -- it's that knowing, that curiosity, that being-with, that intimacy. So my grandfather in this dream just showed such an interest, simple, non-judgmental interest in one of my little quirks. And he said -- referring to the way I hold my hands in front of my face to see them: "It's something about the eyes, isn't it?" Perhpas powerful words in more than one way -- and I saw at that moment his big blue eyes looking at me with interest. He was fully there, not like lately. His spirit shone through. And then right before I woke up, he said something about wanting a big fish, perhaps wanting to catch one. How long since I've even herard him talking about fishing!
But this letting me pretend, taking great interest, is something that was a part of me -- when I was little I used to pretend I had fallen into a hole -- I was a great liar/prteneder -- but my grandfather never scolded me for it. He was always willing to play with me, to pretend with me. He could be very judgmental at times but there was this, too. And I woke up from this dream with such love from him, unconflicted gentleness and love, that I hadn't felt in a very long time.
8/2/11
This retreat was a gift that I hated so intensely. I have lived several lifetimes even over the past day; at the same time, so much changes and happens in a single meditation session that sometimes I think life is one long sit, and perhaps the cycle of rebirth one long retreat. I don't know where to begin. The understanding at the moment of impermance and how we latch onto even the simplest experience is huge. We can latch onto ANYTHING -- I even found myself not wanting to do anything that might make a difficult experience go away because I was interested in that experience, exploring it, and I was attached to my interest. ANd we don't reject attachment, either, as some misconceive, because that's aversion and exactly what makes us suffer -- attachment to things NOT being a certain way.
And then some may say, oh, then -- it's about not caring, feeling, apathy, but nothing could be further from the truth. It's just seeing that this is what happens in our life and we suffer when we're not aware of it. Then we don't even notice we're really trying to be aware and things are getting in the way of that which frustrate us -- but as we keep coming back to awareness of what's happening, we see so many layers, we see it all happening, and we're just observing our experience so closely -- we seem to know what everything is -- when an anxious feeling in the heart suddenly comes up on top of everything, we notice that, too, include it, and somehow we notice that we are not these experiences we see very deeply -- how they are always changing -- we can appreciate this, and appreciate the beauty even of what's difficult -- because w'ere aware of the resistance to the difficulty, too, and so find it is not us.
And so we can really appreciate all of life, the joyful and painful, the racing thoughts, the pain in the back, the rain tickling your nose, the sunset. All these many wants and don't wants that cloud our experience of life just as it is fall away. And even our attachment to it falling away disappears -- for sometimes it will be there as much as ever -- but we learn through working with these TOOLS of awawreness that even when things don't go according to plan, and they rarely do, even when there are times it seems we just can't do the practice, there is peace in that. We develop flexibility and knowing that everything changes and it wasn't us anyway. But it's really impossible to explain any of this unless it's revealed in your own experience. Whew. Trying to come back a little bit at the end of retreat. I always like to read or write on the very last night to help ground a little bit into ordinary life.
It's kind of amazing to notice when certain things aren't present. I think I will worry constantly about my business while I'm away, or that the conflict with Gaby will be a huge presence for me the whole retreat. It's amazing how things like that came and went. There were times, certain states, where it really didn't even matter what happened to my business or if I had any money, times when what is the object of compulsion or desire at one time simply isn't -- even these things we take to be constant in our life when we're really with our experience, we see there are times when they just don't matter... that's rather nice to see.
Now -- doubt occurring, thought... is this actually going to make any difference in my life? I don't have to follow the thought, just be aware of it. "Life is too complicated for me." Another thought. Notice the emotions that may arise with such thoughts, notice how a few minutes later you have the thought "My life is going to be amazing when I go back home, I'll have it figured out." Maybe I'm starting on this retreat to notice some of the times when certain formations aren't present... and that is helping me really see the wisdom of impermanence. ANd while impermanence is everywhere, I think it's still safe to say we're evolving and growing in wisdom through this practice. Clearing us out for a new delight.
I hit upon such hopelessness about myself earlier today that I thought I couldn't survive -- I still want to be able to go back and capture it, it's a very deep existential despair. Perhaps trauma... but somehow, I don't really feel it right now. And I can't work with what's not here -- there may be some attachment to this state I thought hours ago was completely unbearable, attachment to learning and getting something out of it. But it's not here now, only the memory of it is, the vague felt sense of it. The desire to feel again so I can work with it. What a cosmic joke -- you think you're dying and then a couple hours later you're in a very different mindstate and you actually want the experience back. Such is the nature of impermanence!
So much learned about self-compassion, metta... making metta the practice, it's all one, seeing that more than ever... it transforms -- mindfulness cannot transform us without metta and metta without mindfulness -- well, I don't know. But going deeper into self-acceptance and really getting it, hitting a rough spot and hitting on even deeper hatred... what a process. I wish I were here for five more weeks. That I could do this instead of going back to life, though of course there have been plenty of times here that i haven't felt that at all. But when I can really feel the fruits here, I think perhaps that's what I really want, as hard as that is. I'm a truth seeker, Amita said. I want truth, freedom -- and you know what? Sometimes I'm afraid of truth. Isn't everybody / most of us? But having tasted it... I want to explore more. Next year, perhaps!
[this part gets very personal and I trust those who read it to respect that.]
Amita and I had another very fruitful talk tonight. I talked about all sorts of things but it really came down to compulsion -- how do you possibly deal with it? It can seem impossible sometimes. And as she said, tools beyond mindfulness are necessary -- perhaps a 12 step program, find the right one -- it can really support the same sort of awakening we are doing here. I'm analyzing here -- see, on retreat, I become very aware of it and immediately gently label it, but maybe a lot of my depression has to do with shame and overwhelm with these cravings/compulsions. Maybe. Who knows?
I've noticed times on retreat when I've felt the depression unraveling. Times when it wasn't there or very little. Hope and of course clinging to the possibility that this might be the case, and then despair when I felt it again. But i feel I may be on the way out of it and I'm so glad that this practice has given that to me. I wonder if -- hmm, I'll just appreciate the fact that this was my first retreat without antidepressants and maybe it's taught me I don't even need them. I didn't even take an anxiety pill the whole retreat except the first night. That doesn't mean I wasn't more anxious than ever! At times. And that's unraveling too, I suppose.
Amita said she's in OA. It surprised me. I thought maybe she was a recovering alcoholic from way back. I don't know. But she's been in OA for 4 years, addiction to sweets, sugar. She told me, she can look at a piece of cake now and it does nothing for her -- no power, no interest. She hasn't gotten to where she will eat sweets again, she said, but maybe she will. So -- just seeing an example where someone did this, and not through exhausting willpower for the rest of their life, that's powerful. So, she said, mindfulness has some tools for dealing with compulsions, but not every tool -- that support of others (as in 12 step) is really important. Getting out of the whole world of should/shouldn't/willpower. People who really "conquer" their addictions, she said -- and I'm still using this fighting/aggressive/willpower terminology -- "conquer" -- don't do it through willpower. They do it through -- I can't remember exactly what she said. Understanding? A desire for freedom. ANd again... get out of that should/shouldn't way of looking at things and into... something else, though I guess I'm not sure what that is now...
And the idea of sharing, letting others, even friends, know that, hey, I'm struggling with addiction. Just about all of us do in one way or another. I'm addicted -- or my compulsions can sometimes be for food, for sex, for too much sleep, for some form of drug, but they are all addictions even though it shifts from one to the other for me. If I can share that with friends, and a supportive anonymous group -- sometimes it's even addiction to work -- a less satisfying form of it, but at least it keeps my mind occupied! But yeah, look, this happens to me. I'll be overcome with a sexual urge and need to indulge it -- never in ways that are harmful to anyone else, though there might be subtle work to be done in that area, but say, to the point of masturbating in public bathrooms, wherever I can find space -- when I need it, I need it. I don't know always how to control it when the urge comes on intensely. Eating. Well, it might be going to KFC for fast food when I'm already stuffed, "needing" food when I'm watching TV, "guilt" about wasting food. Needing yet another snack because I'm restless. Even getting overly aversive/agitated when someone suggests going to a restaurant that's not what I'm craving (because I NEED what I'm craving to escape). I can see how looking at the experiences where this addiction expresses itself can be extremely helpful. This is jus something in my life I'm dealing with. I don't need to be ashamed. How liberating even to be able to sahre it? I have hope about this right now. I feel tired, restless, yet focused, too much energy for so late and such little sleep, though when I look for depression in my experience at the moment, I can't find it.
Also went to Pascal's LGBTQI group today, though I'm not sure I feel like writing much about that at the moment; needless to say, I thought it would be the most grounding, least stimulating of the groups, but it turned out to be... looking at a lot of things that stirred something in me. Identity and conforming or not conforming to norms and how confusing it can all be.
Maybe writing/reading/grounding on the last night of the sit like this is best for me -- the safest place to ground and normalize a bit rather than trying to do it at home. It's always worked for me -- not to say it always will -- impermanence! -- but maybe I'm becoming attached to this energy and ease in writing and renewed feeling as how end-of-retreat feels. Maybe next time it won't be like this, I'll expect it -- who knows.
But just one more thought from Amita -- a piece of cake has no power! We're getting nothing from this piece of cake, really, but we think it's everything, our salvation, and we'll die if we don't have it. But just seeing the object of our cravings for what it is (when we can), it's just cake. It's like looking for acceptance from other people and not finding it in ourselves- - looking for something in cake but really it's delusion.
Getting tired now. Sleep soon, I hope. Perhaps a few minutes of reading before I do.
There was so much resistance to it that I took it as truth: I needed to add *more* to my experience. While I was wasting my time on this banal activity of feeling what's already here -- duh -- I was missing out on what I thought was real life. Thinking about ultimate reality, having wonderful experiences, insisting that there was magic and beauty everywhere even though, deep down, I may not have believed it, and I certainly didn't think it could be found in something as silly as "when you're walking, know you're walking." Little did I know this practice would take me to exactly where I wanted to go. I wish I had started this practice much younger now. I guess I'm fortunate to have started as young as I did, but still... I wonder what I might have been able to avoided if I really did pick it up in college.
I love the days after a retreat. I become so centered and aware after 7 days of meditation that coming out of the world, in some ways, I feel my old patterns more strongly than ever; but then in other ways, I'm able to be aware of these patterns, see them so clearly and sharply in the moment, that I can say, "oh, it's just that pattern coming up again," and I can notice my response to that pattern, and somehow and there is more space for choice of what I *really* want to do in my heart. Sometimes my mind is so sharp in that sense that it really feels surreal. You hear meditation teachers talk about this kind of thing, but it's pretty amazing when you're able to write about it yourself, not intellectualizing at all but speaking from pure experience. I think one famous teacher, when asked, "What is enlightenment?" simply answered, "An appropriate response." And I find, coming into the out-of-retreat world, that often, my responses are so much more appropriate and natural -- they come more from the depth of who I really am, rather than out of delusion or suffering. You know that person you deeply know you could be, that yearning for authenticity and that spark that comes from acting on what you really love and makes you feel GOOD in the simplest way? Have you felt that sometimes -- maybe a simple action that just felt right and natural that you knew was coming from your real self? That is what gets revealed through meditation practice. You don't lose your personality. You really connect with who you authentically are... with who a part of you has always known you are... and it's so beautiful. This authenticity that is revealed, I realize, there have been times in my life when sparks of it shone through. Those were times when I just felt really good about what I was doing and it was so natural because I was just expressing my life energy.
Another thing I notice being out in the world after retreat. It becomes so much easier to notice even the simplest kindness of another human being. You start to notice all the little kindnesses that people, even not-so-nice people, put into the world -- that all of us really have that capacity and desire for kindness in our hearts. Being so sensitive after retreat I see these little bits of kindness all over the place -- love actually is... all around. I also notice the ways that people are mean to each other. In the park, I heard someone say, "What, are you an asshole?" And I heard someone else shout, "What is wrong with you?" That's a phrase that's usually very charged for me since my mother says it without realizing how hurtful it is. Overhearing these little meannesses in the world, they didn't phase me much. I could see them clearly as delusion, suffering, the same sort of thing I struggle with in them, and I knew that the capacity for kindness was in them just as it is in me. It wasn't an intellectual knowing at all; it was just, what I naturally knew with no effort whatsoever, as natural as my body knows how to breathe. And it didn't hurt as much to hear these things; there was more of a softness in my heart and a willingness to just let it go; to accept it just as I'm learning to accept the deluison that is in me. It's a very different way of being conscious: noticing and being touched more by kindness, and letting meanness just pass with an awareness that it is delusion.
Then the social event started. It was a potluck at the park followed by a Beatles tribute concert, a Club 21 whole club gathering -- the club I joined in April in which we partner with somene with fairly severe mental health issues who is ready to start forming relationships and being part of the world. It was pretty awesome to notice with such clarity the nature of my social anxiety. To notice the thought, "I shouldn't be just standing here, I need to be talking," to clearly notice that as just a thought, and then to relax and accept myself even when I'm just quiet. Learning to accept that, there is anxiety here, there is the thought here that "I should be trying harder to interact," but to see all that as what it is, formations in the mind that arise and pass away, and then, when it's appropriate, when it feels good, to take some time in relaxed quiet in the presence of other people. And then, when it feels appropriate, to engage in conversation. I notice that thoughts like, "I should be trying to prove myself," "I should be doing more to engage with this person or something horrible will happen" come up quite frequently. Those kinds of thoughts when you're not sharp enough to see them for what they really are can very quickly spiral into panic and then the fight or flight response kicks in: either saying something stupid or wanting to run away and tune out. But when there is acceptance and clear seeing of what is, these thoughts can be there, this anxiety can be there, but miraculously they don't have to get in the way of having a perfectly wonderful time. They just arise and pass away, and you become interested in them, just as you might be interested in all the diverse people you notice at a social gathering.
It even got pretty intense with the sort of social stuff that usually drives me crazy. What really overwhelms me typically in these kinds of social settings is when I hear several interesting conversations going on and I feel like I'm missing out if I choose one or the other -- there is such attachment to making the "right choice," to choosing the more interesting conversation, or the conversation partner that I'll really connect with -- and that's suffering. Then I'll be having a wonderful conversation with someone and someone interrupts and it's like musical chairs where the conversation partners suddenly switch. I notice there is aversion to change, annoyance at being interrupted, even the worry, "I might hurt this person's feelings if I stop talking to them now, but I might hurt the other person's feelings if I don't engage them in conversation." There's a sharpness that develops in the mind: notice the aversion, notice the fear, space opens to make an appropriate response, and I can make whatever choice I like without getting too caught up in it. I can flow with life, being in each moment as it comes.
Sometimes it almost feels like being on drugs because it's certainly not the way I usually am in the world. But it feels freer, more authentic, more creative. A joke spontaneously emerged from me, and just being with life you can start to connect wit hthe humour of it: Nat, the program coordinator, mentioned that we had a special moon for this event and showed us the crescent moon that was in the sky. It just came right out of me without even trying, "And we have to return it by nine." I'm not sure if the humour in that carries over here, but Nat and I laughed a lot about it. There's a concept in Buddhism of the "stream-enterer," the Sotapanna, one who has entered the flow. This is the first stage of enlightenment, and though I really have no idea what that's like and I know I'm so far from it, there are moments and times when I think I have a small sense of it. It's times like these when I feel that way -- and yet, amazingly, I know I can go so, so much deeper still!
And it's amazing, once again, that I can feel so much more at ease socially by softening, by being sensitive, by feeling my social anxiety fully, by being present! Usually we think the solution is to suppress the anxiety and then go into the social world pretending that anxiety is not there. And yet, this seems to work far, far better! I'm excited. I hope I don't lose my faith in the practice so much, that I'm developing enough experience with it to see how valuable it is. That it's just living life, in a way, but actually living life, being in the flow of it, being in the mystery and magic of it. Most of the time I'm really stuck in the delusion that living is thinking all sorts of thoughts and getting caught in them.
And you know what? Being really sensitive after retreat is awesome. You know another thing that you can feel more deeply than ever when you're really mindful? Just the absurdity and playfulness of life. And you know what helps more than ever to open to the absurdity and playfulness of life? Singing Weird Al Yankovich songs loudly. I had some digestive issues during the first couple days on retreat and the parody of "Complicated," "Constipated," kept running through my mind. And now I listen to it and wow, the joy, the awe, the playfulness, it's so fuckin' beautiful, you know? And so are you. I almost can't help overflowing with laughter and tears and the whole smorgesbord of wonderful absurd human existence when I listen to him in this state. And who I am really starts to shine, who I've always known I am, even those parts I've neglected, playful, absurd, intimate, uninhibited -- the true me is the part that connects and takes such joy in connecting with others.
I actually sent her an ecard after the retreat was over, short, sweet, just what felt like appropriate response. Gaby just emailed me. I could have felt anger, but being really aware, I was able to acknowledge the more proper emotions of tenderness, some sadness, and even feeling something I never would have imagined a week ago in all my anger and hurt: I can actually see that, even though she's in a relationship with someone and maybe I wished things had been communicated better, she cares about me. And there is tenderness in me towards her caring. I'm trying to express as well as possible how this practice totally transforms your very consciousness. How beautiful it is, and how sometimes we have these fears that it will make us into something we don't want to be, or whatever -- there are all sorts of them -- but how it's just so not true. It just makes life so beautiful. You're a Christian? Whatever. The practice will purify you so you can be a Christian who's more fully and authentically connected to God. I realize how silly it is that I've feared it so much. It really is a path of wonder.
Here's what I wrote on Facebook:
I am back from my fourth mindfulness meditation retreat (I've done 3 eight day silent retreats, and one 10 day silent retreat.). I thought I'd share my experience in case anyone else might be interested in this kind of meditation (and I'd encourage you to try it out! I'll support you in whatever way I can.) People often ask, "How was retreat?" and there's no simple way to answer that. Maybe one answer is, "It was life. BUT -- have you really, really felt life lately?" I think the way I described the retreat on the last day was: "An amazing blessing that I sometimes hated intensely." It's amazing that these 2600 year old techniques for exploring the mind and dissolving the very mechanisms that lead us to suffer can be as relevant as ever today. It just gets deeper and deeper in such profound ways. The way Janet talks about the soul vows just getting deeper and deeper and meaning more and more reminds me of the way that some of the Buddha's teachings have been for me. At first there was such resistance and I thought they didn't apply to me at all. For example, I consider myself a joyful person, passionate, and this seemed to be about suffering and, in ever-so-naive understanding, how emotion and wanting is "bad." And yet it's been an amazing process that actually helps me be the joyful and passionate person I am more often; one of my teachers who is from Hawaii said that a native Hawaiian told her our hearts are like shining bowls of light. Then we fill it with stones until this bowl is dark and heavy. This is a process of removing those stones, one by one, and remembering who we really are. Can you remember who you were before your bowl filled up with all these stones?
Retreat sounds peaceful. You just go for a week without a care in the world, sit and walk mindfully, sit and walk mindfully, eat, sit and walk mindfully, sleep. It sounds like a glorious, peaceful experience, and the silence, the not having anything to do but sit and walk slowly and eat, was often something I found myself extremely grateful for. But at the same time, it's amazing how much trouble you can get into in your own mind when all you have to do is sit and walk and eat and sleep!
But then your mind starts doing things. Not liking the boredom, feeling a back pain and rebelling against it like it's the end of the world; wanting something to happen; feeling peace and wanting more of it and so suffering. Just about anything can actually happen. We start to see all the ways we cling and push away, and the practice is just to notice that happening, not to intentionally add anything extra. Just notice. We think it's just sitting, peaceful -- we have some expectation -- but it becomes anything and everything. It becomes life itself. Becoming really aware, you had no idea that you were capable of so many deep emotions both lows and highs, such anxiety, such absurd thoughts and mental states that at times I thought I must be going insane, such peace, such clarity, such confusion, such meaning, such loss of meaning, pushing away the loss of meaning, noticing how that pushing away created more suffering, such deep sense of shame that you think will never pass, followed by such deep sense of self-acceptance even an hour or two later. We become sensitive and fluid, open to all life has to offer. I told my teacher there that on the last day alone it felt like I had lived through many lifetimes. The more you practice, you realize on deeper and deeper levels the truth of impermanence. It was amazing for me sometimes on this retreat to notice when things I thought were permanent were NOT there. For example, I thought I would spend the retreat feeling obsessed with my business, worrying about whether a crisis might arise without me there, pretty much the whole retreat; about losing thousands of dollars because of unhappy clients. But when life unfolds, that's not what happened at all. In fact, that worry only came up very strongly once or twice (and once, when it did, it led to an amazing release). I noticed there were times when I didn't feel identified at all with my business, with money, that I honestly couldn't have cared less if I left the retreat and my business and all my money was gone. Before the retreat I would have thought this impossible. Seeing this was very liberating. In daily life there are things we think will never change; that just are the way things are for us; but practice especially on retreat helps us see that even this is changing. Even what we identify with, though we like to tell ourselves our identity is constant, is always changing. We can see that deeply and clearly on retreat.
So these things we've identified with that feel so permanent usually, we find, when we pay very close attention to experience, really arise and pass away. There is a time for every season under heaven, and when you're truly aware of every moment, they pretty much all happen within the course of a single day (even a single sitting)! And yet, every moment is always new, so you're always surprised (or can be, if you choose to cultivate interest and curiosity). It's never quite the same as the last. All this from little more than asking your body to do nothing for a half an hour and follow some simple instructions!
You become aware of the very subtle workings of the mind, aware of the most subtle ways in which we grasp at, push away, try to control even the most minute experience. The more you practice, the more you realize that this is happening on even the most subtle levels, but then the clarity you develop with just awareness of this... a sense of peace, and if not peace, equanimity with what is, peace with not feeling peace, appreciation for what is, the beauty of how things unfold even though there are so many subtle things in our experience that we're constantly trying to make different. And though sometimes I hit upon deep doubt, feelings of complete brokenness, places I couldn't face, it's like peeling away more and more layers of the onion of false self, until all there is is the beauty of what-is and love. We also cultivate love for these hard places, and for all beings. (These are two sides of the practice that I realized on this retreat more and more cannot be separated: seeing clearly, being connected to what is on a very basic level, and caring/love. When you're really connected, that caring/love cannot help but arise, I think...
And here's what I wrote in my paper journal during the retreat with anything I am adding now in brackets (in general, not writing or reading is part of the silence; but sometimes, it's skillful and helps us get more calm and centered. So I didn't write much over the course of retreat, except on the last night, when I gave myself permission, because I really needed to ground and begin to come back into the everyday world. I also mention retreat dreams since dreams during retreat can be especially poignant, I find):
7/29/2011
I'm on retreat right now. Had no idea if I even wanted to come since Gaby made it known on Facebook several days ago that she has a boyfriend and that, first of all, was completely unexpected, and given the nature of our relationship I felt she ought to have told me first. Fear, hmm, interesting that should just come up. I got quite upset -- the nature of our friendship. I don't understand it anymore and it wasn't even as though I wanted to be in a relationship with her -- this was just another reminder that I'm all alone. Everybody else seems to have somebody.
[here I write about a retreat dream but I edit it out of this entry because it's not really related to retreat experience]
Amita offered to talk last night after the last sit and what she said was really -- hard, but right. Accepting myself. I don't realize sometimes how difficult that is. How much trouble I really have with it -- I can pretend, but in the end, when someone like Amita says "there is nothing wrong with you... you are a child of God," it is so easy to feel uncomfortable. But isn't this something I need to do if I'm going to really help others? IF I want to be free of depression, anxiety -- shouldn't I choose to accept myself? Not that it's as easy as making a choice -- maybe it is -- but if I don't even have the willingness to do that, then what, really, am I living for? Do I imagine living and having some wonderful life while somehow avoiding the fact that I'm often filled with self-hatred? Is that even possible?
So what am I doing here if the one thing I need, willingness to accept myself, love myself, even -- is something that I can hardly fathom doing? Do I think I'll get there some other way? Amita also talked about accepting depression -- it is my path, because it's here right now! That's the same thing, accepting myself as I am without needing to change anything. Am I willing to do that -- would I be, if it were the only way? Accept myself as I am with all this mess? In some ways I'd rather die. If that means staying isolated, not being able to love... but it isn't the depression, it's the non-acceptance that is the cause of isolation, et a. So, anxious about being up at this hour, wish I could sleep more. I guess I could accept my natural -- or current -- sleep cycle, too. I asked myself, so if everything I've ever wanted required accepting myself, why am I unable to do that? In some ways, I'd rather die than face the possibility of loving myself -- "Okay, I quit. That's enough. This is getting too intense." But why? If I loved myself, or accepted myself, I'd feel even more silly and filled with shame/embarrassment when others don't... accepting myself is too hard, such a struggle, and I'm struggling enough as it is... then I'd have to face my emotions and it would be a lot harder to self-medicate with things that aren't good for me?
~ 10:45 am
More reasons, resistance to loving myself. I'll no longer be able to rely on habitual ways of reacting. Everything would feel new, scary. When others don't like me or criticize me, I can resist and fight the specifics of what they're telling me, but I don't realise, in one sense I'm completely buying into it, hating myself more than they ever could. Maybe I feel this is a protection -- if you're already wet the rain doesn't bother you sort of thing. Except it does... if I like/love myself even when someone else doesn't, they can just point and laugh and humiliate me until I'm unable to disagree. Hmm. I wish I didn't feel so sick digestively, but I guess that's part of what I can accept right now.
More resistance: what would I do with the time? What would I fill the space with? If I accepted myself, I wouldn't need anyone else -- no one would be there to help me when I needed it.
[This was the first time I actually acknowledged that I would rather die than face loving myself, and then, in seeing all the resistance I had, it just started to melt. I was able to look in the mirror and say, "I'm willing to resist any resistance I have to loving you." Later, I was even able to say into the mirror, "I love you. But it was hard to look in the mirror, mostly because I saw someone who was so sad, had been in so much pain.]
7/30/11
Here I was -- okay, this morning I started worrying about all the money I could lose on this retreat if a client is upset with me or I paid the wrong credit card... went into the bodily sensation of worry -- found there, somewhere, an understanding of all I've been through -- and cried, not tears of pity, of "why can't I be enough," but sadness for myself. [Simple sadness like, oh, darling, you've been through so much, I care about you. It was wonderful to be able to feel that kind of self care. And I came to bring gentleness and self-acceptance to such a new level on this retreat. I'm not sure I even knew what it meant before. And probably I have many levels of understanding to go through before I really get it, even now.]
I had forgotten -- I talk about Anna accusing me of rape as the hard part, but that's just the easiest to explain to others. The truth is, I was dissociating and shaking like mad on Renee's floor even before any of that happened -- how much I'd been through! It really was a nightmare. I don't know why the kundalini shaking... but I guess it was the only way my body knew to express that kind of pain.
Raphael, help me to heal and to accept myself truly.
7/31/11
Strange dharma dreams that seemed to carry truth but also obsession. That a single phrase that Amita said could carry me the whole way -- obsession about being gentle with myself which of course is not gentle. Need to let go because holding onto them is not doing any good, and trust that dharma truth here will reveal itself in my simple practice.
8/1/11
Deepening into retreat like deepening into life, a sweat lodge... incredibly aware, calm, peaceful today, despite thoughts still running like crazy. Weird with the thoughts -- if I remember last retreat in December, I told one of the teachers that thought didn't come up so much for me -- much more bodily sensations. Well, thoughts are all over the place this retreat!
To maintain noble silence, I wanted to just write a few words -- dream in a nap before the metta sit. I'm standing across from my grandfather, in his living room chair, and he reminds me about -- I don't htink this really happened, but it felt very real -- how when I was little I couldn't see my hands, or pretended not to see my hands, unless they were directly in front of my face. And I would be afraid of not being able to see my hands, and he went through this with me, out of curiosity perhaps, as to whether or not this was still true for me, and somehow, for the sake of connecting, I pretended it still was. I might have been pretending all along, but it didn't matter -- we connected that way. It doesn't matter if it was only pretending, just as it didn't matter to Amita that her last words from her father were a jumble of sounds -- it's that knowing, that curiosity, that being-with, that intimacy. So my grandfather in this dream just showed such an interest, simple, non-judgmental interest in one of my little quirks. And he said -- referring to the way I hold my hands in front of my face to see them: "It's something about the eyes, isn't it?" Perhpas powerful words in more than one way -- and I saw at that moment his big blue eyes looking at me with interest. He was fully there, not like lately. His spirit shone through. And then right before I woke up, he said something about wanting a big fish, perhaps wanting to catch one. How long since I've even herard him talking about fishing!
But this letting me pretend, taking great interest, is something that was a part of me -- when I was little I used to pretend I had fallen into a hole -- I was a great liar/prteneder -- but my grandfather never scolded me for it. He was always willing to play with me, to pretend with me. He could be very judgmental at times but there was this, too. And I woke up from this dream with such love from him, unconflicted gentleness and love, that I hadn't felt in a very long time.
8/2/11
This retreat was a gift that I hated so intensely. I have lived several lifetimes even over the past day; at the same time, so much changes and happens in a single meditation session that sometimes I think life is one long sit, and perhaps the cycle of rebirth one long retreat. I don't know where to begin. The understanding at the moment of impermance and how we latch onto even the simplest experience is huge. We can latch onto ANYTHING -- I even found myself not wanting to do anything that might make a difficult experience go away because I was interested in that experience, exploring it, and I was attached to my interest. ANd we don't reject attachment, either, as some misconceive, because that's aversion and exactly what makes us suffer -- attachment to things NOT being a certain way.
And then some may say, oh, then -- it's about not caring, feeling, apathy, but nothing could be further from the truth. It's just seeing that this is what happens in our life and we suffer when we're not aware of it. Then we don't even notice we're really trying to be aware and things are getting in the way of that which frustrate us -- but as we keep coming back to awareness of what's happening, we see so many layers, we see it all happening, and we're just observing our experience so closely -- we seem to know what everything is -- when an anxious feeling in the heart suddenly comes up on top of everything, we notice that, too, include it, and somehow we notice that we are not these experiences we see very deeply -- how they are always changing -- we can appreciate this, and appreciate the beauty even of what's difficult -- because w'ere aware of the resistance to the difficulty, too, and so find it is not us.
And so we can really appreciate all of life, the joyful and painful, the racing thoughts, the pain in the back, the rain tickling your nose, the sunset. All these many wants and don't wants that cloud our experience of life just as it is fall away. And even our attachment to it falling away disappears -- for sometimes it will be there as much as ever -- but we learn through working with these TOOLS of awawreness that even when things don't go according to plan, and they rarely do, even when there are times it seems we just can't do the practice, there is peace in that. We develop flexibility and knowing that everything changes and it wasn't us anyway. But it's really impossible to explain any of this unless it's revealed in your own experience. Whew. Trying to come back a little bit at the end of retreat. I always like to read or write on the very last night to help ground a little bit into ordinary life.
It's kind of amazing to notice when certain things aren't present. I think I will worry constantly about my business while I'm away, or that the conflict with Gaby will be a huge presence for me the whole retreat. It's amazing how things like that came and went. There were times, certain states, where it really didn't even matter what happened to my business or if I had any money, times when what is the object of compulsion or desire at one time simply isn't -- even these things we take to be constant in our life when we're really with our experience, we see there are times when they just don't matter... that's rather nice to see.
Now -- doubt occurring, thought... is this actually going to make any difference in my life? I don't have to follow the thought, just be aware of it. "Life is too complicated for me." Another thought. Notice the emotions that may arise with such thoughts, notice how a few minutes later you have the thought "My life is going to be amazing when I go back home, I'll have it figured out." Maybe I'm starting on this retreat to notice some of the times when certain formations aren't present... and that is helping me really see the wisdom of impermanence. ANd while impermanence is everywhere, I think it's still safe to say we're evolving and growing in wisdom through this practice. Clearing us out for a new delight.
I hit upon such hopelessness about myself earlier today that I thought I couldn't survive -- I still want to be able to go back and capture it, it's a very deep existential despair. Perhaps trauma... but somehow, I don't really feel it right now. And I can't work with what's not here -- there may be some attachment to this state I thought hours ago was completely unbearable, attachment to learning and getting something out of it. But it's not here now, only the memory of it is, the vague felt sense of it. The desire to feel again so I can work with it. What a cosmic joke -- you think you're dying and then a couple hours later you're in a very different mindstate and you actually want the experience back. Such is the nature of impermanence!
So much learned about self-compassion, metta... making metta the practice, it's all one, seeing that more than ever... it transforms -- mindfulness cannot transform us without metta and metta without mindfulness -- well, I don't know. But going deeper into self-acceptance and really getting it, hitting a rough spot and hitting on even deeper hatred... what a process. I wish I were here for five more weeks. That I could do this instead of going back to life, though of course there have been plenty of times here that i haven't felt that at all. But when I can really feel the fruits here, I think perhaps that's what I really want, as hard as that is. I'm a truth seeker, Amita said. I want truth, freedom -- and you know what? Sometimes I'm afraid of truth. Isn't everybody / most of us? But having tasted it... I want to explore more. Next year, perhaps!
[this part gets very personal and I trust those who read it to respect that.]
Amita and I had another very fruitful talk tonight. I talked about all sorts of things but it really came down to compulsion -- how do you possibly deal with it? It can seem impossible sometimes. And as she said, tools beyond mindfulness are necessary -- perhaps a 12 step program, find the right one -- it can really support the same sort of awakening we are doing here. I'm analyzing here -- see, on retreat, I become very aware of it and immediately gently label it, but maybe a lot of my depression has to do with shame and overwhelm with these cravings/compulsions. Maybe. Who knows?
I've noticed times on retreat when I've felt the depression unraveling. Times when it wasn't there or very little. Hope and of course clinging to the possibility that this might be the case, and then despair when I felt it again. But i feel I may be on the way out of it and I'm so glad that this practice has given that to me. I wonder if -- hmm, I'll just appreciate the fact that this was my first retreat without antidepressants and maybe it's taught me I don't even need them. I didn't even take an anxiety pill the whole retreat except the first night. That doesn't mean I wasn't more anxious than ever! At times. And that's unraveling too, I suppose.
Amita said she's in OA. It surprised me. I thought maybe she was a recovering alcoholic from way back. I don't know. But she's been in OA for 4 years, addiction to sweets, sugar. She told me, she can look at a piece of cake now and it does nothing for her -- no power, no interest. She hasn't gotten to where she will eat sweets again, she said, but maybe she will. So -- just seeing an example where someone did this, and not through exhausting willpower for the rest of their life, that's powerful. So, she said, mindfulness has some tools for dealing with compulsions, but not every tool -- that support of others (as in 12 step) is really important. Getting out of the whole world of should/shouldn't/willpower. People who really "conquer" their addictions, she said -- and I'm still using this fighting/aggressive/willpower terminology -- "conquer" -- don't do it through willpower. They do it through -- I can't remember exactly what she said. Understanding? A desire for freedom. ANd again... get out of that should/shouldn't way of looking at things and into... something else, though I guess I'm not sure what that is now...
And the idea of sharing, letting others, even friends, know that, hey, I'm struggling with addiction. Just about all of us do in one way or another. I'm addicted -- or my compulsions can sometimes be for food, for sex, for too much sleep, for some form of drug, but they are all addictions even though it shifts from one to the other for me. If I can share that with friends, and a supportive anonymous group -- sometimes it's even addiction to work -- a less satisfying form of it, but at least it keeps my mind occupied! But yeah, look, this happens to me. I'll be overcome with a sexual urge and need to indulge it -- never in ways that are harmful to anyone else, though there might be subtle work to be done in that area, but say, to the point of masturbating in public bathrooms, wherever I can find space -- when I need it, I need it. I don't know always how to control it when the urge comes on intensely. Eating. Well, it might be going to KFC for fast food when I'm already stuffed, "needing" food when I'm watching TV, "guilt" about wasting food. Needing yet another snack because I'm restless. Even getting overly aversive/agitated when someone suggests going to a restaurant that's not what I'm craving (because I NEED what I'm craving to escape). I can see how looking at the experiences where this addiction expresses itself can be extremely helpful. This is jus something in my life I'm dealing with. I don't need to be ashamed. How liberating even to be able to sahre it? I have hope about this right now. I feel tired, restless, yet focused, too much energy for so late and such little sleep, though when I look for depression in my experience at the moment, I can't find it.
Also went to Pascal's LGBTQI group today, though I'm not sure I feel like writing much about that at the moment; needless to say, I thought it would be the most grounding, least stimulating of the groups, but it turned out to be... looking at a lot of things that stirred something in me. Identity and conforming or not conforming to norms and how confusing it can all be.
Maybe writing/reading/grounding on the last night of the sit like this is best for me -- the safest place to ground and normalize a bit rather than trying to do it at home. It's always worked for me -- not to say it always will -- impermanence! -- but maybe I'm becoming attached to this energy and ease in writing and renewed feeling as how end-of-retreat feels. Maybe next time it won't be like this, I'll expect it -- who knows.
But just one more thought from Amita -- a piece of cake has no power! We're getting nothing from this piece of cake, really, but we think it's everything, our salvation, and we'll die if we don't have it. But just seeing the object of our cravings for what it is (when we can), it's just cake. It's like looking for acceptance from other people and not finding it in ourselves- - looking for something in cake but really it's delusion.
Getting tired now. Sleep soon, I hope. Perhaps a few minutes of reading before I do.