Everybody’s had to fight to be free
It took me eight years to do it, but I’ve finally sat my first silent residential meditation retreat out at the Insight Meditation Society in rural Barre, Mass. Here’s a report from the front lines…
My first hard-won insights actually came before the retreat, when all my prospective rides bagged on me, and my postings on IMS’ ride board produced nothing. But two guys said they were planning on taking the commuter rail to Worcester and biking the remaining 25 miles to Barre, so that’s what I did.
Fortunately the weather was an un-April-like mid-70s, and the ride out went well. The route featured a very sharp 3-mile climb out of Worcester, 13 miles of gradual downhill through Paxton, Rutland, and Oakham, and ended with another steep 3-miler up to the meditation center. Here’s the GPS log. It was marred only by one of my companions flatting only a few miles in, and the heavy backpack I had to carry.
The weather had been one of my concerns, since April can still be below freezing in Central Mass, but four of my five days in Barre were in the 70s.
Contrary to some other fears, the accomodations were quite reasonable, and the vegetarian food was quite satisfactory. There was only one meal where I really couldn’t eat anything, which is quite surprising, given how finicky I am.
One of the things my friends rave about is the setting at IMS. It’s rural, so it’s a big old house surrounded by farms and woodlands. Apparently that’s a big deal to my friends, but having grown up in Maine, it didn’t strike me as anything special. Like any other rural place, it’s generally quiet except for the insects and the birds. I walked one of the woodland trails and the Gaston Pond loop, which were indeed pleasant, but nothing exceptional.
But the majority of the time (from 5:15am to 9:30pm each day) was spent in silent meditation, either sitting or walking. Although this was my first residential retreat, I’ve done many non-residential weekend retreats and five 9-day “sandwich” retreats at CIMC. On top of that, I’ve got a healthy daily sitting practice, and I’ve been meditating for eight years now. So I was pretty well prepared for this short 5-day retreat.
The first couple days went well; I find I can settle my mind into silence pretty quickly and can stay there for quite some time. It wasn’t until Friday-the third day-when I found my mind going off on its own. And for two days, that’s what it did, in a series of four half-day bouts of preoccupation with one topic.
The first topic started quite accidentally. After three days without it, Thursday night I figured that I should use my cellphone to check the weather to learn whether I’d be biking home in 75-degree sun or 45-degree rain.
While I read the weather, my phone downloaded my email. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a notification that I’d received an email from a friend with the subject line “gonna miss you…”. I didn’t think anything of it at the time and went off to bed.
The next morning’s meditation began like this: “She sent me a note saying she misses me while I’m on retreat! How sweet is that?” From there my mind continued making up stories. “I wonder what she wrote… She’s been friendly to me lately. Does she like me? What if she does? What would that be like? What would we tell our friends? And how?”
I let this train of thought hurtle along for a couple sitting periods before curiosity finally got the better of me and I checked to see what she’d written. That was how I learned that she hadn’t emailed me directly, but posted to a mailing list we were both on. What I’d embellished into a love note was really just an apology that she’d be unable to make an upcoming group event!
So that wound up being a very amusing and timely lesson in both humility and how much of a story the mind can make up out of nothing at all.
Friday’s other preoccupation was with a bit of land that had been cleared in preparation for IMS’ construction of a new dormatory building. They had felled a couple dozen mature trees, leaving dead stumps and branches, and three big piles of wood chips in a torn-up gravel area.
This didn’t sit well with me, partially because I view it as a violation of the Buddhist precept to “refrain from destroying living creatures”, one of the vows the center had asked us to take on the first day of our retreat.
I was also personally affronted by it, partially because of the reverence for nature that was instilled in me growing up in Maine, and partially because I view trees as embodying the Buddhist principles of non-harming, equanimity, and noble silence, as I discussed in a prior blogpost. I took two wood chips from the piles of remains and brought them home as mementos.
But this story has a more satisfying ending, because I later learned that IMS had showed respect by having some monks conduct a formal ceremony before killing the trees, and the wood will be used in the construction of the new dorm, as mentioned here. So at least it wasn’t done callously.
The next day-the last full day of the retreat-also featured two major preoccupations. The first was just a whole lot of repressed sexual energy. Spent half a day watching that.
The other half of the day was spent wrestling with work anxiety. Although that stress had a lot of energy and persistence, it was easy to set aside because it came up on my last precious day at IMS, a place I’ve wanted to visit for years. The importance of being “in the moment”-rather than lost in thought-was never clearer!
Then it was Sunday and time to go home. But not before the guy who flatted on the way out had another flat as we were leaving. The ride back to Worcester wasn’t as pleasant as the ride out: it was cold and it poured for the second half of the ride. We were very glad to get to the commuter rail station where we dried off and changed into dry clothes before the train ride back to Boston.
In addition to all that, there are a few brief observations I’d like to share…
When I was packing my bag, I initially pulled out 6 pairs of socks to bring, but having very limited space in my backpack, I decided to take only 3 pair and do double-duty. So as I was leaving, I left a pile with half my socks behind. Unfortunately, those were the ones that were left after I’d already put the other pairs away, so I only had one pair of socks for six days…
The highlight of the center’s short orientation tour was seeing the single-lane candlepin bowling alley in the basement underneath the meditation hall… where the Dalai Lama once bowled!
Surprisingly, none of my friends from my kalyana mitta group nor anyone that I know from CIMC attended this retreat. Actually, I think that was a good thing, in that it meant I could practice without thinking about that extra contact. I did, however, receive a very warm welcome from my friend Shea (who works in IMS’ kitchen) on the arrival day, before we entered into silent practice.
People do various forms of bowing at the start and/or end of sittings. But this was the first time I’d ever seen anyone bow toward the back of the hall. Or perhaps they were showing their butts to the Buddha statue? Very odd.
One of the most discomforting images you can witness is seeing a teacher or practice leader bobbing and weaving during a sitting, on the edge of falling asleep. If they do fall asleep, there’s no one to ring the bell and end the sitting!
It was kind of gratifying that one of the teachers lost her place while leading the first metta chanting.
It was really pleasant doing walking meditation on the Annex porch, especially around sunset or in the darkness after the sun had gone down.
I did two or three sessions of mindful movement (yoga). It was okay.
My “yogi job” was dinnertime pot-washer, which worked out well because it meant that I had the traditional 7:15am morning “work period” to myself. I also made friends with a woman named Margot from JP who shared my job.
Since the retreat is conducted in silence, people often leave notes with questions for the teachers. I left a note that read, “Thank you for introducing me to this group of people. -The Unconditioned”.
Sometimes people have to take a little time re-integrating with the pace and furor of the regular world. I had no such problems-and it’s a good thing, too, considering I had to bike through the city of Worcester-but I can see how it might happen to people on longer retreats.
Lessons learned: Bring cocoa mix. Bring a rag to open doors with to avoid getting germs from commonly-used surfaces.
Finally, I think Jon Kabat-Zinn’s book “Full Catastrophe Living” must be a reference to what happens in the bathroom when you eat vegetarian…
So overall I’d say it was a very positive experience. I don’t think it was qualitatively different from the non-residential retreats I’ve been on, but the amount of unbroken practice time does seem to have a profound effect in terms of one’s ability to quiet the mind enough to examine one’s stuff in the light of wisdom.
I do expect that I’ll do additional retreats, and I’m not particularly concerned about doing longer ones. I certainly think I am ready and capable of a 14-day retreat. Whether that’s a practical aspiration or not remains to be seen. It’d certainly be easier if I were working for myself or unemployed (although then I probably wouldn’t have the funds).
But, as ever, the practice continues and life unfolds as it does.