Jay and I had just returned from a nine-day silent retreat at St. Benedict’s Lodge on the McKenzie River in central Oregon. I came home bearing an amusing little story I wanted to share, including what it’s like to go on a silent retreat.
Going on a silent retreat
Why do it? You might ask. Why voluntarily give up all distractions—no talking (except during teachings or tasks), no reading, no cell phone, no email—to sit around for nine days twiddling your thumbs and contemplating your navel?
Well, against all thoughts to the contrary, it’s remarkably enlivening to experience even glimpses of an undistracted mind—where clarity and inspiration, fearlessness and loving compassion live and roam freely, where life is goodness through and through regardless if it feels like bliss or grief. Stripped of our habitual conditioning, glimpses of the undistracted mind are affirming and rejuvenating. Love jumps front and center, senses come alive, and play happens naturally. As Anne Lamott says: “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”
This retreat was called the Mysteries of Surrender. Egos everywhere recoil in horror at the notion of surrender, falling back on the more popular teaching: “Never give up! Never surrender!” But on this retreat, for this time, we were invited to surrender—a surrender that is not about defeat but rather acceptance and giving up control from a place of devotion. It is surrender like the relaxing of a clenched fist, the opening of a heart, or dew dropping from a leaf. It is offering our most vulnerable self in humble reverence, open to receive all.
The daily routine
The retreat, put on by The Center for Sacred Sciences, had a daily rhythm, a structure around which we dove into the Mystery of Surrender. We rose at 6 am and had our first formal meditation session at 6:30 am. There were scheduled teaching sessions throughout the day, which included formal meditation sittings, each 30 minutes long and cumulatively adding up to about 4 – 5 hours per day. Mealtimes were at 7 am, noon, and 6 pm. There were breaks after meals and before teaching sessions for our quiet time to reflect, walk, and nap. Each of us had a daily chore. Mine was rinsing the breakfast dishes and loading and unloading the commercial dishwasher.
The weekly structure
The week had a structure, too, taking us deeper and deeper into the unknown and unknowable. We started with the basics: concentration practice—recalling again how to train the mind to come back to the object of concentration (breath or a mantra); it’s akin to training a new puppy to come back to the training pad again and again, gently with love and patience. We learn to relax effort when thoughts increase during meditation and increase effort when we start falling asleep. We are earnest at the start of the week, anxious to get it “right.”
Gradually, we moved on to conscious awareness—a meditation practice that focuses on one sense at a time but instructs us to strip away the labels. We might feel a prickling in our elbow and notice the mind wants to say “tendonitis,” instead, we call it only “body sensation.” A bird singing is just “sound”; leaves fluttering are “sight” and so on. This practice allowed us to experience phenomena arising and passing away instead of getting caught up in discriminating labels and their accompanying stories.
Further on in the week, we focused on our experience of ourselves. Who am I? What am I? We investigated on our own. Can I find where my body ends and the chair begins? Can I separate the actions I seem to control and those that happen without my control? In what way am I like a tree? Slowly, we stripped away our conditioning.
This retreat peeled off our habitual layers, leaving us half-naked and more accessible to respond spontaneously. I had a moment when I saw Buddhahood or God everywhere—in the trees, river, rays of sunshine—everywhere, except in me. How can that be, I wonder? What keeps me separate?
We practiced letting thoughts go by surrendering them to emptiness from where they came. I’ve always found thoughts somewhat sticky; it seems complicated to “let them go.” How do I do that? But in this practice, our teacher instructed us to offer our thoughts up in devotion, and for some reason, this appealed to me, and I found it easy. During the meditation, I had so many thoughts–more than any other meditation thus far–as if I had become a thought magnet. I don’t mind this time because I envision myself as a willing conduit through which they pass innocently. I think of the show “Ghost Whisperer,” where the main character can see lost ghosts and takes it upon herself to help them find their way back into the Light. During this meditation, I become the “Thought Whisperer,” lovingly ushering all thoughts back to the source.
Eventually, we listen to the highest teachings of all: how to be a human without effort or expectation. We embrace the paradox of striving to let go of striving, of doing non-doing. For this practice, I appreciate my dishwashing job——it’s become one of my favorite parts of the day—for the very reason that it is close to effortless effort. I am relaxed and content to be in service, contributing without expectation and doing without thinking about doing.
Practices of the night
We committed to practicing constantly during the retreat, day and night. Our pee breaks were called “pee meditations.” We also learned practices of the night, such as techniques to enhance the chance of lucid dreaming (dreams where the dreamer is fully awake within the dream and can control it.) We learn of different triggers for waking up in a dream, like finding oneself naked, for instance, or talking to someone deceased. We were instructed to pay attention to our dreams or recurring, persistent thoughts or songs and write them down.
I remember chuckling. One of my triggers for having a lucid dream has been flying. On the first night of the retreat, I had a blissful dream in which I was flying/floating naked. There was no shame in my nakedness because everyone in the dream was naked. I am trying to get their attention, calling, “Look, we can fly! Come on, it’s so fun!”
Before I can wake up in the dream, I wake up for real, enveloped in warmth and smiling from the echo of the dream. My teacher says it’s a dream about liberation. Later, during one of the group meditations, the line “A magical mystery tour is going to take you away” repeats endlessly inside my head—a silent mantra that arises unbidden but welcome.
Mealtimes
Mealtimes are particularly rich times for practice. The whole group—42 of us—eat together–in silence. Outwardly, the lack of chatter seems to add a note of seriousness to the event, and an outsider might interpret the faces as somber. But during sharing time, we hear of the bliss fellow participants have experienced while practicing conscious awareness while eating—paying close attention to each flavor as it arises and passes away and noticing conditioned thoughts that may be unconsciously driving behavior or experience. “I don’t like flavors mixed together,” one participant noted. Then, she wondered if that was true and discovered that she loved the melding of flavors but had so long told herself she didn’t that she forgot to try it.
Eating is never dull. The organic, beautiful food lovingly prepared by our cook enlivens our palate and our practice, and we are grateful. I find myself eating with reverence, often discovering tears streaming down my face. One day—Moroccan Chermoula Sauce day—I am swept away on a magic carpet ride by the combination of flavors in the simple sauce. I dare to break my silence to ask Linda, the cook, “May I please have the recipe?”
As the week progresses, the group loosens up and starts laughing more. Ease and light-heartedness begin to appear. Tension lines etching people’s faces melt away. We stopped trying so hard. Jay reports that he walked alone in the woods and remembered how to play. He spent two hours playing with the world, he said. He was glowing. He notes that in his life as an adult, everything trumps play.
A kitten, an object for compassion
Midway through the retreat, a tiny kitten shows up. It is adorable—all small fistfuls of fluffy white with black ear tips, and it looks like it will grow up into a Siamese cat. One of the participants suggested that we try to catch it and bring it to the caretakers, as it looks too young to survive on its own. He turns to the teacher and says, “I hope it won’t be a distraction for us, but it’s so small . . .” The teacher says, “true compassion is never a distraction to practice.”
The rest of the week’s meetings are peppered with kitty sighting reports—in the laundry room, by the Building B bathroom, and under the deck. And, during our alone time, many of us find our way to the laundry room, the bathroom, and under the deck, hoping to see and maybe even catch the precious little kitty.
Worldly activity
Although we participants are all on retreat, worldly activity is still happening at the retreat center itself. Workers have some areas blocked off while they tear up concrete, install a French drain, and then re-cement the area. We appreciate the seamless way one of the seasoned workers does his job—his body making the long-practiced motions without effort or thought. His younger apprentice struggles, practicing the new skill with much effort and thought. I think how everything gets easier with practice—even surrendering the self. I think, too, how I lose myself in certain activities, like dancing, painting, or washing dishes, where the activity seems to do itself without my commentary and control.
Midnight journey to the Labyrinth
Near the end of the retreat, I couldn’t sleep one night. After a while, I decided to get up and venture outside. It’s cold but clear out. I bundle up and head into the three-quarters full moonlit night. I sit by the river, enjoying the beauty of the night. An idea drops in that I could walk to the labyrinth in the woods. The retreat center butts up to the national forest on the other side of the street. There are all kinds of forest trails. One leads to a clearing and a labyrinth that the monks made. The idea is at once terrifying and compelling. Walk in the woods at night, alone? That’s crazy talk. But it feels enlivening, and I want to do it. I cross the road, searching for the trailhead. I have a flashlight with me, which reveals to me the opening. My heart is pounding as I look into the dark trail. I begin to walk in and note a faint, dispersed light ahead. I turn off the flashlight and discover that the moonlight has lit up a wide-open area some ways down the trail. It is easier to head for that Light in the dark than to use the flashlight.
I walk into the dark, heading for the Light. My body is pulsing. Voices in my head tell scary stories and tell me to turn back. I keep walking anyway, noticing I do not feel protected, per se, but rather intensely alive, buzzing with energy, riveted, and mesmerized. I am propelled forward—my leading edge is an arrowhead of fearlessness. Fear trails behind me. I fully expect that any sudden sound will cause my body to react and run, but still, I walk on. I stop at times when the fear catches up, and I can’t move, but each time, after a bit, I move forward again. I make it to the labyrinth and slowly walk the entire thing. In the center, I pause and say thanks for my journey thus far. I consider cheating and crossing through the maze to the start, but that feels sacrilegious, and I can’t do it, so I slowly unwind myself back through the labyrinth to the beginning. All told I am out in the dark, barely moonlit woods for an hour and a half. It is a whole experience—a ritual ceremony—and I love it.
Half-naked catching a glimpse of something precious
On the last night of the retreat, we were advised that the following day’s session would be a sharing event and that anyone and everyone could share a highlight or summary of their experience. I go to bed wondering what I am going to say. Again, I have trouble falling asleep; my throat is scratchy. I decided to go to the kitchen and prepare some hot honey-infused ginger tea. It is cold and rainy outside tonight, but I don’t want to take the trouble to bundle up. Everyone else is already asleep, so I sneak out, half-naked, in nothing but gauzy pajama shorts and a button-up shirt pulled quickly on. I tiptoe down the stairs, making a beeline for the kitchen directly below my room. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I see a streak of white at the far end of the building.
The kitty! I cry silently, and a rush of desire and joy flows through me.
I’m going to catch the kitty! Running in its direction, I imagine myself snuggling up all night with that sweet ball of fluffiness.
Up ahead, I see the white bundle of fur cross my path heading toward the building. Before I even appreciate what is happening, I leap over the yellow caution tape and land smack dab in the middle of wet cement.
Oh no! I stand on one leg, gauzy shorts flapping in the cool night air, shirt flying open. Kitty gone. “Crap.”
I wonder what to do. I have leaped too far to return the way I came, and I can’t make it further without stepping in more cement. I leap as far as possible, stepping again into wet cement before finding firm ground. I look back at the two footprints indelibly etched into the fresh cement, probably forever.
Jay’s going to notice that, I think to myself.
Then, in a flash, I know what I will say tomorrow.
“Coming on this retreat,” I say the following day, “might be succinctly summarized by the events which transpired last night.” I explain the scene above, to which everyone gasps, and Jay says, “I saw those footprints and judged harshly whoever stepped in that wet cement!” We all laugh. Me too.
I finish up: “I come on retreat because by and by I find myself half-naked catching a glimpse of something so precious that I can’t help but go after it. And once seeing it, I can’t go back. It proves to be elusive—just out of my grasp—but the process is amusing and leaves a lasting impression nonetheless.”
