Last fall I attended my first ever silent meditation retreat in Claymont, West Virginia through the Insight Meditation Community of Washington with Shell Fischer of Mindful Shenandoah Valley. In the last year, I have discovered not only this community, but meditation and mindfulness in general. It has truly been a life changing discovery for me. Having this newfound interest, I discovered this animal called a 10 day Vipassana retreat. This is essentially a 10 day silent meditation retreat. Because I apparently want to put myself through he*l, I decided that I absolutely must do this at some point. It was added to my bucket list. However, before making that drastic leap, I thought maybe it was in my best interest to first attempt a shorter retreat. That was how I then found myself at the women-only weekend silent meditation retreat with the theme “Nurturing Self-Compassion.”
Having never been silent for more than a night alone at home, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. In fact, going into it, I was wondering why in the world I had committed to it in the first place. Would I be okay not working on my blog all weekend? Working my ‘second job’ literally takes up all my spare time, and I felt guilty taking some time for myself and not working on it. Also, as a constant checker of Facebook, Instagram, texts, and email, would it be possible for me to avoid my phone the entire weekend? How could I not open my computer? Would I make it through? All these thoughts ran through my mind before we finally went silent, and even after.
Before starting the silent part of the retreat, we were provided with the following ground rules:
Understanding the above ground rules, let’s move on to the schedule. It alternated between 30 to 45 minutes of silent and guided meditations, dharma talks, walking meditations, meals, and a short amount of free time. All in complete and total silence from Friday night to Sunday afternoon. On Friday night immediately upon leaving the meditation hall and given the direction to start the silence, I walked by a grand piano and thought to myself “what if I sat down and broke out playing Fur Elise right now?” Perhaps cracking internal jokes at the ridiculousness of the whole scene was the only thing that would keep me sane for the next couple of days.
I was good to go until about 10am Saturday morning, aka, the beginning of the retreat. It was at that time that my “bolt reflex” took hold and all I wanted to do was abandon the premises. How I would do this without a car over an hour from DC was not my concern. I simply wanted to leave. I had no idea what I was doing there and holding silence with no eye contact was going to be too much for me to handle for two more days. I didn’t think I was capable of such torture, and yet I was doing it…willingly I might add. Why?
Well, thinking the Gods must have sensed the problem I faced, the instructor next led a brilliant guided meditation/visualization. I’d almost venture to call it life-changing. It will certainly stick with me for some time. It was the “wise self” meditation, where basically the message is that you are all you need to be complete and the answers to your questions and life challenges are within. I have struggled with decision making my entire life, and when asked to focus on a difficult situation, this struggle immediately came to mind. The message of this meditation brought me to tears. I will call this message to mind every time I struggle with making a decision.
When you are left with just your thoughts and your thoughts alone, funny things start to happen. Painful scenes from your past appear, ones you thought were long forgotten. Things you thought you were okay with and recovered from. But armed with the only thing but your mind, you are forced to think about these things. You have no distractions. And if the scene is not too painful, insight meditation directs you to focus on your emotions tied to these painful scenes of your past. Rather than try to suppress the emotions, you are directed to feel into them. Recreate them. Really feel how you felt back when it occurred, as this is the only true way to get over them. Nothing good comes of repressing painful emotions.
This brought up a painful time in my life not that long ago when someone I loved broke up with me. During a silent sit, suddenly I pictured my ex in the airport about to leave the country. It was the last time I saw him. I sat with the raw emotions as they came flooding back. It’s a funny thing, that ‘ole mind. I had tried to meditate on this in the past, knowing I probably should get it out, but was unable to do so. But now I had no distractions to keep me from these thoughts. I had no other choice but to encounter these emotions head on. So I broke down. But yet, I knew this was what I needed. I had to forgive him for leaving, and more importantly, I had to forgive myself for first allowing myself to fall in love with him in the first place, knowing he might eventually have to leave. I wanted to drop the sense of regret I felt in that maybe if I had done something differently, he wouldn’t have left. As with any breakup, it was a traumatic time in my life. I loved and then lost. But as mindfulness teaches, change is inevitable. At the time, I struggled with letting him go. But in any relationship, you can’t control people. If someone wants to leave, you can’t stop that from happening. All you can do is acknowledge your painful emotions and work through them. Avoidance only leads to more pain.
Besides the fact that one of my roommates literally “bolted” and I debated whether it was my fault the rest of the weekend (she made glaring eye contact with me one night when I didn’t shut off the room light immediately), the rest of the weekend was fairly uneventful. This was the most meditation I had ever done in my life, and frankly, I felt meditated-out by Sunday. I was bored out of my mind and simply wanted to look someone in the eye again, someone other than the cat. I questioned how valuable the whole experience was and whether I was even getting anything out of it. I found myself counting down the hours until we were allowed to talk again.
Upon arrival back home in DC, I found myself walking very slowly. Shockingly, I wanted to continue to avoid eye contact. After wanting to get out of my head for three days, I suddenly wanted to stay in my head. I didn’t feel the need to jump back into my blogging work and to open my computer as soon as I got home. Instead, I went out to get something to eat and watched as others passed me quickly by on the street. I didn’t need to race to the next spot. On Sunday nights I usually have the desire to head to the Meridian Hill Park Drum Circle, yet upon walking in that direction, it felt like sensory overload, so for once, I didn’t go. Instead, I sat in the park briefly, but even that was sensory overload, so I walked slowly home to sit on my roof and journal about my experience. In a semi-trance on my way home, I managed to walk into a barricade, causing my leg to bleed. That’s when I decided that going to work the next day might not be the best idea. I needed time to re-integrate back into normal, functioning society.
Still a few days later, I find myself walking a little bit more slowly. I am not stressed out and living more in the moment instead of thinking about the next thing I need to knock off my task list. While those things are still there, I’m not as worried about them happening immediately. I know I’ll get to them at some point and I don’t put as much pressure on myself when I don’t meet my own deadline. I’m also more patient with myself and others. I find myself trying to practice mindful listening when listening to my friends tell a story - not interrupting but simply listening to what they say. I just generally feel more peaceful and at ease.
Below are the major takeaways I got from my first silent meditation retreat.
I now have a more clear picture of what I believe to be the two overarching goals of insight meditation. The first is not to avoid complicated or difficult emotions. Rather, the practice teaches you to learn about your thoughts and emotions and to work with them so they don’t consume your life. During this process, you can learn to stop harmful, habitual behavior from occurring. Secondly, it’s about learning how to accept yourself as you are. No one is perfect. You cannot make yourself perfect and others aren’t perfect. Therefore, you must learn to love and accept yourself in order to be able to love others and for others to love you. This practice teaches you how to do just that.
Will I still plan to attend a 10 day Vipassana retreat? Absolutely.
“Perfection is not a prerequisite for anything but pain.” - Unknown
Namaste,
Jodi