on retreat

i’m on retreat this weekend. spending most of the day in silent meditation with a group of twenty other silent folks. doesn’t sound very exciting dialog i’m sure. but the crap that comes up in your own little head when you spend hours in silence is damn entertaining.

i’ve had all kinds of dreams and fantasies, imagining conversations with this person or that and basically letting anything come up. the instruction for this weekend is to touch each thought lightly, instead of just letting it drop. by doing this, i’m trying to get a taste of each one and be more curious. in that way, i’ll cultivate my inner awareness of where these thoughts and daydreams come from and what’s behind them. usually i find behind each thought is some emotion - like fear or frustration or sadness - though each emotion has it’s own unique texture. by touching each thought briefly, i also get closer to the underlying emotional energy that is always there but i’m not generally conscious of.

i counted today, this was my seventh day this year in silent retreat!

we sat for a couple hours friday night, and then for about seven hours today. walking meditation between sits helped keep my ass from going numb. tomorrow should be another seven hours or so.

After last night and after today my heart was cracked wide open. I could talk to anyone about anything and was inclined to do so. maybe it was just withdrawl after so much silence, but just sitting with the underlying emotional energy of my day and (for a change) not trying to hang onto it or push it away as much just makes me all squishy and soft inside. i hear that’s what’s supposed to happen, so i guess i’m doing it right. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche called that the “unconditional heart of sadness”. He wrote:

When you awaken your heart, you find to your surprise that your heart is empty. You find that you are looking into outer space. What are you? Who are you? where is your Heart? If you really look,  you won’t find anything tangible or  solid… If you put your hand through your rib cage and feel for it, there is nothing there but tenderness. You feel sore and soft, and if you open your eyes to the rest of the world, you feel tremendous sadness. this sadness doesn’t come from being mistreated. You don’t feel sad because someone has insulted you or because you feel impoverished. Rather, this experience of sadness is unconditional. It occurs because your heart is completely open, exposed. It is the pure raw heart. Even if a mosquito lands on it, you feel so touched…

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