wrapping up

this retreat is coming to a close. tomorrow is my last day of practice then i’m hitching a ride back to halifax. it’s been a really good retreat: good practice and the contemplations were fruitful.

i deepened some friendships and made some new ones. my buddhist lineage has increasingly tried to get together in groups and study and practice together lately. meeting more folks has been a wonderful side effect; or maybe that was the point. but also at times it has been seriously irritating, especially after meditating for a few days everything is amplified and more sensitive.

so say hypothetically if someone sits next to you at lunch who eats with their mouth open or makes odd sounds while they eat, it can drive you completely nuts. you hear every crunch and slurp. your mind is so sharp you can’t miss a single noise. funny paradoxical effect that, you might think if you haven’t done retreats that you get calmer and calmer or more relaxed. that can happen to some degree. but you also get more and more sensitive at the same time, and aware of all your hang-ups and irritations and personal trips like you are under a microscope and flood lamp.

often when i go on retreat, people send me off and say something like, “hope you have a relaxing time.” it stops my mind, because i don’t think i’ve ever really had a relaxing time. our day starts at 6:30 am - just before dawn - we’re in the main shrine room at 7 for opening chants, then eating in a disciplined, contemplative monastic eating form at 8. there is a short half hour break but then we start our first main session of the day, meditating from 9 am to 12:30 pm continuously. and the day continues like that until about 9 pm. more like boot camp for the mind. except the drill sergeant is your own self critical and neurotic habits. but, there is a point to it all. i’m not a masochist. under that microscope there’s the promise of real progress in dropping the self critical and neurotic habits permanently. the potential of really making a positive change. not sure it works on me particularly, but by and large it seems to help people drop the little stuff, and increasingly realize it’s all little stuff… so that’s how i spend my vacation these days…

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