Gaia House June 2017 Koan Retreat Report

At the age of fifty-six I have found myself in an insecure and troubled place for many reasons: broken long-term relationship, empty coffers, career collapse and a recent bereavement. Chronic insomnia was placing my problems on the brink of mental illness, of hopelessness; my troubled mind shouting loudly all the time to come up with solutions and not succeeding. My mind was so chaotic, troubled and, delusionary; firing up a million competing thoughts per second, that I worried for my sanity. I fully expected my mind to snap. It seemed only a matter of time.

In the past I have found secular mindfulness meditation helpful. I practiced alone with various recorded guided meditations, which succeeded in silencing the mind, and sometimes allowed me to sleep, but without any wider philosophy of acceptance and investigation of the difficult thoughts colliding in my mind, such as the Chan practice supported, secular practice was of limited positive effect.

After registering for the ‘Investigating koans’ course at the Gaia House, sitting in its beautiful grounds I listened to the cacophony of bird song looking out into the rolling hills and breathed a long sigh of utter relief. In my heart I knew that I’d had made a good decision to attend the course.

At the opening ceremony, before our first meditation, I was struck by the great care taken by our teachers, in looking after our needs with regular exercise between meditations and one-to-one interviews with the teachers. However, I was troubled that the meditations were not to be guided, worried on reviewing the intensive schedule that I would be unable to sit with my thoughts without a guiding voice. However, from the outset, the meditation sits were workable for me. Indeed time often flew by. Moreover, having initially worried that the silence would be a lonely experience, being removed from the usual social dynamic of getting to know people and all the pressure that that involves allowed me to focus in on my delusory mind.

What struck me from the outset of the meditations was that the mind fills up with so much fantasy and proposed thoughts, spinning out a web of unreality based on the events of the past, added to fearful imaginings of the future that the present had no houseroom in my mind. Difficulties I needed to focus upon and feelings I needed to experience, however painful, were being hijacked by a constant chatter of irrelevant madeup stuff that had no positive effect at all. I was fortunate to be able to immediately connect with the basics of Chan philosophy, which almost immediately, not only calmed my mind, but allowed it to go through the fire of the pain I was presently experiencing rather than dwelling on the past and future. Or, as Simon Child advised: let the trains of unhelpful thoughts come into the station but watch them leave. Do not get on board with them.

With that in mind, I experienced a prolonged fantastical, delusionary thought stream during meditating. This imagined nonsense involved another retreatant. My deluded mind tried its best to convince me that although I did not even know this person’s name, sexuality or circumstance, that we were meant to live our lives together. That this ‘meant to be’ relationship would solve all my problems. On the one hand, I knew this was a crazy diversion away from what my true focus needed to be, but my mind was persistent with this rubbish for two days, before I was able to let that particular train leave my busy station. In fact, it vanished as completely as it had arrived. It was, however, such a helpful experience which profoundly illustrated to me how powerful the deluded mind can be.

The Chan principle of persistently engaging in the practice of meditation to identify one’s true self, as opposed to the masks one presents to the world and to oneself I found during the course and beyond a painful (sometime hilarious) process, though ultimately illuminating, most necessary. As the days of the course progressed, I found many of my unhelpful or damaging personality traits were difficult to exactly identify, often terrifying to acknowledge. However, I soon realised that this process was necessary in order to leave them behind. And this process continues, now that I am home. Day by day, step by step, my meditation is neutralising these self-slanderous traits.

Another profound experience I had about three days into the retreat was after an interview with Simon. I told him of my problem with chronic insomnia, bouts of which I have experienced regularly since my abusive childhood. I explained that, regardless of how tired I might be, as soon as my head hit the pillow, something in me yelled, ‘You can’t sleep,’ and when it did, I would not sleep. I further explained that I had not slept much during the retreat because of this. Simon, and I paraphrase, said that my delusionary mind was convincing me not to sleep and that I could simply counter this negative statement my delusionary mind was repeating, ‘You will not sleep!’ with, ‘Oh yes I can.’ That night I slept much better, albeit fitfully and have slept much better since. This has illustrated to me that I can train my mind to serve me better in many ways.

When Simon first introduced the Koan technique of meditation to the group, I admit I was sceptical. However, and I have no idea why, but by focusing and refocusing on my chosen Koan, it helped me enormously. I have grown to love my Koan which has illuminated many dark corners of my mind and continues to be a mysteriously good influence on my meditation.

And, so, all in all, my report of this retreat is a glowing one. It was not easy. Sometimes I thought I might bolt. I am so glad I did not. I have continued to meditate, without voice guidance, since my return from Devon. I have booked another retreat, this time in Wales. I am grateful to myself for getting myself to Gaia House, grateful to the generosity of teachers Simon and Jake, and to the other retreatants, whom I had the great privilege to be presently silent with.