Koan retreats with the Western Chan Fellowship have become a staple part of my dharma practice over the past few years since I have found a connection with this specific method. Coming to Wales for such retreats has become routine for me, and I had no expectations on booking it or on arrival.
One day into the retreat it became clear that my practice was very different to previous retreats. On previous retreats I have found feelings emerge, how they come and go due to memories of the past and thoughts of the future, all by just sitting on a cushion. I have previously walked into deep spaces of stillness and silence of the mind, and felt joy and peace from the liberation of numerous vexations.
Prior to coming on this retreat I had been feeling something building up inside my mind; an active enquiry into the nature of the mind. The long periods of stillness that I have felt in meditation have given me more focus in everyday life, but they have also raised this significant enquiry within me; a looking into thoughts as they come and go. All my life I have had the understanding that the mind is the root of all that we sense, all that we experience, and all that we do. It has been clear that it creates all our suffering and distress, all our joy, and happiness, but as yet I have never felt I have been able to know what this mind is.
On the first day of the retreat it was clear that there was nothing else on my mind other than this background enquiry that has been leading my current practice. There were no worries about personal problems, no interest in comparing or evaluating anything outside me. I had wasted so much time on this in the past on retreats. Understanding thoughts and the mind felt like the only purpose of being on retreat, and every time I strayed from that place in my thoughts and intentions I didn’t need to be pulled back to thinking of the koan from an aspect of “this is what I should be doing on a koan retreat”, but from the aspect of the fact that this is the thing that I really need to know, and this time this was what I wanted the resolution to on coming on retreat (previously perhaps I had been very much focused on contemplating personal problems). If the mind is the way we experience the world, understanding it must be far more importance than anything else. Thoughts set up physical feelings in my body, that would resulting in me acting them out in some way were I not on the meditation cushion, what are they? Where do they come from? How do they arise? Where do they go? How do they go? And this mind doing the looking, is it the same as the mind moving on distraction? These thoughts have been grabbing my attention from time to time in everyday life, and although I did not expect an answer from going on retreat, I felt that perhaps a partial resolution might present itself, a state of a little increased knowing perhaps. Except… as the mind stilled, it investigated, and still did not know, and thoughts, although less “loud” due to the quietness of the retreat and my mind, were even more elusive. I had to look further, the answer being all important.
On one occasion walking in the yard, I felt a horror rise in me, how can I not know what my mind is? There is so much I feel that I do know, but I don’t, I base my actions and feelings on assumptions, my whole life hinges on things that I take for granted, but have never “known”. I don’t know, do I? I really haven’t got a clue! Desperation due to feeling out of control was mitigated by sensing that in reality I was never in control previously. The discomfort of this situation I have felt before, but not for as long, and not as intensely, and this time I was also not scared of it. This was the reason I had come on retreat, and there it was, hitting home a little that I really did not know. I could immerse myself in work, distract myself in some way, but, what was the use. I had come because I wanted to know, it was important for me to know. I no longer wanted myself to be in ignorance, this is the fundamental thing in life. Interviews with Simon seemed to suggest that I was perhaps in “the great doubt”. It had arrived of its own accord however, no setting it up with a specific koan, I felt like any of the koans would have taken me there. The Dharma talks were enlightening to say the least, describing emptiness intellectually I had heard many times before, but this time it meant more to me. The end result has been me coming out of the retreat more perplexed than before, more wanting to know than before, less able to ignore this not knowing than before. I feel that previously on retreat I have had glimpses of truth, mini “understandings” and resolutions to problems and uncertainties. I have felt great relief, tears of joy compassion and gratitude at Maenllwyd feelings of great space and clarity. But; I feel inside me that there is something that I do not know, something that is fundamental, something that intangible but that removes this doubt. The answer as to the true nature of things, and the true nature of the mind, everything else is insignificant, as it is all encompassed by knowing what is at the root of everything. Within me there is an all consuming urge to get back on the cushion, to get back on retreat and to find it all out. Although my personal life is busy this energy propels me.
