My tenth Silent Illumination retreat

Shawbottom Farm 2024, Leader Simon Child

This was my tenth Silent Illumination retreat. Looking back over previous retreat reports, there is a constant theme: when will I stop manipulating my meditation and learn to let go? 

My typical retreat would begin with the feeling that finally I have learnt the knack of meditation – how to conjure up the (rather self-indulgent) experience of floating in the present moment. By Wednesday the “method” would have reduced to a fruitless exercise of attempting to revive (my recollection of) the initial blissful experience. Then towards the end of the week, I would realise that I was just chasing concepts, and that I must somehow let go of the desire to achieve the meditation experience through my own efforts.

Maybe this retreat was a breakthrough? Simon kept the instruction almost entirely to the practical level of how to meditate. Two key points that I had heard many times before: 

1. Relax, don’t try to “do” anything, and don’t worry about what happens.
2. Just observe the thoughts – let in, let be, and let go. 

That’s all. This time it all seemed to ring true. The sense of relaxing was almost palpable. I recall at my first Silent Illumination retreat in 2014 finding that my thoughts were so insidiously entwined in my conscious experience that I was seldom able to separate out anything that I could clearly observe! This time, I seemed to be able to settle into a place where I could sit quietly, like a birdwatcher, watching quite dispassionately, sometimes sensing a thought before it formed into words. Or even, at times, becoming aware that there were no thoughts. It all seemed very passive, just how things are in the present moment. 

A week after the retreat, the experience is still with me. I am so very aware of the danger of congratulating myself for “learning the knack” that I am deliberately nurturing a sense of humility and gratitude. 

And sitting here, typing this report, my feeling of gratitude is very real! 

Thank you.