How different my life would have been had I never attended retreats at Maenllwyd I cannot say, but without a doubt my life has changed phenomenally over the last four years. Until then, when I had the good fortune to come on my first Western Zen Retreat, I had been motivated almost entirely by fear and self- doubt. I had a deep rooted sense of worthlesness, critical of self and others. I was either shy or aggressive, unable to get in touch with gentleness, tenderness, courage, joy or pain. Mostly there was a deep rooted sense of resentment. I had known great spiritual joy and a sort of transcendental love of life as a child and as a young woman but in marriage and motherhood I had buried this somewhat uncontrolled passion for living and loving and dutifully followed my parental model.
All this came to a head during my journey to Ladakh in 1992 when I simply woke up to the brilliant joy of being alive. Following my return from India the psychological pain that I then experienced was almost unbearable. In my family we do not face difficulties, we turn away and deny their existence. I had no choice but to know the agony of real pain for I had experienced a taste of real joy. For six months, almost on a daily basis, waves of sorrow and pain flowed over me .1 have sat with it and held it and each time I wanted to run away. Despairingly I knew there was nowhere to run to, so I just sat with the Buddha and hung on.
When I arrived at the Maenllwyd just over a week ago I was at rock bottom. Emotionally I was spent, physically I was exhausted. I was dubious whether to come at all but my quest is to open the heart to help all beings no matter what.
So it was with a sort of battle weariness that I began the retreat. Too exhausted to engage in my usual thinking and rationalising I just followed the daily schedule in a sort of mindless misery. The fired mind calmed quickly and I saw exactly how the agitated mind creates its own pain by attaching to things. Within the misery there was a peace and like a zombie I carried on not thinking very much, just doing, just being. The evening talks were so helpful and felt exactly relevant to my situation as were the interviews which affirmed me, encouraged and reassured me.
Yet the fog of misery continued with lots of bodily aches and pains. After three nights of poor sleep I awoke on the fourth night, after half an hour, with horrific pains in my back and legs. This was no ordinary pain. It was like deep contractions of the muscles, like labour pains in fact. Being "in labour" while locked into a sleeping bag was torture. I had no further sleep and began the day at 4 am feeling barely able to hold myself together.
After resting and sleeping I awoke feeling very different. Something had shifted although I did not know what. As the retreat progressed I had a deepening sense of something or someone emerging out of the ashes of my life's experiences. There was a gradual acknowledgment of strength, of courage ,of good and bad, of pain and joy, of love and judgements, an ability to let things go, a confidence, a deep sense of worthiness, of compassion to the self - the heart it seemed was beginning to open.
I had a vision of two lovers seeking each others lips in the darkness and being unable to find their goal, both were searching with equal fervour. I knew that when I seek the Ultimate Truth with pure effort then the Ultimate Truth seeks me. I knew there was nothing outside of myself, that I am the Universe unfolding, always changing. I saw into the impermanence of all things and that each time I awaken I awake into a state of not knowing. I suddenly saw that I don't know and that's all right. I can only know where I have been - not where I am now.
This realisation brought up so much joy and gratitude. As the retreat drew to an end and I compared the being who had arrived to the one who was leaving I understood that I had arrived all in pieces, dragging along the remnants of an old life together with fears of a new one. who was it that was leaving? Well - it was an integrated self, confident, strong, fearful too; someone who knows she has got it all and is no longer afraid of her own power and potential; someone who has got an ever- deepening quiet inner space which is becoming more secretive and more unsayable; someone whose heart is opening.
On arriving home I was sinking into a deep hot bath, probably the most indescribable experience oft he whole retreat, and I was contemplating this integrated self when suddenly I saw that there is no self! All phenomena IS. I am the awareness that perceives or experiences phenomena arising, being and passing away, moment by moment. The Universe experienced directly through awareness instead of through the veil of the imagined self is clear and sparkling - IS.
Suddenly Zen teachings made perfect sense and I saw my mind as the unruly Ox, stamping and snorting in a clearing in the forest, as yet untamed. I have had three experiences in the past when my mind suddenly" fell" empty but I really did not know what I had experienced. Now I know - and I know that the self is an illusion. Even though I am still very much attached to it, I am without a shadow of doubt. This is wonderful, wonderful joy and freedom, this is where training begins, where meditation starts. I bow down in gratitude.
This is all so wonderful. It is also completely unimportant and that too is wonderful.
