Solitary Retreat at Maenllwyd: Sept. 6 - 13th 2005
On arrival, I felt overjoyed to be at the Maenllwyd and tears flowed on seeing the garden's bright flowers. The sign, "Free" on the outside toilet summed up my hopes and expectations for the week. Before unpacking the car I rang the mule bells, then went up to the Buddha room and lay down on the cook's bed in the alcove where I had planned to sleep as it is nice and dark there (and after all I was cook for the week!), and wept with joy! -- This was HOME! I felt very privileged to be there and was amazed at the beauty of the place, even though I know it so well. It was a warm, sunny evening. The silence was overwhelming and very extraordinary. I was far more aware of it than I usually am on group retreats. It enveloped the house in a protective cloak. Perhaps this was partly to do with the time of year: - a quieter stream and no lambs, though there were Red Kites about. On my first morning I couldn't stop smiling and sometimes broke out into spontaneous laughter! It was only when I began to sit in meditation before lunch that I began to relax the smile on my face. This was what I'd come for and here I was, relaxing in front of the wall and allowing whatever needed to arise to come up and be dropped. It felt so 'right' and somehow 'perfect'. I no longer needed to express joy.
I followed a rough schedule loosely modelled on a Chan Retreat but made no advance plans or timetable. Each activity took place because I felt it was what I needed to do next. All formal meditation was done in the Buddha room. I timed my meditation sittings depending on how I was feeling at the time and almost always stuck to it, in that I didn't finish early, but I sometimes extended it. I used the timer from the Chan Hall because I like its silence and little green blinking light. The length of each meditation sitting was anything between 30 - 90 minutes, but usually they lasted 30 or 40 minutes. It turned out that I sat five or six times each day, totalling on average three and a half hours of sitting, which was less than I'd anticipated before I came, but I think it turned out to be about right for me. I felt that it was necessary to impose a time on my sittings as I am very easily distracted by changes in the weather, by farmers collecting sheep or whatever.
One of the first things I did on the morning of the first day was to copy out the words of Roshi John Garrie which I found in the library, and I kept these beside my sitting place for the first day as they were very helpful and encouraging (they had been on the Chan Hall notice board during the May retreat):-
"Retreat is a much misunderstood and misused word. It is not an occasion for convalescence, or for transcendental or psychic adventure, nor for penance or, indeed a platform for performance. It is quite simply a time to let go of defence, offence, or pretence. A time of gentle watchfulness from the sanctuary of 'Where-you-are-coming-from'. The stillness at the Eye of the Storm; and of renewal of Ease and Trust in the humility of the moment. A time to bow to the Here and Now."
Without planning it I ate meals at fairly regular times and had breakfast between 8 and 9; lunch sometime before 2 and supper around 7.30 (so that I could clear up before it got dark), - or as early as I liked if I was hungry.
I slept when tired for as long as I needed to; anything from 5 hours to eight and a half hours in the night, I only needed one day-time nap in the whole week.
I started each day with the usual Chan retreat exercises, in the yard when fine, and went for walks of roughly an hour on three days and on another day for two hours. On two rainy afternoons I did the Rajneesh Nataraj Meditation in the Chan Hall. I had two different musical versions with me and used them both, but I preferred the earlier 1970's tape to the more recent CD. I also did the Kundalini Meditation once. I expected to do a lot of walking up and down the yard but did that only once. I sometimes did Kin-hin between sittings.
I'd brought with me six Dharma talks on CD, which were all recent Throssel Hole ones which I hadn't listened to previously, and played four of them at different times when my energy for meditation was waning a bit or getting dull, which tended to be when the weather was dark and gloomy. These lifted my spirits considerably and were moving, - humorous, - and thoughtful. It was good to hear the voices of the monks, both male and female. I was in tears throughout one particularly honest account of lessons learnt on a solitary retreat, which very much spoke to my condition, entitled 'Coming to Terms with Imperfection'. I was very grateful for that.
Almost every day before breakfast I sang the Chan Morning Service using the tape from the Gaia House 2000 retreat with Master Sheng Yen. I found this to be beneficial in helping to dissolve self-centredness. I was aware as I did this that the very first time these words were sung in this country, it was in this very room. I recited parts of the Chan Evening Service only on my final evening; otherwise, most evenings I chanted Tibetan chants or recited different versions of the Heart Sutra or sang Throssel Hole's Vespers.
I made prostrations and bows from time to time for short periods especially when I needed to express joy or gratitude, or to repent some recent action I'd made on the retreat. (There were several such mistakes!) I lit candles and incense most days, and had to have candles for light after 7.45, which made a nice atmosphere. I didn't feel the need for lamps; neither did I light any fires as the air was warm enough, and I found it quite possible to have a couple of cold showers on the warmer days and to dry my hair in the sun. The sitting periods following these were always excellent!
I made about four trips to the library room to browse or look for particular books but did hardly any reading and didn't even unpack the books I'd brought from home. I got fascinated by certain books I hadn't seen before, but felt that I hadn't come here to read and so didn't read for long. I'm not a bookworm by nature!
I didn't use the hut at all, but did investigate its facilities, especially the gas stove and the supplies in there in case I decide to use it another time. It was always several degrees warmer than the house, but I thought food wouldn't keep so well in there, especially with the stove lit. Nothing went 'off' in the house except some broccoli after 4 days. Yoghurt and cheese were fine, and I kept the fresh milk cool in the stream under some flat stones for shade. I borrowed a small non-stick pan from the hut (which David had donated after his solitary retreat there in the spring) and used it to fry small quantities or make scrambled eggs.
I loved the flowery garden, and ate lunch out there on the warm cobbles in the sun on the only really sunny day. I did an hour's Direct Contemplation too that afternoon in which I was distracted not only by a caterpillar crawling over the very nasturtium I'd decided to contemplate, but by a field mouse who graced me with her presence for about half an hour. She climbed up to the tip of a poppy stalk which bent under her weight to the ground where she stretched, yogi-like, with little pink hands and feet over to the next stalk; - face, snout and whiskers in continual movement, searching for seed pods of a weed I had earlier thought I ought to have pulled up! She would work her way along each one with her teeth, shredding it open to eat the seeds before moving on to another. Direct Contemplation had to come to an end as I observed her, but I felt honoured to be in that place and time, sharing the sunshine and the flowers with so beautiful and delicate a creature.
I did between one and two hour's work each morning which included cleaning up after myself; the usual things. I also brought some oil from home to try to solve the squeaky upstairs toilet door and I think I solved that in the end but not before I'd also sanded the inside corner of it as it seemed to be a 'wood-on-wood' sound rather than the hinge. I fixed up a falling down bedroom curtain and scrubbed mould, dead flies and spider webs from the insides of various window frames, evicting quite a few spiders (who I'm sure will soon find their way back in again!). Also dusted spider webs from the white painted beams and walls where they show up, and cleaned mouse droppings from the parlour sink, where they had been eating the soap! I'd brought with me sketchbooks and pencils but never felt the urge to draw at all. I used my camera on the last two sunny days and used up over two films. I spent over an hour each evening writing a diary as my memory is not what it used to be!
What did I learn from the retreat?
The Maenllwyd is difficult to get to down its long, gated, rutted track through flocks of sheep. This symbolizes the meditative journey, which isn't easy. Living there it is necessary to be extra mindful especially where fire and personal accidents are concerned and all this aids the process of meditation. One takes great care of the body, and with the environment. One learns to do everything with slow, watchful deliberation, without hurry. Having to live like this sharpens the senses and this helps with awareness in meditation, too.
There are no demands on one to act in any particular way, yet the precepts are naturally kept as a normal part of life. What else is there to do!
There is freedom from the bounds of time whilst at the same time being aware of time's existence. My perception of time became more flexible and varied. Much of my life I am bound by 'rules' I impose upon myself, to do with time; probably because this is the way the world works! Yet here I ate when hungry and slept when tired, and was freed from time's imagined restrictions. This is to feel real freedom. And on leaving the Maenllwyd I felt I took this freedom with me, for a while... There was freedom of action too, and with no other egos to rub up against I felt I became truly myself and could laugh and sing and smile and weep, and lose self-consciousness completely.
An aim on this retreat was to see if I could silence the "voice in the head" (as Rev. Master Daishin Morgan calls it). There are two voices really, one being involuntary (tinnitus). The other loves to explain things to imaginary people or plan the future; anything but be in the present. I became clearly aware of this voice; noticed when it wasn't there on occasions; noticed when it returned, and did my best to see beyond it. The deep silence of nature surrounding Maenllwyd helped me to be more aware of the alternative to this constant noise and I felt very grateful for that.
I found it was good to try to achieve a balance between 'being' and 'doing'. "Ordinary Mind, Wanting Nothing" was a good state to be in, yet there were times when I woke up in the morning and felt it necessary to write down a list of activities I wanted to get done that day or I could see I would get to the end of the retreat not having achieved even the simplest of aims such as having a shower. I didn't want to spend the entire week drifting aimlessly. Too much sitting meditation is not necessarily a good thing. Yet there were times when it was best to do without choosing whatever the next thing was, - just whatever seemed good to do at that moment.
I was solitary and surrounded by silence, yet also by the hard work and care of many people, -- from the Western Chan Fellowship Sangha (and the wider Buddhist tradition going back centuries) to the mechanic who serviced my car enabling me to drive there, to the producers of the food I ate. Throughout my week I felt the presence of others, and though solitary was never lonely.
