I cannot write in hindsight, yet three days after the Retreat ending I am still in it, with a deep sense of calm and sitting sessions that pass seemingly fast. Vast silence is dearly perceived. This is perhaps the benefit of 'not meditating". This was the second Retreat(1) I had attended within a month so I settled in easily. The sittings were clear the first morning, but after lunch tiredness set in and I could not keep my head in control. The fear of endless sittings ahead of me gave rise to a thick cloying fog and I knew l had to just wait for it to lift. I even gave up trying and thought just to sit here is something".
An image: two goldfish in a bowl, but what else is in there? The trick is to see the water.
On the second day, during the morning service, the Heart Sutra and the chanting of the Three Refuges bore the "fruit". I saw another way, big and free - not the small vehicle that I baggage myself up in.
So that was why the statue of the Nun(2) was smiling! Going around the yard I knew it. I laughed because I had been given back something that I had lost. I had remembered! It seemed idiotic that anyone could lose such a thing. I also cried because the Chi rose and made me feel emotional.
I saw that this understanding is easily lost superficially, but it is an ocean under the surface. I saw how much negative karma I hold in the vehicle of me and the self-annihilating viciousness was interesting to note. But one can slip past that. I bowed to the Nun and liked her very much.
After a few hours it was back again to my internal gestapo, who break in and do me over. I called upon Mahakala, the black Tibetan deity to protect me. My thoughts were also sometimes nasty and petty. I began labelling thoughts; one or two of the issues needed addressing and I went into them in thought. I have not yet found the balance of when I should or should not go into issues. I asked my friend the Nun to help me. I reckoned that in order to get that pearl she was holding and that smile, she had probably been where I was then. I was desperately tired. I slept without falling off my cushion - she must have held me there. This induced a deep calm meditation, strange and hallucinogenic. So this tiredness was not an enemy! Transformation again.
I tried to maintain the idea of whatever there is to do, just do it. Don't question or justify. Just watch the voice singing or the taste eating". No other baggage at all. By the fourth day, time had gone. I watched cycles of heavy difficult thinking change to clear spaces of deep calm which was situated in and below my heart. Then I felt at ease and listened to birds, wind, rain and floated like one of the buzzards up above us. My heart grew until the Stream outside ran through it. what a relief not to have to keep it small.
In an interview John said, "you've got that samskara firmly by the tail". That is, I was resolving a particular issue that I have been confronting for years. This is the cause of much rejoicing and a new freedom for me. John also explained that my contact with the growing heart will make it grow until it becomes my strength. His compassion towards me also gives me strength.
On the fifth day whilst "directly contemplating" I was looking at the Zendo carpet, the orange bits in fact, and I could see spirals. There was just this spiralling. Then I thought "Who is watching? I wish this watcher would go away!". By this stage of the Retreat, my energy was so high that I would have been happy to giggle idiotically at anything. I was feeling so good just floating from one thing to the next with no memory. The Chenrezi visualization I did was very focused. It was surreal. The meditations were deep in and below my heart and a strange sense of having no body grew stronger. Over a period of about one hour blocks of magenta had appeared in my vision, whether my eyes were open or closed.
Two further events taught me a great deal about my personal karma. I began to get in a stew about having to give a short account to the others of how the week had been for me. On a previous Chan Retreat I had been unable to speak through fear of the group. I decided to crucify my fear, even if it meant acting out the crucifixion. Then I bowed to the Buddha and asked for help. Well, in the event, I spoke quite well. I was very pleased.
The other event was watching the panic of another person, which threw me into a state of childhood terror. This taught me to guard my own vulnerability.
On returning home, I realized that if I apply my method of watching the breath and centering myself in the body, whatever I am doing, I can also practise mindfulness and become part of the big silence.
On Thursday morning, alone with my little son in the car, holding his hand after a whole week away from him, I drove through the countryside with the trees standing in their space amidst a soft mist. There was the silent eternal OM.
1 The writer had attended the Tantra Retreat of the previous month. 2 The writer is, referring to the statue of a little "nun" placed on the altar during the retreat. Participants were asked why she was smiling and what was the pearl she held in one hand. Eds.
