I am not sure where or when the journey to Maenllwyd began, but it had its roots long before the day of our arrival for a Western Zen retreat in February. It was a relief to arrive on that darkened Welsh hillside, and somewhat surreal to enter the gas-lit farmhouse and find a small crowd of other retreatants, talking, laughing, drinking tea – all of whom had also made their own journeys there on that wild night. I sat watching the chatter, stomach churning, but quietly excited by the prayer flags strung between the beams and the carved face of the Green man looking down upon us from the corner.
As the time for silence approached that evening I became worried. My partner and I were attending the retreat together, and I was not sure how ‘weird’ it would be for us not being able to communicate for five days. As a couple we talk about everything, and I knew that during the retreat we would both be going on important personal journeys. I worried about not staying connected during this process and how we would reconnect at the end. We were both committed however, and over the coming days the emotional space that silence between us allowed was very important in retaining our individual focus and progress. That night, as I climbed to the sleeping gallery above the Chan hall, I read a small notice ‘Seekers on the path, do not spend your time in vain’, my heart leapt, I knew that after years of searching, I was in the right place, both literally and in terms of my mind-set and resolve.
‘Who am I?’ That question would become lodged in my very being for the next few days; it was the focus of meditation and accompanied me everywhere. With a reasonable level of self- awareness and having been interested in Zen Buddhism for a few years, I was able to discard more obvious things quickly, until I arrived at concepts such as ‘awareness’, ‘awake’, ‘consciousness’ and ‘present’. That evening, during the communication exercise, things started to come together, I was able to summarise my understanding of the question more fluently than I had been able to before, and like a bird circling ever closer, I felt I was being drawn inward, magnetically, to a resolution. I knew that I had come as far as I could go intellectually, and that the momentum of the question was taking me somewhere beyond. I was ready and unafraid of the ‘answer’. In the final meditation of the day a phrase rose to the surface, ‘I must escape through a trapdoor in my mind’…but where was I to look for this trap door?
Early next morning, Jake our teacher led exercises in the turbulent darkness of the yard. There had been gales overnight and still the gusts roared through the trees. With his uncanny knack for dropping words, like smooth pebbles, into the pool of our minds, he talked about the present moment - how when we are distracted it contracts to almost nothing, but by noticing we expand it and can experience a greater spaciousness. He drew our attention to the light sparkling in the wet mud at our feet and the elusive state of ‘ordinary mind wanting nothing’. Back in the Chan hall, pre-dawn, sitting deep in the glow of candlelight, I had nothing left to say to my listening partner, I could express nothing about myself that was not evidently and profoundly present in that moment. The trapdoor in my mind, the ‘gateless gate’ was no other than the present… the perfect, complete present in which there was nothing left to be done, it held everything and yet was always evolving, flowing, ever new. I said to my partner ‘there is nothing here that I am not…anything I do or say is the answer…I am here, just this’. Dazed I stood up, bursting with joy, and on legs that felt disconnected from my body I circled the Chan hall and bowed to Buddha. Sitting back down unable to speak I reassured my partner that I was indeed happy! I had slipped from the narrow box of what I ‘thought’ I was and into a broader ocean.
Later in my interview with Jake and Dan, I expressed this moment of insight as a collision of mind and present moment, leaving something in its wake which could not be explained in words. ‘Where are you now?’ asked Jake…I took a deep breath, raised my arms to take in all around us, and smiled. Afterwards, however, I sometimes found myself trying to trace, or hold on to, the steps that led me to the brink of that insight, worried about ‘forgetting the way’. But that fear was, I feel, groundless. I cannot ‘un-experience’ that moment, and after I stopped trying to hold on to it, I found that it settled upon me gently, like the snow on the hills around us. I also know that it can’t be taken for granted, that I must stay ‘awake’ and practise in order to maintain the freshness of that boundless, natural awareness. Previously the mind of judgement and clinging formed my reality, but now my mind has been turned ‘inside out’. I am better able to observe the times when I judge or cling, and see them only as diminishing or restricting a much fuller and richer being. I visualise judgement as a pair of shark-like jaws biting a chunk out of my awareness!
As a beginner on the path I know it will take both courage and energy to meet the circumstances of life and stay fully awake. I knew that after the retreat, the pressures and uncertainties would surge in again, and that it would be tempting to run back to the ‘life boat’ of my ego to defend and control. This has after all, been the habit of a lifetime. What happens if, through fear or anger, I feel myself falling into old ways? On retreat I came to understand that even in the most difficult times, if I am mindful, I can fall no further than the present moment, and that the present is always the best position from which to deal with what comes. To be fully available, on the cusp of the unfolding moment, is I think, a great and gentle strength.
Two days and two questions later (‘what is freedom’? and ‘what is surrender’?),and Jake was delivering another inspiring talk in the Chan hall, this time talking about Buddhism as a bird with two wings, wisdom and compassion. His comment that without compassion the bird cannot fly, found a weak spot, and I realised that I would have to confront something uncomfortable that my previous two more abstract answers to ‘freedom’ and ‘surrender’ had veiled. I have trouble with compassion. Telling Jake this in an interview was a surprise, I did not know it was coming; it just tumbled out with the force of a truth. It is not that I don’t feel, or don’t care, in fact in the past I probably cared and felt too much. So after some discussion we agreed upon the question ‘what is kindness?’ Jake told me that I would not find an answer to this in the same way as the others, it was a question through which I would need to feel something. After the retreat this remains my question, and in seeking an answer I know I will have to be very honest with, but perhaps also kinder to, myself. Later that day we did a dance meditation in the Chan hall, it was brilliant and exhausting, and to my surprise was the best meditation of the whole retreat. In bypassing my brain I had accessed something truer and deeper than I had before, I lay there feeling like my shell had been cracked open a little bit, and it felt great!
On the final day I stood looking out across the snowy, sunlit hills, the trees and hedges formed a latticework of shadows, the earth was glinting. I heard a rush and instinctively spread my arms to the sky as hundreds of fieldfares streamed overhead ‘chakking’ heartily. Above the bare trees a red kite tilted in the sunlight. That morning at a ceremony in the Chan hall, I had taken Refuge and the Precepts with two others. Before the retreat, becoming a Buddhist always seemed to be a decision that had ‘to be taken’. What changed after five days at Maenllywyd was that it was no longer a decision external to me; it seemed natural, as if there was nothing to decide. I had also been reluctant about ‘becoming’ a Buddhist because I thought it was too much to live up to and that I fell too far short of the mark. I understood things differently now. I became a Buddhist precisely because I am a flawed person and have perceived a path to becoming more aware, generous, kinder, loving and joyful. I trust this path, it sits well with my rational and questioning mind, but it also appeals to my imagination and it inspires me more than anything else I know.
I remember the retreat as a magical and almost sacred time, the beauty of the Chan Hall lit by candles, the focussed energy of 14 people sitting in silence, the deep darkness of winter nights and warmth of wood fires, lying on my bunk watching red kites and clouds, the sound of the wooden ‘clappers’ fading into silence at lights-out, the way that simple things regained their meaning, every act was significant. My reunion with my partner when we paired up for the final communication session was emotional too, it felt like I had travelled 100 miles in my mind without him, but we found that we were both deeply joyful for the experience. Now, a week after the retreat, the insights I had are still present and working within me. I am excited about the journey I have undertaken to learn what it is to be a Buddhist and look forward to returning to Maenllwyd again in October for a Silent Illumination retreat.
