This year I attended my second silent meditation retreat at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, ten days focusing on vipassanā (insight) meditation. Since people generally ask about or react to the “silence” aspect of attending a silent meditation retreat, picturing the challenge being going ten days without talking, I’ll say that’s not the challenge or point of a retreat at all. If interested, it’s easy to understand it this way. For people that meditate on a regular basis, attending a silent retreat is really no different than students heading to the library to study, or upholding the no talking rule during a college exam.

You and everyone around you needs and wants to maintain the quiet in order to focus on the actual task at hand. As such, there’s no challenge in “not talking.” It’s just the opposite. It becomes pretty difficult if others start talking around you. The real challenge is keeping undivided attention on the material or exam directly in front of you, or in the case of insight meditation, being quiet enough, creating enough stillness to explore the depths and to observe the basic workings of your mind and experience. Like a library, the quiet atmosphere and others studying around you is the favorable condition which makes the challenging process of studying your mind a little easier.

Understanding this, a better question about an insight retreat experience is not “what is it like to not talk for ten days” but “what did you learn?” Of course, that’s often asking a deeply personal question so I wouldn’t expect an answer but you can look for changes in a person’s pre and post retreat behavior or way of being.

If curious, you can try an insight retreat, but only if you can picture eating vegetarian food for a week, amazing food, can summon a student mentality and not talk for a short period, ten days is really nothing, and at the core of it, the real challenge — face yourself — commit to sitting with and carefully observe your mind for ten days and not move, no matter what comes, the good and difficult, and what you find and learn about yourself in the process. This is, at least in part, the challenge and opportunity of a vipassana (insight) meditation retreat.

And if you’re afraid of not talking for ten days or what might happen, that is a perfectly reasonable place to begin looking at your mind.

Bobby McFerrin demonstrates the power of the pentatonic scale, using audience participation, from the June 12, 2009 World Science Festival event “Notes & Neurons: In Search of the Common Chorus“. Also on stage are panelists Jamshed Bharucha, Provost and Senior Vice President of Tufts University; the James McGill Professor of Psychology and Neurosciences at McGill University, Daniel Levitin; Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Sheffield, Lawrence Parsons; and host of WNYC’s music/talk show Soundcheck, John Schaefer.

“Does Life Suck?”, a dharma talk by Ajahn Brahm from The Buddhist Society Western Australia.

It seems that people are happiest when they are either fully committed in “attention” or in “action” in response to the present, and dissatisfaction arises when one sits somewhere in the middle of the two. As such, attention and action can be seen as existing as endpoints on a continuum.

As an example, dissatisfaction often exists when one simply thinks or talks about problems in a shallow way but doesn’t do anything about them (for example, complaining). Yet, if one is truly skillful in thinking through issues, applying insight and full attention to an issue at hand (i.e. – talking with friends to achieve deeper clarity, meditating on them, etc.) then satisfaction can arise in the midst of this. Furthermore, with insight into a problem, one can shoot past dissatisfaction by transforming insight into committed action.

On the other end of the continuum, happiness in fully committed action (e.g. – “being in the moment”) is easy to observe. When a person is fully engaged in an activity (i.e. – playing a sport, performing music, dancing, etc.) is difficult for them to think or be anywhere other than the present moment. In this sense, it seems attention and action are closely related or can be seen as the same thing, potentially closing the diagram above into a circle.

Given the above, one approach to creating increased happiness might be to look at dissatisfaction in the present and ask, “Am I fully committed in either attention or action to the issue at hand?” If not, perhaps therein lies an opportunity to transform an unsatisfactory situation and create more happiness.

Wondering what you think?

Brian, today, be the person of your dreams.

See life through THEIR eyes.

Make decisions with THEIR mind.

Let every thought, word, and action come from THEIR perspective, as if you had already arrived, and just watch how 2009 warps into the kind of year you talk and laugh about forever and ever and ever…

Peace, love, and green M&Ms –
The Universe

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Holding up the Zen end of this blog, an entertaining and practical dharma talk, Dealing with Difficult People, given by Ajahn Brahm from The Buddhist Society Western Australia. I especially enjoyed the story, “The Donkey Who Fell in the Well,” starting at 0:53:25 and “What mosquitos taught me,” starting at 1:05:00.

Surprisingly short, I listened to the audio book version several times over the weekend and was struck by three verses that seem to ring true during the ongoing Iraq war, current U.S. economic crisis, and the role of the United States, China, Russia, and aspiring countries in the Middle East. Perhaps there is some 2,600 year old wisdom to draw on here?

From the Tao Te Ching: A New English Version by Lao Tzu and Stephen Mitchell.

61
When a country obtains great power,
it becomes like the sea:
all streams run downward into it.
The more powerful it grows,
the greater the need for humility.
Humility means trusting the Tao,
thus never needing to be defensive.

A great nation is like a great man:
When he makes a mistake, he realizes it.
Having realized it, he admits it.
Having admitted it, he corrects it.
He considers those who point out his faults
as his most benevolent teachers.
He thinks of his enemy
as the shadow that he himself casts.

If a nation is centered in the Tao,
if it nourishes its own people
and doesn’t meddle in the affairs of others,
it will be a light to all nations in the world.

53
The great Way is easy,
yet people prefer the side paths.
Be aware when things are out of balance.
Stay centered within the Tao.

When rich speculators prosper
While farmers lose their land;
when government officials spend money
on weapons instead of cures;
when the upper class is extravagant and irresponsible
while the poor have nowhere to turn-
all this is robbery and chaos.
It is not in keeping with the Tao.

54
Whoever is planted in the Tao
will not be rooted up.
Whoever embraces the Tao
will not slip away.
Her name will be held in honor
from generation to generation.

Let the Tao be present in your life
and you will become genuine.
Let it be present in your family
and your family will flourish.
Let it be present in your country
and your country will be an example
to all countries in the world.
Let it be present in the universe
and the universe will sing.

How do I know this is true?
By looking inside myself.

Interested to know your thoughts.