From the Front Lines of a Silent Retreat (Part TWO: Upheaval)

by Sara Flitner

This post is the second of three installments on my recent experience at a silent meditation retreat. Read Part One here. 

By Tuesday morning of this five-day silent retreat, memories of my first longer retreat (six days) crop in. I was curious then – and still am – about my brain’s function after a period of neurological rest. Also, to be honest, I wanted to see how hard it would be to stay quiet and unplugged. I found out that even for an extrovert, quiet is necessary and nourishing. While I missed my family, I came away feeling, as I shared with a friend, that the experience had been “life-changing, in an undramatic way.”   

I’m (naively) expecting to have the same gentle epiphany. 

This morning, I settle in, not having to talk or move something forward or make sure everyone is included and comfortable. I have no responsibilities other than to pay attention to my own state. I am aware when I am restless in my mind, aware when I am comfortable. I am aware when my body needs rest or food, when stiffness or physical sensations ebb and flow. I devote myself fully to noticing what is happening precisely as it is happening. I have no trouble with the early hours and no trouble staying awake during the meditations (an improvement over last time). I am experimenting with the new techniques and notice the only agitation arising is how much I am gripping onto what is “right." 

Other than pain in my right shoulder, I’m feeling good. You might even say, I feel like I am getting a good grade at the retreat center. I am crushing meditation. 

You have to know that only fools tempt fate. 

Some short hours later, my mind gets wrapped around the short dharma talk, which is just a fancy/ancient way of saying a talk on ethics, on how meditation techniques can bring more wholesome states of mind to the foreground—states like patience, wisdom, focus, fairness, and compassion, among others. This talk touched on the ancient roots of mindfulness and meditation practice, reviewing the “hinderances” humans practice over and over in our mental patterns, even though they cause a guaranteed amount of suffering and offer no freedom whatsoever.  

This is a core tenant of many ancient wisdom traditions, including Buddhism, where the mindfulness techniques we practice got their roots. The basic premise is that most of our human misery lies in our inability to halt worry about a whole bunch of things that have already happened or we didn’t do perfectly, or things that could happen in the worst way (the majority of which never will). We time-travel backward and forward in our minds, and neither direction feels good.  

Thanks to modern science catching up with ancient mystics, we now know that the human brain evolved with a significant “negativity bias,” believing in its more primitive forms that the way to survive was to be on alert for anything that could pose a threat. This means that if we don’t coax our brain into healthier states, we live with a lot of baggage. It’s heavy to carry around the red-alert system. The shoulder strap really gouges. 

This baggage is filled with mostly the same stuff, no matter who we are, so it’s easy to grab someone else’s bag by mistake. There’s this carry-on of clinging to things that we want to keep, or avoiding and averting things we don’t like. Most of us also fall into agitation by second-guessing (doubting) ourselves, and of course we worry about everything, which makes us restless, edgy, and if you ask my kids, really annoying sometimes. 

Day Four. If the retreat could be seen as a life cycle in five days, this would be the midlife crisis, or the “Oh, f@#!” stage, when lots of things are laid bare, and many things pass away, as I should know by now. Things arise, begin. They fall away, end. I realize that I am actually not crushing it after all, as I see clearly how I still cling, how I work to avoid the inevitable. For an entire day, I experience the same black hole of anxiety I remember from the worst period of my life: the panic and ground-shifting anxiety that accompanied me through my real-life midlife, surrounding the death of a family member, the death of a marriage, the emptying of my full nest, a head-on collision with a drunk driver, the death of beloved dog (soulmate).  

Literally, I felt these catastrophes happening, again and again, from a three-year distance. In this vortex, I started convincing myself I might be having an actual heart attack. My thoughts raced, looking for a way out. “What the hell am I doing here? Who would ever choose to do this? Only an idiot. I am an idiot, surrounded by idiots.” 

When things are stripped away or lost—jobs, kids, life, money, skin elasticity – wise people start listening to what life is trying to tell them. Big events make obvious statements, but I still managed to ignore them for many years. Having time to really watch the way my thoughts arrived, what the content was, and how goddamned clever the tricks were, I began to sense the subtler messages. This was “uncomfortable.” This was a street fight, me against my thoughts. 

All I can say is that some kind of wise inner clown decided to let go of the tricks and the idea that I could be against anything in me. As I tip-toed toward this letting go, discomfort came on strong, as I noticed I have never let go of anything that I didn’t already have a workaround for—a hustle, some way to cushion the fall. Here, the letting go happened before I had any backup plans for staying above the current. I spent hours—which felt like decades—in this space and it really, really, really sucked.  

I saw how greedy I was to defy the fact of impermanence. 

And then—I don’t know how to explain it—I felt in my bones that I, too, would lose everything precious in this life. And if you can even believe it, that’s when things got better. 

What brought me back from the brink was the simplest thing. Acceptance. Such a relief to stop pushing against laws of nature. And then things got funny. I think my shoulders even shook from laughter, a few times—because of all of the suffering, the fighting against things that we can’t keep or can’t get, like really good muscle tone until we’re 100, a functional government, or enough money or affordable eggs or an endless healthspan. The mental balance comes when we still commit ourselves to be of use to our loved ones or ourselves or a larger community but we let go of attachment to how it turns out. We have control over our effort, and little control over the ending. 

Literally everything I can worry about might or might not happen, but by loosening my grip on the effort to stave off or keep things, I got on friendly terms with the gifts that I have, right here, right now. A person can only ever experience life, all the gifts that happen every day, if a person is there to experience them. And by “there” I mean “here.” 

I’m not saying I want to give up – obviously, I don’t. I’m saying I will go to the doctor when I think they can help me. I’ll put good effort into taking care of my family and allowing my colleagues to feel I can be relied upon. I’m also setting down that bag filled with denial, lightening my load and making space for other things. Better thinking arises because I am not spending any energy on the zillion “what ifs.” I have more energy for the wisdom that directs me – and my attention – to where I’ll do the most good.  

Simple, right? As if. 

On the final day of the retreat, there was an hour at the end where we stopped being silent and talked to each other. The people coming up to me, strangers, had the deepest compassion in their eyes, murmuring over their own experiences. They knew exactly the kind of vision quest I had returned from. Thankfully, I did not tell them what my flailing mind had called them the day before. 

Idiots? On the contrary. Here was bravery. Here was a commitment to becoming as aware as possible, in an effort to be as helpful as possible. Here was real compassion. Here was hope. 

I don’t think meditation is the only way to develop this type of insight, nor do I expect a run on the market of silent retreats, though the percentages are growing steadily. I do think that if we want a just, civil, caring society, we have to practice uncomfortable things. As tired as the butterfly metaphor is, I like it anyway. You’re in the dark. You’re paralyzed by too-tight quarters. It gets so uncomfortable to remain constricted that you break through. Then, you are free to fly. 

(To be continued...)