Buddhists die harder

At the weekly gathering of the Seattle sangha last night, guiding teacher Rodney Smith made a disturbing observation. He used to be a hospice worker, and he said, "The people who had the hardest time dying were the ones who thought of themselves as most spiritual. And Buddhists -- they were the worst of the lot! They'd be thinking that they should be balanced and equanimous when everything was terrible and what they really needed to do was SCREAM!"

Maybe Buddhist training, at least in America, isn't really accomplishing what we think it's accomplishing.

Why I feel more dedicated to practice than before retreat

I am trying to figure out why, after a very difficult and at times very unpleasant two months, I am inspired to be more dedicated to practice. Is it simply, as Eric quipped, something like the Stockholm Syndrome, where I developed an affinity for the thing that caused me discomfort?

I don't think so. But some of my motivation may be unwholesome, and I should face that squarely.

Contained within the unpleasant overall retreat experience were some very pleasant episodes, experiences of bliss and rapture. Now, after retreat, I have not felt what I'd call bliss or rapture, but I have found ordinary life to be unusually pleasant. Sometimes, just looking at a cloud, or the moon, or a tree, adds pleasure to the act of breathing. Meditation now routinely brings pleasant physical sensations whereas before it did not. So one draw is pleasure. This is not necessarily an unwholesome motivation, but it's worth being aware of.

I sometimes see people's facial expressions in greater detail than before retreat, and they seem more human and kind to me.

I can be entertained by watching my morning oatmeal cook.

I can let emotions pass through me quickly and easily in a way that previously was totally unfamiliar to me.

It made me very happy on retreat to be able to see certain thought processes very clearly, to see how they caused me suffering, and to be able to interrupt them. I like to see the truth of things. I don't see those processes in that detail anymore, but it's quite possible that I've created new habits of interrupting them and that these new habits are contributing to a happier life now.

So ... it's quite possible that all of the above effects are temporary, part of what I call retreat afterglow. I've never seen afterglow last longer than 6 weeks, and I've never experienced such intense effects, but then I've never before done a retreat longer than 2 weeks. What if these effects go away? Will I continue to be motivated to practice intensively, and, if so, what will motivate me?

I've been a seeker of truth ever since I can remember, since I was a young child. I first sought truth in Catholicism, with which I'd been raised. I so wanted to see truth there, and I kept looking and asking questions, but by age 18 I was completely disillusioned. It seems, though, that there is some truth to be found by following the Buddhist path, and I saw evidence of that on my retreat. Or ... I think I did. Hmmm. More pondering to be done here.

Becoming sensitive

Terry: "Since my retreat, I've felt like my head is in some kind of magnetic field or vortex that draws it forward and down. It takes constant muscular effort to keep it upright."

Eric: "The center of your head is in front of your neck, so it takes effort to keep it upright. You just weren't mindful enough to notice the effort before."

Minutes after this exchange, I broke into laughter. What I had been interpreting as a mysterious, mystical force field has had a name for hundreds of years: gravity.

I've been reading a lot of Buddhist literature lately. Catching up. Two or three writers have mentioned that, as a meditation practice develops, one's sensitivity increases. I realized today that this explains a few things for me. Besides the weird head phenomenon, I also am newly aware that I clench my jaw (on the right side only). I'm also aware of a whole set of sensations and reactions on the right side of my body that seem to be ready to respond to a blow from the upper right. And I notice myself responding with fright and anger whenever anybody enters the house, or when Eric enters our bed.

I think these are good things.

Continuing to learn to feel

On my retreat, my experience of sensation in my body, especially the right side of my body from head down to abdomen, became more vivid. This has continued to increase and develop since retreat. Last weekend I frequently had periods of an hour or more during which these sensations were not only vivid, but very dynamic, and closely associated with my experience of emotion. I noticed that every few seconds I'd experience an emotion primarily in terms of these sensations, and that with a small mental gesture I could let go of each one as it occurred, making way for the next one. What a gift. For the past 25 years I'd very strongly suspected that my experience of life, and especially of my emotions, was somehow frozen or blocked. I have had several openings over that time, but this one seems especially important and enjoyable.

Today I am having this vivid bodily experience of emotion while doing my work as a computer programmer. Work is usually a part of my life during which I'm especially shut down emotionally. It just has not seemed possible -- until now -- to do my work and experience emotion at the same time. It's remarkable that this beautiful, vivid experience of being alive while working comes immediately after a day, yesterday, when work was particularly frustrating and I felt at the end of the day that probably a lot of intense emotions had come up that I had just habitually suppressed.

I wish I could think and write more on this ... but it's time to get back to work :-)

Thoughts of superiority

I've noticed that judgmental thoughts of other humans have become more extreme since my long meditation retreat. Before the retreat, I had many thoughts of being a quite superior person. Now, the thoughts declare that I am even more superior, really just head and shoulders above the vast majority of humanity.

I've wondered how to respond to those thoughts. Should I scale back my spiritual practice so that these thoughts have less fuel? So that I'm more like regular folk and participate more in the activities of regular folk?

I was startled yesterday to realize that I've faced this conundrum before, as early as age 10. At that age, I was bored in school. I had the opportunity to switch schools and enter a gifted program. I declined for this exact reason: wanting to tame my thoughts of superiority.

I wonder now if that was the right choice. So well-intentioned, but probably misguided. Clearly, the source of the thoughts is not my choice of activity, but something deeper.

Integration

Life since retreat has been rich and satisfying. There have been many periods of doubt, but mostly my sense is that I'm on a very rewarding path that has just been given a huge boost by 2 months of retreat.

Every day I am very aware of strong sensation in my right torso, neck, and head. Each day it is a little different. Today I'm aware that my head is constantly bobbing and waving, like kelp in the sea, and I wonder whether it appears quite odd. Of course if I make my breathing more shallow and move my awareness away from my body into my head--which is still what I habitually do when in conversation--the motion stops.

Tomorrow I am going on a 3 day retreat at our local Theravadan Buddhist retreat center, Cloud Mountain. It will be taught by Tina Rasmussen and Stephen Snyder, the two who first taught me concentration practice, at the same retreat center, two years ago. Their website talks about what they teach.

The more I practice, listen, and read, the more I see that the world of spiritual practice is both much larger than I'd been aware, and less diverse than I'd been aware. Larger: there are so many ways to practice, so many issues to consider, so many views of the path, so many perils and pitfalls, such depth of possible experience. The book THE POWER AND THE PAIN: Transforming Spiritual Hardship into Joy, by Andrew Holocek, has lately helped me wrap my mind around these. Less diverse: the writings of theistic and non-theistic practitioners are more and more seeming to share common ground. I've lately been reading the writings of Peace Pilgrim; she liberally references God, yet her practice shares so much with Buddhist practice, and passages that had once repelled me now speak to me.

Some of my doubt is habitual self-doubt; other doubt is appropriate caution. This quote from An Application of Buddhist practice of Mindfulness in Contemporary Western Psychotherapy by Audrius Beinorius, which I happened upon accidentally, highlights an area where I must be cautious:

Empirical evidences display that sometimes spiritual practice can be motivated in part by the secret, narcissistic wish to be special, if not superior; a stance of non-attachment can rationalize fears of closeness and the anxieties associated with intimacy: fear of feeling exposed, vulnerable, humiliated, shamed, hurt, rejected, or abandoned.

Daily life on retreat

Daily life at the Forest Refuge was much like daily life at any meditation retreat conducted at a Western retreat center in the Theravadan Buddhist tradition. For those who have never done such a retreat, I will describe a typical day.

The retreat center was a cluster of buildings surrounded by forest in rural Western Massachusetts (marker A below):

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Our lives centered around the meditation hall, dining hall, and dormitory, and a council house containing a library, yoga room, and rooms for teacher interviews. Also on site were an administration building, kitchen, staff area, maintenance barn, parking barn, and staff housing. Each of the 30 retreatants had a simple but very comfortable bedroom. Bathrooms and showers were shared.

The day officially began at 4:00 a.m. At many retreat centers there is a wake-up bell, but not at the Forest Refuge, probably because the Forest Refuge is primarily a place for self-guided retreats. This was a special organized, teacher-led retreat, but we still did not have a wake-up bell.

There were six sittings (meditation sessions) scheduled each day, each lasting 75 or 90 minutes. They were scheduled at 4:30 a.m., 7:45, 9:45, 1:00, 3:15, and 7:00. All were optional, and at a typical sitting about half of the retreatants would be there. Most of the others were presumably meditating in their rooms--or, during the 4:30 a.m. sit, sleeping in. During a sitting, people could gather in the meditation hall, sit on a cushion or chair, and meditate. Leaving in the middle was discouraged. Our main teacher, Pa Auk Sayadaw, sat with us at nearly every sitting, in the front of the hall, facing the Buddha statue. Sayadaw had a clock, and he would rise at the end, signaling to all that the session was over.

Breakfast was at 6:00. By retreat's end, it was still completely dark at that time. Breakfast was always the same: a buffet of various hot and cold cereals, breads, and fruits, along with butter, cream cheese, peanut butter, tahini, yogurt, raisins, and other toppings and condiments. And hard boiled eggs, and warm prunes. Warm prunes have been served at every meditation retreat I've attended. Presumably this is because sitting so much every day can slow peristalsis. Sorry if that's too much information.

Silence was continuous, including at meals. The idea is to be constantly aware of what is going on in one's immediate experience. So while eating, one pays attention to eating, or to one's meditation object, commonly the breath. My first day, I sat at an arbitrary table with some other people. A middle-aged Caucasian woman sat to my left, and a younger Afro-Caucasian man dressed completely in white sat to my right. Across from me was an old Asian man, and to the side was a young Caucasian woman with an angelic face. It turned out that these people sat in these same places for every meal, and I ended up sitting in the same place for nearly every meal, also--except for a couple of weeks when I chose to tour other tables during breakfast in order to spend time with some other people and offer them metta (good wishes).

Everyone had an assigned chore, and most of them were done right after breakfast. Mine was pot washing, which happened after lunch, so after breakfast I had a free hour. I did different things during this hour, but most commonly I went to my room and meditated until lunch. During much of the retreat I meditated almost exclusively outside the meditation hall--either in my room, in the library, outdoors, or in one of the walking meditation halls--because I would often get sleepy during seated meditation. When I got sleepy I would want to take a nap or switch to walking meditation immediately, but this was not possible when sitting in the meditation hall.

During my most intensive periods of practice, I would meditate in my room for over three hours straight. I'd sit until I'd get sleepy, then I'd walk, take a short power nap, or take a long nap, then go back to sitting again. Later in the retreat, I took mindful forest walks after breakfast, walking slowly on the trails while trying to maintain continuous attention on the sensations in my body. (or as continuous as I could muster--as every meditator knows, the reality is often very far from the ideal!)

The remaining activities of the day were lunch at 11:00, potwashing at 11:45, teacher interviews between 5:00 and 6:30, and bedtime. In keeping with monastic tradition, there was no evening meal. Lunch was two or three delicious vegetarian dishes plus a salad bar. Immediately afterward I went to the kitchen to wash everything that couldn't go in the dishwasher. Three of us worked together and it usually took a little over an hour. Pot washing was a highlight of my day, because it was very physical and not associated with any anxiety. It was also slightly social, even though we didn't speak except when necessary ("This pot needs a little more scrubbing on the bottom", "Do you know where the butter dishes get put away?"). At the end we did a little bowing ritual during which we'd each make eye contact with each other. This was the only eye contact we'd have all day except when talking to the teacher--"silence" includes keeping one's eyes downcast when passing another person. Kind of extreme!

Although we had no evening meal, hunger was never a problem for me. Firstly, I kept nuts, raisins, and later in the retreat, chocolate in my room, and had a small snack almost every day. Secondly, although the retreat was often stressful, somehow the stress was not the kind that prompts me to crave food. I guess my body adjusted to the two meals. The only time I felt hunger in a distracting way was at the early morning sitting. I learned to have a small snack upon rising if I was going to attend that sit.

At 5:00 daily, except Sundays, we had an opportunity to talk to Pa Auk Sayadaw. These interviews were always brief--between 2 and 10 minutes. For me they were always much closer to 2 minutes. This was because I was making no progress under his system, and also because he just didn't feel very chatty with me (to my surprise I learned after the retreat that he would get chatty with some retreatants).

Bedtime was always welcome to me, because the days were so often filled with anxiety. My bed was very comfortable and I almost always slept well. I had a skylight through which I could often see stars.

There are so many other details I would like to fill in, but this post is long enough, and I am tired. As always, feel free to ask questions!