So today I would like to talk with you a little bit about the benefits of retreating.
You know,
Some of you have never been on a silent meditation retreat before.
Perhaps it's kind of unimaginable the idea that you would spend two weeks in silence.
And retreats range from a day long like we've done here to doing like full practice periods for three months.
Sometimes,
You know,
Generally people go for about a week.
And in this Insight tradition,
These practice periods are mostly silent.
There's a little bit of talking with the teachers for about 15 minutes every couple of days.
And there can also be like a little bit of talking around your yogi job.
Like everyone has a job that you do every day.
And the work period is as long as the practice period.
So it's about 45 minutes.
And your work period,
It could be washing dishes or chopping vegetables.
My job was washing laundry.
And so sometimes there's something that you need to communicate and words that most of the time it's pretty silent.
So every transition from a practice period is communicated through the sound of a bell.
So when you're doing your yogi job,
For example,
A bell is rung.
And a few minutes before the next practice period,
And then you probably go and you go back into the meditation hall.
So you kind of finish up what you're doing and then you go back into the hall.
And stepping through the doors of a meditation hall can be a really powerful experience to feel that pristine stillness.
There's something about that stillness,
The stillness of people who've been sitting for a long time.
It feels really clean.
It's really beautiful.
It's a stillness that is alive with a certain kind of power.
And you know,
Not much happens on these retreats.
I mean,
Mostly what people do is they sit in meditation for about 45 minutes,
And then alternate the sitting with the walking for about 45 minutes.
So it's sort of like sitting,
Walking,
Eating,
Cleaning dishes,
Yogi job,
Listening to a Dharma talk,
And then repeat.
A little bit like Groundhog Day.
Nothing really happens.
And so for some people,
It sounds so foreign to do something where you do nothing and nothing is going on.
You know,
You might think it's boring.
And boredom does surface.
And it can be one of the most important experiences for some people's lives to really see like,
What's boredom about?
Because what it allows is a meeting,
Kind of a confrontation with oneself.
It's like what you're doing is you're putting a mirror up for yourself.
And you really see yourself in highlight when you're not busy doing a lot of things.
If you're not busy with a lot of socializing or talking,
There's so many ways in which in which we keep ourselves engaged,
Always doing things,
That it makes it harder for us to see ourselves in a deeper way.
So when we take the normal activity of daily life,
The normal way in which the mind is activated in daily life,
And quiet it down enough,
We're not so outwardly directed or preoccupied by things.
We see ourselves in deeper and more clear ways.
So because nothing is happening,
It allows for a lot to happen.
Because it allows for us to meet ourselves,
To know ourselves,
To know what's going on within us,
And to know it in a deeper way than we've then you can ever imagine really.
And in that process,
Sometimes we have to contend with what we see,
What's going on here.
Sometimes it can be quite challenging.
But the challenges themselves,
Which are inevitable,
Can open up the door to something more profound and more beautiful.
If nothing else,
It opens up the door to the possibility of being at peace.
You know,
Having a mind that's settled enough,
So it's not always engaged in the process of fixing and making and doing and defending and building up the sense of self and planning the future and defending the past.
When all that construction isn't happening,
There can be a really profound experience of peace.
And so one of the things that we see on retreat,
And you don't have to be on retreat to see this,
But it's easier,
Is you see all the ways in which our hearts and our minds are not really at peace.
You know,
Sometimes the way people live their daily life makes it really difficult to see the agitation or the conflict that the mind is operating on all the time.
So to confront that and be able to move beyond it,
Confront the agitation,
The clinging,
The holding,
The grasping,
The fear or the desire,
And then go beyond the experience of ourselves.
There's some peace there.
There's some opening there.
I think it's a really courageous thing to do,
To go on retreat and meet ourselves in this deeper way.
I think it takes a lot of courage to be able to sit and look deeply at what goes on within us and to be able to move through that.
So I encourage you to consider this for yourself and I can help you if this is something that you are interested in doing.
There's an analogy that I like.
It's actually a kindergarten teaching.
So in some kindergartens or in preschool,
The children would work with beeswax.
So the first thing that kids were taught when they took the beeswax is that it's hard and it's cold in the morning.
So everyone was given a piece of beeswax and you can't do anything with it because it's brittle when you first take the beeswax in your hand.
So the first thing that they would do is they would put the beeswax in the palm of their two hands and they'd hold on to their hands and their own warmth,
Their own warmth would soften the beeswax until it was soft enough that you could begin needing it and working with it.
So once you could start to knead it and work with it,
It was more malleable,
You could kind of wield it into shapes to shape it into something that's beautiful.
And then once you have something beautiful,
Then you can kind of put it on the shelf in the kindergarten.
You release it.
You don't hold on to it.
You put it someplace.
So it's kind of the same when we go on retreat.
It's the same when we meditate.
It's often good to think that the first step is not to attain anything or do anything.
If you sit down and say,
I'm gonna get concentrated here,
I'm gonna bust through the mind,
You know,
It's like cold beeswax.
A lot of people,
Including myself,
Have tried so hard when the conditions are not ready.
They're not ready for that.
Because the first thing we need to do is just relax,
Lighten up,
Soften what's going on.
And so in some ways,
You know,
We're holding ourselves in our warm palms to soften,
To be at ease with what's going on,
Not fighting it,
Not fighting it.
And so as the mind kind of relaxes and softens,
Then we can kind of start to begin needing it,
Working with the mind,
Making it softer and softer.
And part of the process of developing concentration is to come back to the breath.
The mind goes off,
Come back to the breath,
Like needing the beeswax.
And of course the mind is going to wander away.
You don't have to be upset about it.
It's not a problem.
Your job is to come back,
Come back to the breath,
Come back to the breathing,
And then just trying to stay longer and longer with the breath.
And as you do that,
The mind begins to soften more and more.
So as we need the mind,
We're coming back to the breath and the mind gets softer and softer.
And that's how we turn the mind into something beautiful.
And that's the idea.
So I'll leave you with,
I'll end this talk with a quote from my teacher Gil Fronsdal,
Who said,
As much as a nature preserve protects the sanctity of our natural world,
A retreat center nurtures the sanctity of our inner world.
So I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have.
And thank you for your attention and your practice.
I'm so grateful to be back with you practicing together.
And yeah,
If you have any questions or comments,
I'd love to hear from you now.
