Silence is Excruciating

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     One time I signed up for a 10-day meditation retreat.

     I'd read a book about meditation and tried doing the recommended exercises.  They were really hard and  I decided I'd never be able to wrestle my monkey-mind into quiet submission.  


     The very day I came to this conclusion, I met a woman who'd just come back from a meditation retreat.  She said it was amazing.  Clearly, this was A Sign.  I had some vacation time coming up.  (2nd 'Sign')  I was really struggling financially, and the woman mentioned that the retreat was offered on a donation-basis so I could pay what I could afford.  (So this was, for sure, a 3rd 'Sign'.) 

     I figured:  Hey, a practically-free vacation, I'd meet new people and learn something new.  How bad could it be?

     As it turns out...pretty bad.

     Did I mention it was a silent retreat?  I was the kid in school who got put in the corner for talking too much.  I got comments on report cards mentioning that I "Visited with my neighbors too much." For ten days there was no talking allowed, not even hand gestures.  Also, no reading and, worst of all for me:  no journaling.  I'd kept a journal since I was 11 years old and couldn't imagine missing ten days.

     As if the rules of the place weren't tough enough, I upped the difficulty-factor exponentially by getting into some poison ivy the day before I left.  I had welts all over one side of my body.  

      In spite of physical challenges, a chatty nature, and an overall lack of discipline, I was determined to stick to the rules.  I hoped I'd experience deep peace, serenity and, perhaps, total enlightenment.  

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    After an initial orientation session we settled into a daily routine:  We were woken by someone walking around the retreat center banging a gong.   I remember that first morning, thinking the gong sounded very beautiful; so deep and resonant.  But I figured it must be a call to some special monks or workers at the center, and rolled over to sleep some more.  Then I realized everyone else in the women's dormitory was getting up and getting dressed.  

     It was 4 o'clock in the morning.  

     I began having fantasies of making hand gestures at the gong guy.  Later, I made elaborate plans to bind and gag him and throw him in a closet.  The fantasies grew steadily more vivid and malicious as the retreat wore on. 

     Clearly, I was growing spiritually. 

     We started each day by meditating for two hours, followed by breakfast.   

     The food was all vegetarian and, actually, really tasty.  I barely noticed the lack of meat.  But, eating in silence took some getting used to.  Listening to everyone chew, and swallow, and breath, without commenting that the food was good, or the weather was nice, was just plain weird.  

     We meditated 12 hours per day, broken up only slightly by meals and instruction.  

     There was a short question and answer session every afternoon.  This was the one opportunity we had to speak.  Unfortunately, it made me realize that a)  I'd quickly forgotten how to speak, and b)  The only question I had, if I could remember how to speak, would have been:  'Can I please go home now?'

    During the instructional sessions we watched videos on how to focus on our breathing to quiet the mind and let us embrace stillness and inner peace.  Or, ya know, something like that...  

     Being the highly-evolved person I am, I mainly kept noticing the Indian lecturer repeating the word 'equanimous'.  I wanted to regain my power of speech and yell:  "Yo!  Guru-dude!  Equanimous is not a word!*"

     Sadly, that was higher up the scale of spiritually-evolved thoughts than most I had during the retreat.  

     The idea was that you would focus only on the air entering and leaving your nostrils.  It was supposed to free you from thought.  

     Unfortunately, I was not freed from thought.  My thoughts went ape-shit (not a term I learned at the retreat) on me.

     You'd be surprised at all the crazy tricks your brain will play if you let it get bored enough.  I worried a lot.  I cried a lot.  (Which I later found was very upsetting for my fellow meditators.)  I played little mind movies to entertain myself.  I'd mentally sing my way through many a Broadway show, go through entire albums, and books, recite poetry...  

     Sometimes my brain would just start throwing random images up, most of them truly terrifying.  I'd see panthers leaping at me out of jungle foliage, snakes poised to strike, feel spiders crawling on me...  I'd try to distract from the scary stuff by counting to a hundred,...about a million times.  I rehashed everything I could remember about my life to that point.  And still the sessions wouldn't be over.  Of course, all of my thoughts, memories, and scary visions were interspersed liberally with my mind screaming:  "I'm itchy!  I'm itchy!  I'm itchy!" 

        By bedtime at 9:30 p.m. I was exhausted, and would fall asleep instantly.  It always seemed like I'd been in bed only an hour or two when it started all over again the next day...with more homicidal fantasies about the gong ringer.

     So, I learned a lot:  Mainly that I hate meditation retreats, silent meals, and gongs being rung at 4 a.m.

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     About a decade later I read Melissa Gilbert's book 'Eat, Love, Pray'.  She mentions a compound in India near the one where she was practicing meditation.  She said this nearby retreat was "the extreme sports version of meditation—called Vipassana.  You sit perfectly still for several hours at a time, not allowed to shift or move or scratch…nothing for the duration.  Furthermore, you don’t get a mantra to focus on, for that is considered cheating."

     And which retreat was I at?  You guessed it, the very same kind she mentioned, a Vipissana Meditation Retreat.

     At the end of the ten days our on-sight meditation master guy, knowing I'd had a tough time, told me:  "Every retreat is different.  You will have a totally different experience next time." 

     Next time?  Right.

     The main benefit I got was a nearly fool-proof way to relax enough to fall asleep, and, at first, a strong desire to avoid the meditation process completely. 

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     But, through the years, I have come back to meditating.  I guess I worked all the scary stuff out of the dark corners of my psyche.  Now when I meditate I feel incredible peace and calm.    

     I read a list of '100 Benefits to Meditation."  The ones that I have experienced most for myself are overall feelings of relaxation, it elevates my mood, helps me focus, increases creativity and productivity, helps me live in the present moment, and decreases my tendency to worry. 

     It also gives me a sense that time is slower, that things aren't rushing by so fast.   I feel more centered when I'm meditating regularly.  

     I've always liked the quote by Diana Robinson:  "Prayer is when you talk to God; meditation is when you listen to God."

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     After attending a 10-day session you get the status of 'old student', and can elect to go back for retreats as short as 3 days.  

     Meditation is now a positive part of my life, and maybe the Vipassana Retreat helped me get here, but the thought of going back isn't any more appealing now than it was when I finished the course.  

     Unless, maybe, I could be the returning student who gets to ring the gong.   

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*A reader pointed out that equanimous actually is a word.
And here I've been holding it against this guy all these years.
Not only am I petty, but I'm petty and ill-informed.
Enlightenment may be a few more lifetimes away.
*sigh*