Tales of retreat from a Buddhist Jew
I was born Jewish but found the philosophy rather difficult to apply to real life and so I turned to meditation and Buddhist philosophy 5 years ago following my divorce. At this point I feel I must confess I am, in fact, a meat eating (free range!) Buddhist and so not really a Buddhist but rather a free range meat eating Jewish born woman who studies Buddhist philosophy and meditation but you know what I mean.
I shall spare you the length and depth of the story from my divorce until now but let’s just say (true to form of not doing anything half heartedly) that I decided to sign up for the advanced silent retreat at the Nan Hua Buddhist temple in Bronkhorstspruit. I have climbed many literal and figurative mountains and cycled across them so thought, rather flippantly, that sitting on a cushion for 5 days would be … well like sitting on a cusion for 5 days. Let me say that if I knew you needed a solid set of balls for climbing mountains, I sincerely underestimated the fact that you needed them more for 5 days in silence with yourself!
I arrived at the temple on Monday and was given my seminary uniform as worn by those studying Buddhism at the temple. It consisted of a light blue set of loose pants with an over sized long sleeved cotton shirt that reaches down to your knees. It proved rather impractical for meal times and toilet breaks but I shall spare you those details and leave them to your fine imagination.
All was fine and dandy after the first meditation session until dinner. If I did not know that Buddhists were not prone to killing anything, I would’ve thought myself the subject of an evil ettempt on my life. Someone placed a bowl of unsuspecting green beans next to the rice and I gladly dished out a sizeable serving (a girl’s gotta eat you know) only to discover that they weren’t green beans but rather a scret weapon left over from the cold war; Chilli’s! And not just any chilli’s but the deadliest of deadly ones. Although meals are eaten in silence (to promote attention on and awareness of the food) my insides were screaming “intruder altert” and trying to extracate the offender via my nose, eyes and mouth. My fellow retreatants (all 15 Chinese and 3 white) thought it rather amusing and could not hide their mirth.
Mental note to self: Do NOT under any circumstances help yourself to food of which you are not aware either of the origin or in fact the specific identification thereof. This proved a little difficult and most meals consisted of various tofu in various shapes and forms; stir fried tofu strips, minced tofu, tofu nuggets, dried tofu, tofu soup, tofu sushi….Thankfully I was spared from the chilli tofu by my supreme sensing abilities developed on day 1! Breakfast even consisted of tofu in various forms along with rice soup (yes it IS as bad as it sounds) and stir fried carrots, broccoli, fruit and peanuts. I might’ve professed to mastering the art of chop sticks if it weren’t for those little bastard peanuts. Picture everyong situated in rows with the masters in the front row. Then picture flying peanuts trying to escape my clutches and ending up in the masters robes. Not funny!! Otherwise meal times proved a chance to just enjoy being with my food and my body as I am want to do. I am especially fond of sticky rice and looked forward to meal times of sticky rice and minced tofu.
The word retreat may conjure serene images of Zen masters meditating amidst doves and indeed there were 4 such masters on the retreat however the picture of the retreatants proved somewhat different. Our daily programme was;
- 5h30am wake up
- 06h00 breakfast
- 08h00 tea meditation (for an hour you get to master the art of drinking tea whilst one of the masters explains the philosophy of tea meditation)
- 09h00 3 hours walking and sitting meditation (walking meditation consists of walking in a 2m circule radius and keeping your attention focused on the body)
- 12h00 lunch
- 14h00 tai chi and walking meditation
- 15h00 sitting meditation
- 16h00 shower
- 17h00 sitting meditation
- 18h00 dinner (On the programme they wrote “slop” and I suspect they meant soup as dinner always included cabbage soup)
- 19h00 Dharma talk which is a talk on Buddhism and meditation practice
- 20h00 Sitting meditation
- 21h00 Bed
This is the daily schedule everyday. I might sound rather peaceful but if you’ve ever tried to ‘be with yourself’ for more than 5 minutes you will know how challenging it is. In fact every thought and emotion you ever wished not to have will surface. In fact the song stuck in my head on day one was “nowhere to run to baby, nowhere to hide…” This is not necessarily a bad thing. The Buddhist way of teaching is not to run from pain (indeed you cannot as you end up taking it with you) but rather just to become aware of it without judgement. The understanding is that everything is impermanent and doesn’t last (even our bodies) so the minute we get used to that idea and stop trying to find superficial happiness all the time then we settle into the “true nature of ourselves”.
Their whole thing is just to be where you are and acceptance. For us Westerners used to chasing dreams and goals this is very difficult. We’ve always been taught to try and move forward and see ‘standing still’ as either being lazy or non productive.
The truth is that our true nature understands that life is both pleasure and pain. Our true nature is one of stillness; the aim being to experience both pain and pleasure without preference or attachment. Wherever you are, BE there” - it’s as simple and as complex as that. I like this approach because it teaches you, contrary to popular belief, to be IN your life not to escape it. That is, after all, the aim of meditation - a tool for dealing with life.
After the first 3 days I settled into a stillness I can scare describe. It wasnt as if the world ceased to exist or even, the voices in my head for that matter but rather they faded into the background so I was able to hear the truth inside. I had a couple of profound realisations about life and myself and although I shall spare you to the detail of each one, the one I thought most relevant to all of us was that of;
“Can you be in your life and BE in your life? Can you be in your life and realise that you are not OF it?”
It means can you be in your life and really be where you are without finding a million ways to escape yourself (we all know those ways so well; working, thinking, ignoring, drugs, alcohol, sex, food, chasing goals, money…in fact most of us are so well versed in escaping ourselves even when we’re sitting still, we’re still running). It also means that further to that, can you realise that your are not defined by what you do and the circumstances of your life. It may sounds like a trivial understanding but I realised now that to know something and to KNOW it are two very different things.
Each time I come back from a trip I have this expectation that everything will be different. For the first time I cam back without that expectation and a deep contentment that, that is how it is.
So I’m back. Nothing’s changed and yet I feel like I’ve changed my world merely through my own perception. I find the only way to describe it is a sense of tender and shaky compassion towards myself and others.
If you’re really serious about learning to love yourself then give yourself the gift of silence and peaceful contemplation each and every day. And then again just like the Zen master would say if you’re serious about life, don’t take life too seriously!
Lisa
Lisa is the founder of Life Inc. She teaches guided meditation and likes a solid helping of free range lamb curry every now and then. (She’s not partial to tofu)!
