7 Lessons From a 7-Day Silent Retreat

Recent reflections

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Last week, I had the privilege of attending a 7-day Vipassana silent meditation retreat, tucked away in the golden hills of Northern California with 90 other meditators. Days started at 5:30am and ended at 9pm, alternating 45 minute periods of sitting and (veeeeeery, very slow) walking meditation. It’s wild to think that I just got home a few days ago, and my mind has already adjusted back (mostly) to the speed of normal life, to the stimulation, the rigidity of a busy work day. I’m still processing and integrating the insights that came through during this special time, but I wanted to share with you some zoomed-out takeaways that rung true for me. It’s hard to describe, as these weren’t conceptual understandings, but deep, somatic, intuitive inner-knowings. They feel a bit more foggy now, a bit more grey, but when I settle back into stillness before the day begins, I see that they’re still there. I hope they feel like medicine to you, too:

1. Everything that arises, passes away. Absolutely everything. Especially when we’re experiencing a more challenging, unpleasant emotion or experience, it’s so easy to create stories from this place. Oh I’m feeling unmotivated today? Guess that means my career is over and I need to completely uproot everything I’ve done thus far. And then, days later, weeks later, the stagnancy passes and you’re back to feeling inspired again. Or when we have physical or emotional pain and we think, when will this go away? Make it stop! And we build further tension around it because we fear it’ll never pass or at least change in some way - and then it does. It always does. Imperfectly reminding myself of the impermanent nature of everything, the pleasant and the unpleasant, allows me to cherish the pleasant more, and not get so intertwined with the unpleasant. That doesn’t mean it’s not hard, and we’re not still feeling very human emotions, but we can remove the extra layer of tension that arises by thinking it’s permanent.

2. Everything is mindfulness. Our closing session at the retreat, the wrap-up meeting to transition us back into the world, was entitled ‘Mindfulness as daily living,’ and one of our teachers reframed it to: ‘Mindfulness is daily living.’ Not in an intense, super serious way, that we need to always be hyper-focused on the present. But rather, in a relieving way, that there’s no difference between sitting on the cushion and driving to work, talking to a friend, vacuuming your apartment. It’s all a continuation of the practice of paying attention. We’re practicing all the time, so we’re always doing enough.

3. This is what’s happening now. I’ve been silently repeating this to myself throughout the day when little obstacles pop up. Buddhist teacher Gil Fronsdal says that equanimity is, this is what’s happening now, let’s see what happens next. This acknowledges that there is a next, that things will change. Acknowledging the reality of the moment doesn’t feed into passivity or inaction - it allows us to see the present moment with clear eyes, with less inner tension so we can move forward. I had this moment last week, on a misty morning where the fog was like a brushstroke across the hills, and was so in awe of everything I was seeing. I had this indescribable moment of, this moment will never happen the same way ever again. The fog will be different, the trees will be different, I’ll be different. No moment happens the same way ever again, and I just felt so lucky to be able to witness this one.

   

4. The goal isn’t to make our harsh inner voice go away, but to relate to it with more kindness. That voice will be there. The voice that worries if you turned the stove off for the 18th time, the voice that ruminates on whether you said the right thing. The practice is noticing that voice without immediately believing it, but being lovingly curious about it, and then gently redirecting our focus without beating ourselves up for having that thought in the first place. Not desperately trying to achieve a state of ‘perfection,’ but remembering that whatever is arising isn’t wrong, it just is.

5. We’re the primary benefactors of our own goodwill. Aka, it feels damn good to be compassionate. When we send well wishes to others, to a dear friend that’s suffering, to a group of people across the globe, to all beings on this planet - we’re receiving those warm wishes, too. We’re evoking lovingkindness within ourselves.

6. Nothing is personal (or perfect, or permanent). I often think about ‘nothing is personal’ from the lens of, we’re all experiencing and seeing the world and our interactions through the lens of our own belief systems, fears, etc. Yes, that, and this retreat expanded my definition of it. Being a person can be really hard sometimes. Our bodies get sick and ache, we feel anger, sadness, confusion. These aren’t personal experiences, they’re universal experiences, they’re human experiences - and they happen because that’s what happens when we’re living in these human bodies - even when we do all the ‘right’ things.

7. We’re always changing, and we’re supposed to. A more micro-example of this: I sometimes get spooked about the idea of writing, the idea of there being a fixed, frozen-in-time snapshot of what I was thinking at that point in life. What if I change my mind? It feels like such a relief to remember, well, I will change. Whatever I write is just a snapshot of who I was at that moment, and it will change. What a relief that I don’t need to decide who I am or fearfully grip onto any version of myself.

Journaling prompts

• Do any of the lessons above resonate with you?

• What would it look like to bring this lesson into your life?

• How can you be more gentle with yourself today?

Thank you for being here, exactly as you are, and for being curious about my journey ♡ see you next week for our monthly meditation - I’ll be bringing in some of the practices that I learned on my retreat!

With warmth,

Meg