I recently returned home from my first 10 day silent Vipassana meditation retreat. It’s hard to say exactly what compelled me to go as I think often our spiritual draws come from a place outside of the rational, conscious mind, but I do remember Ben, Jeremy and Brigid, friends I so deeply respect, talking about profound transformations occurring through their sitting silence.
Profound transformation sounded nice, so I thought, ‘why not!’ My ego made profound transformation mean bliss, peace, serenity, perhaps even white lights and feelings of oneness —all that good stuff that they talk about in the spiritual books! But by day nine, when my mind was still screaming, ‘why are you doing this??? Think of all the things you could be doing if you were at Home! You should be working, doing doing doing, not sitting, sitting, sitting….” I went crying to the teacher, “It’s day nine and the meditation still isn’t working, my mind is louder than ever!” The teacher looked at me softly and said, “The meditation is working perfectly, you’re exactly where you need to be, recognize your craving for something different, your aversion to what it is, recognize that this is causing your suffering, not the actual circumstances in themselves….”
Profound transformation sounded nice, so I thought, ‘why not!’ My ego made profound transformation mean bliss, peace, serenity, perhaps even white lights and feelings of oneness —all that good stuff that they talk about in the spiritual books! But by day nine, when my mind was still screaming, ‘why are you doing this??? Think of all the things you could be doing if you were at Home! You should be working, doing doing doing, not sitting, sitting, sitting….” I went crying to the teacher, “It’s day nine and the meditation still isn’t working, my mind is louder than ever!” The teacher looked at me softly and said, “The meditation is working perfectly, you’re exactly where you need to be, recognize your craving for something different, your aversion to what it is, recognize that this is causing your suffering, not the actual circumstances in themselves….”
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