One of the key points of the weekend that we kept circling back to, which I found especially helpful to me personally, was the importance of working with ourselves gently and kindly, and learning to give ourselves unconditional love. In the home I grew up in I experienced a lot of cruelty, psychological and emotional abuse, and trauma. Basically the cruel voice that I experienced at home was internalized, and became my own cruel inner voice, which I have had to work very hard as an adult to try to unlearn. It has shown up in my life in various ways, all of which are rooted in the same issue of self-judgment: as fear of making mistakes; as perfectionism and OCD tendencies; as anxiety and overthinking, overplanning, and overanalyzing; as social anxiety for fear of being judged; as anxiety and fear of the future related to my career goals, and on and on I could go. Long story short, the home I grew up in was not safe, and I learned all the unhelpful habits mentioned above as ways to try to keep myself safe. Unlearning these very deeply ingrained patterns rooted in childhood has not been easy, and it has taken most of my 30s to see real change and at least some improvement. To be clear, the issues and struggles are still there, but they do not cut into me with the same intensity, they are not as “big”, they do not control me in the same way, and overall I am just a stronger and happier person. Part of me is just so surprised that I was actually able to do this. Making progress has given me some sense of, “OK, wow, I’m actually doing this. I can do this. I can be happier”, and this initial success is probably part of the reason why I was drawn to meditation and to attend this retreat in the first place, that is, as a tool and way to go even deeper into understanding myself and why I suffer. The upside is that for the first time in my life I am realizing that I have the power to break out of the self-judgment that has for so long been my prisoner, that I am the one who gets to choose whether or not to fuel the self-judgement, that I am responsible for whether or not I suffer. I believe in a Buddhist context they would say something like “the cause of suffering is not outside of ourselves”, which Rebecca touched upon last weekend in her talk on the four noble truths. It very empowering to know that we get to choose whether or not we suffer, that we our responsible for our own happiness, not others or the external world, which is usually where the blame goes, as Rebecca pointed out (“I hate my boss”, “My parents are the reason for all my problems”, “If only my wife did so and so I’d be happier”). So the recurring theme of self-love and kindness that ran through the weekend was definitely something that resonated with me personally, and that I am choosing to focus on in my retreat reflection, because it is the main thing that I have been working on growing and developing in my adult life in order to heal very deep wounds from my past.
I was self-conscious about using a chair, but on Saturday morning Rebecca emphasized that it’s not about the practice looking a certain way or taking a certain form (like sitting crosslegged), and to remember that it is your practice and that you must find what works for you. She even said that her teacher, Simon Child, was never able to sit crosslegged, which instantly made me feel better! Rebecca also said that the kindness and unconditional love we give ourselves is more important than the meditation itself. She pointed out that the method is inherently meaningless and is just a way to discover our own reactivities, where discovering and unlearning these reactivities with gentleness and kindness is more important than being a “good meditator” or meditating the “right” way. As she said, it’s about reducing suffering, not meditating to get an A+. I think at one point she said something like, “In meditation there is no goal or nothing to achieve. It is not a race. Who are you racing against? Yourself.” With the aim instead being to learn about ourselves, we then learn to treat ourselves better, which causes a kind of ripple effect to our loved ones and those around us. This theme showed up again on Saturday night when Rebecca explained why we practice, which in Chan is different from other traditions and forms of meditation. Basically, it’s not about creating certain mind-states, where even blissful experiences of oneness have limited value, since these do not last and we always come back down into the world, back into a world where we suffer and cause suffering to others. She explained how Shakyamuni Buddha himself discovered this after mastering the various schools and methods of his time, but none of these ultimately got rid of suffering. So in the same vein as the Buddha, the reason why we practice is liberation from suffering, and this intention is directly tied to the four noble truths, as Rebecca explained.
When examining my own suffering, I have learned that I make my life much harder than it needs to be, something that Rebecca pointed out to us on Saturday, which definitely rang true for me! As she said during the “art of seeing” workshop, we fight against the realities we construct for ourselves when we project our own concepts, labels, and descriptions onto the world, but when seen clearly, we are actually just fighting against “air”–there is nothing there! For example, one of the major “things” I fight against in my life is chores, tasks, my “to do” list, as if these mental constructs are real, solid entities. Little things for me can become very big triggers, things to resist and have an aversion to, even though when seen clearly it is really just the idea of doing the task that is the problem for me, not the actual task itself. And of course the idea of it is wrapped up in so many layers of self-judgement and personal childhood issues that are being projected onto the thing. For example, I remember I need to wash the dishes, which triggers resistance, anger, and so on. I now know that this resistance and aversion is rooted in having very cruel and controlling adults in my home who were hyper critical and judgemental of every move I made in the kitchen, standing over my shoulder and breathinging down my neck checking for mistakes. So my aversion now is a kind of avoidance and attempt to not re-experience those same feelings. But guess what? There is no one standing over my shoulder now. It is just me standing there in the kitchen. So who or what am I fighting against? It is just air, as Rebecca said. That person from my past is not here. This is a brand new moment. I have never washed these dishes before. Although I have past-programming on how I relate to doing dishes, I get to choose how to see the dishes now. Wow, what a revelation! And as we learned in the workshop, it’s not just things in the world we do this to, we do this to each other when we project onto other people our distorted view of who we think they are. But as we learned, a beginner’s mind reminds us to drop our personal filters and labels and instead open up to the people actually standing there in front of us in that moment, and the moment is fluid and always changing. It is a hard thing to do given our tendency to label, put people in boxes, and “freeze” them by assuming they are a certain way and will stay that way forever. I feel it in my own life when people from my past look at me a certain way and do not see how much I have grown, how much I have changed, or the man I’ve become. I can feel it as they project onto me who they think I am, this person from the past they used to know, but in reality is no longer there. It can be quite hurtful at times to not be seen in this way, as Rebecca pointed out during the workshop.
In the context of a silent retreat, it’s funny how our inner dialogues can be amplified in the silence, that is, when we forget to practice staying grounded and embodied in the present moment but instead let our minds and internal chatter take over. This is something I noticed during work practice, where my challenges with self-judgement definitely showed up. My work practice assignment for the weekend was sweeping the porch of the dining hall. Saturday after breakfast when I took my first pass at the porch I immediately noticed how dirty it was, and I thought how the last person assigned this job did not do a very good job as it appeared some areas hadn’t been touched in weeks! Judging the former porch-sweeper is of course an indirect judgement on myself–I will do a better job than the last guy because I am a perfectionist with OCD tendencies and I can make this porch cleaner than it’s been all summer! It also comes back to fear of making mistakes, and I did at one point accidentally sweep off a spider’s web which triggered a wrenching pit in my stomach like, “Oh no, this is a Buddhist space and I may have just hurt that spider…What if the monks saw that?” My porch sweeping challenges were also wrapped up in seeking approval and validation, that someone would notice how good of a job I did, which after two or three passes I must say that porch was looking spick and span! The approval seeking showed up in other ways over the weekend as well. For example, “Did they notice I closed the door lightly enough?” “Did they notice that I cleaned my bowl all the way before putting it in the dish pile?” “Did the teacher and her helpers see that I was sitting properly and taking their instruction?” As the weekend went on the feeling of someone watching me–that same feeling I have in life as if someone is always watching and judging me–was revealed to be more and more delusional, false, and plainly ridiculous because, in the context of a silent retreat with no social interaction, there was in reality actually no one watching me! As I paid more attention, it became clear that no one was watching anything I was doing all weekend due to the rules of the retreat, it was just me! It was totally 100% just me sweeping the porch and absolutely not a single person was noticing how good of a job I did. It was an interesting realization and shined the light even brighter on how I am my own worst critic, how I am the only one judging myself, how that cruel voice I learned and internalized in childhood still lingers.
On Sunday we practiced metta meditation, and unlike the other retreatants who shared that they had a hard time extending loving-kindness to people they hate, I found that I actually had the hardest time with the first part of the exercise, that is, giving it to myself. It was a bit of a surprise because this is something I’ve been working on for years now, and although I was able to do it to some degree during the metta meditation, it was definitely more challenging than extending the loving-kindness in the fourth stage of the exercise. I actually struggled to even pick a person in that last step, and it took a while to choose someone because even my abusers I feel totally different towards now and have forgiven them, whereas five years ago I can honestly say that I hated them! So going into the metta meditation it was not like I had true hatred towards anyone, and Rebecca suggested if this is the case then to just go with someone who annoys you, and I certainly still have plenty of those people left in my life! Because the rest of the group was so intent on and curious about how to handle the fourth step, I did not want to steer the conversation away from their questions, so I did not share my experience. But when I reflect on it now it brings back something a very dear teacher and friend of mine said to me a few years ago, “You know how to be kind to everybody else but yourself.” Based on how the metta meditation went, it seems I still have a ways to go with this key life lesson, that is, with learning unconditional self-love.
I had started to write a much longer, more in depth reflection of the retreat but it started to grow and snowball into something else, kind of a wider reflection on my whole spiritual path and journey. Basically as I started to write and reflect on the retreat, it became impossible for me to separate the retreat experience from the path that brought me there, from things I’ve learned from other teachers and traditions, from things I’ve learned about myself, from experiences I’ve had, and from the little bit of Chan teachings I’ve read about. So my retreat report kind of turned into an integration and synthesis of all those different elements, where I found tying them together was the best way for me to get the most out of the experience. I plan to pick that bigger writing project up in the future, especially as I start to practice more and integrate what I learned last weekend into my daily life, but for now I think one key thing I need to remind myself is that reading or writing about the practice is not the actual practice itself. As Rebecca said this weekend, the practice is not about the words or getting the words right (and she is an academic), something especially emphasized in the Chan tradition. As a cerebral person myself, this is definitely a challenge for me. The practice is simply to stay with the changing sensations of the body/mind in the present moment, to gently maintain contact with the present moment, and to not make it a “thing” that we either crave/desire or hate/have aversion to. It is basically maintaining clear awareness in whatever we do, moment to moment, without reacting in ways that cause suffering. After the retreat I feel motivated and inspired to keep going, to keep learning about myself and practicing, so that I can continue to learn how to treat myself better and in turn those around me, which is really the whole point–it is a “win-win.”
I am grateful to Rebecca, her student helpers, the group, and all the people at DDRC for making last weekend possible and for creating a space in which we can practice together. It is extremely rare to have these opportunities, as Rebecca pointed out to us on Saturday, so I realize what a blessing and gift that experience was, and I am truly grateful to all of the people that made it happen. Thank you!
