Today, as I got in my car to leave the Blanton’s parking lot, a voice shouted from outside my driver’s window. “Excuse me! Excuse me!” A middle aged woman ran up to my open window. “I was just over at the thrift store. Did I hear you talking about staying silent for 10 days? That’s amazing. I’m camping alone right now, and I think I’m going to turn off my phone for the day.”
We chatted and I wished her the best on her own endeavors, once again entering back into this separate space, a world within the world, where no one here can follow.
This weekend, I am headed to Camp Sawtooth, ID. For lack of a better word, I keep describing it as a retreat. And it most certainly is, in the definitive sense. I am withdrawing from practically every. last. thing. When I reach those doors on Monday afternoon, I will be turning over my cell phone, leaving wallet, music, pens, paper, books, and any other crutches behind me. For ten days, not only will I not talk, but I will instead be attempting the art of meditation for 10 hours each one of those days.
I’d learned about Vipassana centers a few years ago, while working on the farm in Chehalis. Ever since, the idea of challenging myself in that way always seemed inevitable. When I moved out to Packwood, I began to toy with the thought of using such an opportunity as a way to transition when I would finally have to leave my mountain home. The vague imagery of it seemed to fit like a pretty picture; finish a demanding job. Go sit quietly. Come to my new life with a clear mind.
Nearly everyone that I’ve told of my upcoming trip has had a similarly enthused reaction as the woman in the parking lot, quickly followed by “Well, I could never…”
This simultaneously strikes fear into my heart, wondering whether or not I’m crazy then, for jumping in so off-handedly, while also wondering what prompts people to say that?
I’m sure that when I first heard of the retreat, I thought “I don’t know if I could…” or “I wonder if I could…” but here I am.
I’m terrified and anxious, but I’m still moving.
It’s fascinating to me, that so many pull off any number of challenging tasks in their daily lives, and yet when presented with the idea of stillness, it seems harder than the hardest marathon. And we crave it. As soon as that woman had overheard of my pledge, she noticed what she herself wanted.
Hippie-dippie admittance #1: I’ve never meditated traditionally for more than a half hour at a time in my entire life. And in recent times, I’ve not even been practicing active meditation in the form of yoga etc. But when in charge of my own life, I have a habit of overthinking, getting restless for other things I could be doing, feeling the need to exert some sort of expression…and everything is at my fingertips to distract or otherwise do so.
But by going to this center, I’ve very literally surrendered that option. And in so doing, will hopefully learn to surrender more beneficially in mind and body, beyond the confines of these 10 days.
I have no greater expectation. I don’t expect to reach some sort of egoless enlightenment or become disinterested in all material joys of life. I don’t expect it to be as simple as sitting and sleeping. I don’t expect it to be as impossible as it feels right now, either. But by the very act of going into this, I am surrendering myself to the possibility of the sole present moment. And so I hope to emerge more attentive to that, and with less of the type of mind noise that creates those very thoughts like “well, I could never…”
No comments:
Post a Comment