I save money and make time for a retreat every year. It is the equivalent of other people’s holiday overseas, but mine is local and much cheaper. These treats are precious ‘me ‘time. They provide:
A time to distance from family
A break from responsibilities
A period of rest and healing
A time of intense practice
Practicing as an ordinary, laywoman is very tough. Every bit of support, retreat time, study time and teacher time is something I either had to fight or pay dearly.
Usually, it’s a 5- or 10-day retreat and every moment is precious. I don’t waste them wallowing in self-pity or off chasing fantasies. Every waking moment is training in mindfulness and kindness. Most importantly, training in jhana (the one-pointedness of awareness.
Typically, I get up at 4am, shower to wake myself up. Go to the mess hall to make myself a cup of coffee, all in slow, mindful movements. By 5 I’m sitting on the cushion in the meditation hall. If it’s a day that I don’t have kitchen duties, then I would miss either breakfast or lunch and keep sitting.
That particular day: I sat
Incredible boredom: I sat
Restlessness, itchiness: I sat
Loud noise, sudden cough: I sat
Breakfast come: I sat
Lunch finished: I sat
All these hindrances of boredom, drowsiness, restlessness, the thinking mind, not knowing what to do; are very familiar. I know when they are there, so what. I’ve seen and experienced them many times over the years before.
Same old, same old.
I would drop my shoulders, shake them and keep a bare awareness. If the pain in my leg or back became too much, I would shift the body very slowly while keeping the head still. Time goes by. People come in, people go out; they sneeze, cough, and snore
Same old, same old.
Normally I would practice jhana but on this particular day, I wanted to experiment and follow the black screen to its Nth degree. Around the 4-hour mark, the body settled in and completely disappeared. This meant I didn’t feel it anymore. When Ajahn made a joke, like he usually did, I would laugh but my mouth didn’t move. I would move but my body was a rock.
This is when I realized what the Buddha meant when he said
‘…mind made(body), complete in all its parts…”~DN9 .
This means, our mind is not somewhere in the brain or a phantom in the astral; our mind is in every cell, every atom and it has body parts like the body.
At this stage there is no breath; it is not detectable. However, the heart rate by way of chest sensation is perceivable. I can control the heart rate by the mind’s breath. For example, if I stopped breathing in my mind and my attention was focused on the heart, then it stopped beating also. When I did this, the heart rate was all over the place; not as rhythmic as it’s meant to be.
Bad mistake.
Here is a danger warning.
Don’t focus on the heart. I and others also have a bad habit of scanning the body every now and again. This is due to our attachment to the body. When the body disappears, let it be.
Sustain the awareness of the present moment.
After many scary experiences of focusing on the heart, I learned to leave it alone and be present to what the awareness is watching. Lights started to appear. Many different coloured lights, of all shapes and sizes. There are the twinkly little white ones, glowing yellow ones, white zig-zaggy ones but the most playful and funny are the twirling purple ones. One was actually bubbling, bobbling right in front of me and getting closer.
And then:
Right in the centre of that colourful display of lights was a big perfect circle of glowing bluish/white light. It’s rim was the blackest of black centres. My attention was now mesmerized on this glowing rim black centre circle.
This is when someone sitting in the front decided to poke me on the arm, saying that I would miss lunch if I didn’t come out. She had the best of intentions, but it was a careless thing to do. Every touch on my skin felt like volts of electric current running from the arm, straight to the heart. It felt like I’m having a mini stroke.
I terminated the experience by moving my fingers and very slowly coming out of it.
Please do not touch people when they are meditating. Speaking gently is ok because sound is perceivable.
This experience is not jhana. It is more of inter dimensional mind travel of the jhana realms. Heavenly realms are the presence of heavenly beings of coloured light. The glowing rim of white light is the gate into the immaterial realm; that blackest of black centre. Rupa Jhana and the arupa state of mind are completely different.
Also, it is important to point out that the after effect of sitting for an 8 hr event, is that the joy and energy surge is fantastic. It was like I wanted to fly and that night I couldn’t sleep.
I can’t stress enough how crucial going to retreat is. If nibbana(enlightenment) is our goal, then we’ll arrange and make time. In comparison, practicing in the market, meaning in ordinary life with family and mortgages, retreats are more like months of training in the gym. Half an hour daily meditation, mindfulness and metta are like sweeping the floor tidy, while retreat is like seeing the whole floor disappear.