Reflections on the Power of Silent Meditation Retreats by Scott Francis

"Silent retreats are a kind of crucible that reveal the workings of the mind in a unique and illuminating way." James Baraz

Often someone will ask me what a silent meditation retreat is like and upon hearing my response they tend to cringe. Given how different retreats are from our normal lives this response is completely understandable. The typical structure of a silent retreat is alternating seated meditation (45min) with walking meditation (30min), from 5:30 am to 9:30pm with three meal breaks and a yogi job every day. There is also a Dharma discourse each evening, which illuminates different facets of the Buddha's teachings and inspires students with warm words of insight, humor, strength and kindness. The entire structure and teachings are held in the supported container of Noble Silence. Practitioners are encourage to set aside books, journals, diaries, etc, to help facilitate the process of looking within, seeing truthfully and quieting the mind. The retreat environment is repetitive and structured; and it is really this simple, and minimal. Initially this type of experience seems to go against the natural tendencies of our daily lives and when we enter this setting for the first time the busy-ness of our minds rebels against the structure. Our conditioned patterns and habits surface and within the silence and focus of the retreat our awareness to them becomes heightened as well as our potential to move beyond them.

In my experience silent meditation retreats offer a balance between understanding and transforming personal issues and awakening to universal truths. The crucible aspect of retreats is created by this relationship between our conditioning and pure awareness, which guides the natural flow of life. Pure awareness is not conditioned and to meditate is to incline ourselves toward pure awareness. Our conditioning that arises so clearly in retreat experiences can create a friction with this natural flow and in the heat of this friction we can experience healing, insight and wisdom. Over time, and maybe more than several retreats, we begin to see that the retreat structure is intended to allow for the wholesome factors of mind to awaken and become a natural aspect of our way of being. On retreat wholesome states awaken such as concentration, energy, tranquility, generosity, calm and mindfulness. When we become aware of our ability to rest in these states our attitude toward the retreat setting can shift quite dramatically. Resistance can evolve into gratitude for the amazing opportunity that the retreat environment creates. At the place where we stop resisting the retreat setting and realize the magic, it becomes a place where insights, openings and miracles begin to deeply impact our everyday lives.

Twenty years ago I ventured off to do my first silent meditation retreat with Jack Kornfield and James Baraz at a retreat center in Joshua Tree, Ca. At this point I had read one book on Buddhism and had tried meditating on my own a handful of times. The closest connection I had to meditation was hearing about the experiences my brother, Mark, had on silent retreats. I dove into my first retreat very naïve, enthusiastic and curious about how a silent retreat could deepen my connection to life and bring more depth of understanding to the things that were most important to me. Having recently returned from a silent meditation retreat I have been reflecting on all the ways in which retreats have influenced the direction of my life. I have to say that my experiences on retreat have rippled out into every aspect of my life and what follows are a few thoughts about some of the more significant ways.

Committing to a Spiritual Path:

When I went off to participate in my first retreat I knew nothing about the teachers, teachings or the community I was entering into. I often reflect back on how crazy this was, but at the same time there was courage and willingness to dive in and just go for it. The first night of the retreat, during the Dharma talk I knew I had stumbled upon something really amazing. Although I had a lot of fear the words I heard during the talk somehow seemed very familiar to me, like I already knew them somehow. After the retreat I realized my fears were mostly around exploring something new and unknown, putting myself in a place of vulnerability, trusting people I didn't know, being in an unfamiliar environment, delving into spirit and trusting an unknown process; all of which were true, but my mind made them bigger than they needed to be. Fortunately my gut and heart were leading me through this experience and they won out.

After 7 years of practice I decided to make a lifelong commitment to this path, these teachers and this community as a means for my own growth and evolution. This decision brought me into a place of deep settling, feeling internally grounded and anchored. I've often heard friends tell me that after getting married they feel an amazing sense of being able to relax because they have found their life partner and they no longer need to be searching. This is similar to finding our spiritual compass, whatever that might be for us, we release the energy of searching and relax into the grounded nature of the union. Of course like a marriage it is the beginning of a new stage of learning and evolving, but the restless energy of searching fades off. After making the decision to commit to this spiritual path and experiencing the fullness of my commitment, I began to see and experience that my worldly activities: career, relationships, family began to feel more real, meaningful, connected, understandable and joyful. The grounding of my inner spiritual compass began to ripple out and create a current of ease in the other areas of my life even when they were challenging, tumultuous, and sometimes painful. The grounded-ness, insights and tools that my spiritual practice cultivated were expanding into my daily interests and bringing a more meaningful connection to them. Without this internal alignment we can experience a sort of festering restlessness, detached fogginess, obsessively saturated, imbalanced attachment to things in our everyday life. The teachings of an authentic spiritual path and collective of teachers can show us that there is something far greater than ourselves that is driving this train we are on and can give us some very helpful tools and insights so we can play the game of life with more skill, ease and more connectivity. I consider the retreat setting essential for exploring, trusting and committing to a spiritual path. Spiritual traditions throughout the World, throughout time have always integrated retreats as an important aspect of their teachings like a magical doorway to help access the sacred within, so we can live a richer more connected life.

Staying aligned to what is meaningful:

At age 9 I felt sure I wanted to be an artist/architect which at the time seemed pretty cool, in a naïve sweet way. Looking back I can see how much perseverance and resiliency it has taken to stay true to this intuitive knowing and to pursuing a creative aspect of my life which is very meaningful and fulfilling. Staying true to our intuitive dreams can require a lot of determination. It turns out that determination is one of the 10 Paramitas (perfections of the heart) and can play a significant role in the pursuit of things that are most important to us. Without determination the stumbling, the sidetracking, the obstacles that can obstruct our path can take us completely out of a pursuit or a vision. Determination plays an important role in being able to cut through these obstacles. On a meditation retreat we cultivate determination through shaping the continuity of mindfulness, energy, concentration and awareness itself. It takes resolve to come back to our cushion when we are; tired, bored, not interested, feeling like nothing is happening, experiencing a lot of pain, doubting the process, questioning our motives, caught in the confusion in our minds, etc. These energies that we experience on our mat are not different from what we experience in our relationships, careers, parenting, exercising, etc. For me the fortitude that I discovered on my cushion and my mat has played a significant role in strengthening my determination with my life pursuits while offering me a broad range of insights and tools to navigate the pursuits with love, joy, focus, gratitude, curiosity and happiness. The pursuits that I am most passionate about have stayed quite consistent, but the attitude that I bring to them has shifted quite dramatically from trying/forcing to more being/ease. One of the most powerful aspects of retreat in aiding the factor of determination is the collective energy of the community that is inherent to the retreat setting. When the bell rings and 150 people make their way into the meditation hall to sit, again and again, it becomes evident that this impulsion is like a powerful, gentle, loving force calling us back to remember again and again that we are loving, connected, resilient and forgiving. We, like so many others carry the responsibility of influencing the overall humanness of our totality.

Reflecting on the impact retreats can have on our lives is like looking down at an urban city from 30,000 feet and trying to decide what part to explore first. I've enjoyed starting with a few aspects that I resonate with; Committing to a spiritual path and Staying aligned to what is meaningful and I look forward to sharing my thoughts on others such as Trusting a teacher/Trusting myself, Navigating pain in the body, The power of generosity, The healing energy of nature, From solitude to community, Insight vs Metta, Wisdom vs Love, The yogi job, Trust in the sounding of the bell and you'll be free from time, Creativity and Spirituality, Architecture and the Body........and many others that Spark-up like phosphorescent fireflies.