Let us be silent that we may hear the whisper of God…Emerson

For the past two years I’ve participated in a silent meditation retreat offered by the woman who brought Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) to Israel in 2002. It’s a very special time out of time.

My youngest son’s reaction to the concept of such a retreat says alot. After I told him last week that I’d be away again for 4 days in silence, and after a brief pause, he said that he couldn’t remember a time that he was silent for more than 2 hours while awake.

I remember about a decade ago listening to a tape cassette (remember those?) of a lecture given by Sylvia Boorstein about “right speaking”. She had people in the audience raise their hands if they’d broken a bone and then if it was still a source of pain. Then she had people raise their hands if they’d been hurt by other people’s words and then if that was still a source of pain. You can guess what the results were.

In that same tape, she gave an instruction which has stuck with me all this time and which I try to put into practice when I’m mindful enough to remember. The instruction is, before a thought is released into the air with words, to consider what my motivation is – is it good or not-so-good? Maybe it’s to make me look smart or perpetuate some other image I have of myself. Maybe to protect myself from potential  insult or getting hurt in some way. Maybe it’s to persuade someone to adopt my opinion or way of life.

Next – if the motivation is good  – what’s my goal and, given the situation in that moment, is there a possibility of reaching the goal?  Is the other person too angry, sad or stuck to be open to hearing what I have to say? Is there unpressured time to talk? Are there other people around who make it an inappropriate place to express my thoughts?

Someone in the audience said that it would take so long time to get through that process that noone would ever say anything. Her answer? And wouldn’t the extra silence be a wonderful thing?

Would it?

My youngest daughter spent 10 days in a silent meditation retreat in Thailand about five years ago. It was one of those strict silent retreats where people get up at 4 a.m.  to spend the entire day in silent sitting, walking, and working practice. The silence is only broken for a 2-hour chanting meditation practice and, every other day, the possibility of a half hour personal interview with one of the monks. She said that a number of people literally went crazy being left alone with their own thoughts and left the retreat.

As Anne Lamott says, “The mind is like a dangerous neighborhood. I try not to go into it alone.”

In the retreat this year, we broke silence in small groups each evening. It was a time for people to ask very specific questions regarding difficulties or confusion in their direct experience with the meditation retreat. No advice could be offered by other retreatants. No “Oh yeah, that happens to me sometimes and I usually…” Only the group leader commented and only with specific instruction how to deal with whatever issue was raised. Several people in my small group talked about how hard they were finding being alone with their thoughts for hours and hours.

One very articulate, attractive woman said that she’d thought the retreat would be a relaxing, peaceful holiday; that her life is good and her friends were jealous of her getting this special time away. She went on to say that it’s far more relaxing and peaceful at home and at work. She was unpleasantly surprised at how upset and anxious she was every moment of her “special time away”.

At the conclusion of the retreat, this particular woman said that it never got any better.

In most of our lives, should we be lucky enough to have time on our own, how many of us use it to think,  meditate, enjoy nature, to just be with ourselves? There’s iPad, iPod and iPhone. There’s TV, DVD, Kindle, podcasts and games online. There’s Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. There’s shopping and chatting, planning and making lists. And, if all else fails, there’s always the possibility of a well-deserved nap.

I have quite a bit of time to myself. In fact, easily 50% of my waking hours are spent alone. Probably more. I have a daily sitting meditation practice (well, almost daily) but, truth be told, I’m inordinately proud of devoting 20 minutes out of my 17 hour day to sitting on my meditation cushion. Hmm.

Tara Brach said in one of her talks that a famous Indian guru was asked if one has to be Hindu to meditate and his answer was, “I not Hin-du; I un-do.”

Hmmm. 20 minutes out of 17 hours (or 1020 minutes). What percentage of my day is spent in “un-do” mode?

About 2 weeks ago, I had a playlist of Donna de Lory, Jaya Lakshmi , Krishna Das, Lama Gyurme, Wah! and the like  on while doing an hour and a half of yoga and  meditation on my back porch. When I’d gotten my stuff organized to bring in the house, I was in the middle of a beautiful song so I sat down in a chair, put my legs up on a table, closed my eyes and let the sun bake my face and warm my bones while the song finished.

It was a beautiful feeling of “un-do”.

The next song came on. And then the next. And thoughts about the things I’d planned to do next came up.  I let them float by and basked in the un-do of the moment. No thinking. No planning. No doing.

It couldn’t have been more than half an hour until I was once again “on my way to somewhere else”. That place we spend so much time.

Looking back I see how rare that half hour is in my life. I vow to un-do more often and to cherish that time. But I also feel a huge amount of gratitude for the promise that such time holds for me. That I’m not (or at least am no longer) the people who went crazy and left the retreat in Thailand. That the 4-day silent retreat was a peaceful, relaxing holiday for me, though I’d compare it more to a mountain-climbing holiday than a stretch-out on the beach in Ko-Mak.

Some people are born with a natural appreciation for silence and solitude. I’ve nurtured my relationship with silence for the past 20 years. Today I can say that I’ve made good friends with silence. It’s a result of becoming good friends with myself.

LOVE AFTER LOVE

Derek Walcott

 The time will come

When, with elation,

You will greet yourself arriving

At your own door, in your own mirror,

And each will smile at the other’s welcome

and say, sit here.  Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine.  Give bread.  Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you have ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit.  Feast on your life.