I'm out! And I'm back in!

Vipassana. Wow

Day one and two I worked really hard at being in bliss. It still hurt.

By Day three I was out of the bubble and counting the days until it was over.

Day 10 and 11 I really began to appreciate the interim days of
depression and seemingly endless pain. Anu, the Estonian girl who
signed up first and started the four of us on this Vipassana journey,
told me she took three naps a day during the course, skipping some or
all of the non-required meditation sessions. She had three days of
real bliss and came out glowing, smiling, giving hugs and massages.
Prior, I would've described her as the most reserved of our group. I
looked at her, listened to her story, especially the part about
realizing that she wouldn't want to meditate if she was in so much
pain and decided to take it easy on herself, and looked at myself
beating myself up about missing ten minutes of a meditation.

I've learned so much, especially in hindsight. Inside of it, it felt
interminable and like it was already over. Going into it, I knew I
would survive, but Days 3-9 were hard. They did get progressively
easier, with less and less of the day feeling like a prison. My main
thought was to leave Australia, set up shop in Eugene somehow and um,
start living. I'm learning every time I have this thought not to trust
it, to attribute it to ego, since I don't feel I have a home in Eugene
or anywhere. Almost ten days of ego! Argh!

The schedule is strict - 4 am wake up, 2 hrs meditation before brekky,
3 hours after, 4 hours after lunch and 3 hours meditation and
discourse after tea break. It's smartly laid out around the comfort of
meals, with the sessions getting shorter with more breaks as the day
progresses. I looked forward to Goenka's evening discourse each
evening, feeling like it was feeding me exactly what I needed to hear
to help me make it through another day. In the evenings, I went into
the hall dreading being there and half way through the discourse I
would begin smiling and sitting straighter in my understanding and
practice of equanimity. There's nothing like pain to teach you about
impermanence and understanding that good and bad are just labels. I
never got to the point of enjoying my pain, as one of Goenka's
students told him, but I understood it was possible by the end.

The more time I have out of the retreat, the happier I am with the
result. Having space in my mind to simply be - wow! When I do metta
meditation, it's not a matter of bringing love into me, but allowing
it to express itself out of me without censoring the feeling,, or
judging or covering it up with shoulds. It was there all the time!
This is probably the most exciting thing to come out of sitting. Other
things are having the strong determination to have a morning and
evening practice, to be aware of my body and myself in the moment
instead of projecting what I think I should want on myself, realizing
the negative voice in my head is just that - a voice that I don't have
to listen to . How great. I realized I went in with expectations and
pushed myself to meditate more, better, whatever to "get the most out
of this experience." How can you get any more than what you're going
to get? Learning to be gentle on myself - now that's a lesson worth
learning. I'm getting an idea of what it means, and practicing
gentleness and kindness more and more on myself.

The four of us that did this sit have a special energy, a
synchronicity together, an energy that we have that feels so natural,
it's impossible for me to imagine us without it. Other people notice
our energy, and especially noticed when we left, the hole, the
emptiness. And when we returned, the energy changed again. Being a
part of this community that feels so natural, so like family, so open
and giving and compassionate, is what I imagine my own community will
feel like, whenever and wherever that happens.

Peace and love, my global family

A peek into...

I'm off to Vipassana tomorrow for a retreat I'm really excited about,
in a quiet sort of way. Everyone here knows there's four of us going,
and I've been asked many times how I feel, if I'm ready, etc. I get
messages in meditation sometimes, and the latest one says 'exist in
the moment' so that's what I'm focusing on. I'm especially aware of my
expectations, of my experience with the last vipassana retreat and how
it's all about surrender - letting myself go and letting go of myself.
Just being.

It's hard to say goodbye to the group and the circumstance we have
going on right now. It's all really lovely - the house vibe of pure
positivity, where we look for what we can do for each other, where
compliments are rampant, where people ask how you are and wait for an
answer, where people really look at you, take notice of you,and where
you have the space to do the same. I want to keep this aspect, this
space in my life, and I guess it's up to me to do it. I have so
enjoyed the community here, and I know it won't be the same when we
return - we'll all change, I'm moving out of the Family Center and to
the Women's Dorm when I return, and Woody's doing the silent Nyung Na
retreat, which means the person I'm closest to here won't be talking.
I think I may be entering a space of much silence, who knows.

I asked the I Ching about what's next and it said Conjoining - finding
that spark and following it. It said this will be a long thread, a
good one to follow, and the first thing that popped into my head was
healing. I want to follow a healing modality - perhaps qigong healing
- at some point in the near future. I'm in a good part of the world to
explore my options.

So much has happened while I've been walking in the dark here. As it
was happening, it didn't feel like much, but I had a cry in the
kitchen this evening about leaving and everything changing, and then I
went about my business. We're having a last Happy Hour this evening,
gathering our core group together to enjoy and appreciate each other
and say those things we've thought but not said.

What I want most to keep in mind is that better things are coming.
This circumstance may not happen again, but I have the intention of
living like this again, of being this comfortable in community again,
and the world has a way of providing. Going with the flow, going with
the universe is effortless, it provides. And I am so grateful!

Resistance is Futile!

It seems like every week is a life-changing learning experience for
me. This week it's about listening to my little voice, the one that's
often covered by the big ego voice, especially in relation to food.
Yes, I'm having eating issues again, all related to self-love and
acceptance. What's funnier is not that I'm overeating (oh, yeah, bring
on the hot chips!) but that I beat myself up over it afterwards -
giving myself a beating from the inside and the inside! So, well,
western. WHat is up with us always beating ourselves up about what we
do? It's the past, it's unchangeable, it's only the now that I can
change. WHy not be gentle in the now? I think that being gentle is a
form of love. After deciding that I don't know what love is, what it
feels like, don't think I've ever been in love, I guess that means I
have a clean slate to work from. Being gentle to myself is a form of
self-love. How cool is that?

So even though I overeat, beating myself up isn't helping me digest
anything! Gentleness is key!

**

I went to a Mani retreat last week - this is developed around building
Bodhicitta, which is compassion for others (among other things). At
first I didn't care to go at all, had no interest in going and
counting mantras and chanting with nuns, which is what I thought it
was. I really didn't want to go! A nun began talking to me about the
retreat, describing how beautiful the ceremony is, and all the good
reasons to go. Still wasn't convinced. The retreat went for two weeks,
and on the last week, something shifted and I set the strong intention
to go to one 1.5 hr session. What's an hour and a half out of my life
if I don't like it? I may never experience this again.

So I went.

It was really good.

I even did the 20 minutes of prostrations at the beginning,
prostrating to the 35 buddhas and various other things. I'm trying to
think of a way to describe the session, but it feels like all I can do
is tell you what we did - prostrations then sitting and reading
prayers and chants from a booklet, then counting 'om mani padme hum'
on a mala, the 108-bead rosary-type thing, then more singing prayers
to complete it. When I recited the mantra, it was like a meditation
and I had some good fears come up I was able to look at and let go of.
I didn't realize how physically demanding the prostrations were until
I climbed the stairs out of the retreat and felt my jelly-legs - whoa!

This is one example of feeling strong resistance to something I didn't
know anything about and doing it anyway, and finding that I quuite
enjoyed it. What does that mean? I'm finding I have a strong
resistance to any formal teaching here, that my skepticism is through
the roof when they talk about karma or the hell realms or
reincarnations - all this stuff you can't see. Why wouldn't it be
true? I've heard so many different ideas and beliefs about how we all
work, why wouldn't this one? It's just the one that rings true to you.
To me.