Exquisite Silence
I spent the last week in another silent meditation retreat at my favorite retreat center in Santa Cruz with my favorite teacher, Gil Fronsdal. While many of my friends say, “you don’t talk for seven days?!” with an incredulous look, spending seven full days in silence was such an extravagant treat for me. I have been feeling the need to go within for quite some time now as some anxiety and mild depression had been hovering my mind. Sitting with my own thoughts and feelings without having verbal interactions with other human beings gets me to see my thinking patterns, my emotional landscape, and some conditionings I’m operating from with much more clarity than in a normal daily living environment.
Unlike the solo retreat I did a couple of months ago where I spent 6 days in solitude to meditate, attending a retreat in a community setting provides so much more support. For seven days, I was well cared for with a clean and comfortable habitat, nourishing vegetarian meals, and of course, deeply supportive teachings offered by the teachers. Besides there is a deep ravine with a stream that you can’t see behind the center where trails traverse amongst the redwood forest. I got to interact with the trees, extensive variety of flora including some amazing fungi!
One afternoon in the meditation hall where about 40 or so of us sat as we did several times a day, the stillness and silence were so exquisite. Then it started raining outside gently. While I was sheltered indoors, it felt like my soul was being cleansed as the sound of the rain crescendoed and just as gently faded away. Whatever was hindering me from trusting completely in the process and whatever was making me feel attached were washed away in those moments. Dharma teaches us the truth about life; how we all have some sort of dissatisfaction in life that causes some kinds of pains yet nothing stays the same. Everything is constantly evolving. And for the most part we don’t have control other than how we deal with what happens.
I feel extremely grateful and blessed to be on this path of Dharma. Everytime I feel like I’m hitting some obstacles in my life or having doubts about the paths I’m on, again and again I get the message to trust. I found that trust again in the exquisite silence.
A quote that one of the teachers cited resonated: “I don’t know where I’m going but I definitely know how to get there.” — Lion Tracker’s Guide to Life