Into the woods

I am getting ready to depart on a 10-day meditation retreat. It's at a Tibetan retreat center called Vajrapani, although the practice we are doing is not explicitly Tibetan.

Rule #1: Noble silence. No talking, making eye contact, or even looking at other people's faces. You get to know people's shirts and shoes pretty well. Some people find this offputting, as if they are being shunned or punished, while others find it relieving and relaxing to be free of social norms. It doesn't really matter what your particular response is, only that you notice it and understand that it's just a reaction based on your history and personality, not some earthshattering thing.

There will be about 50 of us, along with 3 teachers and a couple of cooks. The teachers give a lecture every day, and we will have individual interviews with a teacher about every other day. Besides that, just silence.

Just the creation of space, beautiful space, into which our true being can expand and relax. No more confinements of life and the boxes we build for ourselves there.

The showers are up on top of a hill, exposed to the trees on one side.

There are blue jays and lizards, a couple of mangy cats, and a peahen.

But that doesn't imply total peace. We will all experience the things buried in our hearts also. All the pains and fears of the world exist also in the heart-- indeed, the world is really just the human heart turned inside out. And therefore, working out the issues on the inside is intimately related to doing so on the outside. It just occurs one heart at a time. I don't think I would have considered being a hospital volunteer before starting to meditate.

Obviously, no computers are there, so I will be silent with my typing fingers too. (Indeed, Vajrapani is off the grid. There is electricity, but they get it from their own solar panels. There is heated water, but they made their own system for it. They did consent to having one phone).

Namo tassa baghavato arahato sammasambuddhasa