Meditation
Part one of a three-part essay.
This is the first part of a three-part series on my experiences at a meditation retreat. In the second, I discuss my experience practicing meditation; and in the final part, I discuss ideas that motivate you to focus on practice.
Close your eyes and imagine this: you are chasing a running elephant. In one hand you have a goad. In the other, a rope. You notice that the running elephant is being led by a monkey! You are trying to keep the elephant on the path ahead, while the chattering, excited monkey leads it astray. The elephant is big and unwieldy. You have tools but are inexperienced and unsure. The monkey has a mind of its own.
I have found this description* of the initial stages of meditation practice a good allegory for what it feels like sitting down as a novice. The elephant is your mind. The goad is your intention and the rope, alertness. The monkey is your scattering attention. With practice, you get better at deploying your tools. This approach is Cartesian; it breaks the ‘problem’ down into parts that you can work on. About 30 minutes to an hour of practice every day, perhaps?
But why meditation, in the first place? This is a surprisingly hard question to answer, mostly because I’m not sure I have the right insights. Meditation sounds like the perfect project for solitary pursuit. And yet, I have had greater success with an exercise routine (running 5km at 5am, say) than with a regular meditation practice. Simply put, I have seen the benefits of regular, physical exercise on the body. A similar approach to the mind makes intuitive sense. The tools of the practice — alertness, attention, calmness, routine — are good ‘skills’ to learn, in general.
Beyond this, there are other benefits of meditation practice (compassion, interconnections) that I have heard of. I’m unsure about them, because I have not experienced them. However, I am willing to accept that there is more than a utilitarian benefit to the practice. I have had the good fortune of meeting some experienced practitioners. There is sincerity in their eyes and they struggle to articulate what is clearly a very deep and emotional sensation. I’d be more sceptical of conviction.
My fundamental problem is the monkey. In the mornings, the rest of the day unfolds in my mind and I begin making mental check-lists, among myriad distractions. I have no time in the evenings to wrestle with the monkey. I have tried apps like HeadSpace and pored over books, but have struggled to implement their lessons into a regular, unbroken practice. If I was going to be serious about it, I began to realise that I needed help.
The Sangha of Trees
2400 years ago, the Buddha opened his eyes and saw things for what they are. He set across from Bodh Gaya, crossed the Ganga, to Sarnath, where he spoke about his insights. Five disciples joined him, and thus came together the first Sangha. Sarnath, a small town today, is home to a thriving and international Buddhist community. A few weeks ago, I had a chance conversation with two friends who were heading to Sarnath for a week-long meditation retreat. Would I be interested? I found that I was. Here was an opportunity to dedicate time and learn to meditate. And what better place than Sarnath for a novice?
The Bhadanta Shasan Rashmi Mahathero memorial meditation centre is a quiet little place, tucked away in a corner of the Wat Thai temple in Sarnath. Three sides of the meditation centre are clean, spartan rooms for travellers and retreaters to live in. On the fourth side, is the meditation centre. Separating this complex from the public spaces is a grove of tall Teak trees. At dawn and at dusk mynahs, rock pigeons, woodpeckers and flocks of raucous babblers flit around the grove.
I spent many evenings listening to the wind rustling through the drying leaves — a bit like the sound of waves crashing onto a beach. The retreat insists on full immersion; no phones, no books — and no conversations. On the first day, the teacher talked about the grove and how it is a metaphor for the Sangha. The trees stand in quiet companionship, while their underground roots are connected and pass nourishment to each other. We too, like the trees, are all connected up but we stand alone in silence. We are a sangha of trees.
To be continued — read part two here.
*From the book, “The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science” by Culadasa, Matthew Immergut, Jeremy Graves, John Yates. It’s a great book.
