Meditation (Part 3)

This is the final part of a three-part series on my experiences at a meditation retreat. In the first part, I discuss what got me interested; and in the second, I discuss my experience practicing meditation.

It is early March. Sarnath’s mornings are cold, especially for a Telugu fellow who rarely ventures north. I spend the mornings standing or walking in the open, in a monkey-cap and sweater, soaking in the sun’s warmth. The meditation centre has a patch of grass and trees in the middle. Most retreaters practice their meditation on the grass with the sun glowing down. In one corner, there are a couple of chairs for the instructor and a retreater to discuss ideas. This is the third day. I’m next for a one-on-one session with the instructor. These are the first words I’ll speak in three days.

“Hi, your talk on death and deathlessness got me thinking”, I begin. “How does the Buddhist tradition deal with them over time? Will you discuss the various philosophers who grappled with this in the tradition”?

Christopher, the instructor, laughs. “I stick to the Pāli Suttas”, he says, “and I discuss what the Vipassana tradition embodies”.

This then is the crux of my struggle at the retreat. I keep looking for structure and layers. Christopher (and later, other senior retreaters) gently, patiently reminds me to experience the meditation practice first. On the last day, a fellow retreater spoke to me about his own dissatisfaction with formal systems and structure. He had discontinued his PhD in western philosophy to travel and explore meditation. He ended up meeting Christopher and found his mentor.

Christopher Titmuss is an Englishman in his mid-seventies. Tall, thin, with a mop of silver hair, CT has twinkling blue eyes and a ready laugh. He is also a charismatic speaker. He laces his discussions of complex Buddhist themes with his own experiences, self-deprecating humour, and is not above a loud clap to emphasise a point. CT took on the robes and became a monk at a Theravadan monastery among the rice fields of northern Thailand. After a few years of Vipassana, he decided to hang up his robes. He is a strong supporter of climate change activism, gender equity, especially in Buddhism, and strives to pin his life in Buddhist practice.

I spent very little time with CT. So, I will not delve into his varied interests and projects here. I will stick to a few ideas he discussed at the retreat: Attention, an acceptance of death, and dāna. What follows is stitched together from my notes, and are my observations.

Attention

Humans are attention-shedding creatures. We generate and dissipate attention through the day. Our economies are built around harnessing our collective attention — phones and televisions, for example, have become powerful attention sinks. We now live in a world suffused with attention-seeking entities.

I must admit to a productivity impulse: what if we can learn to direct attention, like we would a torchlight? We could throw the TV out. Smartphones already have app-limits and grayscale modes. What do we then do with all the free time? We hope to read books, or listen to classical music. Live the marxist ideal of productive work in the mornings and reading Aristotle by the fireside in the evenings. Right, that’s not happening. We would be bored. But between the extremes of entertainment-addled brains and ascetic productivity, there must be a middle path. A more healthy relationship with the world around us, one grounded in curiosity and balance.

That would require some ability to manage attention. CT describes the meditation tradition as an effort to turn our attention onto our minds — the thing that produces attention in the first place. The meditation tradition is a series of mental hacks (my phrase, not his) passed down from generations. So, it reframes an ancient problem exaggerated by modernity: what do we do with our minds?

There are darker issues that could be under-pinning our inability to manage attention. Loneliness, pain, and sadness. We prefer distraction instead of paying the costs of our choices and circumstances. A video game or a Netflix series is a better way to while away loneliness. The Buddhist tradition encourages coming to terms with these dark issues. Invest in a sangha of people who understand and support you. That will take effort, and your undivided attention.

Solitude (Death)

We will all die. All the plans we make, the dreams we spin, will stop in a snap. As a society, we are terrified of death. We cover it up or behave as if it doesn’t exist. Contemplating our own mortality, then, can be a powerful motivation for defining what is true and authentic in our lives. When my sons were born I had an overwhelming sense of responsibility; I was now in-charge of two helpless creatures. It took me on a journey of introspection and financial planning, ending up in a will. Many around me found this odd. They kept reminding me that I was young and fine — why think dark thoughts? Financial planning, apparently, was for the rich. So, I understood CT’s remonstrations. Thinking about mortality helps us pick our priorities.

CT talks about the cycles of life and death. Or, rather, that we are waves rising from the ocean of life. Each wave, its form “constructed”, means nothing but together the waves fall back to the ocean, which is “unconstructed”. Meditation practice helps us “experience” this deathless scape, a “noble silence”, where we are all one. I have heard other practitioners describe it also as the star-studded night sky. I will stop trying to describe this state. I’m not sure if I’m equipped to describe such profound experiences.

Dāna

At the end of the retreat, I didn’t have to pay anything. The room, the time and the training was free-of-charge. There were a couple of earthen pots outside, and we were encouraged to leave as much or as little as we could afford. CT has been living on Dāna for decades. His sangha trusts him to do good with the money they give him.

I couldn’t believe it. I kept asking my friends, I understand the artifice but tell me, really, how much should I pay? It runs on trust. CT lays down his expenses, and we give — or not — as we can. It’s a powerful demonstration of the good in the world.

The end

Listening to CT and a small part of his sangha helped me re-evaluate priorities for my mental health. It also clarified my own academic preferences: I prefer books over lectures or discourses. My method of learning is comparative; I need different perspectives before I formulate my own ideas. For example, what does Dignāga or Dharmakīrti have to say about deathlessness? What do the other schools have to say? I’m not the type who can work their way up from the first principles of practice. And yet, as my fellow retreaters politely reminded me, it is important to ground intellectual pursuits in practice. I will have to find a path that works for me.