After seven days of near-continuous meditation, I walked away with a stutter, shaking hands, and felt like I aged 30 years. It wasn’t enlightenment. It was war.
I think that I had to stay focused entirely on my breath for somewhere around 80 hours… and the minute I relaxed, a few screws fell loose. That’s the best way I can put it.
I’m not too worried about it — I think of it as a couple of harmless battle scars.
My meditation practice is on a whole new level.
Indeed, I wasn’t the only one who went on a roller coaster of emotions during this experience. Several people broke down into sobs and tears, either publicly or privately.
First things first — I cried myself to sleep on the first night.
My mind was staging a full-on rebellion. I have two pet things that my mind loves to cling to to keep me invested in my thoughts.
One of them involves an ongoing dispute with some of my relatives.
Suddenly, it was the most urgent thing in the world to try to resolve this problem while we were at a monastery, totally isolated from the outside world.
There’s something I’ve never said out loud… But I believe that there are some topics that the mind doesn’t just avoid… it will distort your perception of reality, so you don’t go there.
Anything to preserve the ego. Including being perpetually confused, disinterested, or suddenly too tired whenever the topic arises.
Some people are too asleep even to confront some of these topics.
You’ll find that no matter what they do, there will always be some clever diversion to steer away from that Buddha nature.
I sometimes ask myself how is it that Zazen meditation is this vital thing that so few people know about. Once you start doing it enough and see how clean and empty your mind becomes… something about that seems not quite right.
The place is beautiful. Buddha statues and bells of all shapes and sizes are everywhere.
However, doing nothing for seven days—without my phone, notebook, or reading material… was incredibly hard. My mind was very aggressive. I found myself seething on my mat for half of day one over this issue that suddenly seemed so urgent.
I took those thoughts to sleep, but they were still with me the next day. That was very telling.
You mean I slept a full eight hours and woke up the next day and I STILL couldn’t let it go?
Thankfully, we had regular private instruction several times each day. The sessions only lasted about two or three minutes, but often, that was enough for the sensei to help me let go of those bothersome thoughts.
If I wasn’t feeling outraged over my pet issue, I was undressing some girl I liked in my mind.
I hate sounding all perverted, but I’m pretty sure this is a prevalent thing. The mind wanders where it wanders. It likes to find topics to distract and get lost in thought.
I think it’s safe to say that this seven-day meditation retreat was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’ve run many grueling races and many half-marathons.
Those aren’t even close to the difficulty that came with this 7-day meditation retreat.
At the end of day one, I was beside myself, trying to wrap my mind around how I would do six more days of this. It was daunting.
The acetic lifestyle is hilarious when you step back and consider it.
It was a lot like prison. We woke up at 3:40 each day, and the first thing we did was walk in the courtyard.
We walked in a square loop for ten minutes. I’m not sure what the rationale was, but the walks were less unpleasant than remembering them being the last time I made a two-day retreat.
Either way, I always felt like a real zen monk when I did that morning walk.
From 4:00 a.m. to 9:25 p.m…… almost all we did was meditate. There was also a breakfast, lunch, and dinner period and a work period, rest period, and calisthenics period. That’s about four hours out of the 17-hour day.
No talking. Not ever. Don’t say a word. Not talking to another living soul for 7 days (outside of private instruction) was challenging.
So many things we depend on to get through our day are gone. No respite or relief. No vices. No meat. No junk food. No nothing.
The most fun thing to do is the chores. I had a clean-up job in the kitchen.
Everyone at the Zen Center gets it…
but I struggle to get regular people to understand. I tell them I stared at a wall for seven days.
They look at me all baffled—what kind of person in their right mind would do such a thing? Why?
The mind is so used to its many comforts and pleasures. When you take them away at once, all of a sudden, it starts to panic.
That’s when you get a little perspective on it. You start seeing that it’s always grasping. It’s always restless. It always wants something.
One of the core premises of Zen is that we are the very thing we seek—no need to search.
If we stop and fully surrender to the present moment, there’s no more lack—nothing to strive for. But we can’t see that clearly until we take away all of the mind’s creature comforts.
After the first couple of days, I started to appreciate the distance from all of my problems. Everything was on hold for 7 days.
I don’t think I have ever gone 7 days without checking my phone or email. I left my phone in the car so I wouldn’t be tempted to check it later.
Still, I heard someone’s phone ringing in the sleeping quarters, so not everyone followed the rules as prescribed.
This little monastery is much more unassuming than one might think. You walk into this place, and 7 days later, you walk out transformed.
That is precisely how I’m not sure, but the transformation is undeniable.
Some people like to go to a resort for vacation. Some beach somewhere. I either want to spend a week in total silence or party nonstop. Either, or.
Sitting all day long was challenging — although not as bad as I anticipated.
Over the year and a half I’ve been attending the Zen Center, I’ve developed a highly personalized sitting strategy. Good form is vital.
Everyone sits however they feel most comfortable.
Some people sit in the traditional meditation posture with their legs folded. Others sit on their knees with their feet tucked under their butt.
Everyone takes as many extra cushions as they need to raise a thigh, or elevate the butt, or to elevate the hands so they don’t move around or get tired.
Each person’s configuration is unique to them. I know what works for me, and that was the crucial part that made the process much easier this time.
I still needed to sit in a regular chair for parts of the day… but far less than I would have thought.
In previous retreats, I tried to tough it out and suffer as my leg went numb… but this time, I decided to play it caution and reach for the regular chair as soon as I was uncomfortable.
There’s a reason we don’t just sit in regular chairs constantly. It’s because the body is this ergonomic machine.
It’s designed a certain way, making our meditation posture the best one for staying still and relaxed for extended periods. Sitting on a regular chair is much harder to get into a deep meditative state.
The mind and body are deeply interconnected. Lousy posture often stimulates more thinking… which we are trying to avoid.
I have this terrible habit of tilting my head up… and this somehow feeds me with more thoughts—every time.
This religion is so fucking dope. From all of the bells, the drums, the moctock — shaped a little bit like a giant wood pear.
The huge Buddha statue sits front and center of the zendo. We treat it with high reverence. We bow before it every time we enter the zendo.
At the end of each night, the sensei delivers the same incredibly spooky and surreal speech,
“Even as day turns into night. The wheel keeps turning the green earth. Let us strive to wake up past birth, past death.”
Then, someone would beat on that wooden moctock with a wooden mallet for an eternity, about a full minute. It sounded like cannon fire in the night’s silence. Each pound gave me goosebumps, and only the crickets outside whispered between each bang.
I joke that the folks at the Zen Center are always doing something culty — yet blissfully unaware. One of those things is the way we make circles around the zendo. We sit in mediation for 30-minute rounds…, and then we walk the perimeter of the zendo in circles. Like… where are we going? Nowhere. No rush. Single file. Eyes down. A long string of brown robes followed. Our hands rest on our solar plexus.
It immediately became clear that the 2-day retreats I had done previously were just a warmup compared to this 7-day retreat. They reserved several special rituals for the 7-day retreat that I hadn’t seen before. There was a tea ceremony on the first and 7th night. We were all served tea. Most delicious tea I’d ever had. I wish I caught the name. Very flowery. It tasted like someone picked the leaves from a bush earlier that day.
My mind was in constant rebellion.
Always looking for some way to protest all of this silence. I am unsure why I sat at the grand piano in the piano room one evening. I’m not sure why I thought I could get away with trying to play the one song that I know quietly. I got shut down very quickly.
I usually had some of my quietest sittings in the morning after breakfast. By evening, I was usually exhausted, and that was reflected in the quality of my sittings.
I grossly underestimated how advanced some of the people in the room were. I was very impressed with my sensei. He’s the real deal—an absolute master.
I also took a liking to one lady who I befriended after it was over. I gave her a ride to the airport… and I must tell you… personally… I left that car ride thinking she might be enlightened for real.
There was something so peculiar about her. She had the same kind of bizarreness that Eckart Tolle had. There was some profound relaxedness about her. Her voice sounded wealthy yet detached. I once met a woman years ago who claimed to be enlightened. I’m not here to defend that claim… however, this new lady distinctly reminded me of her—same temperament.
She noticed every little detail about me. She had this ability to stare into my very soul and read me like a book. Beyond almost anyone, I could think of ever before.
And the only thing that seemed to dampen her spirit was speaking about herself.
As soon as I returned the conversation to her, you could see the disdain on her face immediately.
If she were enlightened, it would make sense that she would feel annoyed having to indulge her ego by talking about herself. If the ego is the source of all suffering, it seemed fitting that she would feel contempt for having to focus on it.
When I asked her a personal question, she muttered something about her channeling divine energy and returned the conversation to me.
Indeed, the real reason people dedicate this much time to meditation is for a truly worthy cause. Enlightenment is fundamental to us. And, after 80+ hours on the mat, it doesn’t seem like this nebulous and out-of-reach thing.
By day four or five, it starts to sink in that we’ve racked up some serious hours in the Zendo.
This is the most profound look into the mind we ever get to do in our lifetimes. This is a highly unusual environment designed to accelerate the process. The prospect of a big breakthrough started to feel like it was within reach.
I left that experience realizing that I’d been on this spiritual journey for a long time… I didn’t recognize it. I had unlocked a memory of the first time I heard about enlightenment… when I was six. As soon as I heard about it… I said I wanted that.
As I got older, specific events and people steered me toward this path. My friend Mark was one significant influence. I don’t know why I loved that man so much. We hardly saw each other… but he left such a profound impact on me.
Mark was the most advanced meditator I knew.
He was so internally quiet… simply being around him made me aware of my nervous ticks and noisy energy. Mark also has that strange Eckhart Tolle energy. He made me believe. He pointed the way. I followed his lead. I have to tell you that I live in a total paradox when it comes to Mark because even as I say all this about him, he did take his own life. I have never been able to reconcile the Mark I knew… with the one who took his life.
This retreat helped me. Everyone has an opinion about what Mark was thinking and feeling. And mine is out there. But I believe it.
One of the things that I’m starting to see is that even the enlightened masters were all just people. We venerate them, but they still do all of the same shit regular people do. All of it. Including deciding to end one’s life. Mark felt so secure in his perception of the spiritual world that he was okay with letting go. Not the craziest theory.
His note said as much. It always bothered me some of the rationalizations my friends came up with. But this seems to fit my understanding of him best. I can think of several Zen masters who have burned themselves alive while in deep meditation or starved themselves to death while buried in a hole somewhere.
Even the Buddha almost starved himself to death. It’s up for debate whether Mark was enlightened or not. The Mark I knew was always so quiet. Always so empty of thought. Radiating peace and love. If he wasn’t enlightened, he was certainly something. He wasn’t normal. That’s for sure.
The way I understand it…
We are all Buddhas underneath it all.
I believe that when we die, our Buddha nature is restored. That’s why virtually every near-death experience I’ve heard about (and I’ve listened to scores) mentions feeling pure bliss beyond anything they had ever known when they were alive. To me, that’s very telling.
Until next time,
Anton
Dancer, Writer, Buddhist
P.S. If this resonates, forward it to someone who needs to read it.
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