Rocky Mt Mahamudra Retreat

Wow!
And HUM!

Hard to describe how rich & deep the retreat was in mere words.
"Out of this world" keeps coming up as an approximation. It was a retreat to a much better world, in my mind.
Having spent such a peaceful time there on retreat, it continues to make me want to be at my heart, to make it my home, to dwell there. And to hang out with my Guru there.
So many blessings, wisdom blessings, that gave me many small insights. Those tiny sprouts of realizations were handed to  me - I did nothing except set up the conditions where they could be revealed, and listened to the supreme Mahamudra teachings and perfect meditation guidance of Kadam Lucy, a true Meditation Master. She highlighted a few meditations on clarity, which in the past I found hard to understand; experiences of it are even better than knowledge. I continually felt the power of a group meditating together.

To find out what it was like, you really must try it yourself.
For years, I've liked the idea that the Buddhas keep sending us postcards saying, "Wish you were here," as we do when we're on an especially lovely vacation. Meaning, for example, you can't describe how tantalizing, creative and sublime the food you've tasted has been - friends can only get an idea of it by trying it themselves.

This is the 2nd year R & I have been able to do the long-weekend KMC Colorado Mahamudra Retreat at Pingree Park. A photo is worth how many words? They at least convey another dimension.

 

For more photos, see the nice slideshow on PP's website.

The good news is that KMC CO has already reserved the same venue for next year, at the end of August. It sold out this year, so don't hold off registering.

And the food was good ; )

My Tranquil Retreat

"Tranquil" as in peaceful - it's not as though I got anywhere close to tranquil abiding, although there was some overall movement in that direction.
The silent Tranquil Abiding retreat in Petaluma was healthy and concentrated.
We were very well taken care of by the people at KMC San Francisco and the retreat venue, Walker Creek Ranch. (This was the first time they'd used this retreat venue, because they have to cook at their regular place and for a silent retreat they wanted a place that would do the food.)
Even though we'd never met, Sangha SusanT kindly picked us R and me up at the airport, drove us to the retreat, and when it was over, dropped us off at the Dharma house, where we'd arranged with Admin Cate to stay.
The food was delicious and nutritious, and in large quantities, which made a big difference for me because the corticosteriod Dex I'm taking makes me very hungry. They even made vegan and gluten-free dishes for us.
But when I said healthy, I wasn't just thinking primarily about the food. There was fresh air and a clean environment, and a sky full of stars at night - but there was also something that felt really healthy about the meditations, which I've never seen that way, and I wasn't focusing on a healing practice - in fact, I was trying to get rid of my body.

There were a lot of animals, from deer who were obviously used to visitors at Walker Creek and  who you could also see on the hills surrounding the site (I even saw two young bucks butting heads), to lots of bird life, including many vultures to remind me of death and a hawk to remind me of trying to soar during meditation rather than constantly flapping my wings like many of the other birds around; I like to think of myself as a baby hawk. There were the raccoons we'd been warned about who did indeed try to use their little hands to open the doors to our cabins. They raise goats and chickens, next to their large vegetable garden that they harvested to feed us.

The animal that made the biggest impression on me, however, was this cattle, who helped me generate bodhichitta, because he was just down the road from the meditation hall but was incapable of spiritual practice:

I wish I'd gotten a photo of the empty pair of slippers that appeared one day outside one of the cabins. They were like a conceptual art piece, eerily conveying the emptiness of the body.

More importantly the feeling in the gompa was very concentrated. There were almost 60 people and almost no noise. (I find it funny that I had to put in my hearing aids for the silent retreat! Without them I couldn't hear the dings that signaled the approach of the end of each session and the end. They also mask my mild tinnitus.)
You know how when you're at a big Buddhist gathering like a Festival or a Celebration, and most everyone is happy, even when it's crowded and rainy, and you get a glimpse of how powerful these teachings are and get the sense that world peace is actually possible? I had a similar sense of the collective power of our minds meditating together at the retreat. I felt swept up by the meditative concentration in the room. I realized everyone wouldn't have to immediately adopt the teachings to be affected by them. It's similar to the way we feel anxious and hurried when we're in those kinds of environments ... but the exact opposite. It was so clear how we affect each other.

It was also concentrated in that so much seemed to happen over those four short days. We started Friday evening, after dinner, with a wonderful introduction to the retreat by Gen Choma, and an hour later we were in complete silence. The schedule had five 1-hour sessions Saturday and Sunday, and I was very happy to be able to do four of them each day. Monday we did one last silent session, following by Wishfulfilling Jewel puja with tsog offering as a transition out of silence.

At the preparatory teaching months ago, we had been advised not to meditate on our chosen object for more than 30 minutes, following teachings from Ven Tharchin, the longtime Retreat Master at Tharpaland Retreat Center. At the retreat the group would do Guru Founder and Liberating Prayer with audio at the beginning of each session, and then each retreater would do their chosen prayers before meditation. Because those prayers don't take 30 minutes, I'd had to think about how to fill the time. In addition to adding a preliminary meditation to generate bodhichitta and longer pauses to receive blessings, I took the prayers at a slower pace. That turned out to be one of the most enjoyable aspects of the retreat, like a scenic drive through familiar territory usually driven at a faster speed.

Some sessions were more concentrated than others, of course, especially on the Dex, but after every one I was eager to try again. It felt like playing a video game: When you lose a round, you immediately want to restart, and after much repeated effort, you occasionally advance to the next level.

Monday night we'd arranged to stay at the Dharma house, which is a short BART ride from their Center. As you may know, Saraha was the first NKT Center in the U.S., and the Dharma house was the original Center. It felt like a pilgrimage. I learned more about some of the history, including Teachers who'd served there such as Gen Losang and that Gen Choma had been their long-time Admin Director. I first knew her as a Teacher in New Bedford, MA, and had no idea she had that much karma with San Fran.

KMC SF is actively looking for a retreat place for our tradition on the West Coast, and I think Gen Choma even visited one on the way back from Walker Creek. As part of the dedication at the end of the retreat, we prayed that more retreat centers would appear all over the world. May everyone have the opportunity to enjoy this meditative experience.

There are more photos of the retreat, the Center and the Dharma house online if you're interested. Check out the old statues.

Preparing for Silent Retreat

Tomorrow R and I are headed to the Bay Area for a weekend unguided silent retreat. There are 58 retreaters signed up!
As you might expect, to prepare for it, we have been trying to improve our concentration, trying to prevent distraction. What I have been surprised at is how much I have been focusing on trying to avoid noise in the meditation room. This is a truly silent retreat - like the kind they do at Tharpaland Retreat Center in Scotland, where Geshe-la did a 3-year retreat and I had the very good fortune to do two week-long guided silent retreats with Ven Tharchin.
KMC San Francisco (!), formerly known as Saraha Center (the first NKT Center in the U.S.), has been great about helping us prepare. As you may know, silence at Tharpaland means no whispering but also no eye contact or gestures. The solitary retreaters there typically pull up their hoods (which makes sense given the weather in Scotland) and wear sunglasses (in a climate that's usually quite free of sun) when they go for walks. You have to turn in your cell phone. The only person you can communicate with if absolutely necessary is the Retreat Coordinator, who you contact in a note.

As part of the excellent introduction to the retreat that Gen Choma gave a couple of months ago,  and that they kindly recorded so that we would be able to benefit from it, she explained how to prevent any distracting sounds in the gompa. As as Tharpaland, you are taught how damaging it can be if someone is deep in meditation and there is a sudden loud sound. I heard a story of an advanced meditator whose inner winds were messed up when someone dropped a pot; he had great difficulty meditating for months. If you have to sneeze or cough, you teach yourself to make a small preliminary throat-clearing kind of sound as a warning to others. At this retreat, water bottles in the gompa are discouraged unless medically necessary. You are supposed to have memorized your sadhana so that there is no sound of ruffling pages. Newer meditators were directed to create a one-page version of their prayers. We were encouraged to notice any habits we have that might bother others, including cracking your joints (which I never used to be able to do but a few months ago, I started cracking my neck in the gompa), wearing noisy nylon clothes, foot tapping, etc. Gen Choma read a funny list of annoying things that meditators do that came from a student. One of the other things I notice I sometimes do is sighing. I have stopped whispering my prayers.

This Summer at our annual Lamrim retreat, I started working with being more physically still and have been continuing to try to train in it during other retreats. (I bought my zabuton, the bigger meditation cushion that goes underneath the cushion you put your butt directly on, from a local company called Still Sitting - a good name I think.) I was noticing that I'd scratch my face or rub my hand through my hair (another new habit, probably from the delight of having hair) -completely unnecessary distractions for me and others.

Another retreat tip I hadn't heard before is to stop listening to music a few days before starting, because you are likely to hear those sounds in your head when you're trying to focus on something more virtuous. It's more pronounced now because, in solidarity with my brother's family, whose house was inundated with water from the big storm, and as a former Joisey Girl who is a long-time fan, ("Born to Run" in the migratory sense), I have been listening to Bruce Springsteen's "My City in Ruins," which has the rousing chorus, "Come on, rise up!" My sister sent our family a video she found that had post-storm photos of my brother's beloved shore town with that as its soundtrack, and it made me cry.

As you may have noticed, there are a lot of tangents here. It gives you an idea of how my mind's working these days, because the other twist in all of this is that I am taking a drug that really helps me feel better but that revs up my mind. The last two weeks we were dogsitting my sister-in-law's terrier, so I've named it my terrier mind - like a monkey mind but worse, darting here and there, refusing to settle down and rest. This drug also affects my memory.

In addition to summarizing some of the key information about concentration and training in tranquil abiding from Joyful Path, Gen Choma's introduction also included valuable advice from someone who's obviously a dedicated meditator. She was just here in Seattle giving us the highlights from the International Fall Festival in Spain and mentioned meditation tips there too, such as noticing her hand position in meditation as an indicator of her mental state: She said when her thumbs are pressed together too tightly, her mind is pushing too hard but that when the oval of her hands starts to collapse, her concentration is flagging. I also starred her advice about how to reset yourself when your meditation isn't going well, by backing up and requesting blessings, and if you need to, going back through the prayers, all the way to refuge if needed.

Big thanks to Gen Choma, Admin Cate, EPC Michelle and Retreat Coordinator Eva, who are making it very easy for us to attend. Eva was one of my roommates at Summer Festival and first told me about the retreat. The power of Sangha again! She thought training in tranquil abiding would be a wonderful offering to our Guru in Portugal next Fall.

I am very much looking forward to the retreat, even with these handicaps. I am not planning on doing every session, expecting that I may need to rest, being content to take walks and read Dharma, just trying to create good causes for the future. There's no reason I can't continue this training on my own, and we may even request a Tranquil Abiding Retreat in Seattle.

For fun, I tell myself The Dudette Abides ... or tries to. (That's a reference to the quotable cult movie The Big Lebowski, which stars Jeff Bridges as a pothead bowler. There's a car in our neighborhood that has "The Dude Abides" bumper sticker.)