Dear spiritual friend,
I wanted to tell you about my retreat. First off, because it's a 5 hour drive from New York City to Newmarket New Hampshire, the retreat starts when my spiritual friend gets into the car.
My journeying friend and I have a good history together in multiple contexts, one being spiritual. We catch up. One thing I like about car trips is that you’re kind of stuck with a person without media. Of course now with smart phones and an in the car DVD player, that’s not strictly true, but mostly that happens.
The spiritual life is all about friendship, and if you could just force friendship onto people, I would. Friendship has to flow naturally, although you can always try harder to be with someone, spend more time, and devote more resources to the relationship, so in a way you can work hard. So in a way you can. I find that through meditation, I see more clearly how to work for things. I understand what I can do about conditions to make things more supportive towards my goals.
For unknown (to me) reasons, the retreat was moved from starting Friday night to Saturday morning. So Friday we drove to Portsmith and checked out their new center and hung out with some spiritual friends who live there. Looks like an amazing center. Aryaloka is blooming, lots of people are coming and there's no reason not to think that will happen in Portsmith. It's an exciting thing to watch the spread and blossoming of the order.
When I arrived at Aryaloka, after a night on the town in Portsmith, I was shocked into the retreat. My roommate, who was a night early to the retreat, like me, wanted to meditate in the room. I asked him to meditate in the shrine room, but it was probably cold, and he had the heater on in our room. So he just sat down and started meditating to this amazing rupa of the Buddha slouched over, head in hands, presumably crying for the suffering in the world. I harmonized, and meditated with him, then jumped into bed and slept.
There are a bunch of constants you always get from a retreat visit to Aryaloka. Aryaloka is outside Newmarket New Hampshire, and as the following photos show, the retreat center has a little land and a stream that flows near it. So since I live in NYC, it's nice to get into a rural residential setting.
I like the silence on retreat. Saturday night through Sunday we had silence.
Since everyone is on retreat, people are positive, helpful, sweet, kind. It seems genuine, not fake, though maybe you can tell people are on their best behavior, which isn't a bad thing. The vegetarian food is wonderful—simple and healthy. People always bring cookies and sweets if you need some support by something sweet. In a way a retreat can be very challenging and a few times I’ve laughed like a hyena on the drive home because I had lots of energy to discharge. You know it seems simple, but it’s really quite difficult to go on retreat in a way. People can be overwhelmed by it.
Time spent meditating with others is a very important activity. I’ve meditated willfully for about 7 years, and then I was concerned it was too willful, and I backed off the disciple, and I struggle to keep it at times. I used to go flying into retreats with a full head of steam, but now I struggle to get back into those times. Meditation is very important to me, and I appreciate the support of meditating with others.
I need support in meditation, and setting up positive conditions on retreat really help. Though the retreat didn't start till 9, I sat in the shrine room with the 2 early friends.
Then when everyone gathers, we socialize, catch up and whatnot until we do a more formal checking in--we go around the circle and just say what's going on, how long they've been coming along and what inspires them. I always feel a little weird with all these people, but pretty quickly you get in tune with each other and we feed off each others positive energy.
The topic was the 5 spiritual stages, gleaned from a seminar Urgen Sangharakshita taught on the Precious Garland. Supposedly these ideas are not from the Precious Garland Sutra, the leaders were not sure where they came from, perhaps from Sangharakshita.
I had a revelation on retreat. The Buddha saw literalism as a impediment in the spiritual life, according to Vishvapani’s new biography of the Buddha. In the system of meditation, there's talk about how to develop in the spiritual life. First, with mindfulness of breathing we work on integration. Second, with metta bahavana you work on emotional positivity. Third, you can meditate on the 6 Elements and move towards a spiritual death, or deaths. The 6 Element practice is taught on ordination retreats in the Triratna Community, in the lead up to the next stage: Spiritual rebirth, when a sadana practice is given. As you die, you are reborn as an archetypal buddha, say Avalokita or Manjushri, and you're supposed to either embody or develop these qualities.
I've done the 6 element practice, but I have not yet been invited to join the order. So I felt like doing the 5 element practice is like a quarter back trying to hand off the ball, but the running back (sadana) doesn't take the ball. I’ve always been kind of confused by this.
On this retreat I was quoting The Big Lebwoski. “My thinking was all uptight.” So what if there's no running back? It's looking at things literally. Literal mindedness is a foe of the spiritual life! Even if you have a sadana, that doesn't mean that what unfolds isn’t a kind of rebirth. People have chosen not to get a sadana practice upon ordination.
Take for instance the fact that I used to be a person who disliked the heat of summer. One you take off all your clothes, if you're hot, what do you do? At least in the winter, you can put more clothes on, put another layer on. I felt even in the coldest, you just go indoors and turn on the AC, limit you activity outside.
My parents turned the heat way down at night in the winter, and I could use an electric blanket if needed, but I didn't really even need that. When I meditate, I get hot. Sleeping partners say I'm hot, a warm oven. So I give off heat, and come from a cold midwest (USA).
Since I've taken up meditation, I've let go of the story that I can’t handle the heat. The heat is annoying, but I can tolerate my feelings. I became someone who no longer complained about the heat. Nor do I yearn for the fall the way I used to. Now if that's a small small small spiritual death and rebirth, well, there's no need for a archatypal buddha. It's just a death and rebirth. To imagine it connected to a sadana, an archatypal buddha is to just try and add on another layer.
My spiritual rebirth is really an open ended journey. In fact, what do I want my spiritual rebirth to be? That's a great question. As Rilke says, I'll just have to live the question.
My thinking was so uptight.
Another revelation was I uncovered a layer of perhaps negativity in my relations to others. More work to do. If you go on retreat and don’t come out of it with the thought, “there’s more work to do,” then you haven’t challenged yourself on retreat.
Being with others is great. I especially appreciated the male order member on the retreat, I always appreciate his wisdom and kindness. I also went for a walk with a younger fellow, and got to play the elder spiritual brother some, which is always a worthwhile project. I've read that being a sponsor in AA is very beneficial. When you teach and lead you have to learn more deeply that which you already know. So it's an honor to give some brotherly advice and listen. More listening because he's pretty impressive, but we don't always see things ourselves, and it helps for someone to give some input from outside. We need help in the spiritual life and spiritual friendship is very much recommended, and I appreciate it.
On Sunday the chairperson of Aryaloka gave a talk and led some meditations and that was fantastic! I connected with
Ratnasambhava, a little, never really thought about that Boddhisattva. I often connect with a new one, which makes picking a sadana difficult. Maybe I'll throw it back to my preceptor and let him choose. I do respond to this kind of Buddhism, but I like our order's take on it, which doesn't make it necessarily the only path.
The dash home is bittersweet. I'm anxious to get back, as I see the retreat ending with reporting out, but I wish I could be on retreat more. I've gotten better at accepting what I get. I think it's good that I want more. Not all desire is bad. I hope to go on the far flung sangha retreat in January, when the centers on the east coast outside of Aryaloka come together for some spiritual community and retreat.
I report in and report out now to my internalized spiritual community quite often and having a real external reporting in and reporting out is pretty cool.
I hope this retreat account was useful to you. May you be happy, may you be well.
sincerely,
kamuka
PS, more pictures:
Fall is lovely
They prepare for winter with sand for when it snows:
Looking over Kwan Yin's shoulder at Aryaloka:
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