By cosmic synchronicity, I was signed up to attend a five day silent meditation retreat when the congressional debt ceiling fight was entering the final stages. Normally, Buddhist retreats do not include news breaks, but I planned to take liberties. I downloaded a trusted political blog to my Kindle, my concession being that I would only check in once in the evening and not compulsively during the day.
Cloud Mountain Retreat Center can seem like a magical place, bamboo and giant fern gardens surrounded by a Northwest forest. The buildings were designed and build primarily by a master architect/owner.
The first day of the retreat is pleasant for me. When not sitting in the meditation hall, I'm out wandering, experiencing flashbacks from roughly twenty-five years of attending retreats here. The dharma friends I've known now mostly exist for me in flashbacks; I don't know any of the other attendees at this particular retreat. I'm watching salamanders in the pond and raccoons on the boardwalk; politics is loosening its grip.
Completely unlike most meditation teachers, Jason Siff encourages us to allow whatever is happening, including thoughts, into our meditation experience. Once a day, we meet in small reporting groups with a teacher, but it is not a sharing group. The teacher focuses on three of four willing participants and explores in depth the individual's meditation sittings. The other students listen but do not comment. It gets very personal, but then no one is ever coerced into volunteering.
Some students report lots of spontaneous visuals in their meditations; lights, colors, surprising images almost dream like. I'm very thought oriented. My visuals are mostly memories associated with thoughts, and by the second day, I'm noticing how frequently my inner voice seems to be lecturing someone. About politics, usually. With the political lectures, or sometimes rants, comes agitation, restlessness, anger. In my real life, these rants are not always internal, of course. There is an obsessive quality about my behavior, and I see a comparison with some avid sports fans that I wouldn't want to know.
On Sunday evening, I check my political blog for news of the debt ceiling drama. The Daily Kos has the details of the final bill now, with both Harry Reid and Obama saying they would support it. I'm incredulous; in shock. Incredulity turns to outrage that the Democratic leaders could sign such a horrendous bill; that this is where we've landed. It's nine o'clock in the evening; I'm sitting in noble silence with other retreatants who are peacefully reading dharma books and sipping tea. I can't talk to anyone, I couldn't possibly go to sleep, and I have to move.
In daylight, I love walking on the boardwalk by the pond. It's dark now, so with flashlight in hand, I practically fling myself down the path, and upon reaching the boardwalk, begin to pace. And in silence, I begin a very loud, angry internal rant at all the players involved in this political travesty. At home I'd be having a stiff drink, but here I have to walk briskly up and down until the adrenalin finally dissipates, and I can sleep.
It's apparent to me that this is not a good way to run my life. As I walk and sit with my experience the next day, I'm calm and reflecting that while politics is not personal, I have made it so. I'm a play-by-play political activist, and I don't wish to give it up anymore than would a serious baseball fan want to just stop paying attention to the game. I don't "think" about a solution so much as I just sit with an intention to change my relationship to politics; to view it, perhaps, in a different mental and emotional framework.
As I was sitting in meditation on the final morning of the retreat, an entirely appropriate memory surfaced. I spent my childhood in a house on about twenty acres of land, and in the summer, the owner of the property would graze cattle in the fields. At age eight or nine, I liked to stand up on the burned out barn frame with the herd of cattle milling about below me. I would lecture to the cows. I don't remember the lectures, but I do remember that the cows were a great audience. They watched and listened to me with rapt attention; they seemed spellbound. The cows, of course, were just trying to figure out how dangerous I might be so that they'd know when to run.
Even though it is my intention to shift my reaction to politics, it has occurred to me that I might look about for the closest herd of cattle I can find near my home. Maybe I could take up lecturing cows again, thereby sparing my family and friends.
Cloud Mountain Retreat Center can seem like a magical place, bamboo and giant fern gardens surrounded by a Northwest forest. The buildings were designed and build primarily by a master architect/owner.
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| Walking path through ferns and bamboo |
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| Mist Haven |
The first day of the retreat is pleasant for me. When not sitting in the meditation hall, I'm out wandering, experiencing flashbacks from roughly twenty-five years of attending retreats here. The dharma friends I've known now mostly exist for me in flashbacks; I don't know any of the other attendees at this particular retreat. I'm watching salamanders in the pond and raccoons on the boardwalk; politics is loosening its grip.
 |
| Salamanders rule the pond. |
Completely unlike most meditation teachers, Jason Siff encourages us to allow whatever is happening, including thoughts, into our meditation experience. Once a day, we meet in small reporting groups with a teacher, but it is not a sharing group. The teacher focuses on three of four willing participants and explores in depth the individual's meditation sittings. The other students listen but do not comment. It gets very personal, but then no one is ever coerced into volunteering.
Some students report lots of spontaneous visuals in their meditations; lights, colors, surprising images almost dream like. I'm very thought oriented. My visuals are mostly memories associated with thoughts, and by the second day, I'm noticing how frequently my inner voice seems to be lecturing someone. About politics, usually. With the political lectures, or sometimes rants, comes agitation, restlessness, anger. In my real life, these rants are not always internal, of course. There is an obsessive quality about my behavior, and I see a comparison with some avid sports fans that I wouldn't want to know.
On Sunday evening, I check my political blog for news of the debt ceiling drama. The Daily Kos has the details of the final bill now, with both Harry Reid and Obama saying they would support it. I'm incredulous; in shock. Incredulity turns to outrage that the Democratic leaders could sign such a horrendous bill; that this is where we've landed. It's nine o'clock in the evening; I'm sitting in noble silence with other retreatants who are peacefully reading dharma books and sipping tea. I can't talk to anyone, I couldn't possibly go to sleep, and I have to move.
In daylight, I love walking on the boardwalk by the pond. It's dark now, so with flashlight in hand, I practically fling myself down the path, and upon reaching the boardwalk, begin to pace. And in silence, I begin a very loud, angry internal rant at all the players involved in this political travesty. At home I'd be having a stiff drink, but here I have to walk briskly up and down until the adrenalin finally dissipates, and I can sleep.
It's apparent to me that this is not a good way to run my life. As I walk and sit with my experience the next day, I'm calm and reflecting that while politics is not personal, I have made it so. I'm a play-by-play political activist, and I don't wish to give it up anymore than would a serious baseball fan want to just stop paying attention to the game. I don't "think" about a solution so much as I just sit with an intention to change my relationship to politics; to view it, perhaps, in a different mental and emotional framework.
As I was sitting in meditation on the final morning of the retreat, an entirely appropriate memory surfaced. I spent my childhood in a house on about twenty acres of land, and in the summer, the owner of the property would graze cattle in the fields. At age eight or nine, I liked to stand up on the burned out barn frame with the herd of cattle milling about below me. I would lecture to the cows. I don't remember the lectures, but I do remember that the cows were a great audience. They watched and listened to me with rapt attention; they seemed spellbound. The cows, of course, were just trying to figure out how dangerous I might be so that they'd know when to run.
Even though it is my intention to shift my reaction to politics, it has occurred to me that I might look about for the closest herd of cattle I can find near my home. Maybe I could take up lecturing cows again, thereby sparing my family and friends.
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| Cows listening to a discourse on the new era of hostage politics. |
