Meditation retreat

Hi again,
So I am finally getting around to posting about my first real activity here, a meditation retreat. (There is a photo from it in my previous post.) Immediately after leaving the retreat, I got really sick - I think it was giardia - so I've been a bit out of it. I took some antibiotics and am much better now, but still far from 100 percent. Whether it's a good thing or not I'm not sure, but now both Tibetan and Indian food turn my stomach, so I am eating very little - boiled egg and toast for breakfast, plain rice for lunch, dal for supper, "like that" (as the Indians would say). Maybe it is a form of purification.

Anyway. This retreat I did at the Tushita Meditation Center was incredible. It was a nine day "Introduction to Buddhism" course. The first six days had two hours of teaching in the morning and afternoon, and three 45-minute mediation sessions in the early morning, late afternoon, and evening. Also there was a discussion period (the rest of the time was silent) and some time to do simple chores. The last few days were mostly meditation. There were about 26 of us, from many different places and backgrounds. My roommate was a gay hairdresser from London who came completely on a whim.

The course presented a very slightly Westernized version of classic Tibetan Buddhism. It was only slightly Westernized because the teachers were Western nuns, Ani Rita (originally from Switzerland) and Venerable Siliana (from Italy). Ani Rita, who did the teaching sessions, is a character - she has quite a colorful, somewhat checkered past and a very direct teaching style. Ven. Siliana, who led most of the meditations, is a more motherly type. But they have been nuns for 16 and 26 years respectively, and live and breathe the doctrine - which was classic Tibetan. We covered a short version of the "Lam Rim," the Tibetan path to enlightenment. Just to give you a flavor of it, here are some samples from my notes:

• The point of meditation isn't to be peaceful now. It would be easier to go smoke a joint.
• The first attitude to have is to recognize we have a flabby mind. We have to go to the mental gym.
• Don't try to rush the path to enlightenment. It won't work, and there's no need - we have many lifetimes to do it.
• No anger, no enemy. (If we have no anger, we won't have any enemies. Enemies are a mental creation that result from having anger.)
• Most things that we think we know, we actually believe on faith.
• Everything the mind produces is fake.
• We mistake worldly and sensual pleasures for happiness. If we don't understand their transient and ultimately unsatisfactory nature, pleasures actually bring more suffering.
• There is no separate unchanging self. (That's a big one.) "Marcus" doesn't really exist as an entity.
• Desire is like an itch that we keep scratching and it only gets worse.
• Samsara (normal human existence) is like an Indian restaurant. It tastes good, but look in the kitchen and see the grime on the counter, the spit and cockroaches on the floor, and the cook's sweat dripping into the dal; then you realize it is making you sick.
• Why have expectations? Things happen anyway.
• Everything happens because of causes - usually karma - and conditions. Our good karma in past lives led to our birth as humans. Our really good karma led to us being in this retreat.

And that was all the first day!

It was an amazingly comprehensive and well-ordered spiritual curriculum, covering how the mind works, suffering, death, karma, interdependence, emptiness, attachment, negative and positive emotions, Buddha-nature, and compassion. Then, we'd meditate on each of these topics. Most of us felt completely turned inside out by the end. Even though I have been reading Buddhist books and doing some meditation for several years, this was still kind of like spiritual shock treatment. The potency of the meditation techniques, in particular, is impressive.

So now it is five days later and I'm back in the real world, trying hard to not forget all the teachings. I'll only know later whether I am successful or not... Right now though it's time to go to my first volunteer obligation of the day. I imagine that will be the next topic.

I'm curious whether others have gone through a similar course or retreat or experience? Post a comment, drop me an email - either way would be great to hear from you.

Til then, love, Marcus