Day 5 was an interesting day on many, many fronts. First off, after lunch I headed back out to the hot spring for a little R&R. As I was walking out there, I saw there was only one other dude in there and right as I got to the hot spring, he jumped out of the water and looked liked he had just seen a ghost. When he saw me approaching, he shook his head and wagged his finger to very strongly warn me against going into the water. I assume he saw a cobra (we had been warned that there is the occasional cobra here) but I wouldn't be able to know for sure until after the retreat because he had no way of verbalizing it to me. Luckily there are two hot springs, so I went into the other one instead. I'm so curious! I hope he makes it all the way through the 10 days so I can find out what he saw. And for his own personal growth, etc. etc. obviously...
Up until this point, I've been really struggling with the meditation. I just feel like I haven't been able to clear my head at all. But something totally unexpected happened on Day 5 that really turned things around for me. It was the afternoon meditation session, the last one before our evening hot chocolate time. I finally got to a point where I was able to concentrate for more than a few minutes. As usual, I started with my deep breathing. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Deeeeep breath in. Deeeeep breath out. And after about 10 minutes of this, I started to feel this sensation, as if someone was rolling a really long pencil across my chest. The sensation stayed in the same spot, but as I continued to breathe and continued to focus, it because more and more intense. What was this?! I wanted more. I continued to breathe, continued to focus, and allowed my mind to explore how this sensation felt. And then, just like when you're having the most amazing dream ever, the chime sounded, dragging us out of our meditative state and telling us it was time for hot chocolate. It's pretty safe to say this is probably the only time in my life I would have preferred to postpone hot chocolate. Nevertheless, I finally felt like I was finally getting somewhere with my meditation.
This evening there was a table with some small books and pamphlets that were available for us to read if we wanted to. You may recall that we aren't allowed to read anything while we are here. This is the one exception. These are all about Anapanasati, our meditation method. So during/after hot chocolate, I started reading one of the small booklets that went into more detail about the different steps to the method. The first few steps are all about different forms of breathing and what the book refers to as "knowing your breath." This basically means understanding the full sensation of the breath, not just on your nose, but on how your whole body moves with each breath, how your chest or stomach expands and contracts, the sensation at the very beginning and end of each breath, how your mind feels, and everything in between. The first step is doing that with deep breathing. The next step is doing that with quick, shallow breaths. Which seems counter-intuitive because usually that kind of breathing is associated more with panic than with calm. It's also apparently why this method has a lot of critics. The third step is that eventually, your body turns that quick breath back into a normal breathing pace.
After that, things get a little more complicated, but the gist of it is that you're supposed to see an image with your "mind's eye." Something like a simple geometric shape or a star or something like that. When that happens, you shift your focus away from your breath into that image, and then use your mind to manipulate the image however you'd like. Move it. Stretch it. Zoom in on it. Whatever. The point is that you're focused enough that you can do whatever you want with the image. At that point, you reach the first stage of what some of the monks here have referred to as a euphoric sensation, basking in the glow of your mental accomplishment. When my friend KC told me about her experience at the retreat, I remember her telling me about a time where she experienced something euphoric, so I assume this is what she was talking about.
That evening as I was leaving the dining hall after hot chocolate, I saw my friend BE talking to someone in the office and I thought to myself, "...oh no." And then I saw her walking side-by-side with another girl from the retreat and that's when I knew that she had decided to leave. Though she and I didn't talk at all during the retreat, it still made me kind of sad to see her go. It was nice to have a friend here. As I was walking to the evening session at 7pm, I saw her sitting on the steps so I walked a little out of my way so I could walk past her. It turns out I was right because she gestured to me that she was leaving. We waved goodbye to each other from afar. And that was it. I debated going back and giving her a proper goodbye, but I think she got it and it was better this way anyway. Looking back, I'm glad I didn't let myself take me away from the meditation session. After all, that's the whole reason I'm here, right?
CONTINUE ON to Meditation Retreat Days 6-8: I Think I'm Getting Somewhere
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