Sweet Retreat

Sweet silence, space and contemplation.  This is, for me, the heart of retreat. A retreat provides a kind of rest not found or experienced anywhere else.  Quiet means no phone, no computer, little to no music, limited and focused conversation. No outside stimulation. Space means the pace is slow, nothing happens fast and there is lots of time to consider what is happening inside.  Contemplation means reflection on the things that matter most. A time to shift attention from the outside world of concern to the inner world of evolution.

Vacation is often the opposite.  Tons of external stimulation. Lots of excitement, lots of movement, lots of noise. Curious, too, how we often return from vacation saying “we need another vacation” to recover from our vacation.  The constant stimulation of activities, people and new places can be exhausting. 

Both a retreat and a vacation are a suspension from our normal routine, from our job, our daily life tasks.  Both can be an opportunity to experience other places and other ways of being.  Yet, where vacation is generally about seeing the outer world; the beach, the mountains, the ocean, the Empire State building, the Taj Mahal, retreat, on the other hand, is about seeing the inner world, traveling the inner landscape.

Exploring our inner geography, is often considered a luxury, a pursuit saved for when there is supposedly time to spare.  It is rare in our current culture that we take the time to travel the inner landscape, but there is long precedent for this kind of travel.  Traveling the inner landscape is most often recognized in religious traditions, in monastic cultures from almost every continent. Teresa of Avila wrote The Interior Castle, a treatise on her experience in retreat.  Daoist Immortals lived alone in high mountain caves for years on end, charting the world of individual realization. 

Over the course of this last month, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to host a long retreat.  To bring the support for someone to travel the inner landscape, to find her own mountains, valleys, oceans and rivers. Reaching in and clearing away all that might block her own knowing. Such an honor and such a joy to guide and witness this kind of precious journey.  Each day seasoned with the full range of emotions, sweetened with the power of revelation, each day rich with the pain and potency of true knowing. 

Fact is, no matter where you travel, you cannot get away from you.  Your thoughts, your sensations, your feelings go with you wherever you go.  In some ways you could say that your inner world is the most reliable world, always there for you.  Especially your body.  Your body is an ever-present, ever-available, stalwart participant in your life, never failing to provide up to-the-minute information about the state of affairs, no matter where you are.   The only real news you can use is your own.

Sweet.

You Can't Let Go While You Are Holding On

Or on problem and paradox.  Just the word problem is a problem for me.  I don’t like problems. Paradox, however, proves to be interesting.  What exactly is a paradox? Miriam- Webster: a statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense and yet is perhaps true.  

Not a very nice definition, really, sort of avoiding any real commitment to the nature of paradox, it would seem.  At the heart of the medicine I use is a paradox; yin and yang, light and dark, movement and stillness, two forces opposed to one another and yet constantly, perpetually in mutual embrace.  How can this be? How can we be?

As I mentioned last week, a question like this puts us right smack in the middle of a relationship, one that is a paradox.  We are both the light and the dark, the moving and the still, the growth and the decay. If we consider that basic relationship a problem rather than a paradox, consternation and trouble ensue.  A problem is something we want to solve, something we want to go away. A paradox is, on the other hand, is by its nature, something that will NOT go away. It will always be true. What kind of relief this is! We can let go, stop trying to find a solution to something that will not go away.  

Yet, you can’t let go while you are holding on.  I know this seems obvious, but I think we often do not let ourselves feel this holding on.  We want to say we are letting go, we want to feel the release, and yet, we still believe that there are things we can, or even should hold on to.  Fact is, you can’t let go while you are holding on. Such is the paradox. Letting go is about keeping the relationship even while things are changing.  As they are constantly doing. Change, the only constant, presents us with yet one more paradox. How can we be changing and yet still find ourselves the same?  We are both. We are the same. The same essence, the same alive, beautiful, tender, curious, brave, broken heart. And we are new, different, changed in each moment.  

Every time I meet with someone, I am so excited to see what is new, what is changed.  And so curious to see what to them feels the same, what from their perspective has not moved. Are we alive to movement in ourselves? Or are we trying to keep things the same?  

From my Daoist teacher, Jeffrey Yuen:  “The state of awareness that induces disease is a state of awareness that needs to be altered to induce a state of healing.  The same state of consciousness that produces disease cannot also produce healing…True health, like Qi, is not a place, it’s a relationship, it is always moving, and that’s crucial.”

In this most potent place of paradox, where we cannot stop the life, the alive, ever-present movement, we actually have choice.  Our choice can be letting go, letting ourselves feel and flow with the very life that is happening inside and around us. And in this life, in this moment, always lies our most powerful, our most precious, our most potent choice.  It is ours to make.

What are some choices you have made that turned on a paradox?

There is No Answer Unless There's A Question

True, that.  There is no answer unless there is a question.  

Most of the time, however, all we want is answers.  This is, of course, understandable. Life is so full of demands, challenges, pressing matters.  Mostly we don’t have time for questions. Questions are, well, questionable. Time consuming. They open us up, suspend us, slow us down.  We don’t have time for that.

     Even the simplest question, how are you, can be grounds for fear and disassembling on some occasions.  If you are me, on most, really. “How are you?” provokes me no matter what. How am I? I am so many ways, so much of the time.  How will I answer? Questioning leads me directly to the scary, unknown, open space of anything is possible. When I question, I am at risk, afloat, vulnerable.    

     Yet, a question also immediately puts me in contact with myself.  Instantly I can, if I wish, have a relationship with myself and my circumstances.  Instantly with myself, with my neighbor, with the dog, with a tree. Asking creates an opening.  And everyone, I mean everyone, is looking for an opening. Everyone. Everyone has something to share, something that comes uniquely to them in a given moment.   When we ask, someone else can show up, dive in or walk away. This is also true. Sometimes a question acts like the wind, blowing things away, sweeping them away so fast, we can’t keep up.  We are left in the dust. Yet, that moment of contact is precious, real, alive.

    When I wake up each morning, I ask myself, what is alive today, what is moving in me today? I often scan my body for calls that might have developed during the night, where is there some tension that wasn’t there before, where is there a feeling I might not have noticed until now.  And when I retire at night, I ask, what is still alive in me, that may need further tending, that is unfinished, open, still afloat? It is harder at night to slow down, take the time to review the feelings, the experiences, the day. But even if I can’t answer, I still ask. Asking isn’t about the answer for me. Asking is about finding out what is alive right now, what is in play, in movement.

         All of life is this dynamic, this relationship, with ourselves and our world, with our bodies and our minds.  How can we mine this relationship? I say ask questions. Be curious. When we question, we are in relationship, not in control.  Life in its raw reality is something we cannot control, but we can enjoy. How can we enjoy our relationship with life?

Which of Superman's Powers Would You Pick For Your Own?

     When I was young, I longed
      to leap tall buildings, or crash
      through a wall, or bend steel bars,
      or fly in a flash to Jupiter,

     but now, I want the prudence
     of the Man of Steel
      who knows
      the power of kryptonite.

      Because if I were Superman
      safe in a Fortress of Solitude,
     I'd be my own greatest enemy:
     I'd fly around the world

     to be near and hold
     what weakens the heart and makes me human.

                       Richard Jones, 48 Questions

I wonder, what is alive in you right now? Do you have questions?  Comments are on and I’d love to hear your questions even if there are no answers…