Last Wednesday, I embarked on my first self-organised retreat. Initiated by the partner of a colleague of mine, it was a wholly new experience with (apart from my colleague) many unfamiliar faces.
The retreat was organised such that there was a daily programme with readings, guided meditations, a yoga session, and even an ecstatic dance finale on the final day. Apart from the ‘corvee-taakjes’ (chores), such as preparing breakfast, cooking and cleaning up that would occasionally be assigned to you, you were free to participate or draw your own plan.
As I shared in my last post on Wednesday, I decided to fill my day with reading and contemplation, much unlike the 10-day Vipassana retreat I did earlier this year. Just before we went into ‘silent-mode’ we shared our expectations for the weekend. For me, I was excited for the material I was about to emerge myself into, but also a bit afraid: what if I would use my reading, writing and reflection to escape the uncomfortable silence I so desperately needed?
Reading & contemplation versus silence & observation
Indeed, I ended up spending a lot more time in my book than I anticipated—but not as a means to escape. It turned out that the 144 pages of Carl Jung’s writings (The Undiscovered Self and Symbols and the Interpretation of Dreams) were a lot more dense than I had expected. Particularly the first essay contained many great insights and a proportionally large share of lengthy phrases and (to me) alien words.
But I realised: a book like this I’ll only be able to grasp in a setting of absolute and pure focus, a setting I’ll probably be unable to recreate in the near-future. I also learned that all these insights allowed me to see things differently and understand things better: although I meditated a lot less than during the Vipassana retreat (I’d say my 12 hours were reduced to 3), I feel like I had just as many ‘transfromative experiences.’
Whether that means that an introspective silent retreat is better I don’t know. But I have come to realise that it does have some qualities the observing silent retreat does not. I know that for me as a person, I need to thoroughly understand something before I can ‘live it,’ so taking the time for some new knowledge to settle may work better for me than to hope I’ll eventually get the insight from practicing for hours on end. Furthermore, I also still have to find out how long-lasting the peace of mind from this retreat will be.
Illuminating insights
I was most surprised by the amount and gravity of the insights I gained from my read- contemplation sessions. Particularly while reading the The Undiscovered Self, I feel like I’ve developed a radically different perception of the conscious and the unconscious, which then enabled me to fall into a state of observation much more easily during the meditation sessions.
Furthermore, during these meditations, I also worked on a particular method to deal with my tendency to (over)identify. Here too, I feel like I’ve made significant progress which I will try to further develop in the upcoming weeks.
One realisation that I think captures my overall experience well is the following:
In the context of mindfulness mediation, the biggest difference between you and the Buddha is that to the latter, Buddha didn’t exist.
Walking my own path has shown to be so much more fruitful than trying to retrace and follow another one’s steps.
