A Month In Silence — We’re Safe Now

Big Bear Retreat Center

"Before you find no-self, you must find a healthy sense of self." ⁠— Jack Kornfield

Frozen pine needles glistened under the morning sun. The air was crisp on the dawn of the new moon. Strained snores of the service Chihuahua snuggled in the chair by the window interrupted the stillness of the meditation hall. We were halfway through retreat. I noticed the muscles around my jaw begin to tighten, a familiar sensation...

I remembered Kittisaro’s late-night transmission a couple years before, inviting turning the attention inward upon noticing an outflow of energy, particularly around judgment. And his dharma talk from the night before...

...As a prison chaplain in the UK, when Kittisaro was a young monastic, he suggested a group of inmates practice compassion. Arthur, a convicted murderer seated next to him, grunted, “no compassion here, I’d snap his neck again if I had the chance.” Kittisaro tried again, “what if we just practice...for a moment...not fighting it...not fighting the guards outside mocking us...not fighting the lack of compassion...what if we practice allowing, welcoming it all.” The group softened as he began to guide a meditation. Eventually, the taunts from the guards subsided. Arthur began to weep...

In the weeks prior on retreat, there had been a considerable amount of samadhi. Traditionally translated as “concentration”, the Pali “sama” means “gathered” and “dhi”, “holding”, in the language of the Buddha. When the mind is gathered, a blissful stillness pervades. The sound of silence has a deafening ring. I remember the feeling from flow states as a kid — watching the water all afternoon with my grandfather; sitting on the floor, playing contently for hours by myself.

The dreams at night had become shamanic — a large black Anaconda swimming through my guts, ominous villains, and lower-world settings where I would definitely not consciously choose to be. Awareness was persisting throughout sleep, and I was practicing softening into discomfort, directing the energy using mantra, finding my power and agency. I could set an intention for practice before bed, and upon waking, I’d experienced profound journeys and related insights.

During the days, I’d invented and completed all the work I could imagine — shuttling people up the mountain in the snowstorm, shoveling the cabin deck…and the kitchen deck...and the kitchen side deck, helping the chef sweep and mop one evening when she was stranded alone, synchronizing clocks in the hall, transporting supplies, reuniting a lost dog with her owner...

A few days before this new moon, as we deepened into the heart of the retreat, Thanissara invited the sangha to put anything up on Kuan Yin’s altar that was simply too difficult, if the aversion or anger was too much, overpowering. I sat on a bench under the pine trees to contemplate, and two words immediately arose: “family shit”. I scribbled them down in black ink on a small piece of white paper. I went back into the meditation hall, folded the paper twice, prostrated three times, and placed the paper up on the shrine. On top, I situated a golden, heart-shaped stone with a number of chips on it, a relic I dreamt about this past Christmas Eve, stumbled across on Christmas day, and had been carrying in my pocket since.

It was the first time I cried in several years on meditation retreat.

Over the last few months, I’d been noticing a low-vibration fear on the mornings I awoke quickly, often with an alarm, an old anticipation of The List of things to do that was inevitably waiting for us on the kitchen counter, while Mom and Dad were gone at work. I’d been tracking when the feeling was dissipating in present day and was coming to realize it was just fading into the background, subtly motivating my every move until I’d fall asleep again. And resurfacing more strongly when treated unkindly, even subtly ⁠— whether through action or speech. Energy in the body would shake upward in reactivity, going out. Leaving me like a leaf floating in the wind. It was becoming pervasive. Why are we here? Why am I here?

Two days before the new moon, the samadhi devolved into something overwhelming, suffocating. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t open my eyes. It was terrifying. This first started on an intense Tibetan meditation retreat four years ago after turning awareness back on itself. Nothing to see, the illusion of this ego that kept me safe as a kid started to crack in front of the mirror that only reflected emptiness. I remained in this dissociated state for the entire remaining week of that retreat, including through sleep. Stopping meditating, brisk walks, hot showers, cold showers...nothing helped...until the closing bell finally rang. As I shied away from this type of meditation, the feeling tone began to re-emerge in the depths of Ayahuasca journeys, where I’ve since regularly come to reunite with it, as well as on some more meditation retreats where I’ve approached it more gently. Fortunately, I've learned some tools along the way to be with it and where I no longer am so stuck.

So now, the day before the new moon, I felt the shakiness begin in the cafeteria at breakfast. I found myself seated amongst the few yogis around whom I’d been feeling these energies on retreat. Probably unaware of the harmful impacts of their actions, I reminded myself that we were all here to touch our deepest fears, so that we are less triggered by them, and so we can meet ourselves and the world with more compassion. I reached for another handful of nuts and dried fruit and chewed hurriedly. I left the dining hall quickly and began walking up the mountain into Yuhaaviat, The Land of the Pines. The pine trees were my first refuge as a little boy...

...More than a hundred of them rose steadily over the yard of my childhood home where I labored quietly to finish The List — that I “didn’t want to know what would happen“ ☝🏻 if I didn’t...perfectly...on time...before the garage door sounded their return...with extra things done they'd ever casually mentioned, or done, or thought about, and that I’d needed to have dreamt up...while I could hear the cheers of my friends playing football in the backyard three houses up and across the street. The golden branches danced on high in the cool autumn breeze, their needles fluttering like a peacock fanning her feathers as the sun peered through, offering his calming warmth. The bases of the trunks rooted motionlessly in the ground...

I came to a clearing at Yuhaaviat, overlooking the forest, and I took a seat. I instinctively began chanting the heart mantra of Kuan Yin, the one who listens to the sounds of the world at ease, Om Mani Padme Hum, the jewel is in the lotus. Silently at first, and then gradually my voice took birth and filled the air with its gentle melody. The lineage of indigenous elders who’d been slaughtered and pushed off this land hundreds of years before began to emerge at the edge of the trees, calmly making their way into the open space. They were now standing in a half-moon formation around the fire pit, all facing me.

My voice grew stronger.

I remembered my name.

Anderson

I found my feet raising my legs and torso up into the air. My head rose high.

“Stand firm” is the motto of my Scottish clan. My paternal grandmother’s maiden name was passed down to me to preserve the lineage.

A tear made its way down my right cheek.

As the chanting faded back into the wind, the Yuhaaviatam elders slowly returned back to the heart of the Pines.

Later that day, I quietly, contently played with sticks and rocks in the forest like I used to as a kid on the days I finished The List early. The squirrels, the birds, the chipmunks...even a cute little bunny came up to me...within a body’s length from where I sat that calm afternoon.

...And so as I meditated in the hall on this brisk morning of the new moon, amidst the calm of the storm...and as I noticed judgment arising upon hearing the faint sounds of this adorable puppy, I inquired into the nature of this clenching jaw...

I sensed into the distance between me and Barkley, nearly perfectly behaved, who was staying far down the mountain at a sitter’s home. I wonder how he is? I miss him.

After some time, I saw myself as a little boy, emerging from the shadows, “it’s not fairrr!” I protested.

The sweet, comforting voice of my therapist emerged, her head tilted in that warmingly familiar way, “of cooouuurse...”. She’s finally replacing my father’s thundering, "life’s not fair!"

A wave of sadness flooded through my being...

As little Andy began retreating into the dark, his gaze downcast, I offered him my full, welcoming attention. I kindly asked, “what do you need?”

In the space of the ensuing silence, a new kind of presence emerged. It was soft yet firm. I clearly heard the words, “we’re safe now.”

The trembling steadied.

And then on that night of the new moon, amidst a gentle storm, I set the intention of practicing kindness towards myself as I blew out the candle. I fell asleep recounting gratitudes...

When I awoke to the 5:30 a.m. bell the next morning, a murmur of the tremble was there. I instinctively heard Thanissara’s soothing voice, “feel the feeling in the feeling.” I turned towards the shaking, no longer wishing it were gone. “We’re safe now,” I heard in the confident whisper of my own present-day voice. We breathed together. The dis-ease subsided a few seconds later. A small smile came over my face. I looked out the window. A fully grown coyote was standing no more than fifteen feet away, the white of his coat shining in dawn's reflection of the last patch of snow. He was looking straight at me. As our eyes connected, he lingered. Then, slowly, he turned his head, and leaped back into the Pines.

Afterword

For much of the remainder of retreat, I continued with each in-breath...”safe”...”now” on the outbreath. A deep, stable, comforting samadhi emerged. The breath slowed alongside the heartbeat, whose steady whispers I could now hear, which I could feel throughout the body as blood flowed gently down and back up the extremities.

I heard the howl of coyotes the night after the new moon and saw one running alone through the woods the next day. There was a powerful release during yoga the following morning, while my cabinmate quietly journaled from the other side of the room.

After a decade of chanting it, I’m finally beginning to actually take refuge in the Buddha (historical and inside), in the Dharma (teachings and truth), in the Sangha (spiritual community and inner practice). I realized that before, I’d more often than not been taking refuge in the old satisfaction of completing The List.

And as far as why we’re here, Thanissara reminded me that the Koji people, one of the most ancient, intact, and relatively undisturbed indigenous tribes in the world, partly due to its inhabiting the high peaks of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains of modern day northern Colombia, says our role as human beings is to be a conduit of nature, just like all the other animals, plants, insects, funji, minerals, stars, and galaxies.

I do feel fortunate to spend a month on meditation retreat, even though it’s clearly no vacation, while the world burns. And. It’s a choice. A choice to pursue truth. A difficult choice. An unpopular choice. An often unexciting, unglamorous, terrifying choice. A constant choice. A choice I first made when I chose to leave home at fourteen, subconsciously wondering, “might there be another way?” And it's a choice that you, if you are reading this...and not running or fighting, can almost certainly make, too. And even if you are running or fighting...or frozen in fear, you can still make it as Gaza-based journalist Ahmed Abu Artema does as reported in The Arrow, taking refuge in something that is actually durable…

I see many people in Gaza and in other places that have an amazing mental determination, a determination in the way they face traumas that cannot be explained through materialistic reasons. For example, I lost a son, but others, mothers, have lost four sons at once or lost all their children. You have merchants that have lost all their life savings, one million dollars, or five million dollars and now they cannot find the money for a meal, so the determination to face these traumas and these violent shake ups cannot be explained other than through reasons that are higher than the material…faith gives you a vision, a vision that offers you relief and tranquility and satisfaction.

Faith does not change the reality, meaning that now, for example, my son Aboud will not come back to me. All of those people who have been hurt, their faith will not bring back what they have lost, but it does give them mental balance and vision…

In one moment a person can lose everything. In one minute my house was gone, which was my lifelong dream. A bullet, a rocket or a virus can destroy a person; therefore the ordinary life is fragile, so for a person to hold on and withstand, they will need to believe in another dimension, and this other dimension tells them not to put all their weight in this life. The trauma is proportionate to the strength of the attachment. A person’s trauma becomes big in times of loss if they have a strong attachment to this life. Here is the value of the faith.

Faith is not an anesthetic as it is described to be, but the faith is what saves you in these difficult times. The difficult times affect all people — not only the people of Gaza, but also people who live in Finland, Paris, China. They, too, all go through traumas…

This choice to prioritize truth over pleasure takes some, and brings even more, humility ⁠— facing the harm we inflict on ourselves and others, and we learn not to be in such a hurry to get rid of this ego, how it’s here to protect us from what’s still too difficult to bear…

Telling ourselves we can’t spend time meditating or that what we’re doing is "too important" is the drama talking, making ourselves out to be a victim or a hero, especially in present day. It’s heedless living in the dream world, in this “great American nightmare” as Thanissara put it. After his awakening, and in-between intervening in wars, the Buddha regularly went on retreat, alone, to recharge, so that he could then return and meet the needs of the world in the most skillful way possible.

I used to scoff when people “like me” talked about safety in this world. Now, I bow.

I’ll leave you with the words of Thai Forest Meditation Master Ajahn Chah, with whom Thanissara and Kittisarro (and Jack Kornfield) ordained…

“If you try to find certainty in that which is uncertain, you are bound to suffer.”

The only certainty in this world is change, and the only thing that does not change, the only truly stable ground to stand on, is that which was never born and never dies, is the awareness itself that knows what's being communicated here and now, to which if we don't individually...and collectively...wake up and remember, we will all most certainly burn with this world and perish.

“It is the primal bright essence of consciousness that can bring forth all conditions. Because of conditions, [we] consider it to be lost. Living beings lose sight of the original brightness: therefore, though [we] use it to the end of their days, [we] are unaware of it, and without intending to [we] enter the various destinies.” (The Buddha, The Shurangama Sutra ⁠— Shurangama means “unshakable” samadhi)