Rest as awareness

Bodies strewn everywhere. Contorted, writhing, strangely disfigured in a Dante-esque scene of human suffering. This green and pleasant corner of England stained not by the poppy red of the fallens' blood, rather the vivid lycra of the Yoga fundamentalists...

...and so another break for silent contemplation begins on my second Adyashanti silent retreat.

Silence is a rare commodity these days and whilst the enforced absence of speech by over three hundred people is no guarantee of absolute peace it certainly heightens aural sensitivities.

When did my flip-flops become so loud? Like a boom box strapped to each foot I had to eventually surrender and join the bare-foot crew. On-site builders shouting "Terry, pass the hammer" whilst disturbing, faded into insignificance when compared to the coughs and sneezes which were the back-drop of too many of the meditations.

In truth the silence is about so much more than the absence of noise and the silent retreat is the opportunity (obligation actually) to become intimately acquainted with the space I actually am rather than the content I perceive myself to be. 

The silence is an invitation to rest as awareness.

I find retreat both a wonderful and challenging experience. My distractions and identities are familiar and reassuring and prefer to continue to run the show unnoticed, supporting thoughts with an appropriate emotion or feeling. But with the absence of context their machinations become almost comedic as a different perceptual perspective takes hold. My mind complains, "I'm bored", "This is stupid", "I can't do this", "I'm crap at meditation" until, like a toddler not getting the required attention, it quietens and drifts away. The silence becomes internal and a lightness descends.

The mind reawakens and tries another line of attack. "These people are stupid", "Bunch of hippies", "I don't belong here", "What is that bloke wearing?", but again finding little traction the chatter soon quietens and I find myself extending the periods of meditation without reason other than to be.

The talks delivered by Adya seem to bypass the rationalising mind and move something deeper within. He introduced his talk on Love by describing it as a risk, challenging the commonly held idea about this overused word. He differentiated beautifully between the romantic notions of relationship love and the deeper nature of abiding love. "A love which can be withdrawn or withheld was never love in the first place" shines an uncomfortable light on so much of the basis of relationship. I sat in tears and listened as he spoke of the deeper capacity for humans to love. A capacity which runs beyond any programming or survival instinct, both of which are used to hide from our most powerful and frightening gift. Love. 

It's funny how life and time plays with you. The retreat was hosted by a school and as a guilty treat in the breaks between meditations and talks I would wander the corridors of the English department reading the posters of Shakespeare's sonnets. (The silent retreat rules extend to no reading). If you had told the 16 year old Bill that he would be sneaking off to read Shakespeare in his breaks he would probably have started bullying himself! 

It was after the talk on Love that I happened across sonnet 116 and recognised Adyas teaching. 

I will leave this piece with that 400 year old lesson resting in my awareness. 

 Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Love

Bill