10 Days of Silence. 5 Unexpected Takeaways for You

“After the Ecstasy, the Laundry.”

That’s the title of a classic book by meditation teacher Jack Kornfield, and it’s been on my mind quite a lot these past few weeks.

In my previous column for ABG, I wrote about meditation as a technique for exercising our psychological strength. I was about to dive into a ten-day silent retreat, to go down the rabbit hole of the technique called Vipassana. Now that I’m on the other side of that experience — after the ecstasy of that experience — I’d like to share five takeaways as I’ve transitioned back to “the laundry,” or the realities of day-to-day life. 

First, Wind Down
The daily schedule in this tradition is rigorous, with eight to ten hours each day of sitting in meditation. It took the first two or three days (!!), however, before I felt rested enough to sit in meditation with any truly worthwhile amount of concentration or focus. The key to being able to do that was the strict no-screens policy, which reduced external stimulation and dialed down the anxiety and “jerkiness” of continually reaching for our phones for that quick hit of dopamine. Without screens though, real rest — and an ability to actually concentrate — set in. Eventually.

Day-to-day application: At night, my phone stays in my home office downstairs, far away from my bedside table upstairs. I do not miss it. Just knowing that it isn’t within reach registers a more restful state.

We Don’t Need All of That
We don’t actually need to eat so much food. (It turns out that breakfast and lunch, vegan or vegetarian, is plenty.) We don’t actually need so many clothes, or beauty supplies, or space, or or or. Yes, those ten days were monk-style living and they’re impractical for earning a living or even holding a job. But the exercise of it showed what was possible in terms of the comfort and ease of far less stuff, and things we think we simply cannot live without. Turns out, we can.

Day-to-day application: Less meat. More vegetables. A general “clearing out” when feeling cluttered. Dropping attachments.

Anicca: Keep Attention Moving
In the Buddhist tradition, the word “anicca” translates to impermanence. Everything is changing constantly, out there in the world and in here inside ourselves. It’s a law of nature. Go with it, literally and metaphorically. Feeling stuck? Think a sensation will last forever? By the time you feel or think that, it’s already in transition.

Day-to-day application: A few days after I came home from the retreat, I was organizing a wine tasting for about 30 people in my home. My vision for the event was clear in my head but about eight hours beforehand, it still wasn’t coming together tangibly. So I moved my attention, and my body, and wine bottles, and platters where food would be placed. Kept it moving until the vision became reality.

 Equanimity and Non-Reaction
The telltale sign of committed meditator, to my eyes, is serenity in the present tense. Partially that’s because they’ve accepted that everything changes (see “anicca,” above) so there’s little motivation to get attached. Partly too, it seems to me, committed meditators’ heartbeats are almost palpably slower, so there’s a longer space between an event and their reaction to it, if there’s a reaction at all.

Day-to-day application: This one is tied into distance from screens and alerts and that constant (unnecessary) hunt for a hit of dopamine. It makes us on-edge. Like, all the time. Find a way to stop the madness. Power down your phone, say, and hand it over for a few hours to someone who has your best interests at heart. Make an effort to close your eyes and breathe, even for a few minutes a day. Slow your roll.

After the Ecstasy, the Laundry
You might think, very reasonably so, that you’d want to talk to everyone about everything all at once, after ten days of silence. Not so much, though. As we were preparing to leave the meditation center, a new friend, with tears in her eyes, said that she was actually afraid to go back to her regular life. Not because she was in a fearful or threatening situation at home. It was more about detaching from the resiliency she felt she had built over the ten days of practice, and whether the safety net of that would hold.

Day-to-day application: The safety net holds by maintaining the practice each day. The instruction in this tradition is an hour in the morning and an hour at night. That sounds like a lot. And it is, until you see the impact it has on concentrated productivity and capabilities. It’s kind of a superpower. Pretty soon you notice more hours in your day, not fewer.

There is no doubt that an experience like this is far down the rabbit hole, and it is for sure not for everyone. But however you get there, please find a way to let in more light and peace. I’d love to hear how that looks for you.

Namaste,
Cathy