The Awakening Power of Silence
Experiences from a week-long silent meditation retreat at Insight Meditation Society (IMS)
After a bit of traveling around the Caribbean, Miami, and Austin, I start my meditation journey here at Insight Meditation Society (IMS).
If you are new to my story, I left my job recently to explore mindfulness and meditation around the world. IMS is the first meditation destination on my itinerary. You can learn about my story more through my videos on my YouTube channel.
I was drawn to IMS after having read a book by one of their teachers, Tara Brach. I was introduced to her by a number of mindfulness podcasts I had listened to, including Tim Ferriss and Sam Harriss. One of the founders of IMS center is Jack Kornfield, who also founded Spirit Rock, one of the largest mindfulness destinations in Northern California. (Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha by Tara Brach is one of my favorite reads about healing life’s traumas with mindfulness. Rated 4.2 on GoodReads!)
At IMS, the practice is focused on Vipassana Bahavana (Pali) or Insight Meditation — the oldest branch of Buddhist meditation in the Theravada tradition. Teachers of this practice combine a strict Burmese approach with the Thai approach, and other Buddhist and non-Buddhist ideas and practices. Vipassana emphasizes meditating and only focusing on one item at a time, typically awareness or breath.
Before this retreat, I had only done a few short meditation retreats focused on Zen Buddhism during my time in San Francisco. I am a long-time meditator and never took the opportunity to dive in deeper than a personal practice. This journey is meant to change that radically.
Day 1 — Noble Silence Begins
Upon arrival, the radiant and welcoming organizers ushered me to my room where I would stay for the week. The room was small but quaint. Perfectly fit with the right essentials: a chair, twin bed, and a sink.
After I plopped down my luggage and stripped off the winter layers, I took a took a quick tour of the place before other retreat attendees arrived. It was spacious but just enough to still retain an intimate atmosphere with other attendees. The meditation hall, main movement rooms, and dining room were among the spacious areas and they were all accompanied by many other smaller and intimate meditation and meeting rooms.
One thing I did notice was the immaculate floor. Over the course of a week, I would wear less and less footwear with each day and ended up barefoot for the last half of the retreat.
After a light dinner, I was directed into the meditation hall for the introductory seminar and start of the noble silence.
No speaking.
No eye contact.
No writing letters.
No electronics.
No reading.
No taking notes.
Just being present.
Day 2 — The Pain Begins
I am not a morning person.
At 5:30 in the morning, the retreat gong rang throughout the center informing everyone that the first meditation session was starting in 30 minutes.
Begrudgingly, I rolled out of bed and crawled myself to the first morning sitting meditation. After I plopped myself onto my meditation zabuton (meditation cushion) and cracked open my eyes, I saw that it was still nighttime. This was just the first day.
Without a doubt, this meditation session was the worst and hardest of the week. My body kept teetering back and forth as I struggled to stay awake and shivered in the cold. I could sense my brain was pleading and negotiating a way back to bed.
The body pains and mindless chatter in my brain seemed to last an eternity. After 45 minutes, it was time to move on to the next activity.
Over the next few days, I would adjust the zabuton with accessories little by little like a bird grooming its nest. A few blankets and two cushions later, my sitting meditation became much easier. (I should note that I looked like a human burrito every morning. But who cares!)
The day rotated between walking and sitting meditations. For walking meditations, I was instructed to find anywhere in the retreat center to pace back and forth at my own pace.
I first started practicing walking meditations at the SF Zen Center during my time in San Francisco. After sitting meditations, attendees would get up, form a line, and play follow the leader like a game of “Snake”. The pace would be extremely fast or slow depending on the mood of whoever was up front. The self-structured walking meditation at IMS was so much more appreciated.
At the end of the day (and every night thereafter) I helped to clean the kitchen as a part of my yogi duties. Every attendee is given a small chore to help clean and give back to the retreat center.
Day 3 — Hello Cold
A week before this retreat, I was aboard a cruise through the Caribbean for a week and it finally caught up with me. I ended up spending the whole day in bed and woke up just for meals.
Looking back, I was extremely ambitious on the first full day (day 2) of the retreat doing every sitting and walking meditation. (There were 16 sessions throughout the day) My body had not yet acclimated from a fast-paced lifestyle to the slower and more mindful movements of the retreat.
Day 4 — A Walk in Solitude
I woke up feeling revitalized after a full day of rest and celebrated with a walking meditation outdoors.
During my stay, the temperature outside was cold. Really cold. Many of the trails were closed due to ice, but there was one path was still open. It was a 3-mile walk around the neighborhood on the main road.
As I took my first steps outside, I was greeted with fresh snow from the night before. The plush layer of white on the trees and buildings reminded me of my time in New York when the first snowfall of the season would arrive. Every car, bench and bodega awning would be covered generously with a beautiful white gloss first thing in the morning. A really beautiful sight to catch.
I spent a while on my first walk, admiring the surrounding nature and neighboring homes. The snow glistened like diamonds in the sunlight and occasionally, the winds gently rustled snow off distant tree branches. As I began the last mile of the walk, a sudden rush of sadness erupted in me.
Tears came streaming down my face and painful memories came gushing out from the recesses where I had forgotten about. I stopped to put a hand over my heart and greeted these memories with delicate compassion.
“I accept you.”
“I forgive you.”
“I love you.”
These memories have put me on the path I am now on and for that, I am eternally grateful.
The solitude walk in snow unlocked a piece of me that I had been hiding from myself.
This was what I came here for.
Day 5 — Coming into Mindfulness
One of the practices during meditation is to recite every emotion and mental process as it arises. Feelings, such as anger and happiness, and mental processes such as planning and creating. Meditators are instructed to greet, and only greet these thoughts as they arise, avoiding going down the rabbit hole of festering on a single thought for the entire duration of a meditation session.
I have quite the tendency to plan and solve problems during meditation and this practice was the hardest to grasp. Imagine finally arriving at a solution for a long-awaited question, only to be told to set it aside. Worse yet, I was instructed to avoid journaling and saving these thoughts down as a part of the retreat. Peril!
Many meditation sessions were spent trying to put a pause on planning or creating and focusing on the present moment. After five days, I was finally able to compartmentalize these thoughts during my meditation sessions.
(OK — confession: I ended up cheating a little bit and jotted notes down to help clear my mind at the end, and only at the end, of each day. Compromise, right?)
Each day would end with a Dhamma talk where one of the instructors would sit onstage and give an inspirational talk. Think TED Talks meets biblical sermon. Very applicable to every day with beautiful stories (some personal and some outside of Buddhism) woven throughout. During this retreat, I thoroughly enjoyed all of them and were deeply moved, almost to the point of tears during some.
Day 6 — Naming the Demons
Similar to the practice of naming our thoughts, the Buddha talks about naming our hindrances as it appears in our mind — grasping, anger, sleepiness, and restlessness.
As I woke up on day 6, sluggish as usual (have I told you I’m not a morning person yet?), a funny thing happened.
I greeted the fatigue that imbued my mind and recognized that I could also set this aside just like my planning and creating mind. Everything was now making so much sense.
Realizing that this sloth was just a visitor to my mind, I set it aside and threw myself onto my zabuton with less struggle than ever before. (Is this what a morning person feels like?)
Day 7 — Breaking the Silence
If I am good at one thing, I’m a glutton for punishment. I set my sight on finishing strong and sat through as many meditation sessions as my body resisted against. Each session bringing myself more compassion and love towards myself.
As the retreat started to come to a close, I could feel the restlessness grow inside of me. Luckily for my practice, I had surrendered my phone to the retreat on the first official day. They would not release them until the day of the departure. A blessing in disguise.
The day closed with a short reflection period with our sitting meditation neighbors, breaking the noble silence. After avoiding speech and eye contact all week, it felt so refreshing to connect verbally and physically with my neighbors. However, after sitting with my neighbors all week, there was an intimate sense of connection even before we started talking. There is something magical about being able to connect without words that I have come to appreciate. The power of simply being present.
After the period of reflection, it was back to noble silence until the end of the retreat.
Day 8 — Farewell
After a quick meditation session early morning, the day closed with a clean-up session and a closing ceremony.
After what seemed like an eternity in silence and meditation, I spent the rest of the day connecting with many of the other retreat attendees about their experience. It was so enlightening to share stories and also this meditation journey I am taking around the world.
Even with a week in silence, there was undoubtedly a sense of community and kinship I felt with other retreat attendees. Starting a conversation was so effortless and there was bellowing laughter and joy filling the halls during our last meal out of silence together. This begs the question: are words truly the way to connect with others?
Other Highlights:
The Food
If I could commend something: the food at IMS was incredible. All of the food was vegetarian and there were gluten-free and vegan options with every meal. Although my diet consists mainly of greens and seeds (what my friends call bird food), there were delicious desserts, soups, and lavish entrees cooked every day. Each dish was also labeled with its individual ingredients for people with specific food allergies. 👏👏👏
Affinity Groups
This was a surprising delight I was not prepared for. There were additional sitting meditation groups specifically for the LGBTQ and POC community. I sat in both of these groups and grew close with the handful of individuals I sat with. Having a safe space held for minority groups was such a beautiful thing to be offered.
Teacher Check-Ins
Every other day, teachers would set aside time to check in with attendees on how the week was going and to offer any advice for practice. I learned so much more about how to deepen my practice and had many of my “common sense” questions answered in these sessions. (No question is common sense — that is our judging mind!) I was also extremely blessed to have some 1:1 time to receive sage advice on my path of teaching & practice moving forward.
Overall, this experience was immensely powerful and a beautiful way to start my meditation journey.
With each step I take on this journey, I learn more about myself and begin to unravel the knots from years of muscling through pain, hardship, and judgment.
This week, I have arrived.
Let the healing begin.
Thank you for your time and readership!
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Have a fabulous day!
Metta (loving-kindness),
Steven
