Reflecting: Seven Rainey Days at Cloud Mountain
The following article is a personal account of my time during a 7-day silent meditation retreat. It was originally written in a notebook and has been rewritten digitally without any edits to maintain its original form. I re-read this yearly as a reminder of the experience and lessons I learned. I hope you can relate to some of the content and that it inspires you to participate in a silent retreat. Enjoy.
Seven Rainey Days at Cloud Mountain?
Let me start by saying this was one of the most valuable experiences I have had in my twenty-seven years of life. As I sit here and reflect on the experience, finally writing down my thoughts after seven days in Noble Silence at Cloud Mountain Retreat Center, my hands are shaking and continue to cramp. This may prove to be a larger challenge than the actual experience. I had a brief moment of hesitation in writing this personal account because the true value lies in the experience itself. Once I realized the hesitation, I smiled, took a deep breath, and became aware of the joy I had from the experience of hesitation, then I began to write.
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I write this from a place of compassion. I want others to know the beauty, the suffering, the challenge, the joy, the love of all beings, the hilarity, and the learning I experienced while at Cloud Mountain. At least, I would like them to have a taste. I cannot stress enough how much value there is in the experience itself. Words do not and will not do it justice. The words can only inspire you to go and see for yourself.
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A bit of a backstory on why I took a week off from my day-to-day life for this silent retreat. In my constant hunger for knowledge, I came across meditation as a means to alter consciousness, relieve stress, and reduce anxiety. One of the main commonalities in many of the top performers from my virtual mentor’s interviews was meditation. I developed a daily practice and began to get a taste of the aforementioned benefits along with an added bonus of disillusionment of the self or loss of ego as it is often referred to. It is the feeling that you are everything and nothing at the same time. It is powerful. People achieve this feeling through hallucinogenic drugs, dance, holotropic breath work, meditation, and other means I’m unaware of. At a time in my life when I was working and completing a master’s program, teaching myself Japanese, planning a trip to Japan, practicing yoga 3-5 days a week, working through an introductory Gymnastics Strength training course to improve mobility, getting regular acupuncture/chiropractic work to correct a neck/spine injury, organizing a 4th of July rafting trip, and making time to see friends/family, I decided to sign up for this retreat. I am so happy I did.
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After a six-hour drive to Cloud Mountain Retreat Center from Spokane, WA, my breath was taken away by the beauty of the grounds; old cedars covered in moss, ferns, fountains, bamboo, buddhas, and walking trails. I was one of the first to arrive register, find my room, and select my yogi tasks for the week. I selected compost and the 5:45 am wake-up bell ringing. Others started to arrive, and I was able to meet a few people while walking around the trails on the land. Most people had never done a silent retreat before and there was an air of uncertainty hanging over us all, which was especially noticeable as we introduced ourselves to each other in the meditation hall later.
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Once everyone arrived at 4 pm, we sat down with the staff and were trained on each of our assigned tasks. At 5 pm we had dinner together for the first time and were able to talk a bit about practice, where we were from, etc. I walked almost all the trails on the grounds and sat by the pond that had a nice fountain. I could already feel myself getting nervous about the length of time of the retreat and kept wondering how I would entertain myself without a phone, book, or journal. Why did I even come here?
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The bell rang a few minutes before 7 pm, which meant that all the yogis were to gather in the main meditation hall for orientation. Everyone set up their space they would be using with pillows, blankets, chairs, or kneeling benches and things got started. We were welcomed by the teachers: Alexis Santos, Keri Peterson, and Shelly Graf. They all had a calming presence to them and brought humor into the initial talk. Because I had already started to lose it a bit and had thoughts about going home, one specific joke I liked was mentioning that they should change the word “retreat” to “suffering”. The teachers gave a Dharma talk and discussed Noble Silence more in-depth. Noble Silence is designed to cultivate awareness by removing external noise and stimulation. It allows a person more of an opportunity to look inward and better understand, refraining from using technology like cell phones, reading, or writing. The only times the silence was broken was during Dharma talks with teachers, guided meditations, small group interviews with teachers, and during private interviews about personal practice with teachers. As an extension of the Noble Silence, many people refrain from eye contact with others. I found myself doing this for the better part of the week. We concluded the evening with a 30-minute meditation or “sit” as it is often referred to and were in bed by 10 pm.
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Schedule from Saturday – Thursday, July 28th – August 2nd 2018
5:45am…...wake up bell – wake up to awareness
6:15am……sitting in meditation hall awareness
7:00am……breakfast (oatmeal/granola/yogurt/hard boiled eggs)
8:30am*......sitting w/ guided meditation (Q&A at end)
9:30am……awareness in motion (compost yogi task)
10:15am*……awareness in sitting or small group interviews
11:00am……awareness in motion
11:30am*……awareness in sitting
12:00pm……Lunch (curry/rice, burritos, veggies, salad)
2:00pm……awareness in sitting
2:30-5pm……variable schedule (Qigong at 4:15 or miss of sit/walk)
5:00pm……dinner (soup and bread)
6:30pm*……awareness in sitting
7:10pm……awareness in motion
7:30pm*……Dhamma talk (Q&A)
8:15pm……awareness in motion
8:45pm*……awareness in sitting w/ day’s reflection
*Indicates main bell is rung 5-7min before times
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My watch alarm buzzed me awake at 6:00 am Saturday morning because the teachers wanted everyone to get some extra sleep on the first night. I rang the wake-up bell, a small handbell from the meditation hall, as I walked a loop around all the sleeping halls and then back to the meditation hall. This took about 5 minutes and the bell would ring twice with each motion. I was nervous about my steps and breathing and the number of times the bell rang, along with the interval of time between each ring and if I was walking fast enough. This hyper-awareness, anxiety, nervousness, and self-criticism would be a consistent theme for Saturday.
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Prior to the retreat, I took a spontaneous trip to visit Brittany in Boise. I met her during the rafting trip weekend I hosted at my parents’ place in Lucile, Idaho, and really wanted to go see her and get to know her better, so I stayed with her for five days in Boise, then flew back to Spokane and drove to Cloud Mountain the next morning. While visiting her, I was also making sure I had everything taken care of for work during my time off and finishing a workshop proposal for school. That being said, we had an awesome time together touring around Boise eating good food having fun conversations, running errands, going to her favorite places, and having drinks. It was one of the most relaxing trips I have had in a while and the first time I felt a strong, peaceful, relaxed connection with someone that enabled me to be myself. This experience provided me with two areas of thought on the first day: one was positive and contained brightness, and the other was negative and carried anxiety, fear, nervousness, doubt, self-criticism, and wanting.
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After breakfast on Saturday, I performed my yogi task and felt like I had quite a bit of energy so I took a walk on several small trails and would stop at the benches for meditation when I came across them. The whole time I kept thinking things like:
领英推荐
What am I going to do next?
This inner conversation lasted a few hours and I could not figure out how to quiet my mind and relax. I was aware I was thinking about these things; after all, there was not much to distract me, but none of the techniques I knew would help quiet the negative thoughts. I kept checking the time on my watch and the morning seemed to go so slow. What I thought was a long walk was 20 minutes and stretching was 10. The meditation hall was nice because I could sit and focus on my breath or do visualizations for 30-45 minutes.
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We were told that we would have small group interviews with each instructor every other day where 6-7 yogis would meet to ask questions or share experiences with the instructor individually while everyone else listened. It was more of a 1:1 conversation with the instructor with the others listening so they could also benefit from what was said. My first question to Keri involved time:
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Me: I’m struggling with time. Seven days seems like a long time and I am not sure I can do it. Do you have any suggestions for how to deal with that?
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Keri: Hmm…we are all used to having a plan each day and being conscious of time holds that plan together. Noticing the times when we are clinging to time, letting go, and finding humor in the moment can be relaxing. It is OK to have fun and laugh at the overall situation. You do not have to be so serious. When thoughts arise that have emotions or doubts, or uncertainty associated with them acknowledge them, appreciate you are having those thoughts, smile, laugh, and be aware of each emotion in the process. Most of us just went from moving 100mph to 1mph upon arriving at the retreat and are still adjusting to the new speed.? Embrace the experience and let go. You took time out of your life for this for a reason. Let it go. Let it happen. You have nowhere to be.
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Others in the group were all struggling with the same and different things, which helped me understand my own thoughts and emotions as well as be aware of some I was feeling and did not notice or would be likely to feel in the next few days.
A few examples:
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Hearing that it can be healing to have humor in any situation, let go and let it happen, and surrender to the experience because there is no place I need to be and nothing I need to do apart from being aware of each situation really helped me relax and be content with each moment I experienced the remainder of the retreat. The rest of the day on Saturday, I was able to settle down slightly. I did some light yoga and a few more walking meditations mixed in with the seated meditations in the hall. In the middle of one of the sits, I realized that it had become a more common thought for me to want to be doing something better with my time. If I was working on campus and not many professors were around and/or most of the conversations were negative, I would think that I could be doing so much better things with my life. I could be using this time to learn or teach professors who are actually ambitious and want to improve their classes. I would have the same “why am I here?” question and I realize that was wanting. Rather than being aware of my emotions and finding ways to be present and content, I wanted something better. I also realized I had a fear of missing out, and not because of social media. My fear was/is created by my own mind. I constantly think that I could be doing something better when faced with dullness or boredom. Once I acknowledged this, the negative thoughts flooding my mind receded slightly and those that remained, I was aware of and able to find humor in and not self-criticize. I was starting to feel better about my decision to be there.
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On Sunday, I heard a few hoots from an owl as I walked to grab the wake-up bell from the meditation hall. I spent a little bit of time looking for it but moved on to my morning task after I couldn’t pinpoint its location. Throughout that week, I would hear the owl and it would be close or far away, but I could never see it. This became a joke as the week progressed and a metaphor for me trying to attain wisdom. Wisdom was the owl and at times, it was within my sights, but I could never quite see it. Other times, it was far, but I could hear it calling and I would walk different paths to try and get closer. One time, it was right outside the meditation hall and a group of us stopped to try to find it together in silence but did not see it. Hilarious. One day.
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The morning was much more relaxing than my previous two days. I was able to let go and I could start to feel my body at ease. Most times, I am tense, and my muscles get very tight. I was not pushing myself during yoga or stretches or walking and I could feel an overall release of tension. My back and legs were a bit stiff from sitting cross-legged for many hours, but yoga helped. I was just starting to realize the power of the mind by experiencing these physical results. However; my new-found energy and awareness fell asleep in the hall, so I went to take a nap, which ended up being two hours.
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I woke up in time for Qigong, which is a gentle moving meditation with specific movements in sequence. The first time I participated in this my muscles were engaged, and I was treating it more like a workout and not relaxing, meditative/mindful movement. The second time and third time I was more relaxed.
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My energy had returned that evening thanks to the rest and movement. I was walking down a short path that led to one of my favorite spots to sit and look out into the forest on a small wooden bench and I noticed an intricate spider web to the left of the path suspended in air with a large spider right in the middle. The sun was hitting it perfectly, so it caught my eye this time strolling down the path. I’m sure I had walked by it countless times before. I stopped to examine it closer and found the attachment points of the web to be quite far apart. As I noticed myself doing this close inspection, my awareness went into a 3rd person's point of view above me thinking how nice and relaxing this was for Sam to be checking out the web and then I had a feeling of equanimity wash over me. I was a part of nature significantly and insignificantly at the same time and I was very content with that. It was a disillusionment of the self, which I had really only experienced during different types of seated meditation and hour-long Epsom salt float tank sessions. It was cool. I was starting to understand awareness meditation and my energy had really picked up at this point. My mind felt clear, my body relaxed, and I was finally enjoying the pace, feel, and experience of the retreat.
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That evening, during our group sit in the hall the teachers talked about fatigue and energy in greater detail and mentioned that many of us were likely starting to feel a bit of energy. Me. The dharma talk went long like every night, but there was no schedule so really it was right on time.
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Monday brought new energy and relaxation. My awareness began as soon as I woke up at 5:30 am to ring the bell. I walked with ease and mindfulness as I rang the bell when the past few days, I had been nervous and worried about how many rings I was doing with each step and I would forget to breathe, but not this time. I had finally started to feel a flow in each activity during the day. It was fantastic. My mind was becoming clearer each time I noticed the feelings and emotions I was experiencing. It was not completely clear of ill thoughts or struggles; however. On the contrary, with each passing positive thought, I would think about the opposite. Something negative. Light and dark. Good and evil. Sun and moon. Yin and yang. I would be walking around the grounds and be in awe of the beauty I was seeing in nature, and then think “What if this all just burned to the ground during a forest fire?” Hilarious. I thought about that idea/theory of constant balance in nature and in our minds for a while and ultimately began to appreciate the impermanence of things and experiences. It is liberating to be aware of impermanence and balance.
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Tuesday and Wednesday flowed similarly to Monday and I found myself really noticing seemingly small things in nature. I was walking along a path and saw a line of ants crossing the trail. I followed their line back along the edge of the trail to the main hill, it was huge. I could hear the ants moving in the forest around the hill and sat and watched them work. Rabbits and birds came much closer to me and seemed to follow me sometimes. Pretty neat.
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Thursday, the last full day, the teachers introduced speaking, so we could integrate better into day to day life. The idea was to make it less jarring. We could talk to one person at a time for 2-5 minutes about what we were experiencing, but not talk about work or home, etc. At first, I got nervous. I had become quite close to everyone the past week but had not spoken to anyone the whole week. After viewing it as another benefit and something to experience and learn from, the nerves passed, and I had some very nice, short talks with people in my small group and my roommate.
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On Friday, right before we left around noon, we did a few exercises in the meditation hall and there were a few things that stood out in my mind. We formed two circles, an inner circle and an outer circle. The inner circle rotated to a different person after about 30 seconds and the outer circle would close their eyes during each rotation, so they did not know who was going to be across from them when they opened their eyes. Each person would look at the other person without judgment. It was intense to look into a stranger’s eyes and it was strange to gaze into the other people’s eyes because I had spent a week with them but had not looked into their eyes. I appreciated eye contact even more after this. It was awkward and comforting at the same time. Each time got easier and the urge to resist eye contact went away quite a bit. It did not go away completely, but I accepted it.
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After, we all went around and discussed what our biggest takeaways were from the week. It was awesome to hear what each person took away. My takeaways were to find humor, play, and joy in every situation I can, even negative ones, to let go and relax, and that seeing people learn really brings me joy. One person shared something I will never forget. He was on retreat with his boyfriend and had been a part of my small group all week. He said that he has never felt as safe or comfortable as he had on retreat all week and was so thankful for that. As a gay man, he had always felt attacked or judged in some capacity in his day to day life. I can’t imagine that. It would be horrible to constantly feel that every day. It was really special to hear that he felt safe during the week for one of the first times in his life.
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My drive back was wild. It didn’t feel like I was experiencing the world the same way. I knew that the retreat would enhance my day to day life, so I was less agitated when someone cut me off driving or was going too slow. At one point, a couple cars boxed me in and slowed down. Rather than get upset, I laughed and slowed down to let them go ahead of me for a bit.
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I am not sure if I will do another week-long retreat in the near future, but I am so happy I did this one. I was on a high for at least 4 days after and had a huge increase in metal clarity, energy, improved sleep, and general contentment for weeks after.