What I gain from 100 hours of meditation

'Happy Jail'

I recently returned home from my annual 10-day meditation course. My late mother would call this my ‘Happy Jail’, and chuckle to herself, but not without a hint of pride in her eyes. At the meditation centre[1], around 140 students remain in silence for nine of the ten days with no access to devices, music, reading or writing materials or contact with the world outside.

Why go to jail, happy or otherwise, for ten days out of every year? Well, I figure that I spend most of nearly every day attending to what exists outside the skin of my body: home, family, friends, work, activism, even leisure pursuits, tend to focus my attention on things outside of that skin. Meanwhile, there is a whole universe of sense impressions, sensations, emotions, thoughts, impulses, memories, perceptions and imagined realities teeming within.

On a spiritual quest

I went on my first retreat 25 years ago[2]. Since then, I have had no doubt that spending at least 10 days of the year (and a portion of every day) shining a light upon my own inner life is an excellent use of time ?- not to mention that, if I don’t, my partner virtually pushes me out of the door in the direction of the meditation centre! It has not slipped her notice that if I miss my annual retreat from ‘normal’ life, I end up being quite unbearable - both to myself and to those closest to me!?

That said, it took me years to find a practice that really worked for me. I wanted the full monty:

• a failsafe way to get to know who this person is two whom I so readily refer as ‘I’
• an understanding of why that ‘I’ so often feels at odds with itself and the world
• a reliable path to greater inner peace and happiness – not just for my own sake, but for the sake of others

Perhaps you, too, have been on such a quest? If so, what were you looking for? What have you found?

When I finally found what I was looking for, it changed my life.

Benefits of practice

What does this teaching give me that is so precious that I willingly surrender my freedom for 10 days of the year and a chunk of my time on a daily basis in order to obtain it? The answers are also threefold:

• firm support for my moral compass
• a method of taming and training my ‘monkey mind’ and
• a ‘mind cleanse’ process that leaves me lighter, kinder, more peaceful, more humble, more forgiving, more compassionate and more effective in whatever I choose to do

Meditation is not a ‘magic bullet’ – all my mental, physical and emotional issues do not magically evaporate! But as I learn to experience & observe, but not react, to them, they start to dissolve naturally into their elements in their own time. Meanwhile, I start to free myself from being enslaved to their power by not adding the insult of emotional grasping or aversion to the original injury.

Conscious leadership

After 10 days I am not miraculously the infinitely patient, generous, kind, wise, non-judgmental, discerning and courageous person I would like to be! Progress is slow and uneven - but it is also unmistakable: when I return home, it’s as if I have acquired Tardis-like inner capacity to face familiar challenges with fresh vigour, insight and inner stability. ?

Whatever goes wrong, I do not have to catastrophise about it; whatever goes right, I do not have to feel elated, then deflated when it's over. My mind is more balanced, calmer, sharper and more forgiving of myself and others. I have a more accurate assessment of my own flaws and qualities, and a renewed commitment to work patiently to shift the balance between them.

What better basis on which to pursue my own conscious leadership journey?

[1]https://uk.dhamma.org/centres/the-site/

[2]https://plumvillage.org/