Dhamma Talks - Meditation Retreat :: Buddhapadipa Thai Temple

The retreat sounded very nice to hear about. When they entered it, it was a different story; many of them thought, “This is a torture”. Why is that? It might be because they had to spend a lot of time standing, walking and sitting in meditation and they were not used to these postures, especially sitting meditation. It caused them a lot of pain and they had to focus their attention on one-pointedness which they are not used to. In daily life, they are usually distracted by many things, doing this and doing that, all the time, so when they have to focus attention on one spot, they feel uncomfortable, or feel that they are too confined. This torture seems to be the first stage for a new meditator, but not all of them feel like this. This depends on the background of people’s mind. When they pass this stage, their mind will be calm and peaceful.

‘Expectation’ is one thing that all meditators bring with them to the retreat. Some have high expectations and some have low, for instance, “When I meditate, I will have calmness or tranquillity immediately”. Some come to meditate with liking or disliking, for instance, “I like sitting meditation and I dislike walking meditation. I like calmness meditation and dislike insight meditation, and vice versa”. Those are not good starting points for meditation. Meditation is just meditation; it is not something special.

What do meditators do when they are meditating? They just observe two things; internally, the thoughts, and, externally, the objects. The visible objects they see through their eyes, the audible objects they hear by their ears, the smell they catch through their nose, the taste they experience by their tongue, the tangible objects they touch, and the mental objects they experience through their mind. This is the time for them to learn how to contact their internal doors with the external objects. We will have great knowledge when we open our mind to learn these things. We experience those things through our six sense doors in our daily life. If we are not cognizant of the facts, we will suffer from them; we open the six sense doors to receive the wrong things, which are called ‘poison’.

Is it easy to meditate? It is individual; some find it easy and some find it difficult. For example, a western monk, who became a Buddhist monk in Thailand, found meditation very hard. He had to attend the meditation retreat for two weeks. The time table of the retreat was very strict as he had to get up at 3 pm, sit cross-legged for an hour and walk for an hour, alternately, eat one meal a day, not speak etc. That was very hard for him as he was never regulated like that, before, in his life. The first week passed by slowly, he thought, “How can I endure this retreat? It is very hard. I wasn’t born for this”. But when he looked around, he saw other monks; Thai and Western, still meditating, so he thought, “I must be patient, I won’t give up”, that reminded him of the words which the Buddha had said when he sat under the Bhodhi tree, before he became enlightened, “Let me die. Let my body perish. Let my flesh dry up. I will not get up from this seat till I attain full enlightenment”. The second week, it was still very hard for him to endure the physical pain. He felt that his body was burned by fire, and the day was very long for him, and the night was very short for him. As soon as his head touched the pillow, the bell was rung to wake him up for the new day’s pain.

The last day of the retreat came, but it was the slowest day in his life. Sometimes he opened his eye to check the clock to see if it still worked. The pain was also doubled. He bore in his mind that he had to be patient; the end of the retreat drew near, a few hours were left, but these few hours were the slowest in the world. The thought came to him that in the next hour, the retreat finished, he would take a bath and go directly to bed. This would be the night that he would sleep soundly. At last the bell was rung; this was the signal of the finishing time. After that all the monks had a discussion in the refreshment room; some expressed the thought that the retreat was very good. Some even said, “Excellent! we should continue the retreat another two weeks”. The teacher said, “Yes, this was a very good retreat; many monks made progress in this retreat. We should expand it, the practice is excellent”. “Another two weeks! Excuse me”, anger arose in the western monk’s mind, he thought, “That isn’t a good idea at all, another two weeks would have killed me”. After the refreshment, a Thai monk, who could speak English, said to him, “Don’t worry, this prolonging of the time happens every year”. He thought, “What can I do? I have to accept it”. “I have to accept it”, was a saying that reminded him of his aim to become a Buddhist monk, he thought, “Yes, I have to do it, if I don’t train myself, it is useless to meditate with an angry mind. I would waste my time”. After that, every time he entered the meditation room, he was ready to meditate and he developed a lot less pain, and more calm.

A meditation retreat is like any task which we have to do with our whole heart; if we put all of our heart into what we are doing, without dwelling on it, we won’t worry about the result. It is good to work with expectation, likes or dislikes, because such expectations, likes or dislikes, will bring us disappointment, suffering, depression and so on. ‘Work with our whole heart, don’t worry about the result’ is not only good advice to remember when we do meditation, but also when we work.