May all beings be happy…
May all beings be free…
May all beings have access to and ipods and facebook during vows of silence.
(This last affirmation being our group’s request to modernize Buddhist practice).
We just finished our 5 day intro to Buddhism and meditation retreat which ended in a full day of nobel silence. Nobel silence redefines silence as inadequately quiet, requiring abstinence from speaking, reading, writing, or attempts at non-verbal communication, such as body language, peace signs, or smoke signals for help. As many who have attempted noble silence before may attest, nobel silence is not quiet at all. Instead, it amplifies the noise inside our head, prompting an optimal mental state for mediation and, for many, intense self-reflection.
To ease the intensity, the retreat center chef cooked organic Thai vegetarian cuisine that would drive any Top chef judge into silence–mushroom stews, green papaya salads, tofu coconut curries, tapioca and corn deserts drizzled with sweetened coconut milk. Nearly all of the ingredients were harvested from the organic garden sprouting around the facility grounds. The bamboo and earthen huts were literally perched over the irrigation canals of a rice paddy, leaving us to feel like we were growing like grains of rice, emerging from the mud, sprouting towards the heavens, flowering with ancient wisdom with each meditation, and more appropriately for us, enduring a sickle’s worth of leg pain after attempting the lotus position for a day.
Everyone departed in various states or relaxation or anticipation of mattresses to come. Stay tuned for student tales!
