Forget About Controlling Your Thoughts. Focus on This Instead.

9 surprising lessons from a weeklong meditation retreat

Dear Friend,

I recently sat a week-long Vipassana Awareness and Wisdom meditation retreat with Andrea Fella and Alexis Santos, who studied under Sayadaw u Tejaniya. For 118 hours, we practiced cultivating awareness while sitting, walking, eating, and working.

In years past, my awareness was strong enough to allow me to recall past names, memories and everything I said to everyone I spoke with. However, awareness is not as present today, so I'm relearning to be mindful.

The following are the most salient insights from the retreat. But don't believe me—see for yourself if what I say is true.

Ordinary and natural. Awareness is often viewed as something we do or achieve, requiring effort or struggle. But this contradicts Alexis's view that awareness is ordinary and natural. Awareness feels unnatural and effortful because we are accustomed to being lost in thought, but pure awareness is effortless. If awareness is a struggle, you're going about it incorrectly and are unlikely to practice. Remember, awareness is easier than easy.

Awareness of awareness. It's common to notice when we are lost in thought, criticize ourselves for losing focus, and jerk our attention back to the present. I've done this countless times. Andrea Fella has a better way: noticing whenever awareness is present. Noticing the presence of awareness, again and again, brings about more awareness, which I learned from

Teri Leigh 💜

is a product of the brain's Reticular Activating System. While practicing on retreat, I observed an interesting phenomenon: each time awareness was present, a sense of ease followed a release. In other words, the spaciousness of awareness is present whenever the contraction of clinging to mental objects is absent.

Frustration, anger and rage are inevitable. It took less than 12 hours from returning home to becoming frustrated. The first time was after a chihuahua mix woke me up several times while rooting around under the bed covers. The second time was later that day when several holes of an IKEA shelf failed to line up, preventing the screws from going in (it turned out to be user error). Instead of criticizing myself, I marveled at how quickly the mind can get entangled, even after seven days of silence.

Judgment as a barometer of awareness. On retreat, judgment appeared many times, usually during walking meditation. He's walking too fast to be mindful. She didn't even acknowledge me for stepping aside to let her by on the narrow path. He's doing a walking meditation the teachers specifically said not to do. He's talking in the parking lot—again! He looks full of himself, and his partner is as quiet as a church mouse. I'll bet she tolerates his crap. She's all over the place, not exactly mindful. He must have food insecurity; he's always first in line at mealtime. Know that awareness and judgment can't coexist. When awareness is present, judgment is necessarily absent. In this way, judgment acts as a barometer for the presence of awareness. The frequency of judgment helped me to see the infrequency of awareness, confirming why I was on retreat. However, underneath the judgment, I still love and appreciate people. And I’ve experienced periods all but free of judgment, so I know it’s possible.

Wakefulness can appear in many forms. At the closing circle, Andrea described two awakened monks she admires. One monk is outgoing and always smiling, so happy that he could not help but smile for photos, even though one is expected not to smile for pictures in Tibet. Andrea couldn't help but be happy in his presence. Another monk is extremely quiet and rarely speaks. Upon stepping foot in his monastery, Andrea felt a deep sense of peace—two monks with decades of practice, each whose wakefulness presented differently.

Are you aware? While ordaining at the Shwe Oo Min monastery, Alexis often passed his teacher Sayadaw U Tejaniya, who would ask him, "Are you aware?" Alexis usually answered with a slightly knee-jerk "Yeah, I'm aware" to which Sayadaw would lean in and ask, "Really?" Alexis asked us this same question throughout the retreat, allowing us to see if we were really or only vaguely aware, drifting in the liminal space between awareness and being lost in thought. The question is, can you be honest with your level of awareness without criticizing yourself?

The momentum of awareness carries you forward. Alexis often said this during the retreat. When awareness is strong, it effortlessly carries us forward, like a river flowing to the ocean. However, when the mind is uncultivated, it continually gets swept away by the powerful forces of greed, hatred and delusion. Developing awareness requires intention, attention and repetition, but once momentum is established, it protects the mind from its intrinsic negativity. A meditation retreat is the best way to develop this momentum.

A story. Andrea shared a story of someone asking the Buddha, "How did you, dear sir, cross the flood?" In this case, the flood refers to our human tendency toward suffering or samsara. "Without tarrying, friend, and without hurrying did I cross the flood," said the Buddha. "But how did you, dear sir, without tarrying, without hurrying, cross the flood?" asked the man. "When I friend, tarried, then verily I sank; when I, friend, hurried, then verily I was swept away. And so, friend, untarrying, unhurrying, did I cross the flood," said the Buddha.

A simple practice. I'll leave you with a simple practice Andrea shared with my small "check in" group: When the mind keeps returning to and ruminating on a mental object, such as regret, worry or fantasy, let go of trying to be aware and instead look at a series of corners (any point where two lines come together) such as a table, window frame, or corner of a room for about 30-120 seconds. This practice can help ground you in the present, making awareness more accessible. After practicing this for 30 seconds in our small group, I smiled inside and felt unexpectedly happy. That's the power of aware presence.

Should you feel inspired, I wish you the best in developing awareness and wisdom in your daily life.

Keep noticing awareness,

Ryan

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Since I’m taking a break from posting dog photos, I particularly like this song from Pete Townshend, one of my favorite artists.