Retreat Experiences - more indepth

[Shindo]

Re: Retreat Experiences - more indepth

Thanks Kelly for starting this thread off & my apologies for taking the time to share my experiences of the two day retreat.

My fanily were wonderfully supportive in helping me take the time to do this. I did the recorded version and the technology worked faultlessly the entire time - I felt part of a wider community.

General comments:

On both days I found the first few hours difficult and it took me time to settle.
I enjoyed the oryoki and it made the mundane sacred, but eating that fast was a challenge & it did feel overly fussy at some points. I could feel myself struggling with the ritual and wanting something simpler, cleaner.
Samu was great I enjoyed loosing myself in the tasks that I had set (cleaning the bathroom mainly).
Sitting had its ups and downs and after so many hours I resorted to many different postures to keep going.
Enjoyed all the dharma talks (especially the last one Jundo - right up my street ) & the services.
No deep spiritual message from it all - although at one point the wall went all wavy - which was kinda groovy man

After the two days (and as Jundo warned) - I found my equilibrium was knocked, I felt more sensitive, got a cold etc. But I am coming out the other side of that now.

Thanks again to everyone

Gassho

Jools

[AlanLa]

Re: Retreat Experiences - more indepth

It's been over a week now since I completed the retreat and I just want to add a few comments.

It was a beautiful experience, very powerful in a subtle way. Over the past week plus I frequently find myself remembering it very fondly. But then I have to stop myself by saying, "Get back to NOW!" just like I kept having to do during the retreat. It WAS great, but now I need to take that experience into the Now, or else it's not much different than some neat vacation trip I took once, some scrapbook experience, and it was soooo much more than that.

The highlight for me was the dharma talk when Jundo said, "You are a buddha, so you better act like it." That really hit home!!! Then during the sitting in the dark afterwards, there was just enough light from the window to cast my shadow on the wall I was facing, and it made it appear like I was glowing. "OMG, I am a buddha! Look!" I kept saying to myself. Then I would double-check to make sure it wasn't another hallucination, lol (more on those below). Ever since that moment I have been very conscious of my buddha-nature and made extra (non)effort to (non)act on that nature. Again, trying to keep it in the Holy Now.

Like others have mentioned, when I went outside during a rest period on the second day the grass was greener, the sky was bluer, the birds were chirpier, the breeze was breezier, etc. Everything was more glorious than usual. But it really wasn't! During a samu I dusted off all my trinkets and knick knacks. I never dust, ever, so I have about a dozen or more very dusty trinkets that have great meaning for me, but I never really take much care of them. As I dusted these items one by one I was amazed at how bright and beautiful they became. Colors became bright again with no dust to dull them. Details became clear again with no dust to obscure them. I kept thinking of the story where the current patriarch writes a poem is about cleaning the mirror of dust, and then the future patriarch adds to it saying there is no dust and there is no mirror. Everything outside was the same, as were all my trinkets, but I had cleared the dust in my head so I could suddenly experience them clearly. Very Cool!!!!

A couple comments on the technology and virtual experience of it. The only technical glitches I had were when the video stopped a couple times during the long sessions, both times about right in the middle. One reloaded fine, and the other I had to slow forward to get back to the right spot. Other than that, I quickly dropped thought of it not being live. I knew it wasn't, but it FELT live. Thoughts of distance and recording, etc. dropped away for the most part. It felt like I was looking through a window at Jundo and David, and that they could, if they wanted, look back through the window at me. This was especially strong during samu. I would have the recording on but be doing my non-work in the other room, but periodically I would poke my head in the room to see what they were up to, and I suspected that Jundo might do the same checking on me. You know, I have never quite given up the idea that the lady on Romper Room might truly have been able to see me.

One final note on my hallucinations. I sat facing a white textured wall, and those little random bumps are the perfect breeding ground for hallucinations. For the record, the wall never breathed, and it was no flashback experience from past ingestion of substances. This was all new. I saw a fantastic light show that just went on and on and on... and on. I saw lots of pictures of all sorts of people, some like photos, but most like cartoon drawings, some were real people, but most were not. Nothing I saw was negative or positive (no demons or divinities), none of it held my attention (OK, the light show was cool), because I knew that it was all just in my head. Those images projected on the wall were symbolic of the delusions I(we) project on the world. The wall was just being a wall, nothing more or less, but my brain wanted more so it created more. It was just a great lesson!

Oh, one more thing about hallucinations, on the second day I heard some cheezy organ playing bad jingles-like music coming from the apartment behind me, which I happen to know was unoccupied, and I am about 99% certain she doesn't own an organ. This music was in no way synchronized with the visuals, so that was just weird.