EarthNest Institute

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Meditation - it's not what you think

I just got back from a ten day meditation retreat at Vallecitos with Eric Kolvig and Brian LeSage and the effects are still with me. Something very subtle happens to the mind after ten days of being watched. Just before a thought comes up, just around the corner before a feeling happens, just out of sight-and-sense from the usual gritty stuff of our everyday habits of mind... there's a gap, a little space in which something like the flavor of an arising thought-habit occurs, and in that instant there's a letting go, and the edge is off. My ("my") usual habits of thinking and feeling get nudged over, just over there a bit, just a wee bit ever so slightly away from that so-familiar everyday tension, anxiety, worry, sadness, grasping, avoiding. It's been a week now, back in the regular world. Something clear and quiet lives in my moments and I'm so grateful. Grateful for this practice, for all my fine teachers - practitioners and guides in a 2,500-year-old science which takes away suffering. Wow. What a deal. But I have to be careful. Out here where I live, way out here in the boonies, it's not a good thing for a person to talk about meditation. People look at you strangely. They figure something's wrong with you. They figure you're a bit woo-woo. They worry about your soul. Maybe some day it will be ok to be a meditator way out here in cowboy country, where even Marlboro men and Steel Magnolias live with that oh-so-very-human chattering mind. Some day this mental discipline will not be confused with religion and people won't be suspicious. Some day everyone, maybe all beings, will find that peaceful essence just under the surface of that troublin' worrysome mind of ours. Thank you so much, Eric and Brian, for a hard-working excellent retreat!

9:59 pm est

2008.06.01

EarthNest is evolving
as a venue for experienced meditators
in the American Theravada tradition,
offering solo or small group retreats,
Buddhist studies, and Dharma talks
whenever our teacher, Don Morreale, is available.
Please call to schedule.

NICOLE V. LANGLEY
719-588-4109
1706 SONORA ROAD
P.O. BOX 521
FORT GARLAND, CO 81133

nicole@earthnest.org