Peace in my Heart

By Emily Ridout, Co-Founder of 889

It dawned on my today, that I have been practicing meditation on a regular basis now for over 16 months. This is something I am infinitely grateful for. In fact, I can’t imagine my life before meditation. I value my meditation practice and believe that those around me, without perhaps knowing it, value my practice as well. With a regular meditation practice, I am far more present in my interactions with others and I am more present to what is happening around me, right now.

Prior to beginning a regular meditation practice, I had always enjoyed the meditative part of yoga, particularly the most challenging ending posture to a yoga practice, Savasana. That part of my practice alone is what really grounded me and helped me to experience what it feels like to be in the present moment. That feeling however can escape fairly quickly once you are outside the yoga studio, at least it did for me, only lasting a few beautiful hours, if that. I wanted to find a way to bring more peace and tranquility into my daily life outside of the time I spent on my mat. I suppose in essence, I was looking to live yoga more intensely in my life, not simply when I was physically in practice. In my pursuit to bring more peace into my life (a goal of mine for 2010), I sought out more ways to achieve peace in my daily life. This however meant facing something that was so frightening to me on so many levels – a personal meditation practice.

In my pursuit to bring more peace into my life, I took the recommendation of a friend to go to the Insight Meditation Center in Barre, Massachusetts. Unaware of the profound effect the retreat center would have on me, I enrolled in an ‘Introduction to Insight Meditation’ 3-day silent retreat.

The difficulty for me in my own attempts to meditate prior to going on retreat, was that I didn’t feel a burning desire to meditate the same way I craved a yoga practice. It was uncomfortable and it was really challenging to quiet my mind unless I was physically practicing asana. I wanted to meditate but it just didn’t feel natural to me. I was afraid of it. I felt resistance in both my physical body and my emotional body whenever I attempted to meditate on my own. So off I went, facing my fear, on a 3 day meditation retreat, in the countryside outside of Boston, in search of a deeper connection to the practice of meditation. What I did not expect from this retreat was to fall deeply in LOVE with meditation and to learn enough to bring home a daily practice with me, which I’m using still to this day. I really do crave meditation now. I can feel the difference when I miss a day of meditation and I’m certain others can feel it in my energy as well. I feel I am a more grounded and present person when I meditate, even if it’s simply a short 7 minute meditation first thing in the morning. It clears my ‘morning head trash’ and creates space for me to take in my daily life with more focus and clarity and to really enjoy the moments as they come.

What is Insight Meditation you might ask?

It is the simple and direct practice of moment-to-moment mindfulness. Through careful observation, we experience for ourselves the ever-changing flow of the mind/body process. This awareness leads us to accept more fully the pleasure and pain, fear and joy, sadness and happiness that life inevitably brings. As insight deepens, we develop greater equanimity and peace in the face of change, and wisdom and compassion increasingly become the guiding principles of our lives.

The Buddha first taught insight meditation over 2,500 years ago. One of the core aspects of the teaching of the Buddha is the importance of living by certain ethical guidelines. During my stay at the Insight Meditation retreat center, I made the vow, alongside my fellow retreat participants, to be true to the five precepts. These vows form the integral part of daily life at the retreat centre and are adopted by all who are there, including teachers, staff, visitors and retreat participants.

To refrain from harming any living, sentient beings — not to kill or intentionally hurt any person or creature, even an insect.

To refrain from taking what is not freely given — not to steal or ‘borrow’ without the consent of the giver; to accept what is offered and not try to change it or get more.

To abstain from sexual activity.

To practice noble silence and to refrain from harming by one’s speech — not to lie, gossip or use harsh or hurtful language.

To abstain from using alcohol, recreational drugs and other intoxicants that cloud the mind and harm the body. (This does not apply to prescription medicines.)

Upon arrival, we were shown to our very simple rooms and then we met as a group (150 of us!) to learn the ins and outs of life in silence at the retreat center. These instructions were very important as we would be silent shortly thereafter for 3 days! Each retreat participant was assigned a ‘yogi job’ to do each day in order to sustain the community. Other than two cooks and an office administrator, there were no other staff to take care of the facilities while we were there, it was up to us. Having participants doing yogi jobs, the retreat center is able to keep the costs for participation very low. It is a wonderful way to make the retreat center accessible to everyone.

My job was to clean the breakfast dishes in the morning with a partner. I know this sounds simple, however if you ever went to summer camp, you can picture what it’s like to be in a small kitchen area with big soap tubs, a commercial dish steamer and 150 people giving you their dishes pretty much all at the same time! Now, do this with a partner, who you never met before the vow of silence! This was the ultimate experience of being present and mindful to get the job done (in one hour). My partner and I did those dishes together each of the three mornings for an hour, without ever speaking. I never actually did end up speaking to her even after the retreat was over (I looked for her but couldn’t find her!). It’s amazing how much I felt I knew her though without ever speaking to her. Since this experience, I’ve always wondered how differently things would be in our world if we didn’t use the spoken word as the first method of communication when we meet someone - similar to when you meet someone who doesn’t speak your language. It is so much more of a heightened experience – a totally different way of communicating. So many things get lost in the many words that we speak. Doing the breakfast dishes on retreat helped me to learn the beauty of less is more. Who would have ever imagined that something as simple as doing dishes could have such an impact on me during my retreat experience.

Each day consisted of eight seated meditations (thankfully they had cushioned stools and zabatons so I could kneel for some of the practices!), eight walking meditations, three meals, rest time and evening dharma talks. The meditation room was a spectacular space. It is kept fairly cool and feels very ‘clear’, even after a long meditation session with 150 people in the room. The dharma talks were deeply engaging yet so simple in their content. The simplicity of the experience is what I enjoyed the most about this retreat – everything was presented and practiced in a very simplistic way yet all of it was profoundly impactful. Once again, less can be so much more.

I suppose I was expecting to receive more instruction and was certainly expecting the meditations to be guided. Other than the dharma talks, our teachers barely spoke. They were mindful to use as few words as possible in guiding us on our meditative journey. It was really up to us to ‘self-observe’ and it was our teachers that held the safe space for us to do all of this self-observation. I learned fairly quickly that Insight Meditation is a way of self transformation through self observation. I learned that self observation is powerful. Our teachers helped us to focus on observing the interconnection between mind and body. They guided us in focusing on the physical sensations of our body that constantly interconnect and condition our mind. This practice is 100% observation based.

It is an exploratory journey to the common root of the mind and body that dissolves mental impurity, resulting in a balanced mind full of love and compassion.

When I look back on this retreat, what I remember and feel most is that it helped me to find peace in my heart. Peace is what I set out to find on this journey and peace is what I continue to find through my daily meditation practice. I can now go to my meditation practice to find peace in my heart no matter where I am. That is an amazing thing to have with me no matter where I go! I LOVED being silent for three days. Before the retreat, I had pictured myself being so ready to speak at the end. I surprised myself! I didn’t really have the urge to speak when the vow of silence was broken. I really loved the quietude and continue to gravitate to the quieter moments that bring me back into mindfulness.

I hope I have the opportunity to return to IMS for another Insight Retreat. I would recommend you try it as well if you have opportunity. If you want to get started now though in trying an Insight Meditation practice, I would recommend Sharon Salzberg’s ‘Unplug’ guided meditation CD’s. Sharon Salzberg founded the Insight Meditation Society with Jack Kornfield back in 1975. These CD’s include short guided meditations ranging from 7 to 20 minutes long and are perfect for the beginner meditator and are wonderful for experienced meditators as well. I love them because they are short yet effective. They really complement a busy life where an hour long seated meditation is not a possibility everyday. It’s amazing how much of a difference I can feel in my level of presence from just a short 7 minute meditation in the morning before I begin my day. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. I have gifted them to so many friends and family and have received wonderful feedback, particularly from those beginning to meditate for the first time!

If you do go on retreat at IMS, be sure to ask to be a ‘chime ringer’! It’s not something they will ask you to do, so be sure to offer your services! It’s an incredible feeling , being responsible for ringing the chime around the grounds which alert everyone to gather for the next seated meditation. The vibration is incredible! I was on wake-up chime duty one morning at 5am. What a way to begin a day full of self observation!

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Tagged as: emily, The Founders