| | I've arrived home yesterday from my first multi-day retreat. A 9.5 day Satipatthana Vipassana stint at Thatagata Meditation Center in San Jose, CA. It was an extrordinary, earth-shattering experience that ended in bittersweet fashion.
My Confession:
I am incredibly humbled to report (even though I never made outward claims otherwise) that I am not nearly as far along the path as I once thought. However, believing that I was served me greatly as motivation and progress was made. My whole confusion stemmed from having a somewhat sudden kundalini event in 2015 and then wrongly assuming I wouldn't have to cross it (A&P) again because I was mistaking a Three Characteristics diagnosis for Re-Observation. I thought I was entering the retreat in some low grade form of Equanimity. I hadn't read MCTB for a long time so I missed important details and the following excerpt explains my missed self-diagnosis to a T:
"It is very easy to confuse this stage with descriptions of stage 11. Equanimity, especially as the stage before it, 10. Re-observation, has some distinct similarities to stage 3. The Three Characteristics. A brief discussion of the fractal nature of things that describes this will follow in the chapter called The Vipassana Jhanas. The big difference is that this stage is ruled by quick cycles, rapidly changing frequencies of vibrations, odd physical movements, strange breathing patterns, heady raptures, a decreased need for sleep, strong bliss, and a general sense of riding on a spiritual roller coaster with no breaks. The higher stages (10 and 11) do not have those qualities."
I realized this after an explosive A&P (not EQ) experience wrapped up on the last day and there was no fruition. It became clear to me immediately in the nanas and jhanas table. Woops! Packing my car, in tears, extremely A&P hungover, disappointment and embarrassment weighed upon me. I felt like a chump for all my prideful reflections and naive assumptions. There were doubts about continuing practice but on my drive home was reinvigorated by the fact that I did make good progress, had a remarkable retreat and my life is set up to dive into the potentially challenging material ahead.
The Center:
Thatagata is beautiful, spacious center hidden behind tall gates and cypress trees on a large city block in San Jose, CA. There's a small bit of city noise in the background and an occassional noisy neighbor but it wasn't an issue. It's owned, operated and supported by the local Vietnamese community. The food is exceptional (breakfast @ 6, lunch @ 11). The living quarters are clean and basic with cots. Most yogis, to my knowledge had their own rooms. The bathroom facilities are kept clean and comfortable. The living quarters, mediation hall and dining hall surround a lovely courtyard with plenty of space to spread out for walking meditation. The abbot, Sayadaw U Thuzana, is the former meditation master at MBMC. I didn't notice his beaming presence until I stepped into a small room where he was holding a question and answer session. I was floored. My jaw dropped. The man is so comfortable in his surroundings and exudes loving-kindness effortlessly. I looked forward to hearing his soft voice during metta chanting first thing every morning.
The Experience:
The first day was exciting and sloppy as to be expected. I rode waves of happiness and bliss overjoyed to have actually finally set aside the time to be doing it. My thought machine wasn't taking the whole thing seriously. I found it to be cracking jokes, fantasizing about pulling pranks and the like. I welcomed this kind of attitude. Show respect, show gratitude, practice hard but don't take it too seriously. The seriousness would come plenty on its own.
On day two was all about settling in a little more. It was feeling more like work as the concentration gained momentum.
Day three is when I really did some hard pushing and found my concentration becoming increasingly powerful. That night while really seeing how hard I could push it an explosive rapture occurred in my head that felt like a two ton bomb of MDMA. My racing heart beat the air out of my lungs with every pulse for about 10 seconds. My cushion neighbors were probably concerned. When the bell rang, I shuffled out the door a little unsettled. While retiring to my quarters for a bit to calm down, sexual images flashed in my mind. If I only would have been more versed on details of the stages, this would have raised a red flag immediately that I was entering A&P. Not to mention, other obvious factors of the Three Charactaristics stage like body shakes, sudden neck movements and so forth.
On day four concentration was exceeding anything I had ever been able to reach prior and noticed large spans of time go by without distraction. I believe it was also day 4 when while not practicing like a good yogi, I was reflecting on something from earlier that day. A family brought in alms for the monks and served it to them at their table. While U Thuzana and U Khippapanno started eating, the family including their little girl bowed together. A new appreciation for Buddhism as a religion dawned on me. A new respect for the sanctity. For all its flaws and inefficiencies, devotion in Buddhism was the very thing holding this retreat center together. The very function of devotion was the reason that this spoiled white boy from the sticks could come to the city and have a life transforming experience for a mere $25 a day. The very function of sanctity was what was keeping this center out of the clutches of a fee for service society. I became overwhelmed with gratitude and sobbed. Never so clearly have I been able to perceive a tear rolling down my cheek.
Day five was when shit started to get weird. After lunch I strolled out into the courtyard where a bizarre and destabilizing insight hit me like a train. It was a crystal clear, chilly beautiful day. I was feeling relatively normal, light and happy. I took a few steps and then slowed as there was a strange stillness to a particular moment. A thought arose "What do I do now?" Then a funny feeling appeared like I had forgotten the key to my room or neglected to do something important. I patted my pockets and quickly looked back to the kitchen, then surrendered to the momentary fact that... there was simply nothing to do…. I was just here... right now…. However I try to describe this experience doesn't quite cut the mustard for it was beyond language. My best effort would be to say that I momentarily saw though the mental construct of past and future. The experience was knowing directly that time is an illusion. (To be fair, I'm sure this was partially brought to the surface by the fact that I didn't really have anything to in either direction of time except for dozens of hours of sitting and walking.) A bit of panic set in and I got "the fear". I felt like a lost little boy asking a stranger if they had seen his parents but only to get the response "Oh silly little boy, you never had any parents!" After pacing around nervously, holding my head between my hands, I ended up hiding in the back parking area weeping for a few minutes. It scared me deeply and that was the first wave of psychedelic fear that would come and go throughout the retreat. The next sit served some comic relief in the act of an adorable old Vietnamese man sitting in front of me snoring. I really thought I'd be able to keep it together until some Beavis behind me (another old Vietnamese gent) started snickering. Like any Butt-Head would, I couldn't help it and I started snickering too. I eventually had to lightly touch the man gently on the shoulder to wake him up. I laughed to myself about it for days and the old timer slept pretty much the whole time. During this day, strange time warps and memory gaps started to occur. I remember looking at the clock in the dining hall eight hours after an interview with U Thuzana thinking that it could have easily happened an hour or two before.
Day six was a breakthrough when the geometric visuals kicked in. Eyes closed, I was seated with a wall on my left and in one particular sit I noticed an expansion of space to my left and felt as if the wall was not there. Space was filled or constructed with repeating and shifting 3d triangle patterns that looked similar to ball-and-stick molecule models. This was also when a consistent recurring visual phenomenon appeared that I had seen occasionally in the two or so months leading up to the retreat. I have dubbed them, "stretchy box things":
Imagine a two dimensional square or rectangle in a three dimensional space. The top two corners will move horizontally in one direction and the bottom two corners will move in the opposite direction, resulting in a trapezoidal figure, most commonly a parallelogram. Sometimes one or both bottom or top vector would move closer or farther in space resulting in an isosceles shape. That's a "stretchy box thing". The movement is rhythmic, happening about once a second, or much quicker as I moved closer to the A&P event horizon.
Sensate reality was becoming increasingly intense to the point that it was almost unbearable and the fear seemed to be stronger at these times. At one point I entered the men's quarter hallway after someone had mopped. Strange to say but the smell of the floor cleaner was orgasmic. Opening the door to my room, the smell of my own funk was repulsive. The fear became stronger and deserved closer investigation. I dedicated one sit to feeling the fear to as much as possible. It slowly moved off to the left in typical fashion. Stepping outside afterwards there was a new calm. Warmer weather had moved in and the air was thick and comforting. For the first time I remembered how I felt after my initial sudden awakening. The ease, the intriguing pleasant feeling in the hands. The day continued with ease until later that night in the restroom. I was washing my hands when a gentleman using the urinal breaks noble silence. "Nick, how you doing?" It was like a bomb going off. I turned and replied quietly, "uh..pretty good man. How are you?" He introduces himself and asks, "You mind if I break noble silence with you?"
"Uh..sure"
"Let's walk to the back parking lot?"
"Uh..sure."
The fear returned but I had no problem with chatting with this guy. At least I could get off my chest to someone that I momentarily witnessed time stop. I thought I had heard him crying at one point and perhaps the guy might just be losing his shit and needed to talk to someone. Pretty much he just wanted to tell me that I look like Bodhidharma (I do have a beard, but I'm not balding) and how he has aphantasia. The fact that he would go through life never being able to visualize his family members was the cause for his crying. I had never heard of such a thing and didn't have much to say to comfort him. Before telling me he was leaving the retreat and saying his goodbyes, he left me a new way to look at noting practice.
"You are cultivating a simple, streamlined consciousness," he said.
I never thought of it that way. And to be completely honest, I never really have done much noting. It's all about simply feeling, as deeply as I can, straining my nerve endings outward like antennas to the heavens. I'm rarely even on the primary object (even though U Thuzana had me do so and it helped me feel more clearly). I'm studying every sensation, jumping around to catch whatever arises. Even though it's a tried and true method for many, for me noting has seemed like wasted effort. It's like calling on the phone to someone in the same room. To use TMI's sub minds as a model of example:
A dials up B and says, "Dude, Sub mind C just expressed a thought."
B, distracted from his attention replies, "I know man, I heard him. We're all right here."
A dials up B and says, "Dude, did you feel that earthquake."
B replies, "Of course man, I'm sitting right next to you. Can we stop talking about it and simply feel the vibrations?"
Sure it's a way to not get lost in the content of thoughts, but in my experience whether or not I'm noting or simply "feeling", I'm gunna spend a little time bullshitting with mental phenomena from time to time. Perhaps moving into dissolution it will be more helpful.
Day seven was the real kicker. The visualizations moved away from the molecule models and into more complex spinning pinwheel patterns. Quicker moving and more pronounced "stretchy box things" appeared very frequently. The euphoria built into orgasmic highs. Blasting concussions in space-time rippled through on occasion. This was the day when I could no longer sit on the cushion. My left knee was toast. An apparatus of cushions had been constructed and altered many times. Numerous ways of sitting were explored. Aches, throbs, stabbing pain and stiffness were welcome and served me well. However, unbearable burning, clicking, popping, deteriorating knees and heavy limping at the end of the day were signs that I should consider a chair. Growing up ski racing, I've noticed my knees never making a complete recovery. The "resting" chairs at the back of the hall with a "15 minutes maximum" sign were my only refuge. I notified the coordinator that I would need to rely on those and she didn't seem to think it would be a problem. Moving away from my sitting position was a symbolic departure from the yogi tribe. Meditating in a group had been powerful and motivating. Whatever was happening now didn't seem to ask for motivation. It was simply a process running itself and I was along for it, watching carefully. Moving into the evening, my concentration seemed to give out and I was simply laid out in the chair, hooked to an IV of primordial opiate-infused ecstasy watching a spectacle of geometric visualizations, spinning pinwheels of cat heads, and a meditation hall that warped under the movement of "stretchy box things". To quote MCTB, "…as if we have been submerged in thick syrup and partially sedated by some strong, opiate like drug."
At the end of this particular sit I stayed past the bell eyes closed, seated near the women's entrance. As the women exited slowly there were visuals of the feminine energy built into these gorgeous women all waving to me as they passed. I was tripping balls.
That night there was barely any sleep under the spell of gooey euphoria. A party erupted in the middle of the night on the next property over directly on the other side of the fence. Drunken shouts and singing were followed by 20 minutes of blasting mariachi music at 4am. I smiled to myself but was also a little wigged out. The contrast of a banal cacophony against the backdrop of an esoteric journey through deep consciousness was slightly unsettling.
I'm thinking day eight is when, under my delusion of being in EQ, the careful observing of "formations" began. There was definitely heavy flickering of all senses and I thought at one point I was seeing the "tri-ality". Sensate vibrations on one side, a void on the other and my observation point. The whole thing was spinning as a carousel. There would be cycles of slow, deep and chunky vibrations evolving to very fine ones quick ones over a few hours. The euphoria became pure and fine. Fear was diminishing and nearly extinguished. My appreciation for the strict religiousness of it all was waning quickly. The experience was no longer fitting the mold of disciplined, consistent meditation. There were times when I could focus and times where I intuitively knew there wasn't any progress to be had and that it was best to rest. My concentration no longer had the ratcheting mechanism it had before.
I missed a couple sits throughout the day and lied in bed under the weight of some sleepy apathy. Many people were falling sick and I was feeling myself fighting it. You could taste it in the air of the meditation hall. Since I only had two days left, it wasn't a bad idea to keep my distance. There was no urge to do anything at all. Completely content. I forced myself to keep meditating when the energy was present, paying close attention to the vibrations. In one nap there was an experience of sleep paralysis, something I hadn't come across in 10 years. In the past there's been a presence of a demon, gremlin or some dark entity. But during the lucidity of it, I heard the voice and felt the presence of an old friend I hand't seen in years. "Nick, wake up. Nick are you alright?" I could see the room from a distance and eventually wrestled my way out of the spell.
On day nine the euphoria washed out and I was left in perfect bliss. Sitting in the courtyard, I admired the beauty of the tall cypress trees, blue skies and bees pollinating the flowers. This was exactly how I was for months after my sudden change in perspective in 2015. The vibrations became very fine and extremely quick, but fading.
During the last hour of meditation on the half day ten, I lied in bed confused by what happened. This is when I looked at the jhanas and nanas table. Aha! I was not crossing the same apex as I thought. It was temporarily soul crushing. No wonder U Thuzana didn't have much to say in the interviews, but the obvious. "More precise feeling of the primary object and more accurate noting."
...
So here I am, a little shell shocked from the experience, feeling a little alien in my own living space and thinking about how much deeper this rabbit hole goes than I thought. This is very, very similar to the after effects of an acid trip. I'm still seeing stretchy box hallucinations warp my surroundings, different rates of vibrations and occasional spinning visualizations. When moving my eyes there's a slow frame rate-like quality to my vision. I'm sure things will "normalize" at some point but I'm uncertain what it will be like to return to work, produce music and hang out with family. I feel tremendously different and "thinner" in a strange way. I'm looking forward to moving on with practice into this new strange territory. I'm still shocked that all this stuff is real and works the way it promises when after 2500 years, most people think its hocus-pocus or worse. |
