The Anapanasati Retreat 2010

On the 1st of April this year, I went on my second Anapanasati retreat at Padmaloka. The retreat is a 10 day long meditation retreat, most of it in silence, and quite intense.

The first time I attended the retreat, in 2009, I had never been on a long meditation retreat before, and I had a completely unhelpful approach. To cut a long story short, I was far too willful, which led to getting stuck, which led to frustration and ill will. Meditators will recognise this as an easy to make mistake, for some people.

So, this time around I approached the practice from the direction of the Just Sitting practice. One might say that I let the structure of the Anapanasati practice guide my Just Sitting practice. This was, for me, precisely the right way to practice at this point.

Lots of useful small and large insights made themselves known during the week, and I'm hoping to write a handful of shorter blog entries around them. Some of them might only be a few sentences long and mostly for my own memory's sake.

I'll start with the structure of the retreat.

Three Minute Breathing Space

For a friend: A simple method for being.

Awareness (30s)

Deliberately adopt an erect and dignified posture. If possible, close your eyes. Then ask: What is my experience right now... in thoughts... in feelings... and in bodily sensations?

Acknowledge and register your experience, even if it is unwanted.

Gathering (90s)

Then gently redirect full attention to your breathing. Observe each in-breath, and each out-breath, as they follow, one after the other.

Your breath can function as an anchor to bring you into the present and help you tune into a state of awareness and stillness.

Expanding (30s)

Expand the field of your awareness around your breathing, so that it includes a sense of your body as a whole, your posture, and facial expression.

Reconnect with your surroundings and with the general direction of the day.

[adapted from instructions from Segal, Williams, and Teasdale]

What I've learnt from meditation

There's a couple of things that I've learnt from meditation, and that is that people, things, and events are generally more interesting than what they first appear to be, and that creativity surfaces in the space left by doing nothing.