Thursday, 9/20

As I do last-minute packing for the retreat, I find myself agonizing about little things - what clothes to bring, how much food, which books, clocks, medicines, etc. I’m reminded that our founding teacher compared entering and leaving a retreat to an airplane taking off or landing. There’s extra stress on the plane’s structure at those times, so lots of creaking and rumbling.

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When boarding the train for Providence, I have to use every ounce of self-control to restrain myself from trampling my fellow passengers in that compulsory stampede for better seats. What is that? Why not wait for everyone else to board the train and then take the worst seat? After so many years of practice, why is it still so hard to resist the herd mentality?

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I begin the retreat with evening chanting and everything seems fine. But when I begin sitting meditation, I realize that my energy is terrible: I feel weak, cold, nauseous, feverish, exhausted. If it’s already this bad after a few hours, I certainly won’t be able to last for ten days, and I immediately start planning to give up (which mostly means inventing the most heroic-sounding justifications for quitting.) I know on some level that this urge to quit is my “opposites mind” reversing the direction of my meditation ardor— “I can’t wait to be on retreat!” morphs into “I have to escape this retreat now!” —but the desire to flee is genuine and overpowering.

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Midnight bows outdoors in the cool moonlight with the crickets invigorate me, and give me energy to get through the first late-night sitting session. I guess I’ll put aside those quitting plans . . . for now.

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