Deciding from Uncertainty
Decidir desde la incertidumbre
A student asks whether a month-long silent retreat would be worthwhile at this stage of their process, and the teacher explores how to discern genuine desire from spiritual ambition.
Deciding from Uncertainty
A student asks whether a month-long silent retreat would be worthwhile at this stage of their process, and the teacher explores how to discern genuine desire from spiritual ambition.
I have an opportunity to do a month-long silent meditation retreat in May. There would be a lot of logistics involved in making it happen. I recognize it's a good opportunity, but having talked to you recently about where I am in the process, I'm not sure whether it's something I should do. I don't know whether it would actually be that helpful, because it's a pretty big sacrifice for me. Does that kind of extended time in silence really help with clarifying things? I'm sure you've done something like that in your own process.
When it comes to practical recommendations like that, it's often not very clear. Some things I could recommend in a very clear and straightforward way. This one doesn't seem very clear to me. I've never done a month. Is that a full retreat, or are you just in silence for a month?
It's a silent meditation retreat with a group of people in a house in New Mexico. There are teachers, and it's awakening-based, not just vipassana or something. But a month is quite a long time, so I'm trying to figure out whether I should make the sacrifice for it or not.
Are the teachers people you would recognize as realized?
Yes.
The role of transmission
Well, that to me is the only interesting part of it, because it has to do with the potential for induction, that kind of transmission, the physical proximity. But I've never done something like that, so I wouldn't really be able to say. The question that comes up is: what's driving this for you? It seems like it requires quite an ambition, and that could be coming from a deep, true place, or it could not.
For me, it would be coming from the place of wanting an extended period of time. I just did a seven-day retreat and felt like it was really helpful in clarifying certain things. But a month is a totally different deal. It would be coming from the same place of getting a chance to really spend time clarifying the last pieces of where I get entrenched in self. But it's also a rarefied environment, so that's why I was bringing it up. I understand it's not a clear yes or no.
Ordinary life as practice
Obviously something will come from it, because that's a powerful experience. But at the same time, the same applies to being in more conventional life and fully living. Different things, but they both could be equally powerful. The intention one brings to a daily, ordinary life could have a similar or even more powerful effect than retreating. The level of inquiry, attention, openness, curiosity.
I'm about 50-50. I get where you're coming from, and I feel the same. If I feel 50-50, it's probably not worth the sacrifice of money and time and everything involved.
Checking for spiritual ambition
What I would check is whether this is coming from an ambition to get something, a spiritual ambition.
When you say "get something," is that the same as clarifying?
Clarifying can happen in any moment. Just check that it's coming from really wanting to do it because you want to do it. Like wanting to go swim at the beach. Even if it's a challenging thing. I'm two years into a really challenging company-building project, but I really wanted to do it. It doesn't have to be a pleasurable experience, but just make sure you really want to do it and it's not coming from some hidden motivation.
That's helpful. Thank you.
Any part of life can be a meditation. Business, relationship, friendship. It all is. And so is a retreat and a month in silence.
It almost feels like life is a meditation right now. It's always meditation. So being silent in a house for a month, I don't think I really need it or really want to do it in the way you're describing. That's helpful.
The quieter sense of yes or no
To me, that's the key. If you look at it and just have a sense, there always needs to be a quality of "I'm not sure." Any kind of certainty around these things is often the certainty of conditioning. But when it's "I'm not sure, but it doesn't feel like that's what I want to do," or "it does feel like that's what I want to do," that's what we're looking for. A deeper, quieter sense of "this is a no" or "actually, this is a yes." Especially when it's not obvious. If there's a really profound excitement that feels very alive and heartfelt, that's a clear yes. But otherwise, the knowing of which direction to go is more subtle. You can sit with it, wait a day or two, and see how it feels. Or wait until the day you need to decide.
Living with not knowing
In a way, it's similar to knowing anything at this point in the process. So much seems unknown. How do I even figure out what to do about absolutely anything? It's a similar kind of knowing.
Exactly. That is how it is with everything, the more awake you are in a sense. But one still needs to look at how the mind comes in with knowing, with certainty, with the knowing of thought. It's very tempting, because the natural, true uncertainty of everything is a lot to be with, especially at first. Then it reverses. The contraction of the certainty of thought becomes so uncomfortable that it's like, why bother? The unknown is much more free and pleasant. But decisions do still need to be made, and that's part of the unknown: to make decisions without having certainty.