my flight to Korea

The weekend of silent meditation and sitting is complete, we made it through as a group, and as one. We sat with Richard and Mary and our instructor Jules Levinson all weekend, which meant 9:30am-5:30pm both Saturday and Sunday. I know what you are all thinking... essentially this is the same amount of time it takes to fly to Korea. For advanced sitters apparently 7 or 8 hours is really only half a day, on some sitting retreats the days can be 14-16 hours long, alternating sitting and walking meditation. That being said, 7 hours a day was plenty for our group of seasoned yoga practitioners.

Personally I have never meditated for more than 15 minutes at a time, its never been something I have worked on or studied at all. Sometimes I consider my asana practice a meditation, because on occasion it is very slow and can last hours and hours, but I have never been much of a sitter. I actually dislike the act of sitting so much that when contemplating some worldly travels, I've always considered Asia to be too far away due to the long and often wretched flights.

So what did I learn on my flight to Korea this weekend? The number one thing that struck me was the somewhat anticlimactic nature of the 2 day sit. For some reason I thought there would be some turning point where issues would float to the surface and simmer in my mind for a period of time while I internally dealt with issues from my childhood... or something like that. What did I think about the whole time? I did have a chant stuck in my head on repeat for abut 9 hours, often times I would think about music, different songs would come in and out. There were moments of contemplating a few ideas I have about myself, based on my personal stories and the like. There were also moments of complete mind numbing boredom, counting the breaths until the gong would ring and we would all rise and begin walking very slowly in a circle around the room. I'm a bit surprised that I made it through the weekend without a single melt-down moment, just given the fact that I generally hate sitting still for longer than 20 minutes. I'm a mover, always have been, usually in airplanes I'm the one getting up every hour to stretch and do some twists in my seat and some plies and tendues in the aisle. I think the fact that I made it through 14 hours of sitting without any entertainment, books, music or recreational drugs is an accomplishment within itself.

When you sit in silence for so long it creates an inner stillness that is shared amongst the group. Everyone has a vibe of complete silence, this is something that I enjoyed quite a bit this weekend. On our first day, at the lunch break no one felt the need to make small talk because we were all in a headspace that was completely comfortable in our own group silence. I think being comfortable in silence is brilliant. Hanging around with so many new faces usually prompts chatter, sometimes great conversations, but often times just slightly awkward time killing babbling. In my opinion being able to mingle with people without talking is a powerful exercise and something that isn't done enough. I feel that taking part in a silent meditation with people who are essentially strangers is a unique bonding experience, it breaks the awkwardness of hanging out together, after what we just did there is no longer such thing as an awkward silence. I'm sure the group dynamic will be slightly changed by this whole experience, I'm looking forward to getting back to class tomorrow.

Half way done, can't believe how fast time is flying!

xo