Social justice: ur doin it rite

"Authentic compassion may forcefully challenge the system. Sometimes such compassion can take a powerful confrontational form, as occurred with Gandhi, Martin Luther King, the Dalai Lama, and Aung San Suu Kyi. But this differs from anger, because instead of aiming to protect oneself or one’s own position against others, it aims to protect all others, by challenging all in different ways. It can challenge those who cling to a bad system to give others greater freedom. It can challenge those who have been abused to rediscover their great worth and power for good. Unlike self-righteous anger, which hates the “bad ones” on behalf of the “good ones,” confrontational compassion protects all by challenging all differently—those suffering injustices and those inflicting them. It upholds all in their fuller humanity and potential for greater freedom from fear, hatred, and suffering."

From an interview with John Makransky.  The whole interview is on the Tricycle website.  (Tricycle is a Buddhist magazine.)

I'm not the CEO – I’m just the feedback co-ordinator

I’ve sometimes likened mindfulness meditation to a CEO listening to feedback from frontline workers so that s/he is better able to run the company.  In that analogy, it is my conscious mind that is the CEO.  But the more I meditate (and remember what I have learned about neuroscience), the more I think that picture is inaccurate.

There is increasing evidence that our conscious minds are not our ultimate decision-maker, however much we like to flatter ourselves that we are in control.  According to research, by the time I formulate an intention to pick up a pen, the neural pathways required to carry out that action have already started firing.

So while I continue to believe that meditation is a way of getting feedback, it’s not so that my conscious mind can run things better.  It’s so my conscious mind has better information to pass onto the decision-making processes that lie beyond it.

This may well be wrong but it seems to make sense to me.   Anyone who has ever tried to meditate will know how little control our conscious minds have over our thoughts.  In fact, let’s face it: anyone whose brain has ceaselessly plagued them with “Wichita Lineman” for eight days in a row knows how little control we have over our thoughts.  But with close attention, we can teach ourselves that certain ways of thinking or acting cause suffering; once our being fully grasps the link between the behaviour and the suffering, it becomes easier to relinquish the behaviour.

Keeping the Five Precepts on retreat

Quite honestly, keeping most of the precepts was a piece of cake.

Sexual misconduct?  No problem: the people I was with were wonderful and no doubt if I weren't married I'd have been all over them like the rash that was all over me after the carrying-nettles-wearing-only-a-T-shirt incident, but somehow - somehow - I managed to control myself.

Don't take what is not offered?  This one was dead easy because everything in the Barn was offered to us.  However, I should like to point out that not only did I not take what was not offered, I shared food.  That's right, I put Brunch Bars and biscuits into the communal food supplies.  This had nothing to do with the fact that, deprived of coffee and e-cigarettes, I was munching through them like a woman on a mission to dissolve her teeth and pop her bra hooks.  OK, it totally was because of that, but still.  I shared.  I kept that precept good and proper.

Don't use mind-altering substances?  There were no such substances within a three-mile radius, so that wasn't much of a challenge.

False/harsh speech?  Admittedly, a couple of 'fucks' did escape my mouth, but they were delivered while empathising with a fellow retreatant about the hideousness of unrequited love, so I claim mitigating circumstances on that one.

The one that was really difficult?  Not taking life.  Man, I was a serial slaughterer on retreat!   Not being a gardener, I was unaware of the relentless killing it involves.  And this was an organic farm so it's not like I was using pesticide.  No, I was just merrily putting my spade through centipedes, then apologising profusely and hoping I hadn't deprived a family of its breadwinner.

I am not good at killing.  Never have been.  Seriously, I tear up if I tread on an ant.  The most traumatic incidents occurred while I was preparing freshly-picked salad for lunch. 

I found a tiny slug at the bottom of my colander.  Having successfully manoeuvred him* onto a leaf, I put him out of the window.  Alas!  He tumbled off his leaf, bounced on the windowsill and fell.  If I didn't outright kill him, I at least gave him a terrible headache.  Distraught, I returned to my colander, only to spot a money spider rummaging in the radicchio.  "Come here, foolish arachnid!" I cried, as I attempted to usher him onto a piece of lettuce.  Alas!  He ran into a water droplet and drowned.

In my defence, I did not intend to kill any of these beasties.  All the same, I inadvertently assassinated quite a lot of critters over the course of the week.

In conclusion, then, other than being a massive death machine, my behaviour on retreat was exemplary.

______________________________________________________________________________
*Slugs are hermaphrodites, but referring to the slug as "it" feels disrespectful.  Why yes, I do have a tendency to anthropomorphise.  Does it show?

Retreat 4: How was it for you (baby)?

Quick version 

Wonderful.  There, you can go back to Facebook now.

Longer version

I was quite apprehensive beforehand.  I knew there would only be ten retreatants and figured that if I really got on someone's nerves (or they on mine), it could be a claustrophobic nightmare.  I was also aware that I know nothing about gardening and was concerned that I might find myself merrily 'weeding' prize orchids into a compost heap.  I made it clear on day one that any horticultural activities requiring knowledge or discernment should probably be delegated to someone else.  My message was heeded: I ended up pruning a hedge and cutting nettles.  (I can't believe no-one told me not to carry nettles wearing only a T-shirt.)

Anyway, I needn't have worried.  I'm told that most groups gel nicely, but one of the coordinators mentioned that our group had become especially close.  By the end, we were like family, and I don't mean in a you-really-know-how-to-push-my-buttons / I-never-asked-to-be-born kind of way.

I don't know about you, but I generally know when I've been running away from emotional baggage.  I was aware, going on retreat, that I had been avoiding feelings.  The fact that, having given up smoking in 2001, I had managed to become addicted to e-cigarettes, was a bit of a giveaway.  I decided to use the retreat to stop using e-cigarettes and to allow any underlying débris to surface, should it be so inclined.

It was so inclined.

Apparently it's fairly common for people to get emotional on retreat.  Your usual distractions have been removed and you're spending an awful lot of time meditating (a.k.a. spending quality time with your mind), so unaddressed issues can easily arise.  Although I had a vague feeling that my unease was connected to those parts of my personality I refer to as my "inner Gollum" and my "inner Sergeant Major", I wasn't sure what to expect. What came up was a lot of pain connected to feeling that I have to be a certain way to be worthy of love. 

Really?  Years of therapy etc and I still have that crap going on?  REALLY?  I know - I said this at the end of the Atheist Prayer Experiment as well, when my bulimia decided to put in an unwanted appearance.

I don't know if those feelings will ever disappear completely.  They're a lot weaker than they were and, whereas they used to embody a loud voice with which I identified, they are now a poisonous whisper buried in the core of me.  They may still be guiding a few characters from behind the scenes, but they're no longer in the director's chair.

At times during the retreat, the feelings engulfed me, but they passed and I carried on with my daily routine, enjoying the company of my fellow retreatants and the beauty of the Devon countryside.  What I have found is that, in meditation, instead of being sucked into the hurricane of difficult emotions, I can - with patient practice - learn to sit in the eye of the storm and observe them. Or, to use another analogy, I can hold them lovingly and let them express themselves, like a parent holding their distressed child.  I find that getting this sort of distance from pain is healing: I can observe it more objectively, watch it arise and pass away, see its component parts and know that it is not as solid as it seems. 

The retreat was a nurturing environment, where I felt safe being vulnerable.  The meditation has also given me more insight into the way my mind works, which is always useful intelligence to have.

I've stayed off the e-cigarettes since coming home.

NEXT TIME: How well did I keep the Five Precepts?  (Spoiler so that Mrs McGingersnap doesn't fret: I didn't engage in sexual misconduct.  Not even with myself.  Sorry - that was probably TMI for the rest of you.)

Retreat 3: Philosophy and house rules

This one's going to be dry and boring, so I'll keep it short.

Philosophy

Essentially Buddhist.  Most meditation sessions were mindfulness-based, though there were two guided metta meditations and some teaching on concentration practices.  The visiting teachers discussed issues from a Buddhist perspective.

With that said, the Barn's library contained psychology texts and books from other contemplative traditions, as well as Dhamma teachings.  Plus, the guy who runs the place doesn't define himself as Buddhist.  I think I was the only retreatant who in any way identified as Buddhist, but I didn't sense that the others felt put off or alienated by the focus on this guy:

"Today I shall go for the cottage loaf hairstyle"

House rules

If you know anything about Buddhism, you'll know that there are a lot of lists in it, one of which is The Five Precepts.  We were asked to keep these while on retreat.  Here's the vow from the Barn's website:

"I undertake the training to refrain from..."

• harming any living being
• taking what is not offered
• sexual and sensual misconduct
• false speech (including idle gossip, harsh and divisive speech)
• taking substances which disturb the balance of the mind (and may lead me into committing any of the above)."

How well did I do?  I'll tell you how well in a later post!

In practical terms, this meant a vegetarian diet, no alcohol and no coffee.  There was tea, though, and you were allowed to sneak a crafty fag behind the woodshed.

Retreat part 2: Timetable

There were three 40-minute meditation sessions a day, with the first one at 6.50am.  (Yes, you read that right.)  The second one was just before lunch and the last one in the early evening.   Most of the meditation was of the sitting down variety, but we got a few chances to do walking meditation.  I really enjoyed this, not least because the likelihood of dropping off mid-session was vastly reduced.  My only difficulty was that, because I was moving super-slowly while staring at the ground, I was frequently assailed by the thought that I must look like a stoned zombie, and then I wanted to giggle.  I know, I know: everything that arises in meditation can be used as an object of mindfulness.  All the same, trying not to laugh when you know you're really not supposed to...

The girl second from the left looks like she wants to laugh and she's wearing robes.

This gives me hope.

On the last morning, we took chairs outside and meditated while the sun rose over the valley beneath us.  *sigh*  Good times.

Between morning meditation and breakfast at 8am, retreatants carried out their allotted tasks.  My task - which I shared with another lady - was taking care of the cats and chickens.  For me, this was fantastic.  I loves me an animal.  In fact, I loves me an animal so much I don't even eat them, which was helpful when it came to the Barn's diet* .  I may have enjoyed the retreat much less had I been put, say, on laundry duty.  For years, I was convinced that as soon as I got a mortgage I would (by virtue of the immense wisdom that I would undoubtedly have acquired by that point) be able to fold fitted sheets.  Alas, here I am at 42, still struggling with pillowcases. Chucking around kibbles and chicken-feed?  That I can manage.

Silence was kept from 9pm each night until 9am the following morning.  The exception was Wednesday, when silence extended from 9pm on Tuesday night until 9am on Thursday.  I found that tough, but was told that most Buddhist retreats are completely silent and that if you so much as fart, they hit you with a stick.  (OK, I made that last bit up.)  This made me glad I had come to the Barn for my first retreat.

Now, those of you who are sharp of mind (or who have drawn a timeline) will have noticed that we had to carry out our morning tasks in silence.  I confess that I found this frustrating.  Although it is possible to convey "you fill the water dispensers while I clean the shit out" using only hand gestures, in my view this is akin to wanting to reach a spot three paces away but deciding to get there by climbing the nearest tree, getting winched into a helicopter and then parachuting down to your desired destination.  It is inefficient.  I'll admit it: I occasionally cheated.

Most days there was a meeting at 9am, to discuss practical matters or to share how we were getting along.  This was followed by working in the Barn's organic garden or, if you were on lunch duty, preparing food. 

Lunch was at 1pm, just after the second meditation of the day.  Afternoons were free.  Well, they were free in the way that school study periods were "free" - you were supposed to be doing personal practice.  My personal practice involved a lot of napping, reading and walking in the countryside; I think my fellow retreatants did similar things.  However, the retreat coordinators seemed fine with this and at no point was I hauled into an office, told I'd never amount to anything or given detention.  So it wasn't that much like school. 

There were several talks by visiting speakers during the week.  These generally took place at 5pm and were followed by dinner at 6pm.  Dinner was supposedly a DIY affair, but our group tended to eat together before going on to the evening meditation.  Evenings ended with drinks and socialising until silent time began at 9.


*I'll deal with the Barn's philosophy and rules in the next post.

Oh go on then I'll write about the retreat. Part 1

A few people have asked me for details, so I agreed to blog about it.  Look at me, caving into peer pressure.  I'll try to give you enough information to let you decide if it's something you fancy doing yourself.  I'll also do it in a series of posts, to avoid you getting teal deer syndrome.

Off we go then.

Location 

...is gorgeous.  It's a converted barn sitting high on a hill (like a lonely goatherd), overlooking the river Dart.  Here's a view from just behind the main building:

Pretty nice, huh?  I nicked this photo from the retreat centre's website, which is here.  So if you are tempted to indulge in a spot of retreating after you've read my accounts, surf over and take a gander.

The nearest town is Totnes.  For those of you who don't know, Totnes is where crystals go to retire and the plug sockets emit not electricity but reiki.   The townspeople even successfully managed to prevent Costa Coffee from opening a branch there, so they are Powerful People Indeed.  (That said, I can tell you from personal experience that it's quite hard to track down a fluoride-containing toothpaste in the local shops, so I'm not sure how powerful their teeth are.)

If you're turned off by that kind of thing, don't worry: the retreat centre is a good ten-minute drive out of town.  If, on the other hand, you love that sort of thing, you can bookend your non-materialistic retreat with some serious consumerism.

I went into Totnes with a friend at the end of the retreat and managed to emerge with nothing more than a pumpkin seed-coated sourdough spelt.  Go me!

My Exorcism

I've called this "My Exorcism", but the truth is that it was just one of my many exorcisms.  I grew up within a branch of Christianity that views demonic infestation as a potential cause of anything from homicidal tendencies to mild lumbago, so exorcisms were fairly common.

In this instance, however, the demon to be removed was of a most serious and sinister nature - homosexuality.

I had returned home from university the previous Christmas and confessed to my mother that I was ... well, I said bisexual.  Anyway, we were all very upset by my non-straightness (including me), so it was decided that I should be exorcised, and that the exorcism should be led by my parents' friend from church, Lynn Harper*.  Lynn had known me for several years, had prayed with me before and was very fond of me.  Also, she would completely understand what I was going through, because she was an ex-lesbian.

Now I have to say, I was not wholly convinced of the ex-ness of her lesbianism.  She was quite masculine and, at the risk of perpetuating stereotypes, I had seen her shoes.  To me, they did not scream "footwear of a heterosexual woman".  Also, I mentioned that she was fond of me?  Yeah.

Nevertheless, she and her team of demon-busters were nice people and Lynn had a superb selection of biscuits, so I was up for it.

As it turned out, the exorcism was short and uneventful.  A few shouts of "Get out, in the name of Jesus!", a bit of a sniffle from me and it was time to put the kettle on.  Other exorcisms had involved crying, screaming, fist-banging and a hell of a lot of mucus.  I have my theories as to why I used to cry so much and none of them have anything to do with demons.  Still, this one was unexpectedly devoid of drama and over very quickly.  Indeed, if they'd been in the mood, the team would have had enough time left over after my exorcism to take a pop at the evil spirits that kept making Lynn's dado rail fall down.

For about a fortnight afterwards, I shunned my biker jacket and jeans in favour of floral skirts, thus proving that while the foul demon of homosexuality may temporarily have been dislodged, the foul demon of poor dress sense was still firmly in place.  And in the long run?  Well, back then I defined myself as bisexual, whereas now I'm a full-on gay.  So perhaps there was a genuine exorcism that day; they just chucked out the wrong thing.



*Name changed to protect the misguided but essentially well-meaning.

"Intimate surroundings"

This is how today's Independent referred to the Shepherd's Bush Empire.  To be fair, it was in the context of comparing tonight's Manic Street Preachers show (at the Empire) with its sell-out gig at the O2 arena a couple of years ago.

Nevertheless - huh.

When I was gigging, my audience frequently consisted of a man, his dog and a biscuit.  Sometimes the dog got hungry and I lost a third of my audience.

Now that is intimate.

"At risk" audience member.  May no longer be in biscuit form.

Being part of a group

Groups have their own immune system: they sense and attack the unbeliever.  Or, to put it another way, they defend themselves against the alien threat.  To become part of a group, you must first allow yourself to be at least partially digested.