Some thoughts after not talking for 6 days.
Last week, I drove 100 miles north from Salem OR. and parked my borrowed car at Cloud Mountain Retreat Center . Inspired by friends and readings, I wanted to be on retreat with others seeking to deepen our meditation practice. This would be a retreat held in noble silence, no speaking, reading, phones or other digital devices. As I walked the grounds at Cloud Mountain, I would reach in my pocket to discover that there was nothing there. No oblong device there, my pocket had achieved what we retreatants were leaning into: emptiness. If you attend a 6 day retreat and maintain silence for the duration, stuff happens. Questions come up: who am I?, why am I?, what's my next step? Having a daily meditation practice as I have for a number of years is helpful, but for what? Sometimes I think my meditation is done in order to check a box to get credit in the category of “spirituality”. As in, "i f I don’t go to religious services, pray, chant, perform sacred rituals, or me