There were sixteen of us on what has become the
annual week’s retreat at An Tobar, home to the Spiritan community in the lush
green Meath countryside. Led by Dónal Creedon, it was again an opportunity to recharge the spiritual batteries and
focus undistractedly on the working of our minds. Dónal’s method is both
extremely simple and inevitably difficult to put into practice: we were invited,
whether in the improvised shrine room where we had our meditation sessions, or
informally in ‘post-meditation’, simply to be present, to be conscious of the
workings of our minds, whether resting or in action, whether emotionally
charged and full of runaway thoughts, or resting, in order to examine the
‘View’, ‘the way things really are’. ‘Right
View’ is of crucial importance, as Dónal emphasised in his introduction to the
retreat, as it informs and underlies everything we do. Some Views lead to
liberation from dukha, from the cycle
of birth and death, others don’t. Time and again Dónal brought us back to the
simple contemplation, without bitterness or desire to change things, of the way
things are, of what is, in the present moment. Faithful to the
Mahamudra/Dzogchen tradition, everything can be seen as meditation. The pain or
distress that I’m experiencing is the
meditation, and we should abandon all notions of ‘the way things ought to be’.
It is difficult to give a true account of a
retreat such as this on the level of concepts, since we were all the time
striving to go beyond concept and the vehicle of concept, language itself, or
rather, to understand their insubstantiality. How is it possible, with
language, to go beyond language? ‘Knowing’ takes on a completely different
aspect when viewed in this way, paradoxically becoming ‘unknowing’.
There are techniques, in the Mahamudra in
particular, which allow the meditator little by little to perceive the nature
of mind, the ‘wisdom mind’ that is empty but cognisant. Our physical being has a role to play here:
The Mahamudra teaches that the body is to be stable like a mountain, the breath
free like the wind, and the mind free like space; focusing on the breath, the
instructions tell us to ‘rest naturally’ with the breath, not seeking anything,
and with no expectation of a result. When thoughts or emotions arise, we simply
stay with them, without judgement or preference, without contrivance or
fabricating. And we ask ourselves ‘What does it mean to say the mind is
resting? What happens when the mind is resting?’ This lucid awareness preludes
any grasping at the contents of the mind, or aversion towards what we
experience, and allows us to gain confidence in the wisdom mind possessed by
all beings.
This flowering of meditation, in the deep sense
of the term, is very much more than a technique, however. By opening ourselves
to the vastness of what is, we can glimpse the mystery of being itself, as
something sacred.
Every aspect of the retreat led to this same
point: the silence that was observed from rising until lunch-time; the steady
rhythm of the meditation sessions as they succeeded one another, either on the
cushion or in walking meditation beside the lake or through the magnificent
woods with their abundance of mature trees and wildlife; the conviviality of
mealtimes when Colette, our admirable cook, tempted our palates with an endless
variety of dishes; the supportive presence of the other retreatants on a common
quest... The late afternoon session was given over to ‘Dialogue’, in which we
examined a question (during these days, turning around the experience of
‘fear’), the dialogue arising out of the silence and building on it, again not
looking for solutions or a conclusion, but emphasising the quality of listening.
And as dusk fell, we did Chenrezig practice on some evenings, in a pared-down
form that Dónal has made his own, dedicating it to specific people whom we knew
to be in particularly acute suffering. On other evenings we did ‘metta’
practice, instituted by the Buddha himself to undermine fear by cultivating the
wish that all beings – including oneself – be happy and free from fear. So
there was no question of our practice becoming introverted and self-serving.
The View has to be vast, taking in all suffering beings, or it is not the View.
An exceptional week, during which we had the privilege
of benefitting from Dónal’s lifetime experience of retreat, his rigour and his
compassion. Profound thanks to you, Dónal, and thanks too to all who made the
experience possible.
Pat Little
17 August 2014
Behind the camera : Paul O'Connor
Magician in the kitchen : Colette Mullanney
Pat has also written a very good review of the annual Bodhicharya Summercamp held in July 2014 at Casa da Torre, Nr. Braga, Portugal for Many Roads, the Bodhicharya International e-magazine .
