In the seventh and final week of the retreat, the mind, still often suffused with joy and love, had grown quieter. Key phrases of guidance reflected this quietness:
Go inside.
Do nothing. Just receive.
Don’t do — recognize. Be.
Don’t hurry — remember this.
At times the mind had the sense of a bird that had alighted on a twig — the landing was steady now, even as the branch still quivered.
A joyful mind can awaken
Early in the week, in the wonderful book, Great Disciples of the Buddha, I chanced upon a story about Sāriputta and his mother. Seeing joy arise in her, Sāriputta thought,
‘Rapture and gladness have arisen in my mother. Now is the right time to teach her Dhamma.‘
He proceeded to give a talk, and she became a stream-enterer. Suddenly it clicked that yes, of course— joy is one of the factors of awakening. It is not a nice add-on; it is required for awakening. A joyful mind is one that is ripe for awakening, an open and relaxed mind that can receive the teachings in the deepest of ways.
Mind wandering and returning to joy
The inevitable distractions of the retreat were being seen in a new light. Let the mind, to the extent it was able, find the joy of Here, Now, and not be sidetracked by this or that. Again and again, I saw mind’s inclination to chase storylines, memories, plans. The guidance that kept coming was simple: Don’t get distracted.
‘Play your instrument excellently and with heart,’ I wrote in my notes. In music, flow establishes when the player is fully present. When I used to play guitar on a gig, I would sometimes imagine the melodies and harmonies pouring forth from my heart, flowing around the room. Now the instrument was heart and mind, and I experimented with ‘playing’ the ‘song’ of my life, energy pouring forth from the heart, aspiring for full presence in Now. Doing so awakened presence, warmth in the heart, and a quiet joy.
Natural processes and non-doing
The difference between what happens by itself and what we sustain with effort was also becoming increasingly clear.
Heartbeat, breath, digestion — these all continue without volition. I saw that the practice includes reducing unnecessary volitional actions — less speech, less managing, even less energy going into food choices. In walking meditation, it was about inviting the mind to be still while movements of the body happened. Just happened. The arc was to reduce volitional activities, and let natural non-volitional rhythms emerge.
Saññās and storylines
With this came a delicate understanding of saññā (perception). Focusing the mind and conceptualizing, which I was seeing as a precursor to saññā and all the downstream saññās and storylines that follow, carry a sometimes faint but distinct tension. But when that focusing and conceptualizing quietens, that tension dissolves. The mind can rest at ease.
The internal instruction that arose was that these saññās and storylines cannot be dropped by willpower. The way forward is to stabilize in the Now. They can only exist if mind brings them in. By resting in the heart, moving from the heart, and reducing conceptualizations to the extent possible, the pull on the mind of those saññās and storylines naturally faded.
Kochi – Working with citta (mind)
Earlier in the retreat I had playfully assigned a dog breed to each sense, calling mind by the name Kochi (collie + citta) — intelligent, alert, and highly active. It soon became evident that Kochi was the leader of the pack. When Kochi was interested, the rest of the pack (sight, smell, etc) followed his instruction. (Sight was a cattledog, sound a Jack Russell, taste a Labrador, touch a Vizsla, and smell a hound.)
Now, as the mind settled, I could sense Kochi sitting calmly but still on alert. A very quiet yet confident and kind voice said to Kochi, “Stay… Stay…” with a sense of ‘everything is okay; there is nothing for you to do.’ After a few false starts, Kochi eventually relaxed, fully trusting and giving himself over to the truth of that instruction — everything is okay.
As Kochi — my mind — relaxed, so did the body. It was a release of tensions that a moment ago had been invisible to consciousness. There, in full trust, utterly safety, there was nothing to fix or control. There was only resting in awareness.
Injury, discernment, steadiness
In the midst of these unfoldings, one morning while practicing yoga I injured my back. I had pushed too hard, mistaking strain for right effort. The injury brought an old question to the fore: where does right effort end and self-forcing begin? It’s a dynamic balance, and one that’s not easy to get right, even after decades of practice.
Because I’d previously had a serious injury that required spinal surgery and a two-year recovery, there was well-founded concern that I might have re-injured the spinal cord. Mindfulness ramped up, so that I was aware 24-7 of how I was physically moving. This would continued until I saw my spinal surgeon weeks later.
With the physical pain, mental concern, and constant mindfulness of postures, by Saturday I felt depleted, writing, ‘I’m out of gas.’ The retreat was to end in two days, so I switched on my phone to arrange transport for my departure, and ended up opening a Scrabble game as a way to give the mind a bit of down time. It wasn’t long before a perfectly-spelled word appeared when my tiles refreshed: devotee.
I laughed aloud, closed the game, and went straight to the chanting room. Grounded in the sounds of Sanskrit, practice naturally restabilized.
Everyday ‘just is-ness’
At breakfast just before the retreat’s end, something suddenly clicked. It happened on its own, completely unbidden, as I ate my porridge in silence. Movements, sounds, smells, thoughts — all at once their quality was different. They were all just happening: the slurp of tea, the clatter of a fork, the metallic ring of silverware.
The mind observed without comment, without response, without activity. Fully awake and aware, with nothing to add. This was not emptiness, as an ‘I’ was unmistakably still present, but it was a window into how our normal way of experiencing the world is only one way. And how, when the mind quietens, vibrancy, naked presence, and an easeful quality of ‘just is’ can bloom.
Walking with song
During long walks in those last days, I often chanted two verses from the Ṛg Veda, Saṅgacchadhvam — “Let us walk together.” The Sanskrit sounds gathered the mind inward, into what felt like a deep root of the heart. Body, heart, and mind moved as one.
It was lovely, yet the heart longed for connection — for Saṅgacchadhvam not only within, but with others. The question arose: ‘Where are my companions on this path, my noble friends? Not just on Zoom calls, but in the flesh. Where?’ Beautiful and bittersweet, I took solace in the knowing that sati — mindfulness, presence, the flow of Now — is ever a constant companion on the path.
Saṅgacchadhvaṃ saṅvadadhvaṃ saṃ vo manāṃsi jānatām |
devā bhāgaṃ yathā pūrve saṅjānānā upāsate ||
Samānī va ākūti; samānā hradayāni vaḥ |
samānamastu vo mano yathā vaḥ susahāsati ||
Let us walk together, Let us speak together (in harmony);
as the gods of old (in) belonging, of one understanding, sit themselves near;
Let your intention and hearts be one and the same;
let your mind be one and the same; wherein you may dwell together beautifully.
Source: The Rig Veda. X. 191.2-4
Reflection
As the long retreat drew to a close, the joyful mind was alighting in a new way — disembarking from the vehicle of the retreat itself. The seven-week journey had come to its end, having carried me through terrain both familiar and unfamiliar, at times rough and challenging, at other times restful and beautiful. Now, attuned more deeply to joy, it was time to walk on foot again, in everyday life. Lighter, quieter, integrating what had been experienced and discovered along the way, keeping in mind the touchstones of key guidance, to recollect when energy wanes or striving creeps in.
May I remember.
Gladden the mind, rest in awareness, and trust the path’s unfolding.
17 March 2025 — Boston, MA