Coming home after vipassana

One more thing I have to say just because it feels important.  One thing that was particularly painful for me was coming home after the retreat and not knowing how to re-enter.  What had happened, in addition to everything else, was that my association with meditation had gotten mapped with the feelings of frustration, irritation, isolation and agitation that I experienced at the retreat.  If I had stayed the full ten days, perhaps I would have moved through this into some blissful experiences.  Indeed, a sangha sister who went on a vipassana retreat a couple weeks before I did was about to leave on day 5 herself, stayed, and felt like it transformed her world.  I think if I went back I would sleep through the morning 2 hour session and wake for breakfast at 6:30.  That's what I did on day 4 and it was my best day.

After I got home, I had the hardest time sitting for at least a month.  Every time I sat I felt scared, angry, shameful, agitated, and ill at ease.  It was very hard.  It was connecting me to the retreat and the things I needed to process through as a result.  But those things were in my body, and they were connected to the same body positions, etc. that I typically would use to process through those feelings.  So i needed to meditate to heal, but I needed to heal to meditate.  It was very difficult.  And confusing.  And for about a month I felt lost and disconnected and afraid and isolated and scared.  Thank God for sangha.  And time.  I am so grateful to have other people to sit with.  To help me feel safe again.  To help me re-map the experience of sitting meditation so I do not associate it with isolation and go-it-aloneness, but, rather, community, supportedness and togetherness.  For me, that is what I need.  And needed.  It helped me heal.  I don't ever want to map meditation along the same neural pathways as feeling like I am all alone.  Our world is very fragmented.  In fact, I think fragmentation is one of the biggest problems in our world.  We already know how to go through life not making eye contact, pretending that we are all alone, pretending the people around us aren't really there.  I don't think that is the solution to our individual or collective suffering.  If I want ten days in solitude, let me find a cave, or a room where I can sit and meditate... where I can walk and explore, etc.  Don't put me around a bunch of fellow practitioners and ask me to pretend like they are not there.  That's not the world I want to rehearse.  Not the world I want to practice.  I want to practice a world where we see each other.  Where we look in the eyes.  Where we bow.  I do believe solitude has deep value.  Just don't ask me to enact pretend solitude, ignoring the people around me.  It feels dishonest to do that on the streets of Pasadena, and it felt dishonest at my retreat.

And thank you, to everyone who welcomed me back into the world with love and without judgment.  You are truly my family, and I am grateful.