Dear friends,
I went on my first silent retreat a couple of weeks ago and learnt one huge lesson. I took too much reading, writing to do instead of spending at least some time in quiet contemplation like most of the other participants did. have you been on a silent retreat? what do you do there?
lots of love from susan in australia
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Dear Susan,
it has been many days since your last entry - now I know you were being silent. I am a quiet person but sometimes have trouble keeping my mind still. I go over and over my mistakes and wish I had done things differently. Recently when you asked about trees I could not stop thinking about my oak tree for days. Maybe a silent retreat would teach me to banish those repetitive unwanted thoughts.
Don't stop blogging, I love hearing about your life.
Did you do any meditation while on your silent retreat? Something that I don't do often enough.
Reading can be a form of escape, a way of avoiding our self and we don't really want to be alone with our self.
" People are playing cards, chess; people are watching television for hours. The average American watches television five hours a day; people are listening to the radio... just to avoid themselves. For all these activities, the only reason is -- not to be left alone; it is very fearful. And this idea is taken from others. Who has told you that to be alone is a fearful state?" ~Osho
" Those who have known aloneness say something absolutely different. They say there is nothing more beautiful, more peaceful, more joyful than being alone. But you listen to the crowd. The people who live in misunderstanding are in such a majority, that who bothers about a Zarathustra, or a Gautam Buddha? These single individuals can be wrong, can be hallucinating, can be deceiving themselves or deceiving you, but millions of people cannot be wrong. And millions of people agree that to be left to oneself is the worst experience in life; it is hell." ~Osho
Most of my reading is done at night when my wife and I go to bed. I have been a shift-worker for most of my working life and a night owl to boot and am now retired and don't have to rise with the dawn. I may go to bed at the same time as my wife, who does have to get up early, but I'm not sleepy so I will read.
This week will be interesting, since it is the week when you aren't suppose to read, so I will color some Celtic Mandela, meditation perhaps, and play with my tarot decks. Who knows I may actually get to sleep early.
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