Online Retreat

Pic taken of my laptop screen during this weekend’s OI online retreat; monastics at Blue Cliff Monastery in NY

This weekend, I’ve been participating in an online retreat based in our Plum Village mindfulness tradition, founded by Thich Nhat Hanh (commonly referred to as Thay by his students, which means ‘teacher’ in Vietnamese). A retreat for Order of Interbeing (OI) members, co-hosted by the three monasteries in our tradition located here in the U.S: Blue Cliff Monastery in New York; Magnolia Grove Monastery in Mississippi; and Deer Park Monastery in California.

We have one final program left to close out the retreat, which will take place here soon in a couple of hours.

Both things are true: I feel genuinely grateful for the opportunity I have to attend so many things taking place online AND online retreats are not my idea of a great time. I’ve gotten pretty comfortable with attending weekly zoom meetings with my home sangha Be Here Now. And honestly, I think I prefer attending such things as talks and panels and trainings online vs. in-person (I’ve been really enjoying all of the free webinars I’ve been able to attend in the past 12+ months). But when it comes to online retreats, I’ve tended to steer away from them. Though not entirely, as this was the 3rd online retreat I’ve signed up for since the spring of 2020.

When it comes to online retreats, I have an especially deep felt sense of gratitude for the fact that they exist for all those who might be otherwise unable to attend an in-person retreat, whether due to: illness; a comprised immune system; physical mobility challenges; limited financial means; access to travel (which takes money & other resources); introversion proclivities; or a range of many other mind/body challenges that might make attending an in-person retreat a matter of great difficulty.

Gratitude 2.0

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(To listen in audio form in addition or instead of reading, please click here.)

Here’s how I have it worked out. Having a daily concrete way of watering the seed of gratitude in my life is one of the top most beneficial elements of my spiritual practice. I am very close to having the mindset of thinking that even if I invested in NO other mindfulness-based actions other than my gratitude practice, it would be enough.

I feel as though words cannot adequately relay the power and potency of what having a daily gratitude practice can do. But, as a writer and all, Imma gonna give it a small go here.

I’ve written and spoken about the practice of gratitude many a time. I feel as though it’s a thread that is not only worth repeating and revisiting on the regular but holds such a substantial value that to not routinely address it would be a disservice.

Part of why I feel it’s necessary to keep tugging on this particular thread is that I reckon practicing gratitude is a lot like the practice of deep mindful breathing, in that it’s super easy to be like: Yeah, yeah, I get it. Let’s move on. What’s next? While it’s easy to have an intellectual understanding of the value of both practices, it takes diligent effort to actualize the embodied wisdom that both have to offer.

In my experience with sangha members over my close to 20-years of practice and sangha-building, I’ve found that it’s just so very common for folks to simply not go beyond their intellectual understanding of the practice. Folks often “get” the practice but not many “practice” the practice.

Home Days

Some days, I can’t imagine anything better than going out for a ride on my motorcycle. I gear up and head out and love every minute of it.

Some days are work days, where the bulk of my time & energy goes towards home upkeep or doing errands or going to my part time job of nannying.

Some days are more geared towards writing. And some days, of course, are a mix.

And still there are other days that are home days. Whole entire resting days. Do nothing, schedule nothing, don’t leave the house and stay put days. I regularly underestimate the importance of home days. I can sometimes forget how vital they are to my well-being, sense of balance, and self-care.

As things are a-changin in regards to covid, with things opening up and groups restarting and vaccines rolling out, I am actively and currently practicing to keep an eye on what feels like the collective energy shifting and declaring: Let’s go out and do ALL the things!!! Amid this battle cry, I am trying not to lose sight of the importance of home days. Not to be swayed into thinking home days are waste of time days or that I should be out DOING something.

With the additional element of living in Montana, where us locals learn to make good and active use of our shortest season of sun and warmth (i.e summer), there’s a double whammy of messaging geared towards the whole: Go out and conquer all the world! You can sleep when you’re dead (or it’s winter)! mentality. I am really not interested in falling prey to this sort of life approach. But it’s not easy. It takes concerted effort and a strong level of awareness to not get swept up and away into this kind of thinking.

This morning, I went through the whole process of What should I do today? I went through all of my common gears – which are largely the same for all of us I think: such and such needs to be done around the house; I should go to X to get Y; it’s nice out, so I should go _____ .

Then, after checking in with my own body, which was quite sore and tired, I landed on what I really needed most: a home day.

Dig the Well Before You’re Thirsty

To listen to this post in audio form on my podcast, please click here.

I’ll jump right to the main message: Uphold your nourishing routines & rituals. Uphold them at all costs, even and especially on the days when you don’t feel like it.

Too often, we stop doing what we know is good for our mental, emotional, and physical well-being when we get stressed out or when we come to rough spot in our life. We tell ourselves that we’ll return to those things after life settle down or when our situation improves in some way. But then, we never do.

I love the Chinese proverb which states: Dig the well before you’re thirsty. I’m sure we can all surmise what this means but basically it’s saying: Be proactive in regards to your situation; don’t wait for tragedy to befall you to start looking for solutions as to how to better support yourself. Another one of my favorite wisdom teachings come to mind, which originates with the Greek poet Archilochus: We do not rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.

And so, dear mindfulness practitioners, we must train. We must train a little bit every day. We must train to uphold our nourishing and supportive routines and rituals and relationships. We must invest in them on the daily, prioritize them, make room enough in our schedule to engage with them in real and concrete ways.