Reflections after 160 hours of meditation

My walking meditation path below the meditation hall, Spirit Rock, August 2021

I just returned from an 18-day silent retreat where each day held about 10 hours of meditation. How can it be that seemingly just, sitting, walking and living mindfully can lead to a kind of clarifying brightness? I saw a radiance grow in my fellow 75 retreatants and I think I feel some myself. Some of this can fade with time, but there can be life altering effects.

As I get re-acclimated to daily life, I find myself literally dusting off from summer. Like the leaves on the trees, I feel the change of seasons. My pace has slowed and I feel reflective while my energy has picked up the "back to school" vibe and I'm ready to jump back in to teaching.

How can a slower pace match up with being busy? I don't think it's about slow motion, but acting deliberately, thoughtfully and aware that all actions have consequences. Even the small ones. During the meditation retreat, during those 10 hours, many things came up for reflection. In my past or present, it’s so clear how some of my smallest actions lead to varying but significant consequences. Of all kinds. This is something I'm still reflecting on as the days go by.

I think mindfulness implies intentional living or being, but what might that look like when making choices or decisions? What I ultimately came to - and would love to hear your reflections, is to live in a way that my values can come through in my choices and actions. It's much easier to think of living my values than be on "mistake alert". What do you think?

I’m thinking of Thoreau’s often quoted passage from Walden:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

— Henry David Thoreau, Walden

It won't be long before the fall season leads into the holiday season and colder days. I hope you are giving yourself some time to meditate and reflect, to slow down a bit and watch some sunsets. I hope to cross paths with you soon. Meanwhile, take good care of yourself, meditate and enjoy the end of summer and signs of coming fall.