MOUNTAIN LIFE - Coast Mountains | Winter Spring 2019

WINTER/SPRING 2019 MLCM 45 words :: Asta Kovanen My head hits the pillow as though dropped from a height. I’m exhausted, both with this work and with myself. It’s day five of a 10-day silent meditation retreat but now, with eyes closed, silence isn’t what shows up. Instead, a strong, sonorous chant reverberates through my brain, lulling me to sleep. It’s the strongly accented baritone of now- deceased Burmese-Indian meditation teacher S.N. Goenka. As our sole auditory input for the past five days, his voice has become part of the soundtrack of my mind—a mind that feels dead tired. At no point have I felt well-rested, despite doing nothing but sitting all day, surrounded by silence, and eating vegetarian food cooked by others. It sounds like a simple existence, but this awareness thing is hard work. I am at Dhamma Surabhi, a Vipassana meditation centre near Merritt, BC. More precisely, I am in bodily attendance while working to keep the mental part present as well. When applying, I and 60-something fellow participants agreed to comply with the Vipassana Rules of Conduct for the duration in order to limit distractions. Women and men remain separated and, other than walking, exercise isn’t allowed. We must abstain from any intoxicants or religious practice (anything from conventional prayer to shamanistic rituals). The overriding guideline is “noble silence”—absolutely no verbal or written communication between participants or the outside world. In addition, neither gesturing nor eye contact is permitted so that we may focus on our interior worlds, as if we are in isolation. Having turned over phones, books and writing tools upon check-in, what is left is us; our bodies, our minds, these spaces. As someone who dabbled in meditation but prefers short phone-app-administered sessions while lying in bed with a pillow over my eyes, it’s a leap to suddenly be sitting in it 10 hours a day. Yet, here I am—or, as stated, mostly am. One of the most unsettling lessons is how difficult it is HERE, NOT HEAR Notes from ten days of silence WELLNESS Shhhhh...