A MEDITATION RETREAT

A meditator does not have to be seeking Nibbāna to practice Buddhist meditation. In fact, it may even be true to say that Buddhist meditation is practiced mostly by non-buddhists developing themselves for a heavenly rebirth.

Dedicated meditation retreats are increasing in popularity in the western hemisphere. Some are held in Buddhist monasteries, and some are centres of meditation inspired by Buddhism. For meditation purposes, there is little difference between them. They are necessarily tightly disciplined environments. Centres require retreatants to sign a form, agreeing to adhere to a list of precepts (house rules), which are usually the first five from the list of eight used on laymans’ Uposatha day.

Meditation retreats are usually small affairs of around a dozen or more people, although some centres can hold hundreds at a time. A retreat will be staffed by several people. There will be a retreat leader overseeing the timetable, and a few assistants who will watch for meditators falling asleep, and chase up people who are late for meditation.

The number of meditation sessions will vary between centres, but expect between six to 12 a day, lasting between 30 to 50 minutes each.

Most, if not all, meditation will be seated, although standing meditation is usually allowed. At least every other sit will be punctuated with several minutes or more of walking meditation. Most centres have a field set aside for this purpose. Walking meditation provides essential exercise, and also serves as toilet breaks.

All talking ceases for the duration of the retreat, and noise is kept to a minimum at all times. Whatever the activity, mindfulness should always be maintained.

The First Three Days

Don’t be surprised if, after weeks of anticipating your meditation retreat that on arrival your predominant feeling is that you are not looking forward to making the effort. Journeying to a centre can be taxing, and you will likely be feeling dehydrated, tired and hungry.

The different surroundings and living regime will require some getting used to. Being amongst people but not talking, different meal times, quality of sleep, the weather and an absence of entertainment will combine to have an impact. The mind and body, and its chemistries will take a few days to adjust. The first three days of a retreat will never be the most fruitful. Throughout this period, the mind will be particularly unsettled. And, just as the tranquilisation period in meditation cannot be hurried, adjusting to the retreat regime is also a process that cannot be forced. This of course doesn’t mean the effort to be mindful is not made, but patience will be a large part of one’s effort, until mind and body settle. For these reasons, it can be said, there is no such thing as an intensive meditation retreat shorter than four days.

The Need For A Specialised Environment

A meditation retreat requires a purposely made environment, such as a monastery or meditation centre, where every moment of the day can be timetabled. Being part of a group that routinely makes its way to the meditation hall, and having marshals to chase up meditators who skip sits, are invaluable supports for transcending the resistance to meditate. By comparison, a meditation routine in a homely environment will be short lived. Whilst lower jhāna are relatively easily attained with a regular practice, it is unlikely that an excellent effort will be made at home. There are too many alternative activities and people to distract the attention.

Most retreatants come from an urban environment, and this means most retreatants are those ‘who delight in society’. This is to say, most urbanites are going to find it near-impossible to impossible, to access voidness. Hence, it cannot be over stated; being part of a meditating group is a priceless strategy for overcoming resistance to meditate.

Managing Discomfort

A major difficulty for extreme meditators, is sitting cross-legged for hours every day. The urge to move and relieve physical discomfort will be a frequent distraction. For many people, prolonged inactivity will cause the muscles to contract and feel stiff. This will also cause discomfort around the joints. Managing physical discomfort is important, as it impacts on mental stillness.

Stiffness around the joints is not fully dealt with by the walking periods during meditation, so stretching exercises may be useful. Stretching the arms above and behind the head, and touching the toes with the legs straight, will loosen back and neck muscles. Standing on one leg, holding the other ankle and pulling the heel of the foot into the buttock, is good for loosening the thighs (hold onto something stable if you do this).

There are lots of yogic and physiotherapeutic stretching exercises that can be found on the internet which are useful. They should be investigated and tried out, before taking them on retreat. If relied upon during a retreat, they should be performed discreetly. Full-blown yoga in between sits will attract the attention of the assistants, and you will likely be asked to desist. Where there is a real need to stretch, do it in private, while maintaining mindfulness, of course.

A particularly advanced meditator will, if necessary, sit in moment-by-moment agony, and still not let the pain dictate any movement of his imaginative faculties. I do not recommend this to the reader, even though I have done this with excellent results. When pain becomes serious, it is better the meditator adjusts his position, and supports.

Other People

A meditation retreat is a constant battle of pure mind verses the mind-body survival mechanism. Because interactions with others is minimal to non-existent, this will give rise to a lot of frustrated energy, which will need keeping in check. Be warned; the mind plays tricks, and feelings are going to be on a hair trigger much of the time. Verbal silence, and even avoiding eye contact are indispensible protocols.

Do not be surprised if at the end of a retreat, someone you have never met before appears to have a filthy attitude towards you, or perhaps you feel like expunging your frustrations on some luckless victim.

There is also the converse scenario to look out for. At the end of a retreat, there is always great joy and chattering. It is a mistake to think that this joy is what the retreat was all about. Both scenarios amount to lapses in equanimity.

Solitary meditation retreats are for those with substantial meditation experience. Being alone for prolonged periods is not natural. We must be clear here, prolonged solitude is a particularly direct way to face the forces of self. Pushing oneself to the limit means having to deal with the stuff that sends people psychotic. The solitary meditator has to be particularly experienced in the apperceptive gaze, and experienced in the type of stuff the mind can throw up. Whether it is euphoria, an imagination that will not stop rolling, anger, or sadness, all is to be confronted, and subordinated to equanimity. Consciousness should not be allowed to be coloured by anything, whether it be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral.

Diet and One-Session Eating

Over eating is particularly ruinous of meditation. Under eating slightly, on the other hand, helps to maximise wakefulness. The Buddha prescribed eating once a day for better health and better meditation (known as one-session eating). Bhikkhu Bhaddāli pointed out, such an eating regime might give rise to nervousness and anxiety¹. The Buddha gave Bhaddāli a compromise. He recommended eating half of his alms for breakfast, and the rest later (MN65:3).

Eating one meal a day is safe for most people, although there may be considerable symptoms when extended for several days or more. Symptoms will vary between individuals but common ones are feeling cold, dizziness, and mental agitation. The key in judging how much one can take, is how well the imagination can be kept pure throughout the symptoms. When hunger becomes the cause of a serious loss of equanimity, it is a sign to consider increasing the frequency and, or amount, one is eating. Of course, this is also determined by how much effort one wants to make. All retreatants must learn to live with a slight feeling of hunger. Those intending on entering voidness must be ready to take themselves to the hilt, and beyond.

Any increase in calories should be in small increments. Because the imaginative faculties are subtly manipulative, it is helpful to quantify how much one eats while one-session eating. This can be done by holding both hands cupped together, to form a bowl shape. A cupped handful, or half, is a useful empirical measure. I recommend at least one cupped handful as the absolute minimum daily allowance of food per day. Buddhism makes no use of fasting beyond 23 hours.

Prolonged one-session eating is psychologically testing to say the least. Do not be dismayed if you do not stick it out for the full duration of the retreat. Overcoming the nervousness and anxiety mentioned by Bhaddāli, requires overcoming some powerful body-mind chemistries. Despite these difficulties, the meditator should always be aiming for a personal best. And, it should always be born in mind, the body-mind mechanism has no off switch. Only in higher meditation is it possible to transcend the mind-body mechanism. Outside of meditation constant vigilance is required.

It truly is a lot of hard work for nothing, but don’t let that put you off. True Nothing is what you are after.

Why the Buddha Introduced One-Session Eating

The Buddha tells us that as a bodhisatta he tried a variety of eating regimes. They varied from quirky (MN12:45), through to extremely dangerous (51-52). Of all his exploratory bodhisatta training, he said the eating regimes, which involved living on micro-amounts of food, were by far the hardest endeavour he ever undertook (MN36:30). At one juncture, he ate so minimally, he brought himself to the threshold of death, and was forced to choose between eating sensibly, or dying. He subsequently taught that a starvation diet was not the way to higher jhāna, although being slightly hungry is an excellent antidote to sleepiness².

The Buddha attached much significance to eating once a day, saying that one-session eating promotes better health and better meditation, and that the one-session eaters needed no instructing (MN21:7). Clearly, one-session eating is something the extreme meditator must investigate.

Some people find eating once a day not so difficult. I assume most people eat at least twice a day, and will find extended one-session eating difficult. I therefore discuss the practice as something to be undertaken for several days, or a week at a time. One-session eating is quite safe for durations limited to days (not withstanding medical conditions).

Anyone considering one-session eating should note that eating a full day’s nutrition in one sitting is not a good strategy. It does not sate the appetite for the whole day, and it also encourages the habit of binge eating. A less rigorous regime is to follow the prescription given Bhaddāli, and make one meal suffice for two.

One-Session Eating – Effects On The Body

The Venerables Assaji and Punabbasuka³ were two monks who refused one-session eating, claiming the effects are not immediate (MN70:4). I disagree with them, and find one-session eating has an immediate impact upon both health and meditation. Here is what they seem to have missed. Firstly, the effect of skipping a meal, apart from feeling hungry, is increased energy. Secondly, many people with aches and pains in the joints, and muscular stiffness, will find these symptoms diminish noticeably when hungry. Trading off joint pain and muscle stiffness for hunger is preferable when meditating.

Another visible improvement in health from one-session eating is that it often brings about an improvement in skin quality. This is also true for raw food eaters. Curiously, the Buddha and Sāriputta were both known to have a golden glow about them (MN35:22, MN151:2). The Buddha’s skin was noted to have remained clear and bright until death (DN16:4.37). One might wonder if the Buddha and Sāriputta ate little and very naturally.

But there may also be a figurative understanding to this. The concept of ‘the shining ones’, is found in several ancient scriptures. In Buddhism, it is also used figuratively to mean bodhisatta⁴.

We also read the renunciant should not be motivated by one-session eating for its cosmetic advantages.

Mono Diets and Fruitarians

Some of the ancient disciples were known to train in one-session eating, and also fruitarianism. The Buddha told Udayin how some disciples lived off kola fruit⁵, or dried Kola power, or Kola squash, or kola derived recipes (MN12:51-52) (MN77:9). But, he did add a warning. He told Sāriputta how as a bodhisatta, he had once lived off one kola fruit a day for so long that it left his body extremely emaciated. He said, ‘Because of eating so little my backside became like a camel’s hoof.’ He described himself at that time as also having limbs as thin as vine stems, and bamboo stems, his ribs jutted out, his eyes sunk deep into their sockets, like little pools of water at the bottom of a spent well. His scalp became like a dried gourd, withered by the sun and wind, he could feel his backbone when he touched his stomach. When he went to urinate, he said, he fell over on his face (forest bhikkhus always squat), and when he rubbed his skin, the hair on his body came out (MN12:52).

This remarkable imagery appears to have elicited a thought in Sāriputta’s mind, and one which the Buddha appears to have read. Whilst the discourse records Sāriputta as remaining quiet, the Buddha turned to Sāriputta saying, ‘Sāriputta you may think that the kola-fruit was bigger at that time, yet you should not regard it so: the kola-fruit was then at the most the same size as now.’

Humour may seem out of character for an arahant, but it does provide an explanation for this curious comment. If we assume Sāriputta had previously poked a little fun at the Buddha, then the logic of the joke could be: if kola-fruit were once bigger, then the Buddha’s effort was not as difficult as he was making out. This is made all the more pointed as the Buddha came from the Sakyan warrior caste who were reputed to be as strong as teak wood (sāka) (DN3:1.15). Even though this made fun of the Buddha’s most difficult days, he was able to respond with equanimity. This explanation suggests they had not lost their sense of humour, even if it was used subtly and sparingly.

The Buddha also gives a warning against the extreme diets recommended by other ascetics, who believed purification came about through food. Some subsisted on extreme mono diets of only beans, or sesame seeds, or rice. He told Sāriputta that he too tried living off reduced levels of rice, eventually subsisting on just one grain of rice a day (MN12:52-56). He tried living off only soups made from a single type of pulse, such as bean, or lentil, or pea (MN36:26)⁶. These practices too had contributed to his emaciated condition. He said he ended up losing his skin colour so much that people could not tell whether he had black, brown or golden coloured skin⁷ (29). He admits that at that juncture in his training he did not have the wise character that makes a nobleman complete (30). He tells Sāriputta that purification does not come about by extreme dietary regimes (MN12:53-55).

So whilst some bhikkhus were living off mono diets, and were fruitarians, the Buddha warns not to use them without discrimination.

A particularly notable point about one-session eaters is that the Buddha had no need to keep instructing them, and needed only to arouse mindfulness in them!

The last line is truly remarkable. This is tantamount to saying one session eaters have all the wisdom they need! How is it that simply subsisting on one meal requires no instruction? The wisdom in this book says, the ability to self-transcend, is the point of all noble teachings. Hunger is arguably the greatest of all passions and therefore being able to face a great passion with equanimity means one has a great (noble) skill. Hence, no instruction is needed, except the occasional prod to arouse flagging mindfulness.

Discussion

As no other instruction was needed, one might wonder if one-session eaters are, in the least, stream winners. I write ‘wonder’ because the teaching of Nobility (bodhisatta) is, after all, a faith based teaching.

However, even though the Saṅgha scribes have made a proper mess of this teaching, the teaching of Nobility is in principle, complementary with Buddhist renunciant practice, and so is reasonable.

If one-session eaters are Noble, then rules and rituals have been superseded (MN11:9-10). The drift of the Dhamma has been acquired (DN28:1-2). The Stream has been crossed, and the raft of the Dhamma abandoned (MN22:14). The Dhamma eye is opened (DN2:102); which is to say, self-transcendence has become an integral part of one’s skills base, and the momentum in the wheel of life is slowing down.

It is worth recalling here that the Buddha warned against extreme dietary practices.

Rest and Sleep

A meditation retreat is real work, so you need to make sure you get adequate sleep and rest. When on an intensive retreat, always take advantage of the opportunity to cat-nap or siesta. Hunger may prevent you from sleeping as soundly as one might prefer. Really deep-seated hunger will cause unpleasant dreams. This is because the mind-body mechanism does not switch off, and while ever you are very hungry it will never stop impinging upon your imaginative faculties. If you are following one-session eating, and you have a bit of a nightmare for more than two nights in a row, you might consider increasing your food intake.

It is not possible to go to bed at night and fall asleep meditating, despite what some teachers say. Meditation and sleep are mutually exclusive. Falling asleep mindfully is different. Falling asleep mindfully means not indulging any imagery. Other than immediately falling into a deep sleep, it is impossible to fall asleep without experiencing some hypnogogic imagery. Hypnogogic imagery, per se, does not amount to a lack of mindfulness, as the mind-body mechanism cannot switch off (see Appendix 8 – The Mechanism).

Damage Limitation

When a bhikkhu is reaching a bit of a crisis point due to hunger, the Patimokkha (the bhikkhu’s code of conduct) allows a portion of ghee (clarified butter), or fluids such as fruit juice, or vegetable juice strained of solid particles, to be taken. Olive oil or coconut cream oil⁸ are acceptable alternatives.

If you are practicing one-session eating at home, another strategy to help cope with extended periods of hunger is quite simply to do something totally new, or do what you usually do differently. It may be something as simple as walking a different route than usual, or listening to, or reading different media than usual. This strategy can be intriguingly effective, even if a little time consuming⁹.

In table 9 (Techniques For Self Transcendence) these strategies come under “… he should try to forget those thoughts and should not pay attention to them (MN20:5).”

Ending A Period of One-Session Eating

Mind-body chemistry is powerful, and in significant part linked to cooked food. It is no exaggeration to say that cooked food is addictive. The effects of withdrawing from old body chemistries, due to dietary changes, are reasonably comparable to drug addiction. Both are killers. Over consumption of food has created a pandemic of heart attack, strokes, cancer, and diabetes, amongst other diseases. There is no doubt that calorie reduction is a boon to better health (generally speaking).

It should also be understood that the hunger that accompanies prolonged one-session eating can be palpable. The appetite, and the sense of taste and smell, become extra-ordinarily sensitive. This sensitivity can linger for some days after resuming normal eating, while the psycho-physical bio-chemistries underpinning that hunger regularise. It must be understood that reaching the end of a period of one-session eating is definitely not the end of the effort.

It is important to factor this phenomenon into one’s effort. This is done by maintaining the same moment-by-moment mindfulness in respect of how the appetite is affecting consciousness. An extended period of mindfulness may be required for the first several days of usual eating. This is a crucially important period of re-stabilisation and regularisation. Deep-seated hunger cannot be turned off with just one meal, however large.

Of course, one’s hunger becomes less demanding as the mind-body chemistry regularises. Even so, the situation has to be handled meticulously, all the while. A useful criterion to bear in mind after ending a period of one-session eating is that if you overload the stomach for two meals in succession, you are developing a pattern of binge eating¹⁰. Binge eating is synonymous with attachment, and that is unskilful.

Chewing each morsel of food well is a good strategy to slow down the rate at which we eat, as well as enhancing digestion. “No rice kernel enters his body [stomach*] unchewed, and no rice kernel remains in his mouth … takes his food experiencing the taste, though not experiencing greed for the taste (MN91:14).”

Some individuals will cope better than others. As a general rule, the more overweight one is, the more impact one-session eating will have.

Here is some imagery to help instil the concept and the importance of managing oneself through the one-session-eating regularisation period. Imagine a row of railway carriages is shunted at one end by a locomotive. It will take a brief moment for the force exerted on the first carriage to carry to the second, and for the force from the second to carry to the third, and so on. Scientists call this phenomenon hysteresis. Many mechanisms, particularly chemical and electrically based systems, have a delay before becoming fully powered up. It would be considered unskilful for the train driver to ram his engine into a line of carriages, shunt them up an incline, and then abandon them to freewheel back down into his locomotive, or onto buffers. Similarly, there is hysteresis of mind-body chemistry, when moving from one radical eating regime to another. So too it would be reckless to shunt yourself from one eating regime to another, while giving no care to making the return. It will take time not just for your appetite, but also for sleep, libido, and general motivation to calm down and regularise.

It is well worth remembering; there is no such thing as a one-day fast.

There is another aspect to diet the extreme meditator should know about. Sitting in meditation for many hours a day, over several days, can result in sluggish evacuation of the bowels (DN10:1.4). Vegetarian food is an excellent meditator’s choice to counter this, as it is high in fibre and water. Vegetable matter absorbs water, and so drinking water helps create the bulk needed to dredge the bowels. The liver also needs water to keep the blood clean. A slight increase in fresh vegetables, and a slight decrease in processed foods, meat and dairy, goes a good way to tackling sluggish bowels.

Another reason to drink water is that dehydration causes foggy-mindedness. Foggy-mindedness is ruinous of meditation.

The Middle Days of the Retreat – Staying Focused

Reaching tranquillity and equanimity is all that can be reasonably expected of the meditator in an urban environment. To realise the absorptions, and descend into voidness, requires a dedicated environment and signless meditation.

During a meditation retreat, expect focus to be won and lost countless times. This is not a failing condition. What matters most is making a simple return to the nimittaṃ, or to signlessness, the moment it is realised focus is lost. Simply wake up from the daydream (which is what any loss of focus is during meditation) and re-establish wakefulness, thereby, making consciousness pure again.

The challenge of an intensive meditation course is the affronting of the never-ending stream of mind(s) and mind-objects, seeking expression via the imaginative faculties. There is no end to them, nor should we expect there to be, except in the higher spectrum of meditation. The meditator is not endeavouring to destroy the discursive mind, no more than he expects never to feel hungry, or sleepy, etc, ever again. He is learning to leave these nagging conditions behind for the respite of higher meditation.

Maintaining mastery over one’s imaginative faculties is no ordinary activity. It runs contrary to our survival instincts and the mechanisms of entropy that we are. Even so, the mechanism can always be transcended, while ever there is enough self-determination to bring about the apperceptive gaze.

The meditator’s self-determination is going to be fully tested during a retreat. A veritable battle for mastery of the mind will ensue. Daydreaming and emotionalism will become irrepressible. One second you make a simple return to wakeful clarity, and the next, a mind, or mind-object, will reassert itself. This battle is what the retreat is all about. The mind-body mechanism will press every mental button you have in order to gain control of your actions. The extreme meditator is facing the very phenomena that drive people to murder and madness. He will go through feeling overwhelmed by a sense of futility, and may even hallucinate. But the remarkable thing is, by knowing what and why this is happening, the mind-body mechanism loses its grip. The drive part of the mechanism is still turning but the meditator has disengaged from it.

In terms of canonical allegorically, this is the point where Mara and his daughters are throwing everything they have at the meditator.

The wisdom of Vipassanā brings self-control. If maintained moment by moment, the very mind and mind-objects that assail us, and drive us to indulge in sensuous experience, become the stepping-stones to voidness, by providing the purchase to push forward. This is the ‘true knowledge’ that leads to ‘deliverance (MN149:11)’. This is why, it is of paramount importance to keep making a simple return to the apperceptive gaze, even when it seems futile, and regardless of how strong the storm of mind(s) and mind-objects.

Like the musk ox on heat, which is unknowingly driven by its own scent, so too, ordinary people never stop to fully explore the delusory function played by their own imaginings¹¹. Whatever the mind throws up, the meditator should bear in mind Sāriputta’s advice, ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self (MN28:6) (sic).’

A parallel can be drawn between an athlete training for an event, and a meditator training for an intensive retreat. The athlete eats, sleeps and trains, to enhance his performance and technique.But, much of this effort is a mental challenge to beat his personal best. So too, the extreme meditator approaches his retreat to beat his personal best. A week or more of meditation is a marathon event, and just as a marathon runner is mindful to run at his sustainable maximum, so too a meditator must learn to pace his effort. Anyone thinking of becoming an extreme meditator will need to get in form first.

The mind and body repair and re-energise during rest and sleep. Most athletes sleep before a performance. Similarly, the extreme meditator should get eight hours sleep a night, siesta and cat-nap, when possible during his retreat. Be in no doubt, meditation is real work.

Remember, losing focus is never a reason to feel negative. Just pick it back up again. Wakefulness is the key; not forcefulness.

Ending A Retreat

Most retreat centres give the final day of a retreat over to normalising for urban life. This usually amounts to nothing more than being allowed to talk. Once the talking starts, the real effort is over. One’s ability to attain the finer spectrum of meditation rapidly evaporates. Just like the athlete starts losing his form as soon as he returns to everyday living, so too the meditator will lose his form within hours of socialising. But, like riding a bicycle, it is a skill that once embodied is never forgotten.

The retreatant should not fall into the expectation that there will suddenly be a big breakthrough.

Descent Into Voidness

For those who delight, devote themselves to, and rejoice, in company and society, it is near-impossible to impossible, to descend into voidness (MN122:3-4). Any urbanite pursuing voidness will need substantial prior training. All urban dwellers delight in society and company. This includes myself, who has lived alone for more than two decades, and the urban bhikkhus in their town Wats, who have found a use for satellite TV, lap-tops and mobile phones¹³.

Much of society’s daily routines revolve around eating, which makes one-session eating a major way to withdraw one’s attention from delighting in company and society. One-session eating cannot be ignored by those who seriously intend to descend into voidness.

Seclusion is another simple and direct way to withdraw one’s attention from delighting in company and society. It is my experience that pure solitude is not necessary for descending into voidness, but verbal silence is. Even silent communication, such as eye contact, should be kept to a minimum. Anuddha’s group minimised talking, even under ordinary living conditions. The Buddha, we will recall, did not unreservedly condone prolonged silences.

Author’s Experience of Descent into Voidness

To surpass one’s personal best necessitates the right technique, as well as determination. What follows is a description of the conditions I maintained when I last descended into voidness. Based on personal experience of full (temporary) liberation, the urbanite needs the following:

Given these conditions, I found it took several days before it was possible to descend into voidness on every sit. The first time I recognised the voidness, was on my last 10-day retreat. I sat at least half a dozen times per day, each no less than 50 minutes, in a no-talking environment. Like Sāriputta, I found I had no awareness of going through all the stages of jhāna or absorptions (SN III, 28:1-9). I never used a nimitta, only signlessness. I started each sit from my here-and-now reality, which was awareness of the initial discomfort, due to sitting on the floor (my joints have always been sensitive). It took 10 to 20 minutes to go through the tranquilisation stage. Awareness of equanimity would become apparent, as the mind-body tranquilised. At this juncture, any signs arising were ephemeral in nature and needed no particular attention.

The first three days took some settling into, after this, it was simply a case of turning up in the meditation hall and maintaining equanimity due to signlessness. I had no ambitions, and needed none. The only efforts I made were to maintain posture and make a simple return to signlessness. Everything else took care of itself. Any wantings, however noble, would have precluded higher meditation.

The above strategy and effort remained the same from the start, and throughout every sit of every day. What changed was the frequency and strength of mind(s) and mind-objects, as the regime impacted on my consciousness over the ensuing days. It was uniquely hard work overcoming the tedium, and the apparent insanity of making simple returns to bear awareness, again, and again, and again, hour after hour, day after day.

After about three days, I found I descended into voidness during every sit. I sometimes took a pocket timepiece into the hall. I estimated I was in voidness for around the middle 20 minutes of each sit. This 20-minute period passed effortlessly and timelessly¹⁴, which attracted my attention, although it was not in any way disturbing.

I would lose the voidness with around 10 or 15 minutes of the sit remaining. Although I tried, I never succeeded in getting back into voidness, after losing it during a sit. Even so, there remained a feeling of being concentrated, and deeply peaceful, for the remainder of the meditation. I had to wait until the next sit to re-enter voidness. There was no physical feeling of descending or going anywhere.

Despite having a concentrated mind and a sense of peace, I was aware of the constant presence of my selfishness, ever ready to end the renunciative effort, and set about sating my desires. The only time during the 10 day retreat that I was truly free from this lower mind was in the middle of meditation, in voidness. The rest of the retreat was a constant effort to meet the challenge of keeping consciousness pure.

Outside of the meditation hall, I made the effort to stay in first jhānaṃ.This is done by maintaining the eight precepts. I extended samma vaca to include my thoughts, which I kept in check by contemplating their ethical value and using the apperceptive gaze. Just as it is possible for a wood turner to stay in first jhānaṃ, while turning his wood, so too it is thus possible to stay in first jhānaṃ, outside the meditation hall.Attenuating the passions outside the meditation hall, is training for inside.

The effort described above is not small. It is an effort few humans ever learn of, let alone attempt. It is the ‘will’ and the ‘trouble’, the Buddha spoke of for realising ‘the bliss of renunciation’, which I describe as respite.

I asked myself, how do I distinguish the absorptions from Voidness (Cessation Of Perception And Feeling MN77:22)? My answer is the phenomenon of timelessness. I consider timelessness as beyond neither-perception-nor-non-perception. There is quite simply no possibility of suffering amid timelessness, as there is no sapience. Even the Divine Eye is absent.

It was upon this insight that I reflected and recalled occasions decades previously, when I had experienced timelessness during meditation, but the penny didn’t drop at the time. If this seems strange, it should be born in mind that consciousness gets ever subtler in meditation, and therefore more elusive to identify.

The reader may ask, why do I not ordain and spend all day meditating? The answer is twofold. Firstly, it is not always possible to do as one pleases in a monastery, and I have always found the personal politics of viharas unbearably toxic. It is a dangerous error to think you have the skills to meditate away another’s ill will (and evil likes to act in concert). Perhaps an arahant can transcend all malevolence; you and I cannot. Unlike the ancient bhikkhus, we are not free to wander and beg a living as we please (see Chapter 21). Second, I am an urbanite and my body is not conditioned enough to spend most of the day meditating for the rest of my life. We should recall, the Buddha taught that health is the greatest of all gains andextreme meditation does not enhance physical well being.

Kamma permitting, there is the option to spend the closing months of one’s life ignoring any health concerns, cut any emotional ties, and maximise time spent in meditation. There can be no turning back from the endeavour to become a Tathagata (tath + agata = thus + gone).

I have yet to discover whether or not the descent gets any easier. I expect, like a new journey, it will get more bearable the more it is travelled. Of course, some effort will always be required.