The night before I meant to pack but didn't know what to bring. I opened the e-mail again and read the part where we didn't have to be there until 3-5pm. Sweet! Never do things at the last minute if you can put it off until the laster minute. Around one the next day (day zero) I packed and looked up directions, stopped at Arizmendi for some peanut butter cookies (this will be important later) and drove. I decided the only thing I wanted to do on the drive was sing so I went through all my favorite Stevie Wonder songs and then all my favorite John Legend songs and then as a super bonus Lyds had lent me Indigo Girls so I sang through swamp ophelia. I figured that would take me into the town of Northfork where I could return the calls I was getting on the road from my sisters (where are you? Mom said you're searching for enlightenment) and Sean (call me back, just want to hear your voice one more time) and my co-workers (call work when you get this). But when I got to Northfork and looked at my phone, no reception! Damn you t-imobile!

That's when the panic set in. I really really wanted to talk to my sisters. I wanted to hear Sean's voice and have a good laugh together. I knew I should have called work, those calls always mean one of the kids had died. I felt such a sense of loss at not being able to have those talks, and at the same time a feeling of actually being lost and not knowing what I was doing and why was sinking in.  I considered driving back out of town to where I got reception but I was running late now. I paced around my car. I got in the car. I got out of the car. I got back in the car and drove to the center.

In the parking lot again I was fighting back a lot of panic. I opened my car door and then sat there for a while. I got out of the car and then stood there for a while. I got back in the car and decided to eat ALL the cookies I had bought. I didn't want to waste food! There I was, a little scared cookie monster in the middle of nowhere feeling sorry for myself and resenting the entirely voluntary and intentional situation I had put myself in.
I couldn't finish the last cookie but I couldn't bring myself to throw away food so put it in a ziplock and stashed it in the trunk.

Orientation, room assignments, dinner, small talk. Actually - no talk. I'm not super chatty with strangers and especially not weird strangers who do things like ten day silent meditation retreats. So I just sulked in my seat and tried to see how much food I could shove into my mouth. I was so anxious about the food situation so I just kept eating. For the entire retreat the men were separated from the women which immediately made me cranky. The rationale was I think to protect us from the distraction/ temptation of the opposite gender which to me seems overtly heterosexist and transphobic. There were several trannies on the retreat and my heart really went out to them- it seems so unfair to commit to this journey of self-realization but to have to do it in a place that negates the self you are committing to. I also found it slightly ridiculous that the center thought I would be distracted by the scraggly anemic boys in attendance and NOT the hoards of hottie boom bodies I was rooming with. I kid you not, my entire cabin was full of queer yoga/surfing sculpted bodies. Maybe just a liiiiittttttle distracting for me. A little.

In my room that night I was still sad about the missed phone calls. I couldn't believe how fixated I was on not being able to have those conversations. I don't usually trip about that stuff at all but as many of your know, when the noble silence begins it has the added effect of magnifying your internal monologue to a deafening roar. Somehow amidst the thunderous footfalls/burps/noseblowing/zipping and un-zipping of sleeping bags of my fellow cabin mates I fell asleep.

Before you can begin the practice of Vipassana you have to get your brain to settle down a little. They compare the practice several times to a deep surgical operation where you go into your body to remove the suffering and misery you've accumulated over years or possibly lifetimes. So days 1-3 were the surgical prep. Oh, and a sort of crash course for all of us on how to become surgeons of our own bodies and minds. Starting at 4:30am and ending at 9pm-ish we observed our breath. In out deep shallow warm cool moist dry slow rapid. On the first day I would observe about four or five breaths until my mind took off. it was like babysitting for a seven year old with ADD who had just eaten four bowls of lucky charms. Exhausting and frustrating. So many times I wanted to grab my own brain and yell " YOU MUST CHILL" like John Cusack in Say Anything. Back to the breath... and I'm off thinking about piano scales. Back to the breath...and I'm thinking about how Sean's mom hates me. Back to the breath.... and I run through Zoolander in my head. Back to the breath... there's a peanut butter cookie in my car! Back to the breath...and so on.

We would break for meals which during which I indulged in my favorite pastime, ascribing qualities and lifestyles to people based on the limited information I had about them and the limitless stereotypes I harbor in my subconscious. Look at the way she walks. She must be a yoga teacher. But one of those mean yoga teachers who tells their students to smile while making them do painful things. That woman is princess, she's holding up the whole line so she can get the perfect spoon. That woman is voting for Obama. That woman makes pottery in Canada.

For all my anxiety about food I ended up not being hungry very much  except for one thing. Peanut butter! For each meal we walked by the parking lot and I would gaze longingly at my car and think about my peanut butter cookie.  Other than that the food was delicious and prepared by such kind people, occasionally when the kitchen door was open the sound of laughter would waft into the dining hall and assure me that our food was made with love and happiness.

On the afternoon of day four we learned the Vipassana technique. It a process of observing the sensations throughout your body, just observing and realizing the changing impermanent quality of all things, pain, pleasure, life, beauty, all that stuff that we alternately run from or cling to. Through the practice you are retraining your brain to reach a state of heightened awareness and equanimity. Of course as you try to retrain your brain, you also have to turn off the most chatty part- the intellectualizing rationalizing strategizing part. How do you do use your brain to turn off your brain? it's a quandary I still haven't quite figured out.

Day five- bad news, We're not allowed to move anymore! Aaaannnnd...cue hysterical crying. Sobs arise behind me, to the left and right. For five days I've been thinking wow ,this hasn't been at all as traumatic as I thought. My strongest craving has been for peanut butter (which they conveniently serve at the breakfast table) and my strongest aversion has been the pain in my back when I sit. Since i can't talk to anyone I hadn't considered or thought or cared to speculate about what sorts of trials other people where dealing with. Today it hits me with a sobering slap in the face that there is real torment and anguish all around me. I think about what this experience would have been like for me three years ago: unbearable to say the least. One of the many reasons for noble silence is that it's a solo journey we're taking. We can't be caught up in or distracted by the journeys of our fellow meditators. But through the practice you also come to understand our inherent interconnectedness to one another. The boundaries of I, me, mine dissolve, the edges of our physical bodies blur into a flurry of quivering atoms and in this dissolution a true sangha is formed. We breathe together, grieve together, one persons misery is eveyone's misery. One person's joy is everyone's joy.

Day six- We were warned this would be a hard day. On day six I'm ready to leave. I want that peanut butter cookie real bad. I miss my man-friend. I need some cuddles.

Day seven eight nine- Trying to establish myself in the practice. It is challenging. I'm not a natural, I talk with the assistant teachers about my frustrations and am soothed by their predictable advice "keep practicing, keep working". Time goes by in a strange quick/slow rhythm. I go an entire 24 hours without thinking about the cookie. I'm hungry then I'm not. My back hurts, then it doesn't. Everything changes. Outside the leaves are falling. Dusk turns to night, the moon wanes, stars shift. Yup, the dharma is everywhere.

Day ten noble silence ends and noble chatter resumes. I'm not ready! I stay in the hall until they kick me out. At last I go face the music and let the real people shatter the images of them that i've created in my head over the last ten days. The yoga teacher works in a children's clothing store. The princess lives and works in a national park reserve in Maine. The woman voting for Obama is indeed voting for Obama. The canadian pottery maker is a rock climber from seattle- close enough.

Once people can talk the retreat is basically over. Suddenly there are men in the women's halls, women in the men's halls, people start breaking out their cell phones, the energy is frenetic, it feels like madness. Everyone stays up until 2am processing, laughing, packing up. A few people take off that very night.

At 4:45am we meet in the meditation hall one last time to do a final Metta loving kindness meditation. Goenka asks us to transmit all the merits and good qualities we've cultivated over the last ten days to our family, friends, loved ones, and enemies. To all beings.
We pardon all who have hurt or abused us- I think of Birj, my boss, Sean's mom, pretty much everyone I've ever dated. I think of all the people that taught me to doubt myself or hate myself, all the unkind words that I've carried with me for so long multiplying their power and giving them permanent residence in my nerve pathways. I forgive myself for allowing this to happen, for becoming so wounded that I've wounded other people and other beings with my anger or lies or selfishness.
We seek pardon from all those who we have hurt or abused. I think of my parents most of all, for every time I made them cry, or caused them worry, or lied to them. I think of Sean's mom. I think of anyone I've ever dated. I think of anyone I've ever tried to knock down a notch, to make them believe that they are not smart or kind or radiant in every way.

So I've learned this practice. Now what? Goenka says it takes a minimum of a lifetime to free ourselves from the world of suffering. Lucky for me, that's exactly how much time I have left on this earth. I pack up my car, drive home, and eat the cookie.