The headline says it all: “Buddhists in dark as fire draws near.”
Thirty-nine Buddhists living at the Diamond Mound Retreat Center, near Bowie, Arizona, are about six months into a three-year solitary retreat that includes a vow of silence. To continue their meditation, they haven’t been told they may need to be evacuated at any moment due to the huge wildfire in the American southwest.
“The fire looks startlingly close. But we haven’t told them that we may be coming in to evacuate them. We didn’t see any upside to that, because their meditations will immediately be over. They wouldn’t be able to concentrate,” said Scott Vacek, one of the caretakers at the retreat center.
News of the meditators’ predicament elicits feelings of pathos and pity in me. There is something a little pathetic and more than a little ironic in a voluntary three-year solitary confinement, with a vow of silence, being threatened by a raging wildfire. The world is literally burning, but the ‘monks’ can’t be told they’re about to be evacuated because “they wouldn’t be able to concentrate.”
The underlying philosophy, and the predicament of the retreatants, belies some sadly wrongheaded notions of meditation. The core premises of intensive retreats (now so popular in the West) are epitomized by this three-year vow of solitude and silence. They include: concentration, isolation, and muteness. The first is misguided, the second is false, and the third is unnecessary and of dubious value in awakening higher states of consciousness.
Ranging from mid-20’s to late-60’s, participants, drawn from various sectors of society, have no contact with each other, meditating almost continuously (except during sleep presumably), with the intent of “promoting world peace one person at a time.”
The idea of promoting world peace through solitary meditation is another question, but meditation has nothing to do with concentration. Rather, it’s a function of attention, which is a very different animal.
When one concentrates on something, one focuses the mind on a particular object or goal. Indeed, concentration is perhaps best defined as the intentional focusing of the mind (as thought) to achieve a certain end.
On the other hand, attention, as I’m using the word, is inclusive, unintentional, and undirected. When the self lets go of its ideas, goals, and efforts, the brain gathers attention unnoticed, until a breakthrough of meditation occurs.
Concentration obviously has its place, since we wouldn’t be able to plan or build anything without exercising that capability. But the essence of concentration is effort and intentionality, and neither have any place in awakening meditative states. And separation and exclusion are anathema to meditation.
The mistaken idea is that by concentrating on one’s breath, a mantra, or whatever, one can bring order and quiet to the mind and take it to a new level. But since concentration involves will, and the will is inevitably the conditioned action of the self, making meditation synonymous with concentration is misguided and self-defeating. Altered states may ensue, but they’re a form of hypnosis.
There’s value in retreating from the world to reflect and vacate the mind. That’s the original meaning of ‘vacation,’ a connotation that’s returning as more and more people take retreats as their vacation. But separating oneself from the world and humankind is impossible; that only adds to confusion in consciousness, and certainly doesn’t “promote world peace one person at a time.”
I read a compelling insight into the spiritual life recently. “People must surely be able to evolve through joy alone, arriving at the Godhead as naturally as a flower opens to the sun.”
Why do we humans only learn, if we learn at all, through suffering and sorrow? Though I haven’t been free of either, I’ve never subscribed to the notion that meditation is an onerous task and joyless discipline.
To my mind, the goalless goal of meditating in the mirror of nature (even my backyard) is to awaken one’s entire being sufficiently so that one doesn’t need to take sittings at all. We have the capacity to cross over into meditative states at any time and in any place, without losing the ability to function efficiently and effectively.
One can only quiet the mind and awaken the state of insight, so crucial now for human survival and growth, if one lets the mind flow as it will, and watches it without employing time and effort. We grow through negation, not addition.
Martin LeFevre