Time Out

Today I have an unusual opportunity to meditate in silence for the full day. Even these words in fact were written yesterday – it’s a little bit like time travel this way. But when I publish this blog post (thanks to scheduling features!), it will be Sunday – my personal one-day silent meditation retreat. I rarely have days, even during the weekends when I have not planned anything. And I mean it – nothing at all is planned for this Sunday.

Normally I fill my days with some kind of activities – learning, reading, writing, socializing and many more. I had never liked boredom, so I successfully learned never to be bored. But boredom, especially when combined with mindfulness meditation can be very healing. Soothing. Relaxing. But it is also revealing deepest levels of our vulnerability to our own thoughts and emotions. The difficulties that we normally ignore, push away, or distract ourselves from come to the light. That’s why it is so very challenging to meditate even for half an hour! Doing it for a full day might sound like a crazy idea…

Unless one has tried it previously and realized its benefits. Full disclosure, I have so far only tried one weeklong silent meditation retreat. I am not entirely sure how people on any kind of full-time employment, with family responsibilities etc. manage to go on one month-long retreats or longer. Maybe I can be that kind of person one day. But for now, I am satisfied with one day here and there, or one week when I can take some holidays. Even these short periods have brought me many benefits, so it is relatively easy for me to set aside a bit of time to experience some new insight into my own psyche.

I am using “relatively” easy because it is still does not come naturally to me to plan that kind of silent day or weekend at all. On the contrary, even for this Sunday I was thinking of engaging with my usual favorite activities. Until I met some friends for the book club where we were discussing mindfulness meditation among other topics. Suddenly I realized that I have a completely unplanned day that I could finally dedicate to silence and meditation. How lucky that I can simply be… not go anywhere… not do anything… not talk… Just sit in meditation… walk mindfully… eat mindfully…

The best thing about this process is that I cannot control it and I have no idea what I will discover. Sometimes it is nothing. Sometimes it is profound. Other times it is something in between. It’s just an opportunity to use all the meditation tools I was taught to dig a bit deeper every single time. Of course, one can simply do a little bit of this every day, both during formal sitting meditation practice as well as mindful moments during the usual activities. I also try to make sure I do this every day.

But there is something special, something truly magical in taking a longer time out every now and then. If you have a chance to try it out, I recommend starting slow – with half a day retreat at your friendly meditation center, perhaps followed by the weekend of silence. Since the effects can range from none to extreme, a supervision by experienced teachers is highly advised. With this encouragement I wish you all many successful time-outs – whether they are meditative in nature or not.