i think the lesson of the moment is repetition of mistakes. this is the 4 time i’ve tried to start this entry and i know there is a meaning this action. but i am not going to get into that at this time because it would be boring as what am i am about to write.
certainly, i can describe how i feel after having spent 8 days and saying less than 200 words. but i don’t think people will understand the nature of the experience. it’s want of those, you have to a “direct experience” and words will only confuse the matter. for the finger that points to the moon is not the moon. although not as overwhelming to my state of being as the first retreat, this one was nonetheless valuable. on the surface, the retreat seem a lot more difficult than the first one because i did a three day fast right before thankgivings but i was so glad it was done by that time. the meal and the energy at the thanksgiving lunch was simply amazing. to be honest, i’ve never experience such a sense of family with so many strangers that i have not even spoken a word to. that is the power of a shared experience and the culitvation of an open heart. sounds corny but it’s real.
i am glad i have this medium of expression because of my own quirkiness. after the retreat, everyone is frantically talking about their powerful retreat experience and i am sorta lost in thought and didn’t really want to talk. i mean i can blah like the rest of them if i was cornered but the desire to commuincate to them specifically wasn’t there. but the irony is that you can’t really talk to people that weren’t there. you don’t go home and tell your best friends about the “amazing” experience because you’re leaving out too much if you try to explain it. without doubt, again, the irony of paradox is what i keep running into. you can talk about the mechanics but doing nothing but meditating most of the day doesn’t give too much of a storyline. nonetheless, i can share the some of the thought process of the expereince without caring if it sounds corny when you’re saying it out loud. certainly, i wouldn’t be able to articulate most of these compounds broken sentences in person because i would just laugh at myself when i hear myself speaking. sorta like when you hear those fundmental religious fanatics feverisly describe a moving experience with their god of choice and you just sorta think to yourself ‘yeah, sure buddy. now go brush your teeth.’ i mean i am already getting heat from my cousins about my “spirtual” trips and what’s up this the california hippie black sheep of the family. certainly i don’t particularly care what they think because i never did in the first place. my father and his religious pilmiage has always been a bad joke in my extended family but it isn’t as funny any more because my brother and i didn’t end up like losers that they sorta afraid of.
but i digress. much like the thousands of random thoughts and fanasties that i was having as i was watching the nature of my mind. one thing that was clear during the process was that i was thinking too much about orange. all these things i wanted to do when i get back and etc and i knew mexico wasn’t the right thing for me. i’ve been away too long from the baby and she needs a lot of attention this next coming year. furthermore, i am way too relaxed and on such a clean kick that mexico would throw me back to how i was before i went on the retreat.