Awakening Together by Larry Yang

Author:Larry Yang
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wisdom Publications

11

Aware Within and Without

A WHILE BACK I participated in a nonresidential weeklong meditation retreat.

The retreat was in a tradition that differed from what I was familiar with, but several friends assured me that it would support my own mindfulness practice in the Insight Meditation tradition. I find it beneficial to seek out teachings from different perspectives and through the lenses of different lineages. This has helped me see the Dharma from different points of view, culturally and otherwise, and to feel how wonderfully variegated these universal teachings can be. I found this to be the case at the retreat, in both expected and unexpected ways.

The retreat teachers had rented a space from a local Dharma community. The teachings from this tradition had a deep Dharma lineage, were extremely nuanced, and were brilliantly detailed in terms of guiding folks to cultivate the ability to rest the heart and mind in unbounded spaciousness. We could describe the practice as resting in awareness in its broadest, most expansive scope. I also learned at this retreat how we, with our inevitable human frailties, can be aware and simultaneously unaware of how we apply our practice to the actual life experiences that arise in front of us.

This retreat took place at an intimate meditation center along the border of business and residential neighborhoods in a small Northern California town. The gathering of around forty-five to fifty participants had a large impact on the sleepy streets of this community — primarily in the form of parking. Even with carpooling, it was still hard to fit thirty-five to forty cars in the local area. And not unexpectedly, when one retreat participant found a spot with parking spaces, other participants quickly went to park their cars there as well. Eventually, during the week of the retreat, the residents of the neighborhood complained that they could not park on their own streets due to the number of cars from the retreat. Because the retreat ran for eight to ten hours each day, during which time retreat participants’ cars remained parked on the streets, the retreat severely and negatively impacted the neighborhood.

Once feedback from the local residents made its way back to the retreat, participants tried to find different places to park, but while retreat participants did find alternatives, they also collectively followed each other to the same neighborhood that had seemingly empty curbsides. They then proceeded to park their cars and fill the streets of that neighborhood just as they had done in the first neighborhood. A few of us found parking farther afield and did so individually so as to try to minimize the effect of additional cars in the neighborhood, but most continued to park together in a group. The group as a whole was unaware of the collective impact they were still having.

Ironically, although the inside of the meditation hall was peaceful, calm, and spacious by the end of the retreat, the external community was progressively more agitated, angry, and upset. The Dharma teacher grew exasperated

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