This search began for me in October of 2008. At the beginning of my year-long intensive yoga teacher training program, I was told this process was going to change my life. I was encouraged to discuss my experience with the people that were close to me and lean on them for support. That year was much different than I had anticipated; I was rushing, stuck in traffic, flooded by billboards, consumerism and social justice concerns. I was left in a paradox of the life I was searching for, and the life I was living.
Nearing the end of the eight months, one of the teacher’s assistants shared his story of a 10-day silent retreat that he had been on, and how it had impacted his life. Ten days of silence? Ten days of silence, and ten hours a day of meditation? Will I be able to sit still for that long?
There were 3 steps that I had to follow while I was there (Vipassana, n.d.):
1. Abstain from killing, stealing, sexual activity, speaking falsely, and intoxicants
2. Develop some mastery over the mind by learning to fix one's attention on the natural reality of the ever-changing flow of breath as it enters and leaves the nostrils.
3. On the last full day participants learn the meditation of loving kindness or goodwill towards all, in which the purity developed during the course is shared with all beings.
Over the 10-days I went through a full range of emotions. The rollercoaster went from wanting to get in my car drive away and never look back to feeling a sense of comfort and ease, to finally wanting to return to my life to the people and community that I love and tell them how much they meant to me. Sitting with myself for 10-days was the biggest challenge of my life, and changed me fundamentally. The awareness, compassion and greater connection this practice brought forward for me was the beginning of my peaceful road, and desire to leave a “legacy of sustainable happiness” (O’Brien, 2005, p. 18).
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