Aging is a time to get to know yourself in new ways—to open yourself to gifts unavailable to youth—by forging a deeper connection to your inner life. Thus far this book has offered many approaches and methods for doing that. As our journey continues, I would like to offer one more: the “day away.” Spending a day by yourself in spiritual retreat is an excellent way to deepen and consolidate all that we have discussed and all that you have learned. This day can be a gift to others as well as yourself, and may radiate benefit far and wide. The next three chapters will guide you step by step through the process of planning and performing your day away.
At first blush a day by yourself may seem isolating. But it is not so. The spiritual life is all about connection—connection to oneself as well as to others. Both are necessary, and their balance changes as we age. The first half of life, the uphill slope, is a time when we forge a lifetime of external connections—with job, career, partner or spouse, children, friends, professional relationships, church or spiritual center. That outer work of connecting becomes a defining part of who we are in terms of outer personality. The second half of life—the so-called downhill slope—is a time when these outer connections can be joined and strengthened by inner ones, as we reflect on the meaning of all that we have done and the kind of person we have become and still want to be.
Your day away will not be overly strenuous or long—it will last from 9 A.M. TO 5 P.M. (or less if you choose to do only half a day). “Nine to five” used to signify a day of work—a time span that seems quaint today, as more and more people work long hours of unpaid overtime and are hostage to the e-mail-driven seven-day workweek. Nevertheless, the phrase “nine to five” still connotes a workday, and your day away is simply a different kind of work, separated from usual routines. Buddhist readers who have experienced meditation retreats will be comfortable with this concept. But other readers have their own familiar versions: a visit to an all-day spa, a fishing weekend, a long hike alone by the seashore. Most of us already have handcrafted versions of a time apart from the routines of ordinary life.
Daily routines are like waves on the surface of the ocean. If that’s all we know, we’re missing all that the ocean is. Periodically we should dive below. Only then can we fully experience the calm substance of deeper water, and understand that the surface waves are just a part of the ocean’s nature, not the whole.
Yet today, more than ever, we skim the surface of the ocean waves. Cell phones and smartphones, texting, Skyping, and e-mails keep us focused on moment-to-moment ephemeral things. I myself have not been immune. My Android phone goes with me everywhere and informs me with a variety of clicks and tones when I have an e-mail, an appointment, or a task to do. Many Buddhist teachers I know are similarly wired in. Even the young Tibetan lamas are electronically connected, and e-mail and text with the rest of us. That is in contrast to the years I spent in a monastery in the 1970s, where there were no phones, no electricity, and no heat, and most of the technical marvels that seem indispensable to us now had not yet been invented. And yet I felt more deeply connected to others and to my own inner life at that time than at any other. What kind of world have we fashioned that makes us feel connected only when we are electronically amplified? We all need a holiday from time to time. In medieval Europe there were forty or fifty saint days a year. On those days routines were set aside; religious observance and feasting were the norm. Easter and Christmas are vestiges of this once rich calendar. Those researching today’s teenagers are concerned that today’s constantly texting youth may have real difficulty forging deep human connections as adults.
In such a world, a day away can be like a healing lotion—a way to reconnect with universal basics. This daylong retreat can be a time to reflect on the life you have lived—and the life you would like to live.
The first step in preparing for your day away is to reflect on what you hope to gain from it. Because this personal retreat is just for you, it will happen in your own zone of privacy. No one will know what you do; no one will be keeping score. The only arbiter of success is yourself, and the only standard of comparison will be your own aspirations for it. A note for readers who have attended group meditation retreats: The personal retreat is different and in some ways requires more initiative and effort. In a group retreat you turn yourself over to the planners of the retreat and just follow along. There your most important job is to show up.
In planning for the personal retreat, you need to establish your motivations in advance, make all the appropriate preparations, and promise yourself that you will not postpone or reschedule unless there is a very important reason to do so. This retreat is not like a date you can cancel if something more pleasant comes up. It is a date to spend a day or half day with your closest and dearest friend—yourself! It is never selfish or self-absorbed to do a personal retreat in the service of inner and outer connection.
As a way of firming up your intention and keeping it vibrant in the days and weeks leading up to your scheduled day away, I recommend leaving yourself “spiritual Post-its” a few weeks before the date and put them where you have to see them—stuck to your computer, next to the bed, or on your bathroom mirror. I relied on spiritual Post-its when I was recovering from my brain illness. Every time I got discouraged during my long healing, I created slogans to encourage myself, and posted them where I couldn’t miss them. One of them read, “I’m better than I was last week, and next week I’ll be better than I am now.” Another was a kind of poem that came to me in a vision:
This is a journey.
The journey is a river.
The river is long.
Follow the river.
At the time those Post-its really carried me along.
Here’s another good one. Write this out on a card, a Post-it, or piece of paper, and read it back to yourself: “This personal retreat is for everyone as well as for me.” How can it be both? It is both because outer and inner connections are two halves of the same intimacy. To know ourselves on the inside opens us up to knowing others on the outside.
Another recommended Post-it goes like this:
When I return from my day away I will be______________________________and I will do the following:______________________________.
On my own recent personal retreat, I filled in these blanks this way: “When I return I will be more patient, and I will make a list of my friends who are ill and call them.” Such messages left in prominent places will allow the purpose of your upcoming day away to gestate and grow.
Once you have set a date for your day away, internally your retreat has already begun. Your mind will be at work imagining it, and your Post-it intentions will be germinating.
During your day away you will be practicing many of the contemplative reflections already described in the book—Aging Breath by Breath in Chapter 2; Gratitude Walk in Chapter 4; Vertical Time in Chapter 5; the Loving Kindness Prayer in Chapter 7; Calm Lake in Chapter 8; and Resting in Awareness in Chapter 10. Although the method, style, and context of these practices will be somewhat different during your day away than the way they were described in their chapters, it will help you to read through their descriptions and refamiliarize yourself with them. This is something you can do in the days before your retreat.
Give thought to where your retreat will take place, whether in some undisturbed part of your own house, or in a room at a hotel or resort. Weather permitting, you might spend your day away outdoors—or put together some combination of venues.
hen you’ve decided the home/landscape of your retreat, use the following checklist:
Prepare your place for your comfort with a comfortable chair and pillows, and warm enough clothing.
Prepare food and drink to have during the course of the retreat. Mindful food preparation can be part of your day away.
Walking is part of the day’s practice. Decide ahead of time where you will walk, perhaps have a backpack available, and water, comfortable shoes, a jacket, and maybe a blanket for a seated outdoor reflection.
A typical retreat done partly at home and partly outdoors might begin at home with an opening ritual, breakfast, and the first contemplative exercises; continue with a gratitude walk and nature hike, including lunch; and conclude with a closing ritual done in the quietude of one’s own home or room.
However you choose to spend your day alone, it should be somewhere you can be apart physically, emotionally, and electronically from daily distraction. This means no cell phone (except for emergencies), no e-mail, no texting, and, of course, no radio or television. Aging itself is a quiet affair; it doesn’t broadcast its lessons at high volume. We feel its impact fully when the world around us is quiet enough that we can hear the sound of our own breathing. At those times we can perceive the inner clock that always keeps honest time—our own breath. That will be one of the contemplative reflections on your day away.
For your day away you may want to use the following things:
Candle and Matches. I like to use a votive candle because it fits into a glass holder and is safe inside or outside. The candle represents illumination, spirit, aspiration, hope, the divine, and the eternal; as a spiritual symbol it is universal. The candle flame represents your divine spark.
Vase and Fresh Flowers or Other Greenery. Don’t try to arrange them much. Let them arrange themselves. This is the Zen style of flower arranging. Flowers represent impermanence, beauty, and fragility—qualities of every living thing, including yourself. In that sense the flowers on the altar represent and reflect your own beauty.
Two Bowls. Select two bowls, one large and one small. These bowls, and the small objects they will contain, will represent the years of your life—past, present, and future—and the “before and after” of time, an important theme for the entire day.
Round Objects, Edible or Inedible. You will need eighty or so small round objects to represent the years of your life, past and future. These might be small stones, coins, buttons, or candies.
Bell. Sometimes I joke that you can’t be a Buddhist without a bell. It is true that bells are everywhere in Buddhist centers, but bells as spiritual instruments are hardly unique to Buddhism; church bells are still a familiar Sunday morning sound in many communities. In a meditative context, the bell means “right now,” “pay attention,” “time to start,” or “time’s up.” In a metaphorical sense, the bell marks time and alerts you.
Pen, Paper, Envelope, Journal, and Clock. Throughout the day you will be doing some writing. If you already keep a journal, use it. If not, find one you can dedicate to days away. (It probably goes without saying that a laptop, tablet computer, and smartphone are not suitable tools for this kind of writing.) In addition, you will need two pieces of notepaper in connection with the rituals that begin and end the day. The paper should not be scraps, but high quality. They will become ritual offerings, as much as the candle and flowers are. Before your day begins, you’ll fold the notepaper and put it in the envelope. A clock and perhaps a timer are most useful in timing the various aspects and exercises of the day.
It is probably not ideal to begin your day away early with 6 A.M. e-mails, Web surfing, or phone calls and end it with a busy evening of social engagements. However you plan the day, try to ensure that it will be one of reflection and quiet. For those who cannot find eight continuous hours for quiet reflection, do a half day. One of my mundane spiritual slogans is that something is always better than nothing.
Now that you have gathered what you need, you are ready to begin.