Internal Hospitality
Meditation retreats aren't meant to be an escape from life; rather, they are opportunities to deepen our connection with the experience of being alive.
Meditating in silence with others for several days is the opposite of an escape.
We’d never say that working out is a way to avoid developing strength, flexibility, and endurance. A gym is a good place to be uncomfortable in ways that lead to physical vitality. It’s not the only place, but it offers valuable tools for temporarily becoming uncomfortable in beneficial ways.
A meditation retreat is one good place to befriend your senses, thoughts, body, and feelings—not just the comfortable ones but all of them. It’s not the only place, but contemplative work seems to accelerate and bloom when we cultivate it together—without socializing.
It’s a place to practice extending hospitality toward the experience of being alive.
Over the years, I’ve learned to feel more at home in my life regardless of the circumstances, including joy, fear, peace, instability, ease, hunger, fullness, exhaustion, laughter, embarrassment, and anger. I’ll be working on this until I die.
I can and do practice anywhere. I can make myself feel more at home in places where I don’t fit in, but what a delight it is to practice where it feels like I belong.
My friends Marcy Crawford and Louis Wilde have built such a place. They’ve turned a bit of old California farmland into a desert garden and a house into a home for anyone who wants to deepen their practice of feeling more alive.
I recently spent a few days there with ten friends doing what looks like almost nothing from the outside.
Sitting.
Pulling weeds.
Walking.
Sitting.
Eating soup, oatmeal, and salad.
Sitting.
Waiting for bells to ring.
Watching clouds and birds.
Sipping tea.
Sitting.
Washing bowls and silverware.
Dancing.
Sitting.
Sleeping.
From the inside, though, it feels like getting a reprieve from performing our identities to more closely observe sights, sounds, fragrances, flavors, sensations, thoughts, and feelings. The mundane and the sacred become indistinguishable.
What’s happening inside feels as natural as what’s happening around us.
It feels like being trapped and being free. It’s full of doubt, confusion, and clarity. It feels painful and deeply comforting.
It feels like I’m doing things wrong while everyone around me is doing everything right. It feels like people are talking about me, but nobody is speaking.
It feels like taking breaks from quietly building a case for why I don’t belong to the family of humanity.
Memories of the worst things I’ve ever done percolate into my imagination. Unlikely choices from years ago seem more valuable than anything I’ll ever be able to describe on a resume, dating app, or even to a therapist.
I can’t show you what our innies were up to or fully describe what we felt. I can only share a few glimpses of what we saw and heard. What you would feel if you were in our shoes would be very different yet similar.
There are other ways to fall in love with being alive. I hope you find some that fit you—artists, athletes, and poets can help. I hope you find friends to explore them with. I hope you feel alive—more often than never—while you have a chance. It’s so much easier not to.