I arrived a few days before the first retreat, which is a week of silent meditation, silent meals, silent free period, so basically just silence. The transition from less than an hour of daily meditation to 7 hours (some walking, mostly sitting) plus an additional hour of chanting is a little overwhelming. My body hurt, my mind ran wild. I looked forward to the times I could gaze out the window at the beautiful property in the Green Mountains in northern Vermont.

For as long as I remembered, my body has been filled with tension, because of this it has been rigid and inflexible. I spent years doing yoga on and off with some improvements, which vanished quickly if I stopped the practice. At the beginning of the retreat, I got feedback on ways to improve my posture. The changes were very painful and hard to maintain as they required a constant focus. It was clear I needed to learn to maintain them inside the zendo (meditation room) and outside. It was painful to sit, eat, and walk, but I persevered.

I started to notice two things happen, the first was a large knot of tension in my upper back that dramatically relaxed. The week before in yoga I couldn’t put my arms straight up above my head and even come close to touching them together because of the tension. By the end of the first retreat I could easily touch them together with no noticeable discomfort. The second thing I noticed was that every time I corrected my posture, my mind gave a reason not to. Despite my thoughts I was able to do it anyway. My mind didn’t have to control my actions the way it had my entire life. Being controlled by my mind has caused immense suffering in my life. I’ve struggled with food and masturbation addictions. Like many I’ve been aware of things that can correct these issues, but my mind always found a reason not to. If my mind said it, I did it, even if that was eating four pieces of pizza past the point of feeling full, breaking every diet I ever tried, or avoiding the pursuit of things that truly mattered to me.

Both of these moments were exhilarating. During the many walking periods I spent time walking the grounds. The view is breathtaking. The monastery itself sits on a mountain overlooking an ebb and flow of forest covered mountains and valleys. The property has several ponds teeming with dragonflies, frogs and all manner of life. It was quite a contrast from my previous residence in a boxy apartment complex overlooking a Steak and Shake in Columbus Ohio.

The transition from silent retreat back into life of talking, internet, and running a non-profit between 8:40am and 6 (sometimes 7:30pm) was a little jarring. In silence, it’s much easier to maintain a meditation technique outside of the zendo, when you talk, when other people talk, and of course life itself is unexpected, so it becomes easy to lose track of the technique. I realized I had been staring at facebook during one of my free periods for almost half an hour without practicing, and that was on day one!

Mindfulness is challenging. I found myself struggling to let go of the experience of being so deep inside of myself on retreat. As I talked to the residents, it slowly became normal again. We enjoyed quite a few interesting conversations in the sauna and shared our stories of retreat, our lives and our interests. The connection to others eased the transition. There is a strange balance between a deep need for isolation during the retreats and a deep need for connections outside of them.

After a month here, I’ve learned a lot about myself. I’m capable of more than I thought. While doing small tasks I found out I like fixing things with my hands. The intense schedule took so me getting used to but it turns out I do better in an environment of structure. I realized the importance of being around people who can be themselves, and allow me to be myself. Most importantly I found out I really can heal. I’m very thankful for my time so far at the Center for Mindful Learning, and I look forward to seeing where this journey takes me.

This is the Secular Buddhist Podcast featuring Soryu Forall. When is a monastery, not a monastery? What defines it as such? Is it the presence of monastics, or perhaps a ritual of purification, or of dedication? Or perhaps the notion of a place of living and learning for those who’ve dedicated themselves to practice is evolving as the dhamma encounters and dances with modernity.

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Soryu Forall is a teacher and leader at the Center for Mindful Learning. The second part of Soryu’s conversation with host Vincent Horn delves into the spaces between tradition and innovation. Soryu shares his gratitude for the traditional teachings he learned in Asia, and explains how useful those teachings are today. This leads to an exchange of ideas on rebirth and karma, teaching secular mindfulness in schools, and exploring the feedback loops that lead to the end of feedback loops.

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Soryu Forall is the Director of Mindfulness Education at the Center for Mindful Learning. He also leads a unique “modern monastery” training program for those who want to integrate awakening and responsibility. In this conversation with host Vincent Horn, Soryu describes life within the CML Residential program, what it means to come to an end of all feedback loops, and how awakening is directly linked to personal discipline and responsibility.

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Before getting on the plane from Germany to Vermont, USA, I had spent my time studying for a PhD, doing highbrow and needlessly heady stuff. Ironically, while being in the field of “Decision Science”, I’d had a terrible time with the most important decisions in my own life. Most of my scholarly colleagues were of the overthinking type. While many of them were great at what they did and honorable in what they strived for, they often seemed to come at life from a limited perspective. I didn’t fit into the model of academia.

In the meditation retreats and other circles I had explored in the years before, some people seemed to go through life very differently. They lived in a way that I could not explain. The best word I could put to it was “richer”, and I felt like I was missing out. Deeper and more fundamental questions popped up, which I thought I had answered years ago. Looking at friends, I had become aware of how one truly becomes the average of the 7 people one spends most time with. Deciding where to work and what job to do became ever more daunting. Consistently the perception lurked “I am not in the place where I need to be right now. Where I am, I cannot learn the things I need to learn for the rest of my life. Time is running out.”

Only after coming to The Monastic Academy did I realize that what I was experiencing was hardly uncommon. In Pali it is called “Samvega”, a sense of urgency that is growing even though we don’t know why we have it. I had come to understand how valuable time was, and that I needed to commit to something worthwhile. At the same time, something within me said that I was not in a position to do that. For that reason, plans that looked appealing one day looked useless the next. My mindfulness practice had exposed many of the illusions most of us hold about how to live life, but I was at loss to find role models and an alternative.

Saṃvega: A Pali Buddhist term which indicates a sense of shock, anxiety and spiritual urgency to reach liberation and escape the suffering of Samsara. Also, really confusing.

Leaving NYC by train for the Monastic Academy. How did I get here…

So I was off to the Center for Mindful Learning’s Monastic Academy. After a period of nerve-wracking uncertainty, I was following my gut for the first time. To me, CML seemed like an opportunity for serious training in meditation and character building in a way that works in the modern world. I had followed the place since it had been set up a few years ago and their posts would periodically pop up in my social media feed. Each time, I was antsy that such a place existed for the rest of the day: why wasn’t I there?!? As I took the hour-long night drive from the train station to CML’s mountainside headquarters and retreat center, I was unsure; had I been projecting my fantasy onto this place?

In some ways the X-Men academy that I had imagined just does not exist. But in the important ways I hadn’t been dreaming: this place is for real. Diving into the Monastic Academy residency felt like a duck taking to water. Being at an intensive mindfulness training community was constant practice. Literally everything was an opportunity for growth on deeply significant skills. Chanting was a time to let go of inhibitions, to trust one’s own strength, to find ways to do what was needed right then. Computer work was an opportunity for struggling to maintain mindfulness while doing menial tasks, which I had always dreaded. It was very inspiring to see how people who had done this training for longer had blossomed like flowers; they were strong, kind and responsible, and able to gather energy from somewhere inexplicable. It’s hard to imagine this blossoming happening so deeply anywhere else, even with a strong mindfulness practice. Our normal tendency of avoiding physical pain and mental confusion is just too strong to overcome, without a glimpse of a role model, someone who demonstrates why we walk this path. Seeing people as living examples of what is possible helped to transform sitting in meditation through the monthly silent retreats from a battle into a hopeful journey.

Residents, blossoming together after a retreat. Glare may or may not be sunshine.

A big part of that journey was screwing up. Conventional wisdom in the academic world has it that mistakes will break one’s neck and are to be avoided at all costs. That may or may not be an appropriate mindset in some situations, however it is definitely stifling. Probably the furthest away you can get from academia would be when I had to build a laundry line structure, because…  “go do it!”. While everyone was pushing me to get the job done, it still felt healthy. Screwing up felt safe at Monastic Academy and was even encouraged. It was a constant challenge to face tasks I didn’t feel prepared to do to do, such as facing a class full of eight year olds to teach them about mindfulness, or fixing a clogged drain pipe. This was a major lesson. 

The training grounds in full bloom.

The weeks passed by in a flash. On arriving, rural Vermont was still gearing up for the summer. Shortly then, the trees in the garden and the surrounding woods exploded with foliage. Often at 5 AM, while heading to the zendo to start the day, I looked down over Lamoille county being caressed by clouds in meaningless beauty. Three retreats with three different teachers pushed my practice to new levels. It happened many times that when going to bed after a long day I noticed an unfamiliar feeling of contentment. It was finally enough – I was learning what I needed to, surrounded by people I looked up to and having a great time enjoying the summer. Finally enough.

Another commute to the office.

And now? Having arrived here on a short-term visa, I sadly return home, but with a much clearer picture of what’s important. What it looks like to live a healthy, useful life. A rough idea of where my big blind spots hide. These treasures are held together by something I found in the intense meditation practice which is expected at the Monastic Academy. An initial taste of some “thing” which goes beyond experience. Very simple but so unexpected. It made me sense that what the people who teach this path struggle to explain is actually a real thing, something worth striving for. And that all the confusion that comes from not remembering this simple experience is both understandable and tragic.

So rock on, CML. You’ve been both a pleasure and a gift. This is a truly unique organization that has not existed until now. May the gods smile on the crazy experiment that is the Monastic Academy. Something tells me it may just work.

Both close shaves and lengthy manes have been used by a wide range of spiritual practitioners for thousands of years. Native Americans, Sikhs, and Rastafarians cultivate long hair as a spiritual practice that shows strength and devotion. And remember Samson, the Old-Testament hero whose strength was derived from his seven locks? Alternatively, the Buddha instructed his devotees to shave their heads to demonstrate a commitment to living a good and holy life. Even the U.S. Army gives buzz cuts to new recruits as a rite of passage that signifies transcendence of individualistic identity.

Here at Center for Mindful Learning, we practice both Awakening (inner development and transcending the world) and Responsibility (transformative action to make the world a better place). Parallels can be drawn between Awakening and Responsibility and spiritual hair practices. On one side, shaving our hair, we shed ego-based vanity and attachment, thus expressing the principle of Awakening. On the other hand, the care required for maintaining long hair (washing, conditioning, brushing) embodies the compassionate nature of Responsibility.

So. Each of these two approaches to hair represents one of the two sides of spirituality. Awesome. But how could I choose just one? Awakening without Responsibility is reclusivity. And Responsibility without Awakening leads to myopic self-righteousness. Thus, I decided to do both by coupling long, manicured locks on the top with a short, simple buzz on the sides.

However, the style itself is only part of the practice; I decided to utilize the act itself of cutting the hair as a spiritual exercise. Each month the Center for Mindful Learning’s Modern Monastic Team dedicates one week to a silent mindfulness intensive. The night before the meditation retreat begins, my Modern Monk Michael Fogleman and I gather to cut our hair. Michael has decided that the only hair he will keep is his beard (beards also have cross-cultural spiritual significance). As we cut each others’ hair, Michael and I reaffirm our dedication to realizing deep insight in the upcoming retreat. With each pass of the hair clippers, we affirm our unwavering commitment to shed our egos and recognize the true nature of reality, so that we might better serve all life on Earth. Also, it’s kind of fun. In this way, both the style of the hair and the act of cutting it become spiritual practice.

What is your relationship to your hair? What other seemingly mundane facets of daily life (like brushing your teeth or cooking dinner) could be creatively transformed into spiritual rituals? Would you like me to give you a haircut?

Credit: MCPhotographNYC

For almost two years, I lived at the Center for Mindful Learning, now located in Johnson, Vermont. It is true that, if given the choice, I would have never gone. But sometimes life is so gracious as to offer us this choiceless opportunity, to step into and out of something our conscious minds and our egos would very cleverly squirm, reason and doubt their way out of. The truth is I wanted healing, but I didn’t want to, or know how to, change the internal patterns that were wounding me.

What I learned through practice and life at CML is that you can only walk so far on the path without becoming the path. That separation, and the incredibly creative and masterful efforts we put into keeping life and our practice separate, is what wounds us.

Like many of us, I had ideas about what my life would be like. And often my practice informs these ideas, slowly changing them to be less and less about me and more an expression and manifestation of life. But even these ideas, “the good ones”, come up short.

As I leave the monastery, I find myself watching and asking with curiosity, “What is happening?” I see myself shaping ideas and incredible images of What I Will Do Now. And as soon as I gather up these delicious ideas and attempt to stand and move from them, suffering begins.

Once when I was really struggling, which I should add could be a prefix for most sentences about my time at CML, Soryu and I spoke after evening chanting. At this point in my training, I was fighting really hard, unwilling to give up an idea about the life I thought I should have. “I am an artist. I have this performance. It’s important. The world needs to see it. This is what I’m supposed to do and I can’t do it here!” Soryu never said anything about my clinging to the performance or to my identity as an artist. There’s no way I would have listened. But on this one night, months after my performance had come and gone, I’d grown so tired of holding onto this idea of who I was, that I let go… and decided, “He’s right. It’s not about the performance. It’s not about me being an artist. It’s about Walking Across the Country.”

He kindly listened to my newly discovered passion and conviction and said so gently, “Can you imagine how you would have reacted if I told you, back then, that it wasn’t about the performance?” We both laughed knowing I would have thrown a temper tantrum. And then he said, “and now I’m going to tell you, it’s not about walking across the country. It is far bigger than you can ever imagine.”

Each next image of who I am, what my life should be or the direction I am going is only as useful as the breath that gets me there. I don’t know what I’m “going to do next” and yet I trust that I’m already doing it.

I trust this practice.
I trust that there is an effortlessness that comes when I allow the practice to live me.
And in that trusting, I may never need to choose again.
We become the choiceless choice,
and life begins to live us.

A community member who is writing a book about Soryu’s teachings and the residents at CML recently interviewed my dad about my time at the monastery. My dad said, “It’s not a path I would have chosen for her, but I trust her. I had to believe that she was seeking what was best for her…”

It is true, I never would have chosen this path.
And I thank God that I don’t have to.

Thanksgiving 2015 Guided Meditation

Soryu Forall leads a guided meditation on gratitude, trustworthiness, and community for the 2015 Center for Mindful Learning Thanksgiving Potluck.

11/25/15

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A Mindful Transition

This meditation practice by Soryu Forall will help you transition from busyness and stress to a space of clarity and calm.

Recorded 10/4/2015

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