I have been practicing a while, but it had been a long time since I was on an eight-day retreat -- 16 years, if my math checks out! I was long past due, so I signed up for a full week of the Summer of Sangha.
On day four, I woke up feeling drained. I thought it was a form of resistance, which seems to happen whenever I try something new/different/scary. I took a Covid test just to be sure. To my dismay, it was positive.
Getting sick on a retreat was one of the outcomes I feared the most (not to mention being sick far from home), and here it was. Practicing worry only prepared me to panic. The thoughts raced: This can’t be happening! I have to leave immediately. I’m alone here, what if I get really sick? I came all this way and spent all this money. Maybe I’m not that sick. Just don’t tell anyone!
I should mention that the theme of the retreat was: if you see everything in your life as here to assist you to move from suffering to the happiness that is your Authentic Nature, your life will be transformed immediately. The irony, I thought. Can we all agree that getting Covid during my first retreat back -- in forever -- is, at best, not fair, wrong and unacceptable?
As the despair tried to pull me into a future that was colored with disaster, I could detect “something” in addition to the disaster story: a sparse, barely noticeable, nearly invisible awareness that maybe I did not, in fact, know all there was to the situation. It all seemed grossly unfair and wrong, but how did I know this was all there was to know? In that moment, a whole lot of impending doom and a sliver of inquisitiveness coexisted, and that made me curious.
Sitting with curiosity led to possibility. It occurred to me to grab the recorder and record everything that arose. As I was doing this, a text message came informing me that other retreatants had tested positive.
Ego/self-hate has a slogan I hear quite often: It’s not wrong if nobody finds out. I know it’s important to inform the Zen Center that I’m infected with Covid. It’s also true that I don’t want to miss the retreat. To a good/right person, the choice is obvious. Thankfully we’re not here to be good/right people. We’re here to see everything in our experience, especially those hateful, fearful voices.
The problem with the whole good/right orientation is a belief that if I make choices that align with good/right actions, I’ll stop getting harassed by the voices that tell me I’m a bad person. My experience suggests otherwise. Here, the choice was not simply doing the “right thing” (telling the truth), it was turning down ego’s guidance in favor of possibility. It was a choice. Whatever I do creates karma, and I shall surely experience this karma.
I sent a text telling them I tested positive, too.
That’s it, the voices said. Your retreat is over. They’ll never let you back in. They probably won’t even let you participate at all. They’re disappointed in you for getting sick. Why do this stupid Practice? Now you’re stuck. You’re alone. Are you feeling sicker? Oh god, this is getting worse. I knew it. You never listen.
It was time to pick up the recorder again. Self-hate will keep coming. I only have to be willing to show up just one more time.
And possibilities unfolded. I was able to continue the retreat remotely with group calls and email assignments. I created a schedule for a few hours at a time. I got to see the tremendous fear of spending all that time with myself. I got to see that a voice was telling me I didn’t have time to meditate, even while I’m in Covid isolation. Food, transportation and rest were solved moment by moment in ways I hadn’t foreseen. All good to see!
All the time I’ve spent training was really helpful because I got to see all the conversations, assumptions, thoughts and feelings that in the past would’ve just been a big ball of suffering. It’s true that I didn’t attend every day of the retreat in person. It’s true I didn’t renew my precepts in person. It’s true that I have a full heart from this Practice and I have no intention of stopping. I’m looking forward to the next in-person retreat.
Gasshō,
Tim
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