Vipassana Meditation Retreats: Effort and Integration
Tempel Smith, a meditation teacher and committed social activist who was recently a guest on our podcast, has always sought to find a balance between different perspectives and ideologies. His upbringing with parents who held contrasting views, one being a Marxist and the other a believer in genetic determinism, exposed him to the idea that societal forces shape individuals' unconsciousness. As a young man, Tempel discovered solace in nature, untangling himself from the complexities of society during canoe trips. While studying physics at Reed College, he volunteered for environmental and social causes, encountering diverse activists who lived on the front lines of their values. Witnessing both peaceful and aggressive approaches, Tempel chose the path of nonviolent engagement. It was through meditation retreats that he found a practice aligning his values with daily life, breaking down the sense of self and resolving the dichotomy between nature and nurture. He grappled with the tension between intensive retreat experiences and social engagement but ultimately reconciled them through the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh. Tempel's journey led him to Myanmar, where he immersed himself in meditation and discovered monasteries that provided a supportive framework for his spiritual growth.
“Your body would dissolve into subtle sensations! The external context, there’s no access to it, because you’re in this dimly lit room. So, you’re not integrating as you go along.”
“I sat my first Goenka retreat, and that was incredibly powerful. So different from the IMS [Insight Meditation Society] retreat, so deeply focused. It drew upon strength in a way that I didn't have for practicing that way at IMS. Just sitting focused in a sort of a dimly lit room, inside the body, doing body scans, and then watching what happened to my mind from that deep level of practice. That awoke more of the Theravadin view, that it's not about some psychological growth, and retreat by retreat, you can kind of be a little further awake than you were.
But there is this incredibly powerful modality that would break down, that would totally rip down your relationship to the conventional world, very assertively, break it down, so that your attention was just inside your body. Your body would dissolve into subtle sensations! The external context, there's no access to it, because you're in this dimly lit room. So, you're not integrating as you go along. The retreat itself is this incredible surgical depth of Theravadin practice.
And then I came out of that first Goenka retreat, and it was very powerful and hard to integrate with other sides of myself. I didn't know how to integrate that, along with the peace activism and being a functional human in society. It felt more of like going out into the wilderness, unplugging completely, and then being a little bit suspicious of plugging back in. Whereas, at the Insight Meditation Society retreats, and the Mahāsī approach, there is a pointing towards depth, but there’s also a sort of an integrate-as-you-go method.
Taste your food. Walk around the trees.
You can see how mindfulness is both broad and deep. And when I went on the Goenka retreat, it plunged me to a certain intensity and depth that I hadn't experienced before.
It's a funny thing about effort. I was a very willful person; so, I went into those nine days like I was rock climbing up Mount Everest, like every step was an effort of intention to apply the teachings. I had no relaxation in my approach. So, I came back to do another Goenka retreat. This was my fourth retreat, and I gave myself more permission than I thought was being offered to the students on the Goenka retreat, to approach it in a more relaxed manner. And strangely, with that balancing, and being less intentional about conquering my mind, making it stay in the protocol of just under your nose, in breathing, or in body sweeping, just adding a little bit more relaxation, I tumbled through the progress of Insight. Again, very innocent because there was no teaching context around it. I'd never read about it.