23 December 2022

My arrival in the dark of early evening saw me joining others milling around in an element of semi-organised confusion awaiting covid tests prior to entering the centre proper.  I was then taken into the long dining room - the fold-up plastic tables and whitewashed walls giving it the look and feel of a long village hall – and joined those sitting around waiting to register and hand in their mobile phones.  A cup of tea and a bowl of wholesome soup filled time during the next period of waiting prior to being taken to my accommodation and around the centre.  Quiet conversation filled the air although I sensed that many, like me, were a little restrained, unsure when the silence of this silent retreat was meant to start. 

The centre is in an old farmhouse, set around three sides of a small gravel courtyard with dining room one side and meditation halls and accommodation on the others.  Men and women are kept apart: in the dining room they sit one side and the men the other and there are separate meditation rooms.  Ours had a long parquet floored, clearly once a small barn, and blank walls other than the far end where two large photographs of the Burmese founders of the centre sat on a slightly raised stage along with smaller photographs of pagodas and temples elsewhere in the world. Three rows of mats along the length of the hall accounted for about 40 people in this one room alone; I was told while registering that 75 were attending the course, many more than I had expected.  It also had a much larger international flavour than I had anticipated; I had heard accents from North America and Australia as well as from across Europe. 

Just before 8pm a gong announced the introductory meditation class.  I would get used to the sound of that gong over the next few days as it announced the start of the day, classes and meals, a much more pleasant and less intrusive sound than any alarm.  As we sat there in our rows the teacher – a grey haired Swiss in his sixties – entered, sat cross legged on a small stool on the front stage and started a pre-recorded greeting or incantation in the Bali language.  It was the first indication that there would be a stronger Buddhist thread running through the course than I had anticipated. 

The idea of what we had to do is easy: sit there breathing through your nose and focusing on the feeling of the breath on your nostrils or lower lips on both the in and out breath.  Like trying to learn a golf swing, the theory and practise take a while to come together: my mind was wandering, there was a lot of thinking going on in there and a lot of it was about why I was having trouble feeling my own breath and why this simple process did not seem to be working.  Then, after a while, the aching of my left hip as I sat cross legged on my mat became another distraction.  An hour is a long time in that frame of mind.

I am now back in my room which I am sharing with two others.  It was strange walking back with them but saying nothing.  A simple affair, it has a couple of bunk beds and a third bed in the corner and reminds me of well-appointed Youth Hostel accommodation.  Like the meditation hall it is comfortably warm.  Tomorrow we start in earnest; we will be woken at 4am by the gong for the first of our daily 4.30am meditation sessions so an early night seems in order, especially as there is no chance of passing time with conversation getting to know my fellow course members.