Eye of the Tiger

Survivor I am, as my pal Yoda would say.

I'm back from my 3 day silent retreat, and I can honestly say it was a phenomenal experience, but like a lot of phenomenal experiences (childbirth & marriage come to mind) it also TOTALLY sucked at some points. I was so afraid of what it would be like not to be able to talk or make eye contact for 3 days, but as it turned out, the far greater challenge was one 45-minute seated meditation after the other -- all day long -- the last one ended at 9:30pm.

We did take breaks to eat and sleep, and while I always appreciate a good sleep, it was really the food that saved me during that first and most harrowing 24-hour period. As I sat there, silently eating my meal, I pondered whether I'd ever make it as a Buddhist if all I really cared about was getting through all those damn meditation sessions so I could eat again. The food tasted SO amazing after sitting in silence for all that time -- I couldn't rave about it to my fellow retreatants or to the chef, of course -- so I just savored every morsel. Until they made me sit again. That's the funny thing, though, they really didn't make me do anything -- they just relied on the fact that we all wanted the result of all that sitting badly enough to keep coming back to the meditation hall. (More on results in a later post -- I've got a backlog in me after all that quiet contemplative time!)

I think it was the first morning, during like the 4th 45-minute sit (the first one started at 6:45am -- you can get more in before noon that way), that I just about lost my mind. And then I heard, as if I wasn't sitting in silence on a cushion, but rather, running up Breese Terrace during Madison's annual Crazylegs run:

It's the eye of the tiger, it's the cream of the fight

Risin' up to the challenge of our rival

And the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night

And he's watchin' us all in the eye of the tiger

And that got me through until the next time the bell rang, and it was finally time for lunch.