All Night Retreat Journal
The following journal entries are from my personal all-night retreats I have started doing in my own home, in my meditation room. Basically, I stay up all night and practice until 6am. I do a variety of practices: qigong, zuowang meditation, koan practice, drinking pu-erh tea, reading inspirational books, reciting Daoist scriptures, and writing in my journal. I feel it is important to share this information, as many people ask me, what exactly do you practice? Or, what do you do on a retreat? These entries are a doorway into practice. I hope the readers find them useful.
March 15, 2008 (excerpts)
12am
I started reading the memoirs of Maura O’Halloran in the book, Pure Heart, Enlightened Mind. I am almost at the half-way mark, but am already inspired by her short life as a zen monk. It is because of her inspiration that I am staying up tonight to bring my sitting and cultivation practices to a deeper level. As a matter of fact, I have been feeling kind of lazy and half-hearted in my Daoist practices. I’ve not been meditating or reciting scriptures regularly, and I’ve been eating too much lately. My digestion has been out of balance for a month or two, and I feel I need a little kick-in-the–butt to get back on track. I hope tonight provides the fuel to get restarted.
Okay, everything is now set. Candles lit, room warmed up. I have a thermos of Pu-erh tea next to me. Reading texts for later, and incense burning. I’m ready to pee, then start my first sitting session.
2am
I finished the first round of sitting forgetting. One of my practices is the self-enquiry asking, who’s sitting forgetting? Nothing dramatic in the sitting. A lot of restful sitting, not much real awareness. The question, who’s sitting forgetting comes and goes. Sometimes I hear an inner voice saying, “I forgot to forget.”
Time now for scripture recitation.
A few minutes later,
“The Dao arises in the study of the heart.”
This line from the Offering Incense invocation is so very powerful. I forget that within these basic Daoist invocations exist deep, profound teachings. Within the heart is the Dao. This heart is probably a reference to xin, heartmind which is everywhere in the Daoist texts. The heartmind is me at my most fundamental level. No separation. Everything about me is a link to my heartmind. And if that is true, then the Dao is that close as well. The Dao is as close as my own thoughts, as my own feelings, as my own experiences of the world. It appears that there is not any separation between who and what I am, and the Dao. What a nice thing to be thinking about at 2:30am, Sunday morning, one week before Easter. Today must be Palm Sunday, if I have my memory on right.
4am
Forgetting the non-awareness of duality.
This thought came to me as I was working on what exactly is it that I forget. How do I describe it? How is it different from the awareness of non-duality?
5:55am
My last couple sitting sessions were more wakeful and greater clarity than when I started 6 hours ago. No great satori, no enlightenment but these last couple hours were very tranquil. Asking myself, who’s sitting forgetting has become a pleasant way of staying present and a strong reminder of what I’m intending.
At times, I can anticipate, with a little more concentration in a wuwei spirit and I could fully experience the heart of the zuowang state of abiding in awareness of a nondual reality.
6am now, time to end the retreat.
April 18, 2009 (excerpts)
1 am
I just finished making a pot of pu-erh tea gongfu style. I’m letting it brew for awhile so I have nice strong tea to help me stay awake, alert for the next 5 hours.
I started tonight’s retreat at 12 midnight. My wife and I made a pit fire outside and I added a few logs around 11:30pm to keep it going. Around midnight, I practiced some Bagua circle walking. Earlier in the day, I read in The Whirling Circles of Bagua Zhang, by Frank Allen, about some research on the origins of the Bagua circle walking. It appears that there is a Daoist Longmen history of circle walking where they practiced a simple circle walking as part of their Daoist meditation practices.
“From its earliest beginnings, the Dragon Gate Sect had a circle walking meditation practice called, “Rotating in Worship of Heaven.” The monks credited their founder, Qui Chuji, with the creation of the practice… In this practice, they created a moving yin-yang symbol by walking in a circle and making an S curve through the circle to change directions. Through this practice, they hoped to achieve stillness in motion.” Pg. 215
I also found a blog on the internet which has even more history on the Dragon Gate sect and their circle walking. It says how the Daoists recited mantras while they walked and focused on their goal of uniting humanity, heaven and earth.
Of course, while I circle walked tonight, I repeated the Daoist koan of ‘Not Two.’ I soon found myself coordinating each step with Not, another step with Two. I walked through the circles in the S curves, and I have to admit, I felt very ancient and re-connected to my ancient Daoist brethren. I will definitely follow-up on this and see if I can find even more information. What a blessing to have come across this.
Time for that pu-erh. It’s been waiting for me for about 30 minutes. Should be nice and strong.
1:30 am
That was the best everyday pu-erh I have had. I finished off two full Gawain cups like there was no tomorrow. I downed a few walnuts with it. What a Daoist feast: pu-erh tea and walnuts. I don’t know if it gets any better than this-naturally so.
4:15 am
I was reading in one of John Blofeld’s old books, The Secret and Sublime: Taoist Mysteries and Magic, and I found a passage I seem to come across often in his writings. It is in his chapter on Daoist Mysticism, and is a summary of what some old Daoist said to him. It is relevant since it relates to one of our key practices of breaking down the illusory boundaries of self and other. It is a long quote.
“The Tao is to be found in inner stillness. It reveals itself as One-timeless, formless, all-pervading. In it all creatures and objects have their being … Apart from the totality which is the Tao, they have no being. The Tao and the myriad objects are not two! This faculty of being one and many simultaneously is a mystery that can be apprehended but not explained.
(more)
It is not enough for you to suppose that you know these things. You must perceive them directly.
(more)
You must look within your mind. Even then you will see nothing clearly, unless you lose awareness of a self that looks. There is no such person, I assure you-there is a looking, but no looker. Yet banishing the concept of being one who looks can be difficult. Therefore prepare yourself by limiting your desires, requiring nothing of the world beyond [the basics]. Meanwhile, practice the art of koan daily. This will still the restless waves of thought and sharpen your awareness. Awareness must be acute, but objectless. No looker, no looked-at, just looking. Do you understand?” pg 184
5:15 am
The last two hours, sleepy.
Meditation, head leaning forward.
No thoughts. No desires,
Not even for sleep.
Not Two comes and goes,
Walking through the circle of yin and yang.
Post-retreat comment:
Blofeld’s quote by the old Daoist is at the core of Daoist practice. Especially as I practice with the emphasis on using ‘Not Two’ as the key Daoist koan to breaking the barrier gate to the direct experience of the Dao. And he gives the appropriate warning, that this is not an easy practice. Our attachments to our self are so very strong. Even when we have wonderful experiences and say we understand, we still hold onto to the self concepts of being the “looker” and not just looking. Everyone just says it is hard to explain, but in their efforts to explain, they clearly give away their own sense of ego or self which is doing the experiencing. Dropping this ego is so very tricky. A sly fox. A mischievous monkey.
November 1, 2009 Halloween Eve, Oct 31
11:55 pm Last minutes of Halloween Eve, Oct 31
At the beginning of this Halloween evening all-night retreat, I take my first drink of blood, oh, I mean fine 15 year old, aged, old growth tree, pu-erh tea.
That is really good pu-erh tea. This very first cup is smooth and effortless as the most experienced sage. I can only imagine where this night’s retreat is going.
Onto first session of scripture recitation: Qingjing jing – clarity and stillness.
1:15 am
“Internally gazing into the heart-mind,
You see that in actuality there is no heart-mind.
Externally gazing into form,
You see that in actuality there is no form.
Externally gazing into things,
You see that in actuality there are no things.
When you awaken to these three,
Only then do you gain a glimpse into emptiness.”
After reading these passages and a few more additional ones, I slipped into a deep meditation – silence.
There is no heart-mind, no form, no things, no need to even make an effort to meditate, to practice zuowang. Being there, with no effort. Just staying in the state of emptiness. And I see that emptiness, at least what I experienced – “You see that emptiness is not empty.”
There was “clear and constant silence.”
2:55 am
Returning from outside, under a clear and still, almost full moon sky, I remember my Daoist dreams of flying to the stars as a beam of energy – light. And back inside, I turn to another scripture, reciting:
“The sun and moon have calculations …”
And
“The Way is calm and wide,
Not easy, not difficult
But small minds get lost.”
“The more you think and talk.
The more you lose the Way.
Cut off all thinking.
And pass freely anywhere.”
Clearly, these past few days I have talked too much, lost much qi, acted foolishly with others. My decision for tonight’s retreat was inspired by these behaviors.
“No fault, no 10,000 things.
No arising, no mind.
No world, no one to see it.
No one to see it, no world.”
“If one diligently practices in fulfillment of these precepts,
Never being lazy or lax about them,
Then one will pursue the Dao with no-mind.”
3:15 am
I was asked by one of my priest students to comment on the “let-down feeling” one experiences after newly being ordained, and the same feeling of being “let-down” after a retreat. I have different thoughts on this question and get inspiration from reading Daoist scriptures. For instance, in the above passages, it ends by saying to “pursue the Dao with no-mind.” When you think about it, that is how to engage in a retreat, especially the ending – with “no-mind.” That is the core practice during a retreat, to cultivate a mind free of desires, free of attachments, free of thinking, and all the principles of zuowang: no preferences, no choices, no contriving, and so on. But then, why would someone at the end of the retreat have the experience of being let-down. Why is it all of a sudden okay to now be filled with expectations and desires for some reward. I thought that was the purpose of retreat, to let go of expectations and desires.
I had the same experience when I was doing my 1000 Day Daoist Scripture Retreat. Early in the retreat I had these subtle thoughts, “will I be different when I complete this 1000 day practice? Will I be purified and be able to fly off and meet Laozi, like it says in the scriptures?” As I approached the ending of my retreat, I realized that I was the same person I was at the beginning of the retreat. Nothing changed. I hadn’t accomplished anything special. Along the way, it seems like I was able to let go of my desires to gain something from reciting scriptures for 1000 days. I say “nothing changed” and nothing was gained, except perhaps for being able to let go of expectations. And that is no small accomplishment.
I made a note on a piece of paper a few days earlier about this issue of retreat and feeling let down afterwards. It was a reference to a few brief words in the Daode jing, chapter 46:
“There is no greater fault
Than desire for success.”
