This is my full write up encompassing my thoughts and experiences during the 2016 seclusion. Be warned this is a long post. This is my second seclusion since coming to Bhavana, the first write up can be found here:

http://jayantha.tumblr.com/post/112712439593/february-2015-31-days-of-seclusion

So what is seclusion? Seclusion is a period of January and February where Bhavana Society shuts down. There are no retreats and very few visitors, although people can come to help out with work for a period of a week if they wish. During this period the monastic and lay residents split into two teams and one goes into seclusion while the other takes care of the bare bones work and maintenance of the monastery. How a person spends their seclusion is up to them, some people go home, some people use it as a vacation, a time to rest and chill, others as a time for deep contemplation and meditation, there are no hard and fast rules and it’s up to each individual. I worked in January and had my seclusion in February.

The past two years I have used this period as a test. The parameters of my seclusion are as follows: Total disconnect from all online activities, no watching videos (online or offline, even dhamma videos) or listening to any audio (even dhamma talks). Now I do keep technology for writing and reading e-books and the like, last year I had my old laptop from lay life that I have since given up, this year I had a small tablet that I used for reading, writing, taking notes and Pali studies etc.

During seclusion I try to avoid contact and speaking with the residents as much as I can, although if it is important or someone has need of me it’s ok to speak. At minimum I have contact with the other residents twice a day for a few minutes when getting my food and once or twice a week when getting drinks and supplies.

Last year I was a lay person, living in the main male dorms with the other residents, so I always heard others and saw the activity and goings on of the working residents. This year as a monastic I wanted to up the ante as it were, so I stayed in Chanda house, a small building on the female side of the monastery that use to house the female monastics who lived here a decade ago. It’s a very nice little two room place with a beautiful sitting room with a Buddha rupa and asana (monastic seats).

This meant I was on the opposite side of the monastery from everyone else and my daily contact was the 10 minutes or so total of getting breakfast and lunch. This was almost always done in total silence. I wanted to live this month exactly as if I were a monastic living alone, which included going to get my food everyday on what is traditionally called piṇḍapātā, which is the tradition stemming from the time of the Buddha (you know, before monasteries had cooks that shopped at CostCo and Walmart) where a monk gathers his bowl and walks to town to get alms food and then returns to his place to eat. I’ve always wanted to do this “for real” and this month served as a bit of a “test run” for that, practicing mindfully walking through the woods down to the main building, getting my food and mindfully walking back, then eating alone in Chanda house. My very first few days of doing this was through 2 feet of snow… I, and those who know me, find that quite fitting actually.

Every day I chanted pūjā first thing in the morning and continued to memorize the basic Pali suttas that all monks should know. I studied my Pali lessons, wrote in my journal, and meditated as much as I was able. I cleaned and maintained the house, washed my bowl and did all the regular chores of living. I had an electric water boiler and had my own tea and drink mixes so this meant I really did not have to go down to the main area other than to get food but maybe once a week for supplies.

Now that the stage is set, time to get down to the nitty gritty. I’ve found that when you go from a full schedule and dive into seclusion there is this period in the beginning where you are confused and don’t quite know what to do. You start to have anxiety over the prospects of being alone, silent, and free for a whole month, and then a desire to “do” something, mostly in an attempt to not think about it, arises.

For me that manifested in 2-3 days of really clearing and cleaning Chanda out. There was just tons of stuff there that had not been moved in a decade and I always feel a need to clean, air out, and make better, any place I live in. So I lost myself in work a few days, in the process avoiding in large part the “well what do I do know” problem!

Like last year I decided to make myself a schedule, because I’ve found if I don’t schedule my day I start out with the intention to do things (like get crackin’ on my Pali homework!) then come the end of the day I look back with very little of what I intended to do actually done, and me wondering what I did with the rest of the time! People can be really down on making a schedule, because they can feel like it’s trying to be too controlling. I understand that, but there is a middle way, a balance to be struck, and yes even as a monastic having a schedule is a good thing as long as you are flexible.

The funny thing was that I wrote out a schedule last year and this year, and the same thing happened both years, I ended up not following the schedule and fell naturally into another schedule that came about as time went on. Goes to show how our expectations very rarely match reality.

One of the Biggest things that happened to me very early in this seclusion, was that on the 3rd day I woke up and lying in bed I had a thought and an intuition come to me “ let’s make this a “do nothing but meditate” day. I had a thought before seclusion that if I felt alright about it, I should at least give it a shot to go a whole day where I did nothing (aside of the normal daily chores and bodily hygiene stuff) but meditate from sun up to sun down. I did not have any set expectations if I would even try it, but that day I woke up and I had the gut intuition telling me to do it, and I always follow my gut, so I did.

That whole day I alternated walking and sitting meditation. In the afternoon I took a tea break every few hours to break up the meditation periods. When the night came I setup a bunch of candles that were left over from the old days all around the sitting room and continued to meditate until around 8pm where I read a few inspiring sutta quotes about the monk’s life, then went to bed.

My meditation was mostly peaceful although at night with the candles and being in a room where all three sides are windows with no shades, I do admit to the mind jumping to fearful thoughts about what could be out in the dark and things like that. Shadows and reflections played a little havoc with me (This is exactly what the Buddha said In one of my favorite suttas(mn 4) when he questioned himself “ why do I always think of fear and dread?” ) but as I have a lot of experience putting myself in fearful situations, these days I’m able to recognize the physical manifestations and mental experience of fear and not be too carried away by it.

I woke up the next morning with the same intuition to continue, although admittedly not as strong and confident as the morning before. I continued the streak and ended up doing over a day and a half straight of “nothing but meditation”.

This was the first time in over 10 years of meditating where I did anything like this and was a major hurdle for me. Previously I just had no confidence that I would be able to do it, but I’ve seen through experience that things arise when it is that time in the practice, and I suppose it was that time. Doing this is different than say, a regular retreat day, where you do a lot of hours of meditation but there’s also dhamma talks and Q&A and yoga and other things that are not direct meditation. Previously I had been in awe of people who were able to do this seemingly with ease, but at the end of that day and a half I had a newfound confidence that I could do it! Of course it was not easy, but that first day especially my mind was content to just do it, with not too much negativity and back and forth in my mind.

I decided to make this a weekly event so every Wednesday was the official day. The next three days of doing this were much more up and down. There were times where I just wanted to end it and be done meditating, times of loneliness and thinking about family and friends I left behind, and times of wonderful deep peace. I made It a habit that the last three hours(from 5pm-8pm) would be me trying out “long sits” where I sat in the rocking chair, setup my posture, closed my eyes, and vowed not to move or stop until the alarm bell 3 hours later.

Sitting for hours at a time is a whole different ballgame then regular 30-60 minute sits. I really felt like they were great experiences of impermanence and it amazed me how many mind-states, thoughts, and experiences I could go through in the period of 3 hours, and how they all flowed and changed into and out of each other, a state of continuous flux. I had some deep concentration, some fear from various creaks and sounds, a lot of sloth and torpor(ie nodding off, being drowsy) and periods of clear comprehension. I never made it the 3 hours in each of those sits, but not because of anything mental, after 2 and a half hours the pain in my buttock(even with cushioned seats) grew and grew until I just couldn’t work with it anymore and I ended it.

Now some words on my mind-states during seclusion. They ran the gamut as I’ve already explained. I would say in general my most common mind-state was peaceful determination. A determination to continue with this seclusion and with my practice, regardless of what arose. I’m no stranger to working through all kinds of negative, depressive and strong aversive/emotional mind-states.

This year’s seclusion was tougher than last year in that it was much more contemplative and meditative. This year I also had a building up of strong defilements and attachments the months leading to my seclusion that of course played havoc with me. I had that familiar “anxiety of loss” when entering a month long seclusion, thinking about all the stuff I couldn’t do and was putting aside. Fears of being able to really do this thing and if I even wanted to in the first place.

This seclusion there was plenty of peace, happiness, and calm, but there was also something new that I don’t remember experiencing last year(and rarely have in the past 5 years since my practice hit a certain point), and that was loneliness. When 99% of your day you have zero indication that there are other people around, no sight or sound of anyone, you can have times where you begin to crave some human contact. I would say 2-3 times during my seclusion this happened, it wasn’t a continuous thing throughout, but a few spikes.

Now I’m not going to say that no one spoke to me at all during seclusion, people had questions and when others spoke to me, I spoke. I also cheated a little bit because for about two hours each week we continued our weekly outdoor fireplace nights(the fireplace is actually 10 feet from Chanda) so I did speak with some of the residents then. I’m not quite sure though if those few hours a week helped or hurt me with regards to my seclusion, but I decided not to overly fret about it.

There were also a few times, actually not related to the loneliness spikes, where I also just had the desire to end the seclusion. Now no one forced me to do this, I could end it at any time, but I knew how important and rare this experience was so I never gave it a second thought. It is part of the practice to learn to be with yourself in this way and observe a mind free of distractions, no one ever said the experience is supposed to be wholly peaceful and easy, but it’s always insightful.

Other activities that I did this seclusion included finishing up the Saṃyuttā Nikāya and starting the Aṇguttara Nikāya, which is the last Nikāya I need to read before I’ve read all of the “Buddhavacana(words of the Buddha)”, over 4000 pages, cover to cover. I also did a deep exploration and study of the Vinaya, the monastic rules that I will undertake when I become a Bhikkhu in the fall. I had read the majority of them 3-4 times in the past so I was familiar with the general rules and concepts, but this time I delved deeper beyond the basic rules into all the smaller rules and protocols that also govern a Bhikkhu’s life.

I also read a few non-dhamma books, yes monks can read regular books, although it is highly recommended to limit these and for the monk to be aware how these affect your practice. I explored the mountain about five times, leaving for a few hours to see what was out there and map the mountain, and had some real fun experiences and learning how to be in the wilderness hiking and climbing in robes (my robes were baptized to wilderness hiking!)

And finally as I’ve said above I tried to make this seclusion just as if I were a lone monastic. Even though it had been a few months since my ordination, there has been a “lag” of sorts, like my mind still wasn’t fully convinced that I’ve become a monk and need to change how I act and portray myself mentally and physically.

Waking up each morning, doing all the “duties” and practices of a monk, and learning how to set my own purpose (a monk is a free agent, it is up to them to work on their own practice, their own education, their own purpose, no one can tell them or give them these things), I really feel like during this seclusion I finally made the switch over. I can’t say I remember when exactly the switch “clicked” in my mind, but there was a definite mindset change. I went into this seclusion a guy in robes, and I came out of it a Monk.