Innocent Misunderstanding

That time of the year again – a Ridhwan retreat week in the Kloster Schöntal monastery, I’ve been blogging about these retreats before.

 
Sabine and me came directly here from our Lake Constance vacation. Since we spent a weekend here in June, she loves this wonderful place as much as I do, so she took the opportunity to take a nice walk (while I was busy setting up the recording for the talks) and spend another night in the monastery with me before taking the train home the next morning.

 
The weather was still warm and sunny although the nights got quite cold. Schöntal in autumn is full of beauty …

 
The week was wonderful again, it was a full week with very little time to take walks … but then, it often felt like we were taking inner walks. We were about 120 people, each of them somewhere in their inner process of finding themselves, but we did it together, so I sometimes thought of a large group of people climbing a high mountain together, each of them taking a different route, but feeling like a group nonetheless. I had several deep experiences that were completely new and unexpected – I surprised myself. How often does one surprise oneself?

 
„Because of an innocent misunderstanding you think that you are a human being in the relative world seeking the experience of oneness, but actually you are the One expressing itself as the experience of being a human being.“ Adyashanti

One Of Those Weeks


 
a grey field under a grey sky with one single tree on the horizon – muddy shoes – slushy ice – a woman with a yellow jacket – a very old roof – the smell of fresh paint – a hundred and thirty old friends – the whole spectrum of human folly, stupidity, intelligence, and divinity – squeaking wooden floors – securing cables across a large room with gaffa tape – hanging transparent glass images from a baroque railing – floating on a field of love

feeling tired and sick – too much coffee – people going from tears of pain to tears of joy – the shouting of playing children reverberating in long monastery hallways – subtle intricacies of a moment – a pain that seems to be hundreds of years old – is that me? no – is that me? no – who are you? what are you? – a hundred people chanting hu for half an hour, a shimmering pure soft chord hanging in the air – polishing cutlery that is already clean – the sun shining directly into my face – coughing sneezing coughing


 
many people having breakfast in silence – gazing into each other’s eyes for minutes (nobody seems to have eyes that are even and symmetric) – telling the truth ruthlessly – there’s that large shimmering, vibrating ball of light between us – old weeds frozen and brown – a light snowfall – suffering that i created without even noticing

constructed identities held up by self objects – a bell in space – a warmth – a wondering – confusion and ecstasy – the simplicity of stopping – a roaring storm that shakes the forest and that makes my tears violently flow with its energy – my face is wet in the wind and ice cold but i enjoy it – an opportunity half missed – her understanding goes much deeper than i can grasp – a simple openness, everything coming and going freely without disturbance, without grasping, without rejecting, without wanting, evaluating, judging, objectifying

idealization transference – this cake is not made by the monastery bakery – business emails and a half-nice cd review – throwing away everything old, but then using something new in the old way – being dumbfounded, without ideas – „becoming the world’s leading expert on myself has nothing to do with being fully present“ – a break in the routine – talking over a coffee – little girls, cuteness overload – a meeting on a floor, a glance, a smile, a nod – an unexpected tender touch – what is overlooked vastly outweighs that what is noticed – faraway voices, a glance to the watch, twenty minutes left to the next appointment – breathing happens by itself, thinking happens by itself – understanding with an added „of course“, what is it like without the „of course“? – an anonymous chocolate donator (but I think I know her) – new dates for 2011


 
„I do not care what others have said or experienced – I do not care what I have experienced in the past“ – old stories, questions about horizontal and vertical development, fund raising committees – a cheese sandwich – recording, transferring, cutting, compressing, normalizing, naming, and tagging talks – a man who is passionately in love with life – talks about music and blogging – a look across the room – sensory overflow and boredom – just sitting without doing anything (not even thinking) – the ikea model of identity formation – thinking of my father – a hand touching my back – a survival fighter with tears – tulip petals of timeless beauty

a sunset behind old pear trees – an ancient jewish cemetary – talks about relationships while walking fast – very muddy shoes – cable problems – a brown river flowing fast – a downloaded Bach piece that refuses to play – a thin layer of fresh snow – hugs and waving goodbye – we won’t see each other for a whole year – a last plate with warm food – he is already gone – back on the highway – the real world seems unreal