Online Meditation - Fifty Shades Of Zen

Image of solo meditator Tom McLoughlin — Tom McLoughlin talks to the online meditation group about his solo retreat

At the beginning of lockdown in the UK (in March 2020 or thereabouts), I decided to take up meditation. Initially, this was to find some measure of “inner peace” in the unusual circumstances that a global pandemic presented.

Over the last 6 months or so, I’ve done a regular online Tuesday meditation practice with Bob and a few other regulars. Although Bob has reminded us time and again that like any skill, meditation is easier with practice, my own attempts have been sporadic at best. However, after finishing my university studies in Birmingham, I was ready for a new challenge.

Even with my own infrequent practice of meditation, I had noticed a real shift in my own approach to the world, and that day to day I was more able to let stuff go. When I floated the idea of an online retreat to Bob, he was keen, but ultimately I was the only participant in the weekend retreat. I was slightly worried this would mean that the experience wasn’t an authentic retreat- you know, a wise old guru guiding me to enlightenment- but in my case I was the only one doing the meditation, the lone monk!

The first day began with me waking up at 8am, starting with a simple breathing meditation for 40 minutes. You perform this practice by focusing on the inhalation and exhalation of air through your nostrils. Most of my previous meditation experience has been with just sitting meditation, or zazen, so this was a challenge. Surprisingly, focusing on the sensation of the breath felt like I was learning to meditate all over again! And in a way I was I suppose, by packing so much meditation into one weekend.

After the breathing meditation I had breakfast, and then did forty minutes of just sitting meditation. This was a continuation of my regular practice, but I hadn’t meditated for 40 minutes in one go before. This, and the 4:30am roll call I was facing on the second day were two of the biggest obstacles I saw before the retreat. Surprisingly, the 40 minutes wasn’t too bad at all. I did notice around the 20 minute mark, that the boredom set in, but this soon gave way a lot of other emotions I hadn’t encountered meditating before, including joy. Of course, I didn’t fixate on these feelings and let them go, including the positive ones. Nevertheless, it was interesting to note that the deeper I went into my own meditation practice, the wider the spectrum of thoughts and feelings I felt myself experiencing.

Getting into the swing of things, I then read a selection of writings from Sextus Empiricus the Pyrrhonist philosopher who suspended judgement over having opinions about the world. Admittedly I was a little sceptical before I began the retreat about the philosophy reading and subsequent meditation on it, but in hindsight the weekend’s programme wouldn’t have been the same without it. I have found it to be useful not for the being in the present like meditation, but for challenging my own belief systems.

Aside from empirically verifiable things such as gravity, or the price of a bacon sarnie or the colour of a car, what can be believed? Even then those things are subject to debate. Suspending judgment of my own opinions and beliefs allowed me to move past limiting beliefs such as that I couldn’t do the meditation retreat.

Obviously I physically could, but the mental belief I had that I couldn’t wasn’t helping me. Having gone in super confident would also be a mistake by Pyrrho’s reckoning, so the middle way so to speak was to suspend judgement, and see what would happen during the retreat. I believe Bob is running a ‘Pyrrho Protocol’ seminar later this month, going more in depth into this topic.

After my encounter with Pyrrhonism, next up was walking meditation. Like the breathing meditation, trying a different form of practice made me feel like a beginner again, and not in a bad way! Focusing on a different action aside from sitting helped keep the blood in my legs flowing, and gave me another tool to overcome distractions from the present. I still haven’t cracked this walking meditation, and I’ll save any further thoughts on this particular method for another post .

After a spot of lunch, I came to the ‘work period’ found on typical meditation retreats. I did some weeding garden for my parents, and as you can imagine it wasn’t the most thrilling of experiences. Still, I knew that if I could literally stare at a wall for forty minutes doing nothing else, I could do any task no matter how seemingly boring (although I would suspend judgement as to whether it would be boring or not).

Lone monk Tom McLoughlin with a halo around his head — Tom McLoughlin discusses his experiences with the online meditation group

In the evening of both days of my retreat, I had a quick chat with Bob. This was an alternative to the discussions retreat participants might have with the retreat leader, and I particularly appreciated it as I was doing the rest of the retreat solo. Chatting with Bob was helpful as he gave me a few koans to use. Koans are phrases or saying you contemplate while you meditate, and I found that they were useful ways to help me focus on my practice. The koans I sat with were “what is the sound of one hand clapping?” and “what did your face look like before you were born?” If they sound like they don’t mean anything, then you’re on the right track.

Not that there are different grades or martial art style belts in meditation, but having done the retreat I feel like I have moved from a Level One to a Level Two Meditator.

In the next Tuesday meditation session I attended after the retreat, the attendees asked me a few questions about my experience. Going back to meditating for just (hah!) 20 minutes at a time felt much less of a burden after having about 15 hours or so over the course of a weekend. One person in the Tuesday session asked me how long I felt this impact would last, and how often I would need to have a ‘top up’ to maintain peace of mind. For me, this top up has been meditating everyday, forty minutes being a “good session”. But even then, all meditation is useful, and a quick five minutes here and there does bring me out of a slump. Staying in the present is staying in the present no matter whether its for four seconds or four hours.

At the end of the day, I would encourage anyone interested in meditation to do a retreat. Furthermore, I would encourage them to do it sooner rather than later! I wish I had done this retreat after 6 weeks as opposed to 6 months. You can begin to meditate and be more in the present at any time, so why not start today?

As a final note, here’s a copy of the timetable Bob laid out for me:

DAY ONE OF RETREAT

0800 Wake up….Breathing Meditation

0840 Breakfast

0900 Meditation Just Sitting

0940 Reading … Sextus Empiricus

1100 Meditation on Sextus

1200 Lunch

1300 Pick a belief system…Suspend Judgement!

1400 Walking Meditation

1420 Just Sitting

1500 Working Period

1700 Just Sitting

1740 Dinner

1830 Breathing Meditation

1930 Break

2100 Just Sitting

2130 Bedtime

DAY TWO OF RETREAT

0430 Wake Up ….

0450 Just Sitting

0515 Walking Meditation

0530 Just Sitting

0600 Breakfast…Shower etc

0700 Reading Sextus….

0845 Meditation on Sextus

0945 Walking Meditation

1000 Tea Break…seriously!

1030 Just Sitting

1045 Walking Meditation

1100 Relaxation Break

1130 Breathing Meditation

1230 Lunch

1330 Walking Meditation

1345 Suspending Beliefs

1445 Work Period

1600 Just Sitting

1700 Walking Meditation

1715 Reflection on Sextus Maxims

1830 Suspending Judgement

1930 Interview with Bob

Octagonal retreat house at Samye-Ling Tibetan center Eskdalemuir, Langholm, Dumfries photographed in May 1980 — Octagonal retreat house at Samye-Ling Tibetan center Eskdalemuir, Langholm, Dumfries May 1980

Ever since I went on my first Buddhist meditation retreat, I had a keen interest into how these events were structured and what their aim was for the different types of people who would frequent them.

I would hear participants say that it was a time to consolidate their practice and for others it was a chance to get enlightened and find themselves! I also think for some it was a chance to get all religious and pious and feed their hungry egos. Replacing one dogma with another!

For me it was a time to reflect and ask questions not just of myself but of the teachers too. I wanted to know as much as possible and was hoping to find whatever it was I was looking for! I guess you could say I wanted to work out what the hell my life was all about!

Needless to say, once I had returned to the world of shipyards and the industrial northeast, I was even more confused. A retreat is an insular thing and some would say one is being selfish by cutting oneself off from the world, but I disagree with that sentiment. When you face up to yourself and admit to having insecurities and frailties it makes you more compassionate to others. You realise that we are all in this together.

You may remember me to talking to Zen Teacher Jiyu Kennet Roshi, and she questioned the term “retreat” by exclaiming:

“Just what is it you are retreating from? We are here to face life head on!”

That statement changed my understanding and redefined my approach to meditation practice. I looked at it from a different angle and have continued to fine tune it to this day. I have been sharing these ‘tunings’ to a wider audience with the Tuesday night meditation sessions and have now decided to run a Weekend Online Retreat.

On an actual weekend retreat you turn up and you are given an introductory talk and a brief explanation of the format of the weekend. A very basic timetable is available and you may be taught the rudiments of meditation. Most timetables were strictly adhered to, and some retreats are conducted in silence. More often than not, there will be a work schedule with everyone being allocated tasks.

I remember staying at Samye Ling Tibetan Monastic Centre and being asked to look at the central heating boiler (due to my engineering background). I repaired it luckily with minimum tools. Others worked in the kitchen or tended to the gardens.

In the Tibetan tradition the discipline seemed very relaxed and everybody just got on with things until the lunchtime bell or meditation bell sounded. Even then some didn’t turn up for meditation especially at 6am!

It was a little like a Tibetan mini break for me.

Throssel Hole Priory (Soto Zen tradition) had a much tighter structure and everything was done by the book. The rules were strictly adhered too, and the work schedule was tightly structured with everyone having a specific task for the period of retreat. I found that approach kept me a lot more focussed, and I came away from it more resolved to practice meditation and use it on a daily basis. It felt very practical.

It was at Throssel Hole Priory that the teacher told me that she thought it strange we called these periods retreat.

From the conversations I had with fellow participants, it seemed that many were trying to escape from something. From their day to day suffering, their neuroses, their family, their situation and even their spouses. In fact, what they found was that there was no escape because these concerns were in their heads, anyway. It was all about their perception. What they thought about their thoughts.

No one gets out of here alive!

At least that’s what I realised.

For example, thoughts about the past and the future were just thoughts. Thoughts with no inherent truth to them. Like phantoms of the mind that only have power and influence when you attach importance to them as they drag you down the rabbit hole.

On a retreat you usually have an opportunity to speak with the teacher at a preordained time to discuss what has been going on whilst you have been on retreat. I can’t speak for others, but I never found these very useful. It was usually some pithy remark like:

“Just sit with it.”

“Take it back to the cushion.”

And whilst these zensplanations might have worked for a few in some cases, they only seemed to compound the meditator’s problems. The needs of the meditator were never resolved, and more often than not, that weekend would be the end their practice of meditation. You would never see them again.

I always thought this was sad, and I noticed that the turnover at these centers was large. More people would often give up their practice of meditation than continue with it.

As well as being a teacher of meditation, I have also been involved in NLP and other cognitive-behavioral models of therapy. Firstly, to help myself and then to help others. I found that some of the problems that my students came up with during meditation were things I could help them with. Some of the problem and behaviours were traumatic, and being told to just sit with their problem made their situation worse. I like to be pragmatic and sort out the actual problem so that the student can go back to the cushion and simply focus.

When you have a question, it implies you would like an answer and whilst you can’t get answers to everything, having more tools available makes the task more achievable.

So how will an online weekend retreat experience work in practice?

The retreat will be run in as similar a format as it would if it was at a real venue. The first day would start at 8am with a two meditation sessions interspersed by a talk until lunch at 12.30pm. We can then eat together until 1.30pm.

We would then have a break for 2 hours where you could do tasks around the house mindfully in silence and read a short passage from some texts I would give you. Don’t worry, you won’t be tested!

At 3.30pm we sit again for 20 minutes and then discuss the texts until 4.30 and sit for another 20 minutes. This will be followed by a 2 hour break and a final evening session from 7.30pm until 8.15pm.

The event will be delivered via Zoom with only those registered to the retreat receiving links to all recordings of the talks and the manual that will accompany the retreat.

Look out for further news on the retreat in the email newsletter in the next few weeks.

Tom McLoughlin – My Solo Weekend Retreat

Going On An Online Meditation Retreat