Ten Days of Silence

Dear everybody,

I have just spent ten days without speaking, reading, writing, phones, or - and this was the hard part - eye contact. A Vipassana meditation course, out in the hills of western Massachusetts. Ten days of watching my own mind with nothing else on the schedule. It turns out the mind is a lot like those conference rooms I was so happy to leave: crowded, loud, and convinced everything is urgent.

The daily shape

For the curious, a day on retreat looks like this:

1. 4:30 a.m. - the gong. Yes, in the morning.

1. Meditate until breakfast at 6:30. Oatmeal beyond criticism.

1. Meditate some more. Then fruit at noon, which is dinner.

1. A lecture in the evening, then lights out at 9.

By day three I would have traded a regulator for a pencil stub. By day six, though, something loosened. By day nine I understood why the old-timers smile like that.

Observations from the quiet

Numbered for your convenience, and mine:

1. Silence has a texture. Mornings are smooth; evenings are static.

1. The knees negotiated hard but came around by day five.

1. I thought about work exactly twice, both times about biscuits.

1. Ten days is the right length. On day eleven you would have to drag me out.

An old teacher of mine claimed that education is what remains after you've forgotten everything you memorized. Sitting quietly for ten days feels like the same idea, pointed inward. Whatever it is, I'll be back on the cushion in the spring - knees willing.

Yours, quietly,

• Tom