Reflections On My First Vajrasattva Retreat

by Karen Tan ©

Karen took part in a two-day retreat conducted by Ven. Thubten Chodron, assisted by Ven. Thubten Chonyi, at Kong Meng San Por Kark See Buddhist Temple in Singapore, 19-20 May 2012

"Do you have the program?" I asked the bespectacled volunteer at the reception counter of Bright Hill Buddhist temple. He shook his head. I looked absently at the words on the poster, trying to make sense of the little blurb describing the event.

OK.

I have no idea what that means.

What is Vajrasattva? It doesn't say. All it states is that the retreat will be helmed by Thubten Chodron, an American Tibetan Buddhist nun. I don't know much about her although I have read some of her books. Well, at least it will be conducted in English. Anyway, KC was going to be at work in the US over the weekend and I always wanted to try a retreat on my own. Before I change my mind, I sign myself up. Go with an open mind, I told myself.

On Saturday morning, I woke up at 6 a.m., took Reilly for an extra long walk and fed him, ran in for a quick shower and changed into my "holy" clothes. By that, I don't mean my usual gym get up. The advisory email recommended all participants be comfortable and modestly dressed in loosely fitted tops with sleeves, and long pants. A shawl or jacket was also suggested in case the air conditioning got too chilly in the Hall of No Form. Not a fan of the cold, I brought both.

The program was simple enough. A two-day program from 9am to 5pm of gentle meditation, talks, Q&A, breaks and more meditation, punctuated only by noble silence.

An introduction by Venerable Chodron set the stage for the day. She drew on the problems of modern life- how we have become so desensitized from the harried pace of fortune hunting, how the onslaught of modern technology has enabled us to reduce human communication and relationships to a hand-held device. Inevitably, when speed and insensitivity collide, it gives rise to an infinite series of negative actions and the subsequent need for purification. As religiously puritanical and ritualistic as it sounds, purification is to help relieve the mental and physical symptoms manifested in us, in our lives; not just far-out concepts of karmic repercussions, but everyday cases of suicide, depression and aimlessness.

So far, so good. I think I am getting all this.

But what has Vajrasattva Buddha got to do with all this? The God factor is not tenable in Buddhism, so this big blissful-looking androgynous deity seated in some impossibly complex yoga position is not coming down to save us from ourselves. I must admit I was not impressed at first. Somehow Tibetan Buddhism is a bit too close to home. I grew up with the general belief in the religious cultural mish-mash of minor gods and deities, each with wish-fulfilling powers, happy to grant wishes to whomever grovels and hones their brown-nosing skills. How is a cartoon-like figure going to help me? Does my visualization have to look like a Pixar animated movie?

I am baffled but I follow along. If there is anything I learned from horse riding is that you never learn until you fall off. By falling, I cultivated humility and patience. Just because I think I'm in control doesn't mean I am. After ten weeks of riding, the most important lesson I derived is to ask the horse to teach me to ride by being willing to listen, watching his every breath and move. Right now is like the first time I got flung off the horse. I'm not sure how I feel but I am willing to see where this takes me.

My back weeps in pain every time we sit for more than 20 minutes. My legs feel like twisted scrap metal every time we stand up. And there is bowing, lots of it. Bow to the Buddha, bow to the teacher every time she comes in or leaves, bow during chanting. By "bowing" I mean starting at full standing position, then forward fold, kneel, forehead, elbows and hands on the floor, push back up, repeat. My knees are bruised, creaking knees begging for new joints. This is worse than any gym workout. So much cheaper too.

Strangely, my mind is largely unperturbed. I know my body hurts, but not enough for me to walk off in a huff. I know I am watching my mind at close range, but I can only think of one other reason why I am still there.

Venerable Chodron.

For a woman of 61, she is lithe and rather spritely. In spite of her rather slight frame, she walks with a bit of a hunch, I suspect honed from the years of physically demonstrating humility among teachers and students alike. Her presence is like a drop of dew on a leaf at dawn - inspiring, fresh but not attention seeking. Her voice, racked with a cough she caught on a trip to Borobudur prior to arriving in Singapore, is a melodic octave of a gentle whisper even when she is animatedly driving home a point. She is testament to the fact that you don't have to be loud or brutal to be heard. If our collective consciousness had a voice, it would sound like hers. Something rings innately primordial in me every time she speaks.

The difference between someone who is born into a religion and some one who discovers it for oneself is in the way it is explained. Facts and generous quotes from doctrine tend to be the manner in which the earlier explains. Juxtapose this against someone who discovers it for oneself. The clarity that experience lends to fact plays a far bigger role in the way it is taught. Every once in a while, a truly special teacher like Ajahn Chah (1912 - 1992) comes along. Born to a Buddhist family in Thailand, he discovered the true meaning of the Buddha Dharma through his own practice, seeing it with new eyes. The combination of the two makes a teacher who makes you see.

The West has produced many good Buddhist monastics who have returned to the East to teach the locals their own culture and religion from a new perspective. Take bowing. We have lost our ability to bow, because we have lost our natural inclination to show respect. While we set our sights on the West, aping what we feel is a better way of being, jaded Westerners came to the East in search of the meaning of life. Now we have come full circle, learning to bow from a shaven-headed white woman.

I raised my hand in embarrassment when Venerable Chonyi asked who amongst us has never chanted in Chinese. Mahayana Buddhism to me is mostly out of reach, far too Chinese and, frankly, for the older, Mandarin-speaking community. For someone who had to sweat blood to get through high school Mandarin as a second language, spending a good part of it being punished for not being able to read or speak it well, Mahayana as a culture is to me an extension of that reality.

When Venerable Chonyi began to chant in Mandarin, I was all ready to cringe. For a language that relies so much on intonation, one can really mangle the words. Believe me, I know. Yet when she started to sing, not chant, the words didn't matter. I have never heard a Chinese chant sung before, let alone in the crystal clear soprano of someone who could very possibly sing Ave Maria. We were invited to join in, but I was just content to listen, allowing the divine sound to resonate the depths and breath inside, unknown, unchartered before this. As emotions well up and tears begin to sting my eyes, I hear a woman sob behind me.

I am not alone.

Visualization is a funny thing.

When someone asks you to visualize a figure four inches above your head, the natural inclination is to see yourself as a mirror image with something on top of your head. Somewhere along the way, I realized that I had to feel myself-rather than see myself-being filled with white light.

The four pillars of Vajrasattva purification meditation are the power of reliance on the Triple Gem, the power of regret, the power of remedial action of purifying body, speech and mind, and finally the power of determination. By this time, I understand and accept the four cornerstones, but I don't get how and why I have to visualize this deity shrouded in white. Isn't the regular Buddha good enough?

"Mata yata niyam putam - Ayusa ekaputtamanurakke - Evampi sabbebhutesu - Manasam bhavaye aparimanam" is a stanza from the Karaniya Metta Sutta, a chant I gravitate towards. It means just as a mother who protects her only child with her life, we should cultivate boundless loving-kindness towards all sentient beings in the same manner. If I were asked to visualize this stanza, I would probably see Venerable Chodron.

I say this because it is the essence of the journey she took us on this retreat. For me, it was a quiet hand on my shoulder guiding, even when I fell behind, was petulant or resistant. She made me see that the many Buddhas are in fact not separate entities and identities, but expressions of wonderful virtuous qualities. Qualities to emulate. Qualities to aspire towards. Qualities to cultivate. Qualities that will help us build up our mental and spiritual immune system as we gear up to end this cyclic existence. Qualities that will aid us in seeing beyond ourselves and work towards gaining enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings rather than making it a goal in itself. She showed me that all these abstract ideas are condensed into the physical manifestation of Vajrasattva, the altruistic intention of bodhicitta.

The path of purification begins with contemplating Vajrasattva and all that he represents, leading us up the path first by finding our true north with the Triple Gem. Having found our anchor, we then take responsibility for the things we have done wittingly or not. With remorse arises the opportunity for a step-by-step DIY redemption to lift the weight of our wrongdoings, and finally a solemn pledge never to do it again. As psychiatrists sometimes do with patients in the treatment of trauma, white light is visualized here as well to facilitate the healing of heart and mind.

By the end of the first day, I developed a massive headache from concentrating too hard, trying to adjust the TV channel in my mind. I felt throbbing heat at the top of my head, coursing through my whole body. By day two, through trial and error, I managed to get the scene just right. In my mind, Vajrasattva has a pearly body of light that is gradually infused by the nectar of the wisdom and compassion of the Buddhas. The viscosity of the glowing golden liquid is rich but runny, flowing smoothly from the crown of my head and into my cavernous body. As prescribed, I see black ink, blood and pus, scorpions coming out of my lower extremities as I purify myself of the negativities of the body, caused by illness, wrongdoing, and other maleficent influences.

I must admit, that was my favourite visualization mainly because I have many acts to purify. Although it happened many years ago, I haven't been able to overcome the horror and sadness of having to destroy the wasp nest in my garden when it got too big, and the traps I used to set for the geckos when I used to be afraid of them. In contemplating the wasps, I must say that there is a place for all experiences. Without the death of the wasps and my deep-seated regret for making the choice to call the exterminators, Reilly would not be alive today. An emaciated stray I found wandering on the perimeters of the forest across my house, Reilly turned out to be an insecure but aggressive dog that was inclined to biting people. Hence, I was advised time and time again to put him down, having severely injured no less than five people including KC, his mother and myself. But the wasps had taught me that killing is not an option. For that, I am eternally grateful. At this retreat, I finally let that weight go. It was a product of a different time, a different person.

For some inexplicable reason, starting from dawn of day two, I had the runs. I was not feeling as hot, but warm, not needing the shawl or the sweater. Through out the day, I make emergency dashes to the toilet, some times barely in time. Yet each time, I come out feeling cleaner, better, stronger, more awake. Normally being around people with full-blown flu would affect me. This time not only was I strangely unaffected physically, I felt unusual compassion for the three classmates seated next to me who were coughing hard throughout the whole retreat.

Can this meditation have a physical effect, I asked Venerable Chonyi after the retreat. Yes, she says, sometimes it does. It is purification after all.

Ah . . . I see.

We all think our problems are so unique when in reality they all boil down to the same subjects of anger, pain, desperation and being stuck. I guess this is conditioning of the human identity, to see ourselves as separate special beings when in fact we are all connected, and pretty much the same whether we like to admit it or not.

This cannot be more evident than in the Question and Answer sessions where people write down their questions to have them answered by Venerable Chodron. After a while, it seemed like the angles and context varied a little, but fundamentally the heart of the matter was the same: I would like change, but in the circumstances and people other than myself. Therein lies the root of our suffering.

As fate would have it, I wrote in three times asking the same question and never got it answered. Once my mind settled down from its anxiety, I began to notice the recurring pattern in the questions and answers that were given. From others' experiences and observations, I began to piece the answers to my question.

There is no better way to teach than through real life scenarios of people sitting among us. Dilemmas we face each day, at different stages of our lives, with varying stages of maturity and understanding. I learned to see others and I not as competitors to the finish line but as a community in close proximity sharing best practices.

At the end of the day, the basic objective of the whole teaching circuit is to effect change. However, the catch is that the motivation to change can only come from within. No one can make us change, but they can show us what it can look like if we do and how to go about it. Yet ultimately whatever we decide, we walk alone.

I am ready.

'Please keep Noble Silence', the sign read, among many reminders over the course of the day.

For someone who is an only child, spending most part of the day with a dog, doing household chores while the husband is at work, silence is my constant gentle companion. I am blessed with being able to live a simple but good life, in a house by a nature reserve that I deeply appreciate. From the fresh air, graceful trees and the countless species of forest creatures big and small that share our living space, I have a life that few enjoy in urban Singapore.

I thought keeping Noble Silence would be a breeze. Outwardly, I have little problem not talking. I am not a technophile. My mobile phone, a relic of the early twenty-first century, is working but falling apart. I care deeply for all but am not attached to friends and family. Quiet is fine by me.

Yet Noble Silence is not just keeping your mouth shut. It is about observing our every thought, word and act. In silence, I see the movies in my mind, drifting off into some bubble of my own creation. Even in meditation, I catch myself trailing after a random feeling or thought. As I go along, I see my state of mind flinch every time a negative thought emerges. It is a fault-finding mind, one that is critical and makes snap judgments about people and situations. I begin to see the frown inside my head, the flash of white frustration, the rush of blood red anger.

The upside of seeing is that you can catch it before it escalates. When I internally erupt at some sensory trigger, I catch it, and watch it fade away. It comes as fast as it leaves. It becomes a game that I get sharper at but more compassionate with time. This is just the way the mind is.

It would be nice to say I have managed to quell the mind of its geyser of random thoughts. But I haven't. What I do have now is the basic understanding of how the mind works and the means to contain it. Like with Reilly, I continue to gather the knowledge and skills to help him from harming others and himself. In the same vein, I will keep at this practice of silencing and training my mind, in a bid to put it to better use than splintering it into a million aimless directions.

With quiet courage, I soldier on.

Now I am home, writing my thoughts on my two-day Vajrasattva retreat.

When the cult of personality becomes emotionally overwhelming, the inherent message often gets lost in all that drama. Not this time. In retrospect, Venerable Chodron did not make a huge, grandstand impression on me. I am not enamoured as I can sometimes be in intense spiritual encounters like this. For this, I am grateful.

As I get on with age, I find the things that are most naturally unassuming usually endure, its essence lingers long after the embers of euphoria have faded. I still hear her voice, nurturing ever so often with a gentle nudge to keep on the path. I think my willingness to hear her out, to allow myself to be guided, has very much to do with her emphasis and living demonstration on dependent arising. The symbiotic relationship between her and the participants is of teacher and student and vice versa, this dynamic bond spontaneously blending, interchanging. Never before have I encountered a teacher expressing appreciation to us for taking time to participate so that she can teach, therefore improving and spreading the Dharma as she goes along. I am forever humbled.

Through this retreat, I have learned a bit more about Vajrayana Buddhism, opening a whole new world that I can now relate to in a less mystical, mythical way. I am learning to slow down, allowing compassion to choose words for me when I speak to others, and the wisdom to know the difference. I sense myself evolving-softer, open, less sure.

Perhaps it is apt that I took refuge in the Triple Gem under her guidance. As with the retreat, I didn't know what to expect, but was surprised by the touching rite of passage. Having previously taken refuge in the Theravadin tradition, I was given the name Samadhi meaning Perfect Concentration. In this refuge, I was also given a name, Thubten Drenpa, meaning Mindfulness.

The universe probably knows I need both mindfulness and concentration for true insight to emerge.

Now I have both to work on.

I would like to dedicate this experience and the subsequent opportunity to write about it to Venerables Thubten Chodron and Thubten Chonyi. May you both be blessed with good health and great fortitude to carry on the light you shine at and into peoples' lives to effect change.

I dedicate this to my classmates at the retreat, all the volunteers, and people I have and have not met who have contributed in any little way to making the retreat possible. May all of you be well and happy and may I have the opportunity to return the kindness in this life and the lives to come.

I dedicate this to my mother Tan Guek Cheng, mother-in-law Ling Soo Hung, Soh Keng Chu (KC) my husband, our lovely dogs Reilly and Sweet Potato we rescued from the forest across our house, extended family of relatives and friends, and all sentient beings seen and unseen. May you benefit from my practice and hopefully in turn be a mirror upon your own lives.

I dedicate this to my departed father Tan Keng Khian who infused me with the thirst for spiritual knowledge and sowed the seeds of compassion in me even before I realized it. May you inspire others to do the same in the lives to come.

I dedicate this to my late father-in-law Soh Cheng Poh, our ancestors and those who have come before me, our dogs Zen and Pebbles and the many beings whom have passed through the universe. May you be free from suffering, worries, fear and pain, and be blessed with the ability to practice the Dharma wherever you are. Without you, I would never be.

Finally, I dedicate this diary to myself, as a lasting reminder of all that I have learned. May I use this knowledge wisely with compassion and may I be of benefit, either directly or indirectly, to the all that I come in touch with. I shall strive not to hanker after useless pursuits, but to use this life to bring light, happiness and peace to all.

May all Sentient Beings be Well and Happy.