Day of Silence Reflection

By: Audrey Goins

For this blog post, I wanted to recall a retreat that I went to in Fall of 2020. This was my Pledge semester of Delta Beta Tau, and it was my first retreat. I don’t remember a lot of specifics about who was leading the retreat, but it was zoomed through the Dharma Bum Temple. When I first arrived, it was 8am and I was barely awake. The leader of the meditation immediately asked us to turn on our camera and turn off our microphones. Having it be so early in the morning, and not knowing what was going on at all, I was really anxious after starting. I was still not used to meditating on camera, so it was really difficult for me to stay focused. I was scared that I would fall asleep, and also scared that I would somehow not know when we were supposed to stop meditating. 

We meditated for 40 minutes in that first stretch, and then we took a five minute break. I got so worried that the entire day would only be meditating in front of a screen, and I was already so tired. When we got back after our five minute break, I was dreading the rest of the day. But when we got back we did a “work meditation.” This was a meditation that would allow us to “work” while we were meditating. This made me feel a little better because I knew I would avoid the possibility of falling asleep while we were meditating, which had been my fear the entire time so far. The “work” could be anything that needed to be done in your life at the current moment. This could be any sort of housework such as vacuuming, mopping, or doing the dishes. Or it could be another kind of work like homework, mental work (such as journaling), or deep cleaning the space around you. The goal of meditating in this manner is to maintain the calm focused energy of meditation while you go about your everyday tasks. Practicing this technique allows you to meditate at any time and place, while doing any task. This can better strengthen our meditation skills and carry them through whenever we can to bring ourselves peace, and bring others peace as a result. I chose to fold some laundry as my “work” and remained silent the entire period of meditation, which was about 30 minutes. We were instructed to remain silent, which I originally thought would be a struggle for me, but after dedicating the short amount of time to be silent, I felt a little more confident in my ability to be quiet for an extended period of time. After the “working” meditation, we gathered again as a group, I was energized and more prepared for the final meditation. We completed the final meditation together in the same way that we did the first, and I was incredibly more focused on this one compared to the first. 

Although at the beginning of the meditation, I was feeling frustrated and discouraged with the goal of this retreat, feeling like it was a waste of time, I finally understood the purpose of the day. I stretched myself in ways that I never thought I could, and my perspective on the entire day completely changed. I will always remember that first meditation and how it changed the meaning of DBT for me.