Awake

So now I'm back and I must say my experience at the monastery was more than amazing. At first I was anxious, scared and lost but as time passed I began to understand the whole purpose of my retreat and the time I was spending within myself started giving me the answers I was searching for. And that's a really important thing to keep in mind, having patience in whatever you're doing....many times we do things not understanding why yet there is a hidden meaning that is waiting to come out. And as a believer of the saying that some of the hardest experiences in life are the most fulfilling, this weekend definitely proved that right.


I did not speak for 3 days. I spent the time within myself, listening to my thoughts and my emotions as they took place; as I wondered, worried, smiled, etc. It was a different approach at awareness that I hadn't experienced before and it definitely connected my to my inner self and experience. I realized that as humans we have the capability to change our outlook on life, notice and appreciate the constant change in things (including ourselves), and be truly happy from the inside. I realized that we have the ability to control our emotions, and control our reaction. We have the ability to fight through pain, disillusion and find the courage in us to face anything. And most importantly, I realized that we are constantly numbed by external factors that blind us from the true reality of life and the fulfilling and amazing world we cannot notice.


I reached a state of oneness with my inner self that allowed me to notice my deepest emotions, fears, worried, needs, dreams and connected them all together into a beautiful piece of who I am. Not only that, but I got to experience every side of me and notice the contrast, and see the different parts of the person that I am. Lastly, I was able to see that I am a being of love, compassion and peace.


The problem with our world and the way our mind works is that we constantly place experiences in different categories: whether good, bad, or neutral. When something amazing happens to us and we feel happy, we try to hold on to that moment and memory forever, and later on associate another happy experience with that moment and how it felt. At the same time, when something unpleasant happens to us we put it in the "bad" category and neglect it and try to get it our of our lives. The monks said that every obstacle is an opportunity for enlightenment. We need to learn to appreciate and embrace the negative emotions and experiences in order to truly be happy. It's so hard to change and control the world, but with practice we can learn to change and control our minds. "Nothing is good, nor bad but thinking makes it so". Let me tell you one thing, when you are sitting straight up in a lotus position for one hour you feel SEVERE pain. but after a while you begin to realize that the pain subsides and your body gets to a point where it can completely block out the pain that was so clear before. Not only that, but as you become aware of your emotions you begin to see the change that takes place within them. For example: anger, many people believe that when one gets angry that is a constant emotion and all of a sudden their whole day is ruined. But we don't notice that anger only lives for as long as we let it, and after a while it begins to go away, but we get so hung up on the emotion that we keep it alive for longer than it should. By learning to see these changes in our emotions we can be happier and more aware of our experiences as they pass by. Some emotions are uncontrollable but our reaction is always under our control.


I also learned a lot about simplicity and being humble. We keep looking for external factors to make us happy to bring us satisfaction and joy but those factors are only present for as long as they last. External satisfaction is only temporary. When we learn to be happy with the world and ourselves for exactly as they are we can reach a level of satisfaction that can't be taken away from us. We need to begin cultivating our happiness and joy within ourselves instead of placing it always on another object. WE are the holders of our happiness, WE are the holders of our life experience, so we need to stop placing happiness in the future and making excuses for our life of dissatisfaction. The reality is that our happiness is alive within ourselves and is waiting to come out, yet we keep stopping it- always asking for more and more. We truly don't need that much. So take charge of your life and begin searching for your own happiness NOW. Who knows what will happen later, so think of your happiness as now or never.