Six Steps Buddhist Retreats: meditation, prostration, and gangnam style
- By William Wang
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E-mail CRI, May 31, 2013
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Guests of a Six Step Buddhist Retreat practice meditation shortly after arriving. [Photo: CRIENGLISH.com/William Wang] |
"I found myself," stated Xuan Xiaoyong, bluntly. Before he'd discovered Six Steps Buddhist Retreats, he'd been struggling with the common life problems of relationships, studies, work and more. "I didn't know the purpose of life," he said, claiming that he found it in the retreat. "It's very real."
Today's China is a China where for many the stress of daily life is at saturation point, and many people's spiritual yearnings lack an outlet. Buddhism in China may have 23 centuries of history, but at Six Steps (English and Chinese) retreats, open curiosity and naiveté about Buddha's teachings and Buddhist practices is prevalent.
The volunteer-run free retreats are a wonderful escape from lives drenched in the capitalist ethic. This counterpart to Christian church groups allows anybody curious about Buddhism to learn bits and pieces of the philosophy, try out some practices, ask hard questions and eat amazing vegan cuisine.
Alcoholics Anonymous twelve-step program originated to help people overcome their addiction; the steps of Six Step retreats are totally different though they do have considerable overlap in content such as drawing strength from a higher power, making amends for past errors.
In short, the six steps of the retreat are seeing Buddha statues and reading Buddhist scriptures; listening to Buddha's name and sutras; saying his name and sutras; smelling incense; doing good deeds and thinking of ways to improve your karma.
A total of 13 expats and locals attended the May 25 weekend retreat in Fenghuang Ridge, roughly 1.5 hours northwest of downtown Beijing. Some attendees had a broad knowledge of Buddhism, and others didn't. "I don't know anything about Buddhism," admitted Pablo Molina from Chile, having just arrived at the retreat center, "so even if I learn just two or three things, that will be enough."
Molina was excited to be an attendance, though not without reservations. Like others, he didn't want to "ape or mimic reverence toward Buddha" because for him Buddhism was largely a mystery.
The facilitator, Catherine Yu, was a consistently pleasant and laid back young woman. Meditation retreats are often dogmatic in the way they strive to prove how non-dogmatic they are, but not once did Yu try to influence what people could experience or think.
The weekend kicked off with camp-style ice breaker games, before getting into nitty-gritty details about how to correctly do Buddhist prostrations. It's an abdominal workout like no other. The prostrations are equal parts exercise, prayer and submission. Hands in prayer position go over the head, hands slide across the floor until you're lying on your stomach, hands in prayer over your head, then pull yourself back upright. (Repeat another 107 times.)
Despite her soreness, Sara Rodin from Sweden really appreciated the activity. "I just feel so good afterwards, like it's a really good run. I have a very gentle mind afterwards. It's like you're begging or praying, and I've never done that before. Combine that with exercise and I just feel pure and nice."
Before the retreat, Giusi Pezzotta from Italy was "dreading" the prostrations, resolving to just treat it like yoga in order to complete the task. But by the retreat's end, she'd had a concrete shift in attitude towards the activity. "Actually, (doing the prostrations) was probably the one thing that made me feel better," she said. "I don't like religions, so the idea of prostrating was something that I wasn't sure about. But in the end, I loved it."
Walking and sitting meditations and chanting the Buddha's name Amitabha were also twice daily activities, generally instilling a sense of calm in people. But Chinese woman Angie Yang had a rather more intense experience, which left her both relieved and confused. "When we were chanting I just followed the voice. But after a while my tears started falling down. I couldn't control myself. I choked. I couldn't sing, I couldn't chant. But after that I felt relief."
Belgian Kiril Yodanov also was surprised that he didn't want the meditation to end and surprised at how it affected him. He laughed, "If someone told you that just by walking around and chanting you could reach a higher state of consciousness, you'd say, 'what the hell are you talking about?' But when you really experience this deep state of mind, you see it works, and it's really insightful."
Facilitator Yu and experienced retreat goers generally responded to peoples' experiences with "it's good" or "it's normal." If people had doubts or arguments or unpleasant experiences, the comment would be "no problem, it's a process." Somehow, these terse words always seemed adequate.
Another focal event was the reading the 112 page Sutra of the Past Vows of Earth Store Bodhisattva, a task where attendees were asked to kneel on cushions and read the sutra out loud and simultaneously at an unbelievable blitzkrieg pace, completing the task in a mere 120 minutes.
One attendee described how his consciousness fell into a trance-like state as his tongue raced over a text describing suffering in one of the hundreds of thousands of hells, for millions of billions of eons; or lounging in one of the six heavens for an equally unhurried period of time.
Some students were quite disturbed by the hell imagery, though interpretations of it ran the gamut. "I believe it," said some; "It's all metaphorical," said others.
Short videos (including one from TedX) and Power Point presentations (replete with cheesy music and scenic backgrounds) filled in the bulk of the educational material, each followed by a Q&A session. The videos were well chosen and appropriate, and the Power Point slides were adequate, if not gripping.
A walk over to Longquan Temple was part of the package, where attendees could practice bowing, and repeatedly hassle Yu to show them how to correctly hold the incense. Afterwards, a lovely but short hike presented the opportunity to throw around some seeds for animals and bugs to eat later. That was for good karma, of course.
Simone Cordovean, an actor from England had come to the retreat looking for a more practical experience of Buddhism to complement the theory she'd studied. By the end of the weekend, she'd battled out some of her conflicts.
"I don't think anyone should come here without two things," she stated. "An open mind and sincerity." At first she found the chanting to be "a bit cultish," but later felt that throwing herself into things more wholeheartedly proved more rewarding. "Unless you put yourself into something, you don't get what you want out of it," she concluded.
Two full days that started at five a.m. had people beat by Sunday afternoon. A wrap-up discussion showed a breadth of experiences, with each individual surely having learned at least "two or three things."
Molina was unexpectedly considering returning to aspects of his Catholicism, having discovered Buddhist parallels in the previous two days. Others seemed elated to have found a practice and friends in one place.
Even the cynics had enjoyed themselves. "I didn't relate so well to the more ritualistic aspects of the workshop," admitted Pezzotta before laughing, "but it was interesting that I had questions and the answers would pop up on slides after."
Then for the second time in the retreat, there were embarrassing calls for individuals to stand up and sing or dance or do anything entertaining. Singaporean Audi Ghozalli repeated his call for Psy's "Gangnam Style," until finally somebody played it on the system.
In two days, everybody had diligently studied and followed the five Buddhist precepts, so ending by chanting, "Hey, sexy lady" might not be typical, but it didn't seem inappropriate, either. After all, everything's a process.
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