My meditation experience in Mooktawan was very special for several different reasons. Before this experience, I have been meditating for many years, but never very often and always trying different kinds of meditation. The year before the retreat I was more focused on the Buddhist kind of meditation and was meditating almost every day.
Anyhow, the experience of the retreat, thanks to the intensity and the wonderful group of people that were together, was the most significative of my life until now. One beautiful lesson I learned during the retreat was about the expectations in meditation and how every experience is always unique and shouldn’t or actually can’t be pushed to be something we have preconceived. You just have to dispose of yourself, always, and when you are ready it can happen that you can have a beautiful and wonderful experience. However, sometimes it cannot, you have to accept it, as I said you can’t push it, but if you don’t dispose of yourself, it will surely never happen. Another beautiful lesson I had was that difficult, bad or hard things can show you also a positive side of things. One day I was feeling very sick during the retreat, because of some gastric problems. The pain was so intense I had to go to the ER, but then thanks to this I could feel all the people’s love and care, all the good energy, all their worries and this inspired me to make a beautiful piece about the people themselves, about their stories and their voices. I thought every person is a beautiful treasure and that I would like to meet them and to have memories of them. So I asked everyone in the retreat to record for me one brief song or/and one beautiful,
I thought every person is a beautiful treasure and that I would like to meet them and to have memories of them. So I asked everyone in the retreat to record for me one brief song or/and one beautiful, a sacred or inspiring phrase they would like to share with the world. This was the material I used for the musical piece “Treasures”, that I composed mixed and edited during the retreat and some days after because my computer was damaged during the retreat. And this was also part of the last but not least important lesson I had during the retreat. We had not much time to work on the compositions so the last day before the final show, I stayed up all night working on the piece cause I wanted to finish it and show the work I made with everyone’s voices. It was almost 5 o clock in the morning but I finished it, I was ready to save it but it was quite late and we needed to go to yoga lesson. I closed my computer and thought I will finish it after yoga and export it in audio before the presentation. But then my computer didn’t work anymore, the humidity or the electricity of the island damaged it and I couldn’t show my work. I was so sad cause I wanted to show it to everyone and I have worked very hard… but I finally couldn’t. I was sad and frustrated but somehow I understood it was part of the experience it was a big lesson for me.
We have to accept life, we have to accept it with its imperfections and we have to give the best from us but we shouldn’t care for the result…as it is out from our hands. We can control anything.
Some days after I came back to Colombia, I was able to repair my computer, it wasn’t a big thing. So I started working again on the composition. After some hours of work without the pressure of time, I finished the final mix. I shared it with all the people from the retreat I could meet online and they were all so happy for having this beautiful memory of the travel, and for hearing it in their places where everything was different. Somehow it felt like through the musical piece we could still be connected. One year later, I still remember the beautiful teachings of the monks, the nights full of stars in the top of the island, the inspiring talent of all my mates and the lovely care and wisdom of all the organizers. Whenever I feel a little bit lost and miss this wonderful experience, I can listen to the mix I made and try to believe we will always be connected and that we can always go back to Mooktawan by going back to our own center.
By Rafael llanos
