Is it vacuous of me to google ‘What to wear for meditation?’ before going to Spirit Rock? I’d heard about this place countless times since moving to San Francisco. Located just north of the city, in the beautiful San Geronimo Valley, Spirit Rock was founded 25 years ago by Jack Kornfield. A center for Buddhist mindful practices in the West, it offers a diverse program of classes and retreats that focus on Insight Meditation.
I’ve been told also countless times that I should try meditation, as a way to get to know myself and get through the white noise that pervades our days. Meditation, or having a mindful practice, often features in someone’s mental health program. Buddhist Mindfulness in particular has been linked to self-directed neuroplasticity, of having an impact on how the brain functions. But I was procrastinating: I’m not good at meditation. I was tired. I had work to do. And it was Monday night.
Each Monday night, Spirit Rock hosts a drop in evening, when Kornfield, another Spirit Rock teacher Mark Coleman, or a visiting guest leads a 30-40 minute meditation followed by a talk. “All you have to do is sit there”, my husband said. So no excuses. I chose yoga trousers, a Wattis sweatshirt, and an old M&S cape that has become the equivalent of a comfort blanket for situations that promised to be stressful.
I was grateful for a first shot at humour on arriving: the sign on the way in that asks you to ‘Yield to the present’ and the shoe-holders that are labelled: ‘joy’, ‘compassion’ and ‘loving kindness’. Spirit Rock also gives a warm welcome: first visits are free, you help yourself to herbal tea, and cookies are made available in the break. People, whether working there or visiting, were unintimidating and diverse, in age (some older kids), where they sat (chairs, on the floor, lying down) and even what they wore (whatever is comfortable).
That night was led by guest, Pascal Auclair, a charismatic French-Canadian guide, a visiting residential retreat teacher at Spirit Rock and co-founder of True North Insight Meditation Centre in Canada. And it was fine, more than fine, ‘extraordinary’ to borrow Auclair’s own words.
He led us through a meditation that focused on meeting experience on its own terms, observing the quality of mind that we bring to the practice, and the condition of being here, now; how we can bring presence and avoid being ‘swallowed by thinking fictitious worlds.’ I was finding Spirit Rock to be a safe place to start to learn about meditation; a context which reminded me of the therapeutic room.
But it was the talk that evening that particularly resonated. With a performance background, Auclair referenced experimental theatre company Forced Entertainment and his own personal experiences to talk in a witty and compassionate way about something called ‘dukkha’, which I was to learn is the first of the four noble truths, and translates roughly as unsatisfactoriness.
I’m going to paraphrase Auclair and quote him as best as I can, but he spoke about the universal experience of being separated from what we want, inside or outside. The key realization is that this is not particular to you, but rather there is something natural about it. Beings are often separated from what they want. It is a part of life, of nature, of our reality. Something isn’t off. And with this awareness, for him, something drops, the quality of life changes. ‘Wow, this is how it is in this human life’. It doesn’t mean we can’t act, but it does, perhaps, mean a softening of attitude, of acceptance.
Auclair also spoke about the cause of suffering as a mental event, as a craving. Wanting for things to be otherwise. “I want this. I want to be. I want not to be”. But this other thing is a dream; it doesn’t exist, and has no reality to it. This life is failing, but the difference between the two is that this one exists. This other life is a made up thing; it is not logical or beneficial, it spends energy. In his own life, this led Auclair to realize that “I could marry this life.” To ask: “What if I went to sleep at night with this life. If I wake up with this life”. “Will you take this life?’. “Will you be engaged, devoted to this life?”
Auclair is a wonderful speaker, an entertaining and sensitive guide. I’ve included here a sampling of his Dharma talks. I'd suggest starting with 'Self-Worth, Selfing, Forgiveness, Wisdom and Compassion', to get a sense of his style, then work your way through them. In the car, while making breakfast, in the half-hour before bedtime.
During the meditation Auclair said something along the lines of (I know better not to take notes during meditation), that maybe you are thinking this is great, I’ll come here every week, that you like being here at Spirit Rock. And that thought, also, had crossed my mind.