Mindfulness Meditation Lesson 4

I had an extremely dramatic teaching of the importance of staying in the present moment during the year that I spent in Korea. I got special permission to do a ninety-day retreat at the Su Duk Sah monastery. Sixty monks were taking part, including the two Americans I’d been traveling with. I was the only layperson. But my teacher had assured those running the retreat that I would be able to handle it and that I would follow the rules.

In fact, the schedule was extremely difficult, and within ten days all but fourteen of the monks had dropped out. We woke up every day at 3:00 A.M., and would sit around the clock—fifty minutes of sitting followed by ten minutes of brisk walking—until 11:00 P.M. We actually slept in the same places we sat, our sitting mats opening out into sleeping mats. We also ate there, two meals of rice and vegetables every day, some miso broth at night. I had done seven-day sesshins [retreats] before, but this was the longest and most difficult retreat I had ever been on.

As we approached the forty-five-day mark, we heard that it was an ancient tradition at that monastery to spend one week in the middle of the ninety days without any sleep at all. When the other Americans and I heard that, we got slightly hysterical, angry and frightened. No one had told us about that tradition. It sounded absurd to us, positively inhumane. We considered leaving. But we knew we couldn’t, because our teacher had expressed such confidence in us. We decided we just had to do it.

The first day of the week without sleep was terrible. One monk walked around with what they called the stick of compassion, with which he whacked our shoulders to keep us awake. We weren’t allowed to wander off at breaks, because the temptation to lie down for a nap would have been unbearable. By the time we entered into the early hours of the morning, during which I would normally have been getting my few hours of sleep, I was absolutely miserable.

On the second day I asked for an interview with the Zen master, a ninety-four-year-old man named Hae Am Su Nim, who was so frail that he had to be carried in and out on his mat. He was not actually on the retreat but had done it many times in the past. I told him what a difficult time I was having. He said that a week without sleep could definitely be done. It had been done by many others before me.

The problem was that, in addition to my fatigue, I was carrying around an extra burden: the concept of seven days without sleep. I would be able to get through the week, he said, if I would put that burden down, if I took every activity moment by moment, breath by breath, giving full attention to whatever it was. Every sitting period, every walking period, every break, every meal. Just stay in the moment, and I would be fine.

He was right. The week was still difficult—I actually got to a point where I was hallucinating—but I was able to get through it. No one ever said it better than Ajahn Chah. Keep it simple, and stick to the present moment.