In Search of Stillness: My Final Frontier - Softcover

Hanson, Pat

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1982206616 ISBN 13: 9781982206611

Verlag: Balboa Press, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

For some, mother or father issues, relationship, or control issues are the last to heal. For author Dr. Pat Hanson, its quietude. Peacefulness. The ability to just sit and be is nearly impossible for her. Tranquility is a place shes not gone before. With candor, humor, and in her own evolving voice, In Search of Stillness: My Final Frontier details her five decade search for that elusive concept: peace of mind. At times poignant, hilarious and insightful, these pieces tell the story of a life lived with passion. In Search of Stillness traces the many personal and spiritual growth experiences Hanson undertook from the 1970s to current day. Touchingly honest, tender and articulate, this memoir chronicles the courageous journey of a soul on a quest of self-discovery. Readers will be inspired and uplifted. Alesa Lightbourne, Prize-winning Author of The Kurdish Bike

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Pat Hanson, PhD, is a writer, public speaker, and health and sexuality educator. She is a magazine columnist and novice comedienne. Pat currently lives on the central coast of California near Monterey.

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In Search of Stillness: My Final Frontier

By Pat Hanson

Balboa Press

Copyright © 2018 Pat Hanson, PhD
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-982206-61-1

Contents

Epigraph, vii, 
Introduction, ix, 
Ten Days at Meditation Boot Camp 2005, 1, 
Crawling inside the Dark An Isolation Tank Brings a Taste of Now - 1974, 14, 
I Feel So Diff-er-ent Not Fitting in May Be Okay - 1991, 16, 
Heartsong Sound Healing My Voice Erupts in Song - 1992, 23, 
Shift Happens: Affirmative Prayer Works 1993, 33, 
Quieting the Voices My First Attempt at Poetry - 1997, 37, 
Fighting Back Old Ghosts Fraudulence Fears Resurface - 2000, 40, 
The Faking It Gracefully Form of Tai Chi 2004, 43, 
Homage to My Throat Poetry about Fifth Chakra Issues - 2006, 48, 
Nothing to Do Drives Me Crazy 2008-2011, 52, 
A Challenge from a Worried Husband 2012, 55, 
Conversations with My Serenity Mentor 2012-2017, 60, 
Better Living through Chemistry? Medicine for Mood Swings? Moi? - 2010-2018, 67, 
Living Life Lubricated: Moderation in all Things, Including Moderation - 2012-2016, 90, 
My Broken Listener 2014, 94, 
Keep a Sacred Sabbath Sexual Pleasure Brings You Fully Present - 2010 - 2013, 97, 
Turning Down the Noise 2014, 103, 
Battling Busyness 2015, 105, 
The Burden of Freedom 2015, 108, 
What Is This Itching About? Shedding My Skin - 2016, 110, 
Musings on Home Mirrors of My Development - 2017, 113, 
Accepting Mortality Up Close and Personal - 2017, 118, 
Lessons My Closet Quiet Person Learned 2018, 124, 
Acknowledgments, 127, 

CHAPTER 1

Ten Days at Meditation Boot Camp 2005

Before

First, they laughed. Friends raised eyebrows and guffawed when I told them I'd signed up for a ten-day Vipassana Meditation course at a Buddhist retreat center.

"You?" they exclaimed. "Come on. I've sat next to you at meetings. You'll never sit still and be silent ten days."

Some offered to bet on how long I'd last.

Listening to the rules, even my buddies who had done retreats said, "You've signed up for a nunnery! Vipassana is the most austere method, Pat. No journal, pens, books, sketch pad. Just you and your thoughts."

My therapist commended my courage and reminded me I choose extreme things. "You're free to leave, but go committed," she said. "You'll make it if you get through the first three days."

The closet quiet person inside the active human doing that most of my acquaintances saw cherished tai chi. Multitasking, focusing on movement and breathing, worked for me. I loved the daylong silent retreats my teacher held every other month when we moved ever so slowly to lovely positions like ocean currents and sea waves and light in the hidden temple. Tai chi, after first sorting my to-do list and letting it go, had been the only way I could meditate successfully so far.

I trusted a friend who'd done this Vipassana course. Although she said parts were torture, parts ecstasy, the peace she radiated was visible. That e word was enough for me. Everything pointed toward my developing a daily spiritual practice. This could be the first step.

Worth the ride, I thought as I wrote on my application, "I want mental discipline to write better." I answered questions about my health and use of prescriptions and illicit substances and was accepted a month in advance.

Then I freaked out. I was a nervous wreck. Could I really do without talking for almost two weeks? Would I develop secret means of communicating with my friend who'd also signed up? What demons might arise that I'd ostensibly conquered? I thought of everything — unresolved issues over how my children had turned out, two divorces, disappointment with my current level of self- actualization on Maslow's hierarchy, abandonment issues, conflict over my second-born son now in the military. Almost simultaneous with this retreat, he would be going through the military 's finest hell week. My agitation continued until the day before I left, when my therapist told me I was doing the workshop before it started.

"Listen," she said, reading from the California Vipassana Center's brochure, "It's 'a technique to eradicate suffering ... to make positive contributions to society ... a means of mental purification ... to face life's tensions in a calm, balanced way.' The human-suffering part is a bit lofty," she said. "But it's what you're looking for, isn't it?" My husband of twelve years stayed calm through my panic. "

How would you feel if you were doing this?" I challenged him.

"This is about not doing, Pat. You'll make it. I wish I were doing it with you."

Hours before I left, I emailed twenty of my closest friends for support.

Dear friends,

Pat Hanson is about to embark on a new journey or a different way of experiencing the journey she is already on, and she needs / I need your support. Starting October 19 until October 30, I will be attending a ten-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat in the Sequoias near Yosemite. Caffeine available, but silence 24-7 and four and a half hours of required sitting meditation (no more than an hour at a time), plus lectures in the evening on the technique, which is mainly to let the monkey mind go and focus on the breathing.

I can leave at any time, but I'm committed at this point to finishing. I'd like your positive thoughts behind me energetically. What I am asking you for is to send some silent strength sent to me via your thoughts, prayers, and written notes that I will receive sometime after November 1 when I've reentered.

I hope to get to the discipline and deep place from which my greatest work in the world can be accomplished from a much more centered place. As you know, my bumper sticker reads, "Good Happens." Well, "Shift Happens" too. The evolution that has been continuing since my sixtieth birthday feels like choices to slow down. Peace is what I want to discover inside underneath the rest. I'll let you know if this works. Think of me ... fondly, I hope.

Love, Pat

During

Accommodations were sparse, yet the narrow bed was comfortable, and my little cubicle had a window overlooking a grape arbor. There were about one hundred people from all over the world. At the last evening meal we'd have for ten days — only fruit and tea served at 5:00 p.m. thereafter — I met a woman from Vietnam, two girls who had hitchhiked from Quebec, and a bejeweled woman from India.

A short video was shown explaining the Code of Discipline we'd all signed, promising to abstain from intoxicants, all forms of killing any living creature (even the fruit flies?), stealing, and decoration (my ears thanked me), along with complete celibacy. Fine for me, I thought, but what about the men?

We agreed to suspend other forms of prayer, worship, and ceremony, such as fasting, mantras, and use of crystals. This was not to condemn any other practice but to experience Vipassana in its purity. We were to meditate exactly as asked and hold the rules with acceptance, discrimination, and understanding, not blind submission.

The din at the delicious vegetarian repast that I shared with forty-five people I would not even be making eye contact with for the next ten days was deafening! I asked one young woman who'd done this several times before why she kept returning.

"For the feeling the last day. There's nothing like it. I can't describe it. Wait and see."

Days One to Three: Anapana

I didn't hear...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Balboa Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1982206616
• ISBN 13: 9781982206611
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 140
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: preigu GmbH & Co. KG; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; Niedersachsen; 49078; Deutschland