Numinous Nonsense

When I was growing up one of my favorite programs was a Japanese anime called Dragon Ball Z. Each day after school a friend and I would go and watch the saga of warriors who were fighting to save earth, to transcend to higher and higher states of perfection. For those of you who know me personally, it probably won’t be of any surprise as to why I liked the show…

One of the most fascinating elements of the show was a building called the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, whose Japanese translation is also The Room of Spirit and Time. In this room, which only a couple of warriors could enter at time, time flowed at a much slower rate. One day of normal time in the outside world was actually a full year of time in the hyperbolic time chamber. This room became a refuge for many of earth’s greatest warriors during their times of need, when they were about to face an adversary who was much stronger than them, and so needed to make extremely quick progress. Often as a result of their training in the room, they were able to emerge only a day later having made huge transformations in their abilities, and thus defeat their opponents.

The parallel I’d like to draw, and which seems so obvious having spent much time doing intensive meditation, is with meditation retreats. Meditation retreats, much like the hyperbolic time chamber, allow one to make a significant amount of progress in their meditation practices in a relatively short amount of time. I don’t know that 1 day of retreat is equivalent to a year of daily practice, but I would say that a week of retreat can often be as profound as several months of daily practice–and sometimes more so.

The reasons for this are manifold, but just as with the warriors who entered the room of spirit and time, meditators who enter retreat with a great resolve and deep spiritual need often find the fruits of their practice accelerated considerably. These spiritual warriors, if they do the practices wholeheartedly, continuously, and with a deep commitment will find that enlightenment becomes not some distant ideal, but an actual event (or series of events) that can happen in the here and now.

Just as an example, Joseph Goldstein’s teacher Munindra-ji often said that the average amount of time it takes a meditator to achieve stream-entry (or the 1st stage of enlightenment) is around 9 weeks of retreat time. The late Bill Hamilton, in a similar vein, suggested that a 3-month retreat is a reasonable amount of time to expect to be able to do so. He also cautioned that the time it takes can vary considerably. This is certainly true, as I have know people that have gotten stream-entry in as little as a week, and have also known people who have spent many months of retreat and not had this initial awakening experience.

The point then is not to set a time limit on how long it will take us, but rather to know that it is possible, and to be inspired by that possibility. At that point we can have real aims and aspirations in our spiritual practice, one’s that can be realized, confirmed, and deepened. No longer do we need to float in a state of ambiguity with regards to the practice. Because, as one of my early teachers often told me, “If you do the Buddha’s practice you will get enlightened.” With that kind of confidence and faith in the practice, we can create the proper conditions for realizing the unconditioned, and come to know that which we’ve been long searching for.