Phoenix

I felt myself being pushed off the edge of a cliff by some invisible force and the feeling of losing my footing and being in mid-air caused a great sense of panic in my body, the fall lasted only a few seconds but to me, it felt like an eternity. I fell into the ocean and felt the air being knocked out of my lungs, I was drowning with no power left in my body to try to swim and save myself. All of a sudden I heard: "Lilly, wake up!"

That’s when I opened my eyes and jumped up from my bed:

“Phew, I’m still alive!”

I knew the dream was trying to tell me what I felt deep inside my heart all along: "This way of living feels suffocating. I can't do this anymore!

How did I even get here?”

The answer was actually really simple - I listened to the fear, inside of myself and of those around me, instead of listening to my heart and following my path. I wanted a quick fix on the surface level without ever truly changing my identity and way of being and my reality was showing me loud and clear that that is not the way it works, because I was not in good health and not happy with my environment and life. The outer change will always follow your change within - in thoughts, emotions, behaviours and habits. Nothing can be truly changed only on the physical plane.

I felt the need to repent for my stupidity, for my egoic behaviours and for abandoning myself, which hurt me more than anyone else. The worst of all was that the people in my life were making it so hard for me to be authentic to my desires that I went into hiding mode as a way to protect myself, to not be as hurt as I was a few years ago when my father tried to assert his control over me, belittling my free will and the way my heart was trying to point to by convincing me that yoga and meditation are not for "westerners" as if that had anything to do with it. He was just afraid that I would abandon him, go too far and that he wouldn't recognize me anymore. The path of yoga he abandoned 20 years ago was the path I was on right now and instead of getting hurt or being too weak for it like he feared, I was finally opening my eyes. Even through all the suffering, and the dark night of the soul, I knew that all of it was leading me to become who I truly am. His motives were essentially those of trying to protect his daughter, even though he was so stubborn and unaccepting on the outside, I wanted to forgive him.

Since this Universe is so kind and loving and because it always responds to your innermost desires, an unexpected opportunity showed up in my life - to go to a meditation retreat in a Buddhist monastery in the mountains and it was one of those invitations that you can not say no to, your Soul is yearning for it. The desire to start anew, from a clean slate was burning strongly within me.

One month before I signed up for the retreat, I was already starting to go through an intense transformative journey cleansing myself of all the layers I added onto my true Self, the layers that were burying me with every passing day - addictions, self-indulgence, people-pleasing, fear of being seen... The price of self-abandonment started to be too high.

A few days before I went to the retreat I went to visit my father to try to talk to him reasonably and calmly, but to no one's surprise, he still stubbornly clinged onto his beliefs and got into an unnecessary argument with me once I told him.

"Are you crazy? What do you think you're doing? I already told you that that is not for you. Why don't you get a job like everyone else? You should go work at the supermarket.", he said.

“No, I don’t want to work at the supermarket! I need to go to cleanse myself and think about my life.”

"Then go visit a friend, not a Buddhist monastery! You are not a Buddhist!"

"So what if I am not a Buddhist? Everyone is welcome there."

“Now I need to worry about you all weekend and if you’ll even come back alive and well. Look what you’ve done now! My head is starting to hurt.”

"It's a Buddhist monastery, the safest place I can think of!"

And so our ping-pong match continued for an hour with him hissing nonsense after nonsense at me, trying to make me change my mind and choose the safe route instead. After leaving, I felt so bad that I even considered not going, but after what happened a few years ago I knew I could not trust his judgement. All of the processes I went through were showing me how strong I actually am - that I was indeed a tiger thinking she was a sheep, what a joke!

Despite the self-doubt and fear I proceeded with my plan and went to the top of the mountain where the monastery was located. A white cat caught me eye inside of the bus station walking as if she was ghost - it was unusual to see her inside, with no doors open for her to enter and as if the other travellers and workers at the counter could not see her.

Two of the other participants were kind enough to drive down to the village where I first arrived and take me up because it was too steep to walk up. Once I arrived I felt my lungs finally opening up and starting to breathe more deeply - I knew I was at the right place. The sheer sight of the monastery and the monks was already soothing me.

I did not have a lot of time to meet the other participants of the retreat before the first Puja(ceremony) but I did recognize the same cat from the bus station hundreds of miles away from my hometown!

The powerful chanting of the monks awakened something within me, a purifying fire, a willingness to let go and find freedom. We took the vow of noble silence, as they call it, and other noble vows till the end of the retreat, but they should be honoured for a lifetime: honesty, respect, integrity and compassion were at the core of all of them.

The first night was especially hard for me, not only because of the new environment and restricting myself from eating and smoking but also because the air was so cold and I couldn't warm up my body. The guest house was separate from the monastery and exposed from all directions, and my soul felt exposed too. There was nowhere to hide and no need for anything to remain hidden anymore - my false self started to crumble.

The second Puja started at 6 am the following morning followed by cycles of sitting and walking meditations. The powerful omnidirectional chanting echoed yet again from the top of the mountain and reached deeply into the minds and souls of all of us who were present. This sacred environment really pushed all of my darkness to the surface for it to be purged. Once I started to dismantle that, it felt like my sense of self-started to crumble, but I had to purge all of it in order to become authentic. I was very thankful that all the other participants were so kind, loving, and supportive without even saying a word - just by their energy alone.

In the centre of the garden, there was a big white statue of the Buddha, around a narrower octagonal path and a wider square path surrounding it. As I walked with equal awareness of my inner and outer world, the doubt, fear and unworthiness on the inside and the wind, sunshine and beauty on the outside, my pace started to take on a steady rhythm - clack, clack, clack, slowing down the whirlwind of thoughts and emotions and leaving room for only one note in the background - loving Awareness. The clarity started to come to me as I was shedding the layers of years and years of muddiness, built up by being too entangled with other people and the environment I was living in and my own lack of maturity in processing my emotions and beliefs, because in truth nothing can ever be avoided, you can procrastinate and distract yourself all you want, sooner or later it will come to the surface!

The clarity washed over me like a wave, in the silence and the purity of the monastery it was easy to see that I am none of these appearances, that I was fooled into attaching my self-worth to any one of these emotions: guilt, fear, shame, anger, resentment. Loving Awareness started to shine even brighter, even purer… and that one note slowly started to turn into a symphony, uniting my body, mind and my environment.

Walking to the guest house after the evening ceremony a pink Full Moon smiled at us on a deep, dark sky.

By the end of the day, all of us were so tired that everyone couldn't wait to just go to sleep, we did not even need dinner or anything else.

The second morning I woke up with more clarity, despite not being a morning person, it felt easy to get up at 5 am - there was a sacred sense of duty. I wanted to make the most out of the remaining experience knowing that I’ll already have to go home that afternoon. I had not realised at the time what a profound change occurred within me…

The beauty in the repetition was revealed to me - the steady rhythm of sitting and walking, doing and non-doing, interchanging like day and night and becoming one. In the same way I started to see myself and the other participants, and on a larger scale the whole of humanity and the natural world, as blending together like different instruments in an orchester - playing the most perfect symphony in the Universe.

Just coming down from the monastery into the village I felt such a strong shift in energy, the noise, the traffic and the less-than-preferred air quality already made me overwhelmed, but luckily one of the participants travelled with me one part of the journey, so it was comforting to still talk to him about the whole experience, even though I started to feel the heaviness of the environment.

The insight of not judging my experience as good or bad, just letting it be as it is, was still on my mind - even though one of the harder lessons to put into practice, I knew that was the only thing that I could do because trying to control everything can only lead to insanity.

Even though the circumstances in my life had not changed, there was a new me that was returning to them - with fresh eyes and a profound shift within, so it didn't matter that they stayed the same. The challenges and obstacles are simply part of the journey, no need to avoid or reject them, because they are the catalysts for your growth.

I knew that it was my highest joy and responsibility to start to live from the heart and do the best I can to put one foot in front of the other in the direction of my destiny.