Two of my greatest
passions,
a deep love of nature,
and a hunger for inner peace
have come together in the creation of
Sky Meadow Retreat
Meditation
and the Simplicity of Nature
I found
myself in a Buddhist
Monastery in Sri Lanka
at
the age of nineteen desperately seeking something real and genuine and
worth
pursuing in this life. I discovered this in the teachings of the
Buddha and the
simple practice of direct awareness meditation. Since that time I
have been interested in establishing a place where people from our over
stimulated culture could come to let go, and sink into the stillness of
our own being.
My
love for nature has been present most of my life, and as a young man
took the expression of living very simply close to the
earth.
Here at Sky Meadow we grow many of our own vegetables and fruits, heat
with wood, and have a daily relationship with this land which sustains
us. This simple, physical lifestyle supports and enhances
the often difficult work of going inward through meditation and
mindfulness. Working
with our hands to grow the food we eat, and maintain the buildings and
land,
gives our lives a steady grounded rhythm that contributes to being
present and
aware.
The difficulty most
of us
have with healing and spiritual awakening is that it is too simple
for us to notice. We carry the truth and
the light we so desperately seek in all of our worldly achievements and
material gains, right within our own being. Yet we hide it from
ourselves, because
our habit is to look elsewhere. We think that the answer must be
complex and
dependent on factors outside of our control. And so we carry this
deep
longing, and tend to see ourselves as powerless to do anything about it.
Sky
Meadow reflects my
own experience that the answer to our happiness lies right in front of
us at all times, and that the
difficulty is
only in slowing down and being present with what is.
Here,
away from
the mad rush of the world, there is a chance to see this for
ourselves.
This is a
small place far removed from urban development where nature still
dominates
our experience. Being here fosters and requires an immediate
presence
that is overlooked in the world of complex concepts and ideas.
Sky Meadow is
unaffiliated with any organization or religion because the truth itself
is not bound by labels or categories.
While I have
been greatly inspired by the teachings of the Buddha, I do not consider
myself
Buddhist and do not teach Buddhism. The development of a
Buddhist
culture or ideology is a departure from the conceptual emptiness Buddha
pointed
us toward, and often feeds the illusion of a separate self identity,
which he
presented as the source of human suffering.
My Teaching Style
My
teaching reflects my experience of the present moment. I do not
use language
or terminology reported to be from the Buddha, or any other teacher,
because
this only adds more abstraction and offers the conceptual mind another
avenue
of control. We do not need to learn a special language or
translate
foreign concepts to become awake. These tend to only become a new
religion or belief system which once again overrides the mind’s
capacity for
direct awareness or knowing.
In my
journey towards completion I have been influenced by many teachers and
teachings. It has been essential for me
to find
the underlying truth and reality out of which all genuine spiritual
teachings arise. I realized that the root source of these variety
of
teachings that
have attracted me is a personal experience that cannot be translated
through language or concepts. All words can do is point the
conceptual mind toward this experience.
In our
culture we
have
unprecedented access to most of the spiritual teachings that have
arisen throughout human
history. We
tend to place high value on our capacity for choice and strive
continually to
expand the variety of options available to us, thinking this will
increase our
chances for happiness. While this emphasis on
personal choice
allows
for a highly individualized and personalized experience, it also
suggests that the
solution to our human dilemma lies in actively shaping our world
through our individual choices, to be exactly the way we want it to be.
A common
way we try to shape the world around us is to formulate a seamless
ideology that appears to explain the many unknown aspects of
life. Because of the way our rational mind is programmed, we look
for reality
in a universal ideology or conceptual language. This search
inevitably
fails us and creates enormous human conflict as we find ourselves
competing with each other for a claim on truth. It also generates
internal
confusion as
we attempt to sort out which ideas are right and which ones are wrong.
I have
found that
while the
path to awakening is highly individualized, the experience of
realization is universal and completely beyond our
ability to predict or control. There is no one correct
formula or
recipe
for spiritual realization. Each one of us has to find our
own unique way
home. Yet, the home we are seeking is the same one for all
of us.
Confusion about
this distinction often leads us to seek a universal ideology, belief
system,
or religion. We mistakenly assume that if the goal is the
same
for all
of us, the path must be as well.
In my
teaching
I focus
on what can be known in this present moment, without filtering
experience through conceptual mind. This
often
begins with tuning in to very simple and immediate physical sensations,
and
gradually progresses to a
neutral awareness of emotions and
thoughts. It is by standing apart from the thinking process
that we can witness it and
begin to develop some wisdom about what is actually happening in
conceptual
mind.
This
is the
primary
aim of meditation. It does not require any belief or value system
or specific language. There is no right way to
meditate, no correct form or system. I teach the simplest form I
know which
comes directly from the recorded teachings of the Buddha to his
followers
2,500 years ago. There are no complex formulas or
techniques to
learn or
memorize. It relies solely on cultivating the mind’s
capacity for
direct awareness in this present moment, and expands from there.
Developing
the
Capacity for Honest Communication
I
noticed as a
young person
that the adults around me rarely seemed to speak about what was really
going on within them, and have since
realized that few of us know how to do this. I
developed
a strong
yearning for
direct and honest communication
which is healing and connecting,
instead of damaging and dividing. I discovered that there are
skills which
enable us
to be honest with each other, while enhancing rather than hurting our
connections. This
new language of the heart is foreign to
many of
us and needs to be demonstrated, practiced, and supported for it to
become
natural and fluid.
Part
of my
work here,
and in the world, is to facilitate the learning of these essential
human relation skills. The skills I teach
represent a natural outward expression of present time awareness.
Our learned habits
of
communicating with each other
demonstrate our dependency on abstract
concepts to translate our experience of reality. The source
of most
human conflict is this unconscious translation of our immediate
experience
that focuses on the past and future, and overlooks our present moment
experience.
The
first stage of
learning new skills is to bring the old habits into the light of
conscious awareness, which is a process similar to
meditation. From there we can evaluate these patterns of
communication
and see if they are serving our best interests. If we see
that they
are not, we can choose new communication habits that will have a better
chance of achieving our intentions.
These
skills, that
I call Conscious Communication, are based on the honest expression of
our
present moment experience. They occur naturally when we are
aware
of what is actually happening within us in each moment, instead of what
we think
about what is happening. Practicing these skills is another
way to
bring ourselves present to our direct experience, and that of other
people.
By focusing on present emotions and basic needs, rather than ideas or
concepts,
we increase the feeling of connection with others and diminish the
sense of
isolation we so often feel in this world.
Sky
Meadow
is a place where we can slow down,
connect with the earth in a practical way, and bring presence into our
lives
and relationships with others. This
sanctuary is intended to foster awareness and healing by emphasizing
our own
presence as the most valuable asset we have. It
takes many hands to create and support a place like
this. Please come join us as part of a
group
or solo retreat.
Miles
miles (at) skymeadowretreat (dot)
com