I arrived in France on July 26th with my 28-year-old nephew, Torin Riddle. This would be his first trip to Europe. Fortunately for him, he was with me and I more or less know my way around even if I don't speak ten words of French.  |
| Here we are posing with the locals |
Public transportation in France is generally excellent so it wasn't a problem to simply get on a train in the Paris airport and six hours later, with two transfers, get off the train in the city of Périgueux which is near the Moulin de Chaves Meditation Center where we were going to do a two 5-day retreats.
We arrived in our hotel late in the evening and immediately went to a bar to have a beer and talk about the upcoming retreat. I told him that for five days the only person he would speak to would be the teacher. The retreat would be in silence and, of course, no cell phone, no music, no internet, just silence.
"Silence? You didn't tell me that," he said.
I was surprised that silence hadn't occurred to him. "This is a meditation retreat. How are you going to meditate if you are talking?"
"Five days with no talking?"
"Silence is wonderful. You don't have to worry about saying something stupid, because you don't say anything. You can relax. You can really, really relax."
Despite my reassurances, he seemed to wonder how he could do it.
The next day we took a thirty-minute taxi ride to the meditation center
On the grounds of the retreat center
The first retreat was somewhat challenging. About 60 people sat in one large meditation hall on the floor in a cross-legged position wearing masks. Yes, at the meditation center masks had to be worn in any enclosed space. Fortunately, the meals were all served outside in the warm summer air.
I was on a retreat like this in Thailand once (without masks) and about a third of the people who started, quit. But Torin actually enjoyed the retreat. Now he claims that he's going to bring his friends back next year for another retreat. For the usual reasons, it wasn't easy for him: he had problems in maintaining the sitting position, difficulty in staying awake, at times he was challenged by boredom and the fact that he had absolutely nothing to distract him from the thoughts in his own mind. For the first time in his life he had nothing to do, and nowhere to go for five full days.
After the retreat, he said that now he understood himself and his own mind much better and that he felt much more confident in facing the world. How about that?
In the end, everything is just one breath at a time.
And me? Because I've done this kind of thing so many times, and never gotten tired of it, it was the same old thing but everything was new. That makes absolutely no sense; you'll just have to try it.
I wanted my nephew to do two retreats. Why come all the way to France just to do five days of meditation? The only problem was that the next retreat would begin a week after the first retreat ended. We decided to spend that week back in Périgueux, this time in an AirBnb.
Unfortunately, I booked the AirBnb late in the season so the only thing available was a tiny apartment between too busy streets. But somehow we got used to it.
What might have saved us is that we observed silent mornings. That is we would both wake up and do meditation and yoga, have breakfast, and read, all in complete silence. At noon we would begin speaking and then go out for a meal, a hike, or tour one of the sites in the city.
French culture note: fast food never really caught on in France. The French like to sit down, relax, have a beer or a glass of wine, and enjoy the meal. The food is as healthy as it is tasty, so the French don't have the obesity problems that the Americans have. And in the restaurants, there is no tipping. Good food, good service, good drink, and taking the time to enjoy it, make for a happy life. If you don't believe me, ask any French person.
The week passed quickly and then it was back to the meditation center for retreat number two which was billed as the "Yoga rest, relax, and restore retreat." Both of us went into the retreat thinking that it was going to be the equivalent of a Carnival Cruise ship yoga class, but it turned out to be much more than we had expected. The mornings were a 3-hour yoga class that was very gentle and the afternoons, after a long siesta, were a two-and-a-half-hour session of restorative yoga. I had never heard of restorative yoga so I didn't know what to expect.
For me, the morning yoga was wonderfully slow so I was able to spot mistakes in my own yoga practice that I would not otherwise have noticed.
The afternoon classes were interesting because for the first time I learned about working with various props to get into very comfortable positions that were conducive to releasing stress and creating proper alignment in the body. That was wonderful. One other interesting thing about restorative yoga is that you are never too old to do it. The party, or should I say restoration, never stops.
Fortunately, the yoga retreat was without masks. To make that happen every person arriving for the retreat had to have taken a self-test for covid-19 that produced a negative result. These tests are sold in most pharmacies and cost about $6.
In the middle of the retreat, we were asked to take another test which was also a self-test. Everyone tested negative and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
The restorative yoga retreat ended far too soon and immediately afterward my nephew and I parted paths. He was going to get on a train to Paris, fly to Vermont the next day, and shortly thereafter begin his first real job as a middle school teacher. I was going south to yet another retreat and another adventure.
You need to have some background material to understand the next retreat.
Everybody knows that Buddhist meditation started in India with the Buddha. From there it spread around Asia and lately it's been appearing in the United States and in Europe. Those of us who went to India to do meditation found that we eventually bonded with the other westerners we met in India. It was easy. If we were on a train and there was another Westerner we could ask the Westerner where they were going and most likely both of us were going to the same meditation retreat. We would then tell each other our life stories. At other times, a meditation retreat would finish in a little village in the middle of nowhere and for days afterward, the westerners would hang around and find themselves sharing meals and otherwise getting to know each other. Usually, we found that we liked each other. A few people fell in love, got married, produced babies -- the stuff that people always do.
After many years of going to India, we wanted to meet again in the West so someone decided to organize a social gathering for serious meditators, that is, old India hands. But this is France, where there is a lush climate, a relaxed lifestyle, and a joie de vivre so those retreats became very popular even for people who had never been to India.
The retreat, where we all slept in tents on a shady hillside beside a river, took place in southern France near the town of Beziers. (When you think of hills filled with grapevines to produce wine and the lush Mediterranean climate, you're probably imagining some place near Beziers.)
I had been instructed to wait at the train station where I would be picked up and taken to the retreat. Are you still with me? The plot is about to get interesting.
Soon two old friends from my India days drove into the train station and we had a joyous reunion. The problem was that one of my old friends looked half dead. I quickly learned the story. The week before I arrived my half-dead friend had arrived at the same place for a different retreat and had tested negative for the coronavirus only to come down with the virus 3 days later. The other people on the retreat then decided to isolate him in the forest and bring him food every day. This worked pretty well until he took a turn for the worse and it was decided that he needed to be evacuated by ambulance to a nearby hospital.
The leader of the retreat, who is from the area, believed that if an ambulance drove into the forest, the people in the nearby village would panic -- believing that the plague had come. So the corona-infected man was bundled into a car and taken to a quiet edge of the village where he was met by an ambulance. Once he got into the ambulance the medics tested him and decided that he was not sick enough to deserve entry to a French hospital so they dumped him on the side of the road. The poor guy, who could barely breathe, then had to stumble back to the forest where his old and dear friends were surprised to see him once again. Fortunately, after a few more days he was able to test negative for the virus and now he was on his way home even though to me he looked half dead. Being sick, he had lacked the ability to wash his clothes or bathe for more than a week. He really looked totally miserable. I tried to console him a bit before his train came and he traveled back to his home.
The village is in the distance.
When I finally arrived at the retreat I received a crash course in an aspect of French culture that I was completely unaware of.
Basically, the lesson began, the French people don't trust authority. To really understand this you'll have to look back into French history, the seemingly never-ending religious wars, the French revolution, and the feeling that everyone in France should not only have freedom of religion but freedom from religion. Actually, freedom from everything including any advice from the government. It's really hard to explain. Here's a quick example to get my point across: in the USA most people don't smoke. Not only that, smoking is considered crude and irresponsible. Our government has convinced us of this and even most smokers have accepted this as being true. In France the government never convinced the French people of anything and smoking cigarettes is considered one of the joys of life.
French teenagers and one of the joys of life.
My crash course in French culture ended realizing that all of my old and dear friends from India, who happened to be from France, had refused to get vaccinated.
They were completely civil disobedient.
Even when the French government declared that only vaccinated people would be able to enter restaurants, movie theaters, and other public venues, they still refused to get vaccinated. (Some stores have closed rather than be responsible for verifying the vaccination of their customers.)
Once I understood that I was able to abandon all judgments, embrace my old friends, and relax.
In this retreat the mornings were silent but the afternoons and evenings were open for social activities. This often meant people playing musical instruments or swimming in the nearby river. Time passed very quickly.
My fellow campers in the forest.
Our story is almost finished.
After a wonderful 10 days, I hitched a ride with one of the retreat participants to the resort city of Hyeres that is tucked into hills that border the peaceful Mediterranean. Here there is a medieval village, as well as pristine beaches, islands off the coast, and every conceivable tourist amenity including some vegetarian restaurants. I have been able to enter those restaurants by showing them my vaccination card from the CDC. I'm not sure that everyone I've shown the card to has been able to read English, but when I hand it to them and say the word "moderna" they wave me in.
I came here to work with an expert masseuse who is, you guessed it, an old friend from India. She has magic hands that seem to work their way into tensions in my body that I never knew I had.
Sincerely, your correspondent,
Tom
Sounds like a memorable trip! I'm glad your friend is ok, that sounded really rough. Safe travels back home, Tom!!
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