Mindfulness Meditation (For Everyday Life)

were designed so that the participants could devote
each day from early morning to late at night solely to
mindful sitting and walking, with a few hearty
vegetarian meals thrown in, all in silence. We were
supported in this inner work by excellent meditation
teachers, who would give inspiring talks in the
evening to help us deepen and broaden our practice,
and who would see us every so often for individual
interviews to check on how things were going.
I loved these retreats because they enabled me to
put everything else in my life on hold, go off
someplace pleasant and peaceful in the countryside,
get taken care of, and live an extremely simplified
contemplative life, where the only real agenda was to
practice, practice, practice.
Not that it was easy, mind you. There was often a lot
of physical pain just from sitting still for that many
hours, and that was nothing compared to the
emotional pain which would sometimes surface as
the mind and body became more still and less busy.
When my wife and I decided to have children, I knew
that I would have to give up the retreats, at least for
some time. I said to myself that I could always return
to the contemplative setting when my children had
grown up enough not to need me around all the time.
There was a certain romantic touch to the fantasy of