Desert Mind

   There is a scene in the movie "Wild", (based on the book by Cheryl Strayed), where the protagonist is just embarking on her hike through the Pacific Valley Coastline, and the audience hears the voices in her mind. She is tired, very thirsty and exhausted from a long trek, carrying a burdensome knapsack that looks about twice her size. In that moment, the viewer 'hears' her thoughts, some of which arise from her childhood memories. There are times when the thoughts sound scattered and delirious. However, there is this sweet moment as a viewer where I hear the chaos of these thoughts but know that somehow this is just a movie. And there is a comfort in knowing (well, having read the book, that is), that Cheryl will pull through in the end.
   In meditation, it's a funny thing:  I will often have these strange thoughts come up, or at other times, the place seems arid, as though I were walking in a desert with no water or food for miles. And then I continue to use the method, but generating the energy to do so starts to get harder and harder. It is as though I were climbing a very steep hill and almost out of breath or energy. Yet, there is this determination to keep going inside me. I want to keep going, even when I have no idea when this dry spell is going to end. This kind of experience happened to me in the afternoon of today's meditation retreat. There wasn't an easy resolution to it, and certainly not the breakthrough experience I had hoped would end that 'desert' experience. Instead, I felt at times not sure where the practice was taking me. There were times when I simply surrendered to some higher being, even though I hadn't a clue what the higher being was...just having faith that I would be carried through it, because there isn't anything coming from inside me to keep going.
   Many contemplative traditions talk about the desert as a place of difficulty. Thomas Merton doesn't refer to the desert so much as the dark night of the soul.I think he is really talking about a place where one doesn't quite know whether to retreat or to keep going, and yet there is not much choice but to keep going.In a sense, one has already set out on the journey long ago and made preparations. There is no turning back at that point.
    From the perspectives I have read in Chan, there is no need to dislike or like anything that arises in meditative practices. What I react to is this sense that there should be 'me', and the dislocation  I get when I realize there is no place for the self. I think these situations challenge me to re-think what I am expecting or desiring in practice,and to keep letting go of the 'template' of what an experience looks like.