A Week of Silence: A Retrospective

It was just over a month ago, sitting in my second night of ceremony, having consumed six cups of Ayahuasca (a lot), feeling completely sober, that I came to the long-overdue conclusion that I didn’t need more medicine — I needed to sit alone with my thoughts.

After nearly a week of silent meditation (cut a day short by the devastating fires nearby in LA), I can now say that I (or the Aya lol) was right.

My experience was deeply life-changing.

Due to my interest in my plans before going in, I want to share my experience while it is fresh in my mind. However, I want to be considerate of the victims of the fires, so please join me in supporting victims.

I want to note that I did not sit in Vipassana but instead, Or HaLev. This more forgiving Jewish meditation practice emphasizes returning to an “anchor” (such as your breath, palms, or feet) rather than totally silencing the mind. As a fairly non-observant (but spiritual) Jew, it was a fascinating container to practice extended silence and more bearable meditation practice for a severe sufferer of ADHD.

Many faiths have their versions of silent meditation (especially in recent times). Although I have not tried Vipassana, if you have any religious upbringing, I strongly encourage this approach, which struck a powerful cord for me.

I have tried to synthesize my brief notes from each day (which I was not encouraged to take, but knew it’d help me reflect later 😅):

Pre-Retreat Prep: Similar to how I prepare for Burning Man, I did my best to make anyone who might try to reach me aware (I also posted on social media and set up vacation auto-replies across emails) that I would be completely offline for seven days (while giving my closest acquaintances an emergency contact).

Sunday Eve: When I arrived, any anxieties I had about the experience dissipated, and I was overcome with excitement to start meditating. At the same time, we got through the spoken introductions, and the freedom I was about to experience began to dawn on me — free of the shackles of overstimulation and the enormity of responsibilities in my daily life.

Monday: I’ve never felt so unburdened in my adult life as I did this day. Meditations were not as challenging as I expected, given the non-existence of a traditional meditation practice in recent years. My free time could only be characterized as overwhelmingly joyous.

Insight: It felt that my default state is joy, and only the responsibility of my duties and constant connectedness prevent me from feeling this more frequently in my daily life.

Tuesday: the overabundance of delight continued (distinguished by laughter and endless smiles), but I came to the profound realization that would underlie the remainder of my trip —

For some, it might be comparison, but for me, DISTRACTION IS THE THIEF OF JOY.

Social media and the instant gratification of our hyper-connected world are ruining our brains. This is obvious any time you go out in public and see society’s zombification as people stare mindlessly into the depths of the portable screens that accompany us everywhere.

Insights: I made three important promises to myself—

1. I will deactivate my social media for at least three months (after the launch of my new venture, Hatch Spray) or until I reach one of my two top goals for the year (my most ambitious achievements to date).
2. I would order timed lock boxes for all my electronics and create more distraction-free time (I got this for my phone and a bigger one for electronics).
3. In my newfound free time, I plan to meditate, lift weights, retrain my dog Garbanzo to all the tricks he used to know, meal-prep, and hopefully buy and renovate the house I live in on the beach outside San Juan (my first home purchase!)

Wednesday: the previous night, high winds led to all power being shut off. Furthermore, we were told about the fires in LA that morning, and one of the retreat attendees tested positive for COVID. I decided to remain unbothered, as there was nothing I could do (except check on the safety of those closest to me in LA).

The outage meant I had zero way to tell time (my alarm clock was plugin only), which was deeply enjoyable as we had a rigid schedule (below). I got to appreciate the intuition of my internal clock.

I also had a brief moment to break my silence and speak to one of the rabbis (Jew priests) about my ongoing struggle to quiet my cacophonous brain, and they told me, “The practice is not silence, but coming back to mindfulness, strengthening that mental muscle,” and that hit me hard! (Though it would take me a couple more days to fully internalize.)

Insights:

1. In order to self-actualize, one must choose to confront repressed thoughts thoroughly and forcefully. This can be through (and likely a combination of) extensive plant medicine practice, silent meditation, vision quests, wilderness retreats, and combination therapies … I’m not sure what else, but I do know that near-death experiences don’t do the trick. It’s hard to be a serious person, let alone elevate our consciousness and potential to the highest levels unless we do the really hard work.
2. Gratitude is like a jar; when it is full, it becomes praise — hallelujah! I had this profound sense that, normally, my jar usually gets knocked over before it can overflow. Yet throughout this experience, I kept finding myself thanking and praising God.

Thursday: The power blackout continued, and the organizers announced that they’d formally end the retreat two days early on Friday due to logistical issues and fire risks. I had zero desire to stop (I’m not a quitter, hehe) — and I was feeling great.

Insights:

1. For the first time in two decades, I realized I had a healthy relationship with every substance, having barely touched alcohol in months and cannabis for far longer, and, more importantly, I didn’t experience a single nicotine craving on this trip — free of a dependency that had plagued me for nearly seven years.
2. The announcement made me reflect on how much more work my mindfulness practice requires.
3. The amount of time I spend thinking about and on mindless garbage like social media (even just planning this post in my mind!) or on news apps, reading content I’d never apply unless I went on Jeopardy! is appalling. I needed to reevaluate how I live my life seriously.
4. It’s no wonder I can’t remember anyone’s name when I’ve consumed several times more information in a single day (for fifteen years straight) than most humans did in a lifetime a few hundred years ago.

Friday: I decided to stay at the last minute when it became clear multiple other folks would continue their practice at the retreat with reduced supervision.

I was so glad I made this choice. Not only did I continue my deep practice, but I also continued the lengthy amount of exploration and walking I had been doing (averaging 20,000 steps a day). Moreover, I connected with my Judaism more deeply that evening as we celebrated an intimate Shabbat than I have in my entire life.

Insights:

1. Observing the Jewish evening sabbath was extremely powerful, and my love of this ethnic and cultural lineage ingrained in my DNA over thousands of years, preserved heroically by my ancestors, is incredibly special.
2. In my next conversation with the other rabbi at the retreat, I finally made peace with the unending dialogue inside my head that became so accentuated during meditation. I now grasped that the practice is returning to the breath — not paying attention to it.
3. I also finally appreciated the mindful and meditative life I’ve created for myself, from living on the beach to moving to Puerto Rico. It’s the time I spend contemplating walking each day, the isolation of my beach bungalow far from the city, and how I’ve cleared my calendars and committed to myself. The fact that I had already been working subconsciously yet extensively on mindfulness throughout my daily existence made entering this period of silence the joyful experience that it was.

Saturday: As I began to prepare for my departure, deeply changed, it came with the (cliche) understanding that I have started a new chapter of my journey, having achieved a sense of balance and clarity that I never knew— the next stage of my personal development in the last few years.

Lastly, we did a Jewish private meditation practice called Hitbodedut, a spoken (out-loud) communication with God to express our innermost thoughts and feelings and to examine ourselves. It felt strange speaking out loud for an extended period (I had been trying all week to contain joyful outbursts to myself) than it was having a conversation with God (something I already do at times.)

I yapped away as I hiked up to the incredible House of the Book (below), which I had visited each day. After learning earlier that week that there was a certain spot where you could stand on outside the building (most famously known for being the Power Rangers’ HQ) and hear a reverberating echo, I had repeatedly tried shouting across every square foot of the patio, with no success. As I chatted away with God on my final walk around the building, I hoped to finally experience this reverberation, surely looking like an absolute madman shuffling my feet across the pavement and fruitlessly shouting in the air.

House of the Book, Brandeis-Bardin Institute, American Jewish University

Eventually, I gave up, amused with myself, and turned towards the road down to the retreat. Yet, at that very moment, as I chatted to God with my heart, soul, and spirit so wonderfully sated, divinity struck… and the Almighty spoke back to me! It didn’t matter that it was my echo — we are all God and can be a voice for The Truth. It was a perfectly humbling moment in which I just burst into laughter and knew that I had reached the zenith of closure — nothing could complete my week more perfectly.

Conclusion: I have a million more thoughts to share, but my goal was to briefly to summarize my experience… and this was far from brief.

It goes without saying that my experience was unique to me — I expected this to be one of the most challenging experiences of my life, which it has been for several friends who have done a similar silent meditation. It clearly was for quite many of the other participants in my retreat.

I will say this: an experience like silent meditation is no different than taking powerful psychedelics — it doesn’t give you what you want. It gives you what you need.

If you have questions about my experience, please share a screenshot of your donation to one of the many charities supporting fire victims, and I’ll do my best to answer them promptly.