Dozens of American Buddhists prepare for 3 years-plus of silence to heighten inner awareness
BOWIE, Arizona - Deep in a remote desert valley, Stephane Dreyfus and several dozen other American Buddhists are preparing to undergo a mind-altering journey: three years, three months, and three days of silence.
There will be no word from the outside world during the Great Retreat, only the deafening quiet of sand, rock, and cactus, with seemingly endless time to ponder the emptiness [impersonal and therefore liberating nature] of life.
Dreyfus and his fellow adherents hope to find enlightenment in the silence, a gift they plan to share when they emerge from their long seclusion.
They know that outsiders might dismiss them as eccentrics, but their résumés suggest otherwise. Among them are an airline pilot, a dermatologist, a retired biochemist, and a former television editor.
They’re jettisoning the trappings of their lives to carry on a Tibetan Buddhist tradition that traces its lineage through the Dalai Lamas of Tibet. For many, that means leaving behind six-figure incomes, young children, or aging parents for the solitude of cramped cabins made of adobe, wood, and hay bales.
Prolonged silence, they believe, is the only way to reach the deep level of inner awareness required to bring true happiness to the world. “If I can get to the position of being perfectly free of suffering and develop high levels of mental clarity that cause enlightenment, I can show others how to get there perfectly, quickly,” says Dreyfus, 32, who left a job as an assistant editor on the prime-time show “The Bachelor” to teach yoga and prepare for his undertaking.
Dreyfus, a Berkeley native, will be joined by his fiancee, Jessica Kung, a Yale graduate and also a yoga teacher. When they start the retreat, they will be newlyweds, sharing a 500-square-foot cabin, communicating only through gestures and facial expressions and refraining from physical intimacy.
Such physical pleasure, they both say, would dissipate prana — [lit., "breath," chi, spiritus, invisible life force] inner energy — distracting from the important karmic work at hand.
“I feel a desire to have some serious Ph.D.-like study in yoga meditation,” says Kung, 27. “There is nothing better to do with my youth.”
Families bewildered, angry, skeptical
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| Padmasambhava Rinpoche, |
Such talk provokes bewilderment, skepticism, and even anger from the family members of many of those who will join the retreat. Prof. Hubert Dreyfus, who teaches existential philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley, worries that his son, Stephane, is wasting his talent for writing and filmmaking to pursue [spiritual] ideas he sees as irrational.
The elder Dreyfus admits his son is happier than ever. Still, he can’t understand why anyone would leave loved ones behind to disappear into the desert — in this case, for 1,190 days. “I’m just torn,” says Dreyfus, 79. “I want grandchildren.”
Each retreat participant will need $60,000 to $75,000 to build a cabin and pay for three years of food and supplies. Some already have set aside the money. A few are searching for sponsors at yoga and meditation seminars or relying on the generosity of others on the retreat.
Those on retreat will cook for themselves in cabins equipped with kitchens and bathrooms. Power will be supplied by solar panels or propane tanks, and members will probably have air horns to summon help if something goes wrong. Volunteer caretakers, fellow American Buddhists who live nearby, will help by growing or shopping for food and dropping it off twice a week.
David Stumpf, a retired plant biochemist from the University of Arizona who is planning to join the retreat, is in charge of installing a water supply system in the valley. Dr. Stumpf has nearly finished building the 600-square-foot cabin he and his wife, Susan, will share on a small patch of earth surrounded by paddle cactus and ocotillo plants.
Surveying the rolling landscape and cloud-streaked sky, the 56-year-old proclaims the setting ideal for deep meditation. “This place is stunning at sunrise,” he says. “The lighting on the hillside is just magical.”
To reach “retreat valley,” participants drive 107 miles east from Tucson on the Interstate 10 Freeway through stretches of desert to the small town of Bowie then head south on a narrow asphalt road.
From there, a rutted dirt road leads to Diamond Mountain University, a nonprofit Buddhist campus where footpaths connect an adobe temple, a tented student lounge, and round Mongolian-style yurts. Another short road from there to retreat valley is even more primitive, coursing through brush-covered hillsides once home to a cattle ranch.
In the heart of the valley is a single yurt within sight of several cabins under construction. This is the home of Geshe Michael Roach and Lama Christie McNally, the university’s founders. [What could go wrong? Certainly not Murphy's Law, which is unerring in these situations.]
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Then at midnight everyone hugged and kissed and tore off black garments and made out on the floor and cushions and repeatedly violated the third precept we had just -- oh, but that only happened in our imaginations.
