My 6-Day Nine Bodies of Consciousness Silent Retreat Experience.
I completed my fourth annual silent meditation retreat in the form of a 6-Day “Nine Bodies of Consciousness” journey created by Phillip Moffitt who held space alongside the wonderful teachers’ Dana Depalma and Tuera Sala. I was intrigued by the offering of a “map” for my meditation experiences and felt drawn by my intuition to choose this as my next retreat.
I started my journey with disappointment. I have always looked forward to physically retreating to a center tucked away in nature. Because of the pandemic, Spirit Rockmade the skillful decision to continue the retreat online through Zoom. I found myself contemplating:
Will an at-home retreat feel as restorative as actually physically going away somewhere?
Will the teaching and learning experience be as powerful and profound conducted online?
How will this impact my relationship with my boyfriend whom I share an apartment with?
To my delight and also acknowledging my personal commitment to discipline, I found that I was able to:
Maintain silence throughout the entire time including simple bows of acknowledgment to my boyfriend as well as strangers who might comment or say something to me in public.
Identify a beautiful spot at the park across the street where I practiced my daily self-directed sitting and walking meditations (this is the photo at the top).
Understand the teachings and wisdom in powerfully profound ways through the computer screen.
My typical day looked like:
8am: Guided Group Sitting Meditation
9am: Self-Directed Walking Meditation
11am: Guided Group Sitting Meditation
12pm: Working Meditation (Cleaning Chores)
1pm: Lunch Eating Meditation
2pm: Self-Directed Walking/Sitting Meditation (or Small Group Reflections w/Teachers on alternating days)
4pm: Qigong Movement Practice
5pm: Evening Talk and Guided Group Sitting Meditation
6:30pm: Dinner Eating Meditation
8:30pm: Self-Directed Walking Meditation
I am grateful for my prior years of practice and believe that all of my learnings on my journey helped to prepare me to open up to what was available on this retreat. In my 10-Day Vipassana Retreat, I learned to sharpen my focus and awareness to notice both gross and subtle sensations throughout my body.
In this retreat, I learned a way to connect specific sensations to certain levels of consciousness. On top of that, I was also able to learn how to invite and recognize many of the more subtle sensations in my life and how to bring them into the foreground of my awareness. I’ll share my personal experiences with the bodies while caveating that words truly cannot fully capture the felt senses I experienced:
Physical Body: feeling into weight, density, bones, very foundational Mindfulness of the body elements.
Vital Body: feeling into energy levels and systems within, the tingling, aliveness of the body, and what one of the teachers described as possible “Champaign bubbles”.
Emotional Body: going beyond single emotions and being able to feel into the capacity for having emotions, like distinguishing between a wave of anger and the larger ocean inside. It feels like I’m laying in Baptism water and noticing surges occurring around me without getting caught up in by any of them.
Etheric Body: feeling into the space around me, making the connection with my ability to “feel a room” and then inviting that subtle feeling into my practice in the moment.
Astral Body: feeling into being slightly spaced out and disembodied, learning to now recognize when this is occurring to invite myself back both in practice and life.
Intuitional Body: feeling into a deep and subtle sense of knowing in my belly.
Spiritual Body: feeling into the sense of possibility in an enlivening way. I was able to connect that this is the sensation I notice when I’m facilitating meditation and mindfulness. Because of this sensation, I knew it to be connected to my life’s work and purpose, I just never had a “map” to name it and would simply say: “I imagine this might be what a Preacher feels when delivering their sermon.”
Divine Body: feeling into love and interconnectedness more deep and powerful than romantic or familial love, inclusive of those who are challenging for me.
My highlights:
Learning from incredible teachers whom I had never heard of prior to the retreat for I had registered based on the topic.
Falling into a deeper level of resting and allowing in my meditation practice. This has brought forth such a greater sense of ease and allowed me to experience what I’ve heard labeled as “Natural Awareness” or “Effortless Mindfulness” with the nuance of turning the lens inward.
A refreshed perspective on how to begin my practice with an arrival opening and the importance of doing so.
Looking at beautiful artistic illustrations interpreting consciousness in a lovely way and incorporating them into the guided practices.
Tuning in to a powerful felt sense of pure interconnectedness and love. Learning a meditation progression to arrive there and to also recognize when it’s present. Now drawing a connection with what I feel when I see a dog!
It’s absolutely possible to have a wonderful silent meditation retreat experience virtually and at home. I loved one of the teachers reminding us that the noise, chaos, emergencies, were to be seen as part of our retreat and not separate. I got to appreciate my neighbors blasting music through the walls, cars honking outside my window and the sound of my boyfriend doing the dishes in the kitchen. Because that is just
I will be continuing and integrating this work into my practice and would recommend this framework to another Vipassana meditator who:
Is curious about mapping the range of their experiences and sensations.
Learn a progression for getting into different felt senses of consciousness.
Looking to bring a greater sense of ease and inviting into their existing practice.
Nine Bodies
Learn more about this framework on Phillip’s website including book information, downloadable guided meditations and future event information.
Last enhanced on June 4, 2020.
