The context
During the last winter, I stayed to Guang Jue Monastery in order to mainly improve both my breathing and concentration skills. I had planned to stay there during one month. I was expecting to define and follow the proper day-to-day routine (Chi Kung practice, meditation sessions, etc.)
A couple of days following my arrival at the Monastery, Malcolm, the Retreat Facilitator, suggested me to do a 3-day period Naikan. Although I was not familiar with that process, I thought that to focus my attention over such a period could be a good exercise by itself.
Malcolm briefly introduced to me the process of Naikan, the three key questions to focus on (what did I receive from the person? What did I give to him/her? What problems/difficulties did I cause to him/her?), and the breakdown of the time focus on each question (20% for the first two questions, 60% for the last one)
The Naikan process
Then being alone, I started to draw three columns on a sheet of paper and looked at the relationship I had with my mother over the first five years of my life. Writing down notes on images, feelings and broad ideas about love, attention, I thought that the exercise might not be as demanding as expected and I was a little confused about why 3 days (or even 7 days) were required to complete it. After 45 minutes, Malcolm went back in order to see whether I was on the right track. When he asked me “could you give me an example of an event where your mother gave you attention during your childhood?”, I was not able to properly answer the question by giving a detailed example. Obviously I was not on the right track and I had to reconsider the amount of diligence and concentration I would put into the exercise. Then, being alone again, I meditated for a very short period of time in order to track any feelings, smells, touches I had when my mother and I were together 30 years ago. It helped me to be more accurate about what I received from her. As a personal guess, it also helped my brain to be more tuned in my early childhood, which is the most difficult period to remember.
Finally on the right track, I spent the rest of the first day looking at the relationship with my mother. From time to time, Malcolm checked my progress. I guess he wanted to be sure that (i) I would dedicate enough time to every question and every stage of the life and (ii) I would be able to keep the required level of concentration and to provide with the adequate level of details of the relationship. It is clear that after a couple of hours of practice, one main risk is to rush and to fail to notice any meaningful event of the relationship.
The next day, I started to look at the relationship with my father. Interestingly I noticed that a lot of feelings (heat, joy, strength, etc.) popped up in my mind quite easily. After one day and one night of brain activity on Naikan, I guess my brain knew what I had to look at. I spent almost the full second day on my father.
During the next two days and half, I reflected in order on my relationship with my sister, uncles, love partners, friends and colleagues (business partners). It encompassed twelve relationship reviews. I also looked at my relationship with some places (e.g. religious retreats), topics (e.g. professional career) and searched whether some patterns appeared. I felt that it might help me to better understand some blockages. However, it diverged from the purposes of Naikan, which are on one side to realize how each person around oneself truly helps one to grow and to build up his/her own identity and on the other side how much graceful and more importantly much disgraceful one behave s with them.
The relationships
The selection of the relationships and the people to look at is probably as important as the meditating process by itself. Depending on the length of Naikan, the number of relationships to be analyzed would be more or less large. Personally I tried to select the most meaningful relationships I had over my life. I truly love most of people I selected but not all of them. Some relationships were terminated; some had lasted only few days; some had been very painful.
Interestingly, at the end of the meditating process, some patterns appear and design a kind of puzzle. You may receive love, attention, or piece of advice from relationships that will help you to face other more challenging or unbalanced relationships. You may also act the same way with all of your friends and cause the same kind of troubles not only to them and but also to other relatives.
I used to play tennis with my best friend almost every day during summer. We knew each other from the kindergarten. We shared passion for sport and practiced a lot together. Even though I was not very talented, I could not cope with the defeat and I defeated him over many years. Luckily, he won the last play we had together. However, I realized that through many years my unconditional desire to win caused him pain and sorrow. I also realized that to look at the Life as a competing field prevented me from being a true friend, meaning someone that is willing to share happiness and puts aside his/her ego.
The people
Through the selection of the relationships and after the meditating process, it appeared to me that people could somehow be “categorized”. Some were like angels providing me with true love, valuable pieces of advices, examples:
My sister appeared to me as an angel full of compassion and love while I used to be arrogant, insulting and cynical about her behavior, her skills.
One of my uncles had been disabled since he was born. Although his handicap was very painful, he and his wife were extremely generous with me and others. They gave me the chance to work in summer in their factory. The work was physically tiring but every day they offered me a great lunch! I had also the great chance to work with factory workers who were very generous very me although theirs resources were limited. Reflecting on my relationship with my uncle and all the people surrounding him, I realized that it gave me an invaluable lesson of life full of sufferings, risks, anger, success and gifts. Repetitive patterns and topics appeared so that the take-away from that relationship was crystal clear.
Some people were like “ego mirrors” or “don’t do it” providing me with fascination, desire, temptation, and guiding me on a wrong path. To me those are quite valuable since one may learn a lot from the relationship review. Again, repetitive patterns (success/failure) and topics appeared over the relationship reviews.
The final step and follow-up
Following to the meditating process, I decided to summarize each relationship by answering the four following questions:
a) how is/was the relationship (e.g. balanced, on-going, complex, etc.)?
b) what did I receive, how did I receive it and how did it affect me?
c) what is the main take-away from the relationship?
d) what can I do to improve the relationship?
For the sake of example, I summed up the relationship with my father as follows:
a) Subtle, complex, mature, struggling, loving relationship,
b) Received a lot of love (e.g. invaluable teachings about life and heath) but misunderstood it very often,
c) True love can be sometimes difficult understand. Always welcome all receiving and do not waste any gift,
d) Thank him for being my father and his love; apologize for my rudeness. Always keep opened my mind.
This summary of a Naikan retreat was submitted by Sebastien a participant at Guang Jue Temple Healing Retreat and serves as an example of discovery from relationships and personal growth through them. Published through his kind permission.
