When I was growing up, my single mom was fond of the riveting car game “let’s see who can be quiet the longest.” My brother and I were very competitive about this game, but because I was older and therefore had more patience, I usually won. That early training—along with a childhood spent playing invisible at my dad’s weekend 70s parties and burying myself in books most of the time—gave me an advantage when I recently attended my first weeklong silent retreat at Spirit Rock.
Unfortunately, it turns out that a mindfulness meditation retreat is not a quiet contest. Nor is it a place for competition—even with oneself. On some level, I already knew these things going in. I’ve dabbled with vipassana long enough (and spent enough years in the yoga world) to have had most of the competitiveness conditioned out of me. Truth is, I was never very competitive to begin with (except at spelling bees and Scrabble).
