Meditation with Marc: Simple yet Profound

A little over a month ago I had the opportunity to go on a meditation retreat in Catalonia led by Marc, psychologist, therapist and expert in meditation. After he and his team welcome us, he brings us together in the beautiful activity room where we will carry out the meditation sessions. Given that the group has a great diversity of experience regarding meditation, very assertively, Marc gives us a pedagogical lesson by reminding us of the basis and the essence, which are the foundations that support the state of meditation. With an ethereal voice, he leads us and eases us into the meditative experience.

When I immerse myself in my inner space, an infinity of sensations and thoughts emerge. I find the sophisticated and elaborate machinery of the mind, with its thoughts that appear and intersect, even drag me to its thread of thought. All kinds of thoughts appear: abstract, figurative, imaginative, literal, neurotic, fantastical, creative, cruel… There is no need to feel alarmed about what one is thinking, since the mind is so unpredictable. It is not what we think that matters but how we manage it.

The process of intimacy that one experiences in a meditative state is insurmountable when one enters it deeply. The space where you can listen to your inner self. A contemplative look at the essence. The interior and the exterior manifested in being. Personally, I believe that this is where the crux of life lies, to find the harmonization between essence and presence. A perfect union. A divine and human equation. I increasingly appreciate simple things. Feel and see things that are simple by nature. It seems that the word simplicity is in disuse in our society that seeks constant sophistication and complexity.

The mind leans towards sophistication with its thought pattern acquired during life. This sophistication or elaborate cogitation is not something negative; however, an excess of this thought process moves us away from our essence and – in its external manifestation – being.

If one takes away all the covers with which we wrap ourselves with, eventually you find the core, the essence, our interior. In the end, we become entangled in this cover, and that distances us from our centre, our Self. The process of meditation is simplicity. Searching for inner peace and, along with this, the self. How to coexist and balance our mind. A search for equidistance, the silent equidistance.

We had a wonderful experience writing Haikus. These are short Japanese poems based on the amazement, the emotion, and the inspiration that the contemplation of nature produces. And what better way to do this than in the gorgeous space (Can Gironès) we find ourselves in? Each of us goes silently into the outdoors, looking for a private place, a place of inspiration and a connection with nature. Once the time limit for writing is over, we head back to the room where we leave our Haikus anonymously. Everyone takes one. Reading them all, I am moved, there is a thrill that runs through me, and I truly feel. All of them are extremely deep, incredibly beautiful. As Marc says, sometimes, we write for others and at times for ourselves. What happens is that some of the retreat participants end up with their own Haiku and for the rest, we feel the Haiku as if we had written it ourselves. It’s funny how synchronicity is present. Nothing happens ‘just because’.

I would like to thank Marc for his closeness, simplicity, and wisdom in this meditation. Thank you so much for guiding me through this amazing experience. I will carry it with me.

Here are my Haikus connected with Nature:

My shadow remains

I feel the stealth of my stomach

The roar is made to wait

Slow steps

The underbrush crunches

The cricket jumps Enamoured

Each stone is a neighbour

Angular With a round look

A clothed mountain Approaches

The wind,

Smoothe my green skin

The slope appears,

The fire on my face

My gaze falls

Textures of clouds In motion

Clean the blue

My sea quietens

The branch of my heavy body rests

Salvia of my roots

Light awakening