Dissolving Boundaries: A retreat testimonial from Francesca Stengel

Dear CCR Community,

Earlier this year I completed my first six-month meditation retreat at the CCR hermitage Miyo Samten Ling in Crestone, and it is a great pleasure to share with you a little bit about myself and the profound experience that these intense months of retreat have been for me, hoping that this short testimony may be useful and inspiring for your practice.

 

 

Ever since I was a teenage girl I had been asking myself who we are, and where we come from, and then seeking answers to these questions by persistently searching my mind to discover dimensions of my past life. At that time I had never practiced meditation, and yet I instinctively knew that it was in the space of the mind, through introspection, that I could find the answers to those questions, but after a while my concentration would falter and I would get lost in that dark and empty space. And my search stopped—I couldn’t find the answers.

After working in advertising and media for almost thirty years, it was meeting Lama Alan Wallace that convinced me to leave my job and retire early to have the time to attend his eight-week meditation retreats. I was fortunate enough to be accepted into one of the first eight-week shamatha retreats in Phuket in 2011, and since then I have attended every eight-week retreat, either in person or online when it was not possible to attend in person. The teachings I received from Lama Alan, and the study of them along with contemplation and meditative practice, have been a source of profound inspiration and spiritual and personal growth. During these same years I had begun to volunteer in the nonprofit sector, co-founding a charity to support the establishment of a nunnery school in Nepal, which is still thriving.

I set aside several months each year for solitary meditation retreats. The months spent in solitude, contemplation, and meditation were an indelible experience, a source of profound insight and peace that I remember as moments of grace, priceless gifts, and blessings. Meditation on the Four Immeasurables allowed me to gain insight into the lack of boundaries between myself and others, and to generate great compassion for every aspect of the human condition. The teachings on dependent origination and meditation on the nature of mind, where the imaginary differences between me and others dissolved, left room for a feeling of loving-kindness and compassion. Listening to and contemplating Lama Alan’s commentaries on the texts of Dudjom Lingpa and other masters of the Dzogchen tradition was like the air I breathed, and I found in them the deepest answers to my spiritual quest.

 

 

This past year, the conditions were finally right for me to come to Crestone and do an intensive six-month meditation retreat without interruption.The months I spent in the peace and natural beauty of Miyo Samten Ling, immersed in meditation and the study of the Dharma teachings, surrounded by the loving presence and care of the other retreatants and teachers, were extremely beneficial and deeply meaningful. They were months of solitude, silence, spiritual growth, and deep joy. I never felt alone. The beauty of nature and the richness of the teachings I received were a constant nourishment for my deepest mind.

My time in Crestone flew by, and I had to return to Italy to attend to all that normal, everyday life throws at me. But in my heart remained the wonderful qualities I had cultivated in the six months of the retreat: a deep sense of gentleness, patience, calmness, and more clarity in dealing with every situation. These are qualities that enrich not only my life, but also the lives of the people I come into contact with and those who live around me.

 

 

Sometimes I am still amazed at how much my inner transformation affects others. When this happens—when I see the release of tension, worry, and suffering in others because of this process of spiritual transformation and healing of my mind—I feel great joy and wonder and the wish that all beings may be free from suffering and its causes spontaneously fills my heart.

My deepest gratitude goes to my root teacher Lama Alan who made this possible by guiding me on the Dharma path, for giving me the opportunity to come to the CCR in Crestone, and for offering me the opportunity to return to Miyo Samten Ling to continue my retreat.

My love and deep gratitude goes also to the teachers and community of Miyo Samten Ling for their affection, unwavering care, and support. May the aspirations of Lama Alan and the project of the CCRs flourish throughout the world and bring about a revolution in the science of mind to heal the world.

 

—Francesca