{"id":169,"date":"2008-07-10T15:56:48","date_gmt":"2008-07-10T15:56:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/2008\/07\/i-have-7-days-to-get-enlightened.html"},"modified":"2008-07-10T15:56:48","modified_gmt":"2008-07-10T15:56:48","slug":"i-have-7-days-to-get-enlightened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2008\/07\/i-have-7-days-to-get-enlightened.html","title":{"rendered":"I Have 7 Days to Get Enlightened"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stillman Brown<\/em><\/strong> is on vaca-, uh, retreat.<\/em>
\nTomorrow I embark upon my first meditation retreat, at Karme Choling<\/a> in Vermont, with my kid sister and the fearless and jovial Ethan Nichtern<\/a>. A familiar mixture of anxiety and innocuous, bubbling excitement kept me up last night, like a kid before his first day of sleep-away camp, wondering, “What does it look like? Will the people be nice?,” and “Can I bring beer?”
\nThe odd thing is, I’m not worried about day after day of practice or the potential for upsurges of past anger, hurt, or loneliness. John Kabat-Zinn and Jack Kornfeild both describe long, difficult work with old traumas while on retreat and I think that has become a meme in my brain – Go on retreat, get in touch with deep shit, emerge a better practitioner. The thing is, I don’t feel particularly angsty these days. I’m in a stable living-in-stressful-and-energizing-New York-as-usual state of mind. It’s going to be nice to step away for a week, but I don’t need<\/em> to step away. Perversely, I almost wish I was more messed up right now – more material for the compassionate, ethereal meat-grinder that is meditation.
\nI’m most excited about spending a week with my little sister (who, at 6’1″ isn’t so little), who went off to college last year and whom I don’t get to see very often. I’m thinking the bucolic setting and contemplative atmosphere (replete with chirping Dharma birds and fawning Dharma deer) will keep us from getting into one of our famously violent arguments.
\nAnd then there’s the weather. We’re camping (for free! woo!) on the center grounds and if it rains (as expected) next week, the accumulation of mud, grit, and stinking socks will be a challenge to embrace mindfully.
\nWhatever happens, meditative fireworks or no, I’ll be sure to share my experience (and any and all embarrassing Ethan moments) with ya’ll in a couple of weeks. Wish me luck!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stillman Brown is on vaca-, uh, retreat. Tomorrow I embark upon my first meditation retreat, at Karme Choling in Vermont, with my kid sister and the fearless and jovial Ethan Nichtern. A familiar mixture of anxiety and innocuous, bubbling excitement kept me up last night, like a kid before his first day of sleep-away camp,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":184,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-and-media"],"yoast_head":"\nI Have 7 Days to Get Enlightened - One City<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2008\/07\/i-have-7-days-to-get-enlightened.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I Have 7 Days to Get Enlightened - One City\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Stillman Brown is on vaca-, uh, retreat. Tomorrow I embark upon my first meditation retreat, at Karme Choling in Vermont, with my kid sister and the fearless and jovial Ethan Nichtern. A familiar mixture of anxiety and innocuous, bubbling excitement kept me up last night, like a kid before his first day of sleep-away camp,…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2008\/07\/i-have-7-days-to-get-enlightened.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"One City\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-07-10T15:56:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Stillman Brown\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"I Have 7 Days to Get Enlightened - One City","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2008\/07\/i-have-7-days-to-get-enlightened.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"I Have 7 Days to Get Enlightened - One City","og_description":"Stillman Brown is on vaca-, uh, retreat. Tomorrow I embark upon my first meditation retreat, at Karme Choling in Vermont, with my kid sister and the fearless and jovial Ethan Nichtern. A familiar mixture of anxiety and innocuous, bubbling excitement kept me up last night, like a kid before his first day of sleep-away camp,…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2008\/07\/i-have-7-days-to-get-enlightened.html","og_site_name":"One City","article_published_time":"2008-07-10T15:56:48+00:00","author":"Stillman Brown","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2008\/07\/i-have-7-days-to-get-enlightened.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2008\/07\/i-have-7-days-to-get-enlightened.html","name":"I Have 7 Days to Get Enlightened - One City","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-07-10T15:56:48+00:00","dateModified":"2008-07-10T15:56:48+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#\/schema\/person\/e88b2009418ba49599205f954bf2728d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2008\/07\/i-have-7-days-to-get-enlightened.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2008\/07\/i-have-7-days-to-get-enlightened.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2008\/07\/i-have-7-days-to-get-enlightened.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"I Have 7 Days to Get Enlightened"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/","name":"One City","description":"The Interdependence Project","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#\/schema\/person\/e88b2009418ba49599205f954bf2728d","name":"Stillman Brown","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c4d\/c4d17164aa454ee9ab1f613d5e884037x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c4d\/c4d17164aa454ee9ab1f613d5e884037x96.jpg","caption":"Stillman Brown"},"description":"Stillman Brown is a photographer, writer, and meditation practitioner living in Brooklyn, NY. He loves apple pie and retreats at Karme Choling. He blogs about his photo experiences at: http:\/\/www.stillmanbrownphoto.com\/blog\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/author\/stillmanbrown"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/184"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}