Articles About Shambhala Mountain Center
A Retreat from My Retreat
NPR's All Things Considered - August 6, 2004
by Ted Rose
When people come up here to Shambhala Mountain Center, they are usually looking for a break from the regular world. Up here, there is no Wal-Mart, no cellphone service, and no television, just aspen trees, tall wheat grass and lots of talk about meditation. This is a place to be renewed and refreshed. This is a special place.
Sharing my breakfast table with a blissed-out urbanite, over our bowls of granola and yogurt, I am sometimes asked the inevitable question, “So, what is it like to live here all the time?” I mention the contemplative camaraderie and the access to teachers, but I rarely discuss my furtive visits to Motel 6.
:35
When I lived in New York City, however socially I spent my days and nights, I could I always wake up and enjoy a quiet breakfast in the sanctuary of my apartment. I assumed I’d get more of those moments when I moved to a Buddhist retreat in the middle of the Colorado Rockies.
In fact, as a staff member at a public center, I signed on to be a permanent host. And here, I don’t really have a functioning sanctuary. My home, a beat-up old trailer, lacks a kitchen and running water—and my neighbors the mice and the bears keep me from storing much food there. Any time I want to do something social like “eat” or “take a shower,” I am on duty.
My once sacred breakfast time is now open to anyone who saddles up to my table in the common dining hall. I’ve learned to be much more gregarious, but sometimes…I need some space. Earning just a few hundred dollars a month, I don’t have a lot of money to buy it .
That’s how Motel 6 has become my retreat from my retreat.
Attached to the off-ramp of the local Interstate, displaying the cost of single room occupancy in red lights for all motorists to see, Motel 6 is deliciously banal.
I normally speak to one person when I visit Motel 6: the check-in clerk behind the Plexiglas screen. The only thing I bring into my room is food, normally three slices of pizza: two for dinner and one for breakfast. My Motel 6 room is equipped with the mundane efficiencies that my picturesque home lacks—a sink, a shower, and, most important, a cable television.
Once I’ve gotten to the stage of agitation where a Motel 6 visit is a necessity, peace and quiet are simply not enough for me. By that point, I need a television. I pull the cover off of the bed, prop a pillow and watch Weather Channel’s Storm Stories, Larry King interviews, and HBO movies.
I’ve been meditating for three years, but I’ve been watching TV for decades. And following my breath rarely provides the feeling of simple relaxation, of ease, and contentment, that I get quite reliably by spending a night alone lying on a cheap motel bed, eating greasy food and watching bad television.
I like to fall asleep with the television on, so that I can wake up in the morning and watch some more. When it’s time to leave Motel 6, I’m usually happy to go. I leave the plastic key on the dresser and say good-bye—to no one. I get in my car and head back up into the mountains, ready to return to the special place.
More articles
Shambhala Mountain Center Media Contacts:
|
