Why do I want to do Three Year Retreat?
We don’t know why we’re born and die. Mainly we don’t know why we experience what we do in between. But most of us believe there’s something beyond our body simply arriving at birth and departing at death.
Life as a spiritual quest has been my primary inspiration since 1970. My father was an engineer and I was raised to look at the world from a scientific perspective. The more I learned, however, the more I found that, for me, the scientific explanation, although very powerful and useful, doesn’t have answers to the greatest mysteries of life.
His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, began one of his books with “Everyone wants to be happy.” I was so pleased to find a statement so basic and so unassailably true, I jumped from my seat yelling, “Yes!”
But it’s my experience that the answer to what makes us happy doesn’t always come from the scientific method or from unembellished logical thinking. Personally, I experience something akin to “spirit” every day for which science and western thinking in general have no explanation: no explanation how to get it, how to keep it nor what it is.
Basically, since 1970, the underlying purpose of my life has been to live inspirited – energized by an indefinable but readily felt joyful spirit. To support this goal, I’ve tried to learn more about the mysteries and energies that swirl around us just beyond the obvious edge of our “normal” daily lives. In this process, and to satisfy life’s customary expectations for someone like me in the United States, I’ve undertaken a variety of normal and not-so-normal activities.
Since then I:
- - graduated from college;
- - hitchhiked two years between Zen Centers;
- - lived ten years on the water in Alan Watt’s houseboat community on San Francisco Bay;
- - became a General Construction Contractor;
- - married in a Catholic Cathedral;
- - built a house for my family;
- - helped raise a daughter, Alexandra; and a son, Andrew;
- - met my Spiritual Partner, the Lovely Elaine, and my Spiritual Teacher, the Incomparable Geshe Michael Roach, Venerable Lobsang Chunzen;
- - undertook ten-years of study with Geshe Michael to complete the Asian Classics Institute eighteen-course Sutra Teachings and pass the Maroke Exam; and will have completed before retreat begins, the eighteen-course series of Advanced Studies, taken over the past six years at Diamond Mountain University;
- - wrote ten-thousand pages of prose, spiritual observations and poetry. If you wish to explore part of my effort to understand, bewail, rejoice and celebrate the mystery of my human experience, the poetry from those pages is at (http://keithemmons.blogspot.com). It is my gift to you.
My Heart Teacher, Geshe Michael Roach, asks me to teach and Diamond Mountain University is a Teacher’s College, so perhaps I do have some understanding I can share. But I’ve had no earth-shattering revelations. Sometimes I think the world’s most profound teachings are no more than allegory, metaphor and hyperbole – sort of a poet’s view of experiences we all have but consider ordinary. But the world’s most renowned teachers don’t say this. And furthermore, they give us instructions how to experience these same profound, life-changing truths ourselves. The breadth and quantity of the Masters’ evidence, combined with some evidence of my own too, supports my belief that there’s more to these teachings than exaggeration.
My sweet spiritual friend, Geshe Michael Roach, teaches there’s a realization that banishes all doubt about the path to enlightenment. I want that realization.
In studying the wisdom of many cultures ancient and new, the best vehicles I’ve found leading to realizations are three: meditation; the writings of realized Masters; and the guidance of a living realized Master. The great Masters’ advice now, at my level of learning, is to enter into a Great Retreat: three years, three months, three days.
It’s not easy for me to seclude myself for three years. I’ll miss my children, Ali and Andrew. I think they’ll miss me too. I may miss significant life changes among my relatives – a death or birth, a marital breakup, financial success or difficulties, meeting a new life partner, and so on. It’s difficult to explain satisfactorily to friends and relatives why being in retreat, for what seems such a long time, is a good idea.
I feel I’ve participated in worldly life. I’ve tried, to the best of my ability, to serve those who depended upon me. I’ve tried to learn and to teach a little – through writing, through living in accordance with virtuous principals, and through providing public classes.
Circumstances have combined now, indicating this is the time to go into long retreat: years of study and preparation, enjoying a warm and dry location for meditation, possessing the bare financial resources, blessed with a Spiritual Partner, and benefiting from the exceptionally rare availability of a personal Spiritual Master.
It’s incredibly rare in our world that this opportunity comes to anyone. For a few years between now and the time I move on from this body, I have the opportunity, and perhaps the obligation, to focus on seeking spiritual realization exclusively. My age says: make haste. I have the necessary good health. And my unparalleled Teacher has invited me to enter into long term retreat with the other Great Retreat participants at Diamond Mountain. This Retreat is an offering to Geshe Michael Roach, the Venerable Lobsang Chunzin, for His unbelievable kindness, extensive teachings, authentic translations, His transmissions, tireless devotion, and His realizations – may all my Teacher’s wishes and dreams immediately come true.
I pray that after three years of directed meditation I may have more knowledge, some realization, and perhaps some wisdom to share so all of us may live with more comfort, more joy, and in time, complete peace in our world.
Imagine a world of joy
in which you leap from bed
excited to explore the day.
Nature's beauty surrounds you
and everyone you meet inspires you
with their generosity and love.
My goal
is to live in such a world.
And where I do not find it
to help create it.
My cabin is already built. Now I’m helping two nuns at Diamond Mountain build Three Year cabins of their own. The roof and walls of one of them you see in the pictures above. These are unique Earthbag Constuction - the first of their kind approved by code in Cochise County, Arizona. We are still collecting the resources needed to complete their projects. Now we're buying roofing materials, windows and doors, kitchen and bathroom sink, light fixtures and so on. If you’d like to help, please donate through this web site and identify your contributions: “Diamond Mountain Construction, for Venerable Kunga and Venerable Gyelse”
Thank you so much,
Keith Emmons
