The Power of Meditation Retreats: Removing the Suit, Disregarding the Tailor
- alexbonmiller
- Nov 21, 2024
- 7 min read
Parable Alert!
There was a man and he went to a renowned tailor to buy a tailored suit...
Before continuing, I should really let you know that this article is about retreats, especially of the meditative or spiritual variety and how they have the power to ‘straighten us out’, more than anything else I know. And that this ‘straightening out’ is just a metaphorical way to say that they help us be in our naturalness. And they do this by helping us change our relationship to the unnatural ways that we perceive and experience our own mind, body and the world.
Generally, for anyone who has cared to look at themselves, they realize that they need "straightening out". What really causes us to become misshapen and bent out of shape in our lives is the relationship we have to our own mind, body and identity first and the world second. This relationship or way of orienting within ourselves is the internal posture that we take as a result of trauma, conditioning and wrong ideas about ourselves and life. This inner posture really does dictate how we see and experience the world.
Ok right, so back to the story of the man buying the suit...
So, he went to a tailor of some renown and he was satisfied with the measurements and assessments the tailor took; the fabric all suited him and they found common ground on aesthetics. They agreed on a price and the man left.
He goes back to the tailor 1 week later for a final fitting. He’s very pleased by the suit he sees hanging waiting for him. But when he tries the suit on he takes pause… it feels kind of awkward.
Firstly, he notices that the left sleeve is longer than the right… and so he asks the tailor about it. And the tailor responds:
“Oh now, yes, this is part of the fitting… see, look here, if you lift your left shoulder by 3 cm, the sleeve fits perfectly.”
The man lifted his shoulder and checked the sleeve and the tailor was exactly right, the length of the sleeve was just perfect with his new shoulder position. He was pleased, the suit was exquisitely cut!
But his pleasure was interrupted soon thereafter in noticing that the right pant leg was shorter than the left. So, he inquired.
“Yes sir, you’re exactly right, without the proper position, the suit won’t fit perfectly. You simply have to tilt your left hip up just so… yes, just like that… and you’ll see that the pant legs are perfectly fitted and symmetrical.”
The tailor certainly knew his stuff. Suits have to be fitted, after all, thought the man. And with that thought, he noticed the restriction of the waistcoat on his diaphragm.
He didn't even bother asking the tailor about it. He simply sucked in his abdomen just enough and looked in the mirror.
“You look like a new man!” exclaimed the tailor.
And the man beamed with pride at his image in the mirror.
The man paid and walked out the store into the street. He noticed a few passers by stopping mid-stride to admire his new suit. His pleasure grew!
As the man walked past the onlookers, as a new man into his new life with his new suit, one of them commented:
“What an amazing tailor to make such a fine suit for a man of such unfortunate posture!”
Boom! The tragic irony!
In that irony lies a deep pointing regarding the unnatural and unfortunate shape we find ourselves voluntarily adopting as our inner posture, within our lives.
Meditation as our Natural Inner Posture
My wife, Tiffany Nicholson-Smith (TNS), and I live at and run the Vichara Yoga Shala in Wakefield, Quebec. TNS is the head teacher of Yoga, Meditation, and Ayurveda, and I play a supportive role, especially during retreats.
When we host retreats, I take responsibility for the cooking and I also sit in every meditation and attend as many offerings as possible.
I love this dual role of sitting and serving. It allows me to dive inward in contemplation and also observe the group’s collective transformation. I notice how people’s faces change, how their energy changes and how the collective atmosphere or field becomes lighter and clearer as we sit together in silence.
What is causing this? Why is it that when human beings come together in earnest introspection and abidance in silence, they change in this way?
Even though the schedule is rigorous, we don’t emphasize strict physical posture during meditation. Our focus is on helping people discover the easeful, peaceful abode within—their true position of peace and ease, the natural inner posture that is itself meditation.
Meditation then, isn't a doing but an abidance and resting in a silence that is the substratum of every movement, every sound.
If you’ve ever tried to sit silently with yourself, you may have noticed something: it feels effortless and also like the hardest thing in the world! And you'd be right on both counts.
In late September 2024, we hosted a 3-day silent meditation retreat. During the Q&A session, participants could submit questions anonymously, which TNS responded to in a way that wasn’t directed to anyone specifically. This created a space for collective contemplation in silence, generalizing the questions and answers so that everyone can find resonance.
TNS shared this Yiddish parable about the man buying the tailored suit as an answer to one of the participants questions, and it boomed within my consciousness!
Analysis of the Parable of the Tailored Suit
“What an amazing tailor to make such a fine suit for a man of such unfortunate posture!”
Ok, let’s get to a little analysis of the parable and tie it back to how spiritual or meditation retreats help straighten us out.
The tailor of great renown is the ahamkara or “I-maker” within us. This is the function of personhood itself. In which who we take ourselves to be, our “I”, is largely a fabrication of memory, thought, identity, relationship with others, belief and conditioning.
The “tailor” (ahamkara) within us then, uses all these “measurements”, “fabrics” and “aesthetics” to craft us an identity that we take on as ourselves… as a means for interfacing with the world of names and forms.
It is as if our "suit" is constantly being modified or exchanged to fit the timing of our lives. We had an identity, with its corresponding beliefs, behaviours, habits and ways of being at every stage of our growth (child to elder). But at every point, can we really say that we felt totally comfortable in our "suit", our identity, our role? Wasn't there always something missing or not quite right about who we were taking ourselves to be?
Yes, we become a "new man" when we embrace the I-Maker's offering of redefining ourselves... but what of having to hold that shoulder up 3 cm indefinitely to fit the new suit? If being who you are requires effort and strain, are you really positioned in your own self? Maybe you're trying to fit a concept of who you are, rather than being who you are.
The irony of the man having to "tailor" his body to fit the suit, is pointing to the hilarity of our own self-imprisonement of taking ourselves to be what we're not. In tailoring a suit to enhance our lot in the world, we end up a moving mannequin, carrying the burden of inauthenticity.
Many people come into spirituality and meditation retreats desperate to undress themselves, to take off the suit that they've been so uncomfortably wearing for so long. They feel an intuitive sense that being who you are shouldn't require effort and strain, it should be the ground of their very own self that they can rest on. They're right, and this opportunity is everyone's birthright!
When we are in our day to day life, we can forget what we're wearing. The demands of the world are such that we simply hop to and don the trappings of the world's projections. Have you noticed the momentum of this when left unexamined and the density of unnaturalness that grows?
In the story, as he passes the onlookers, they comment on the mastery of the tailor to enhance the look and body of the man. But the man’s bodily contortions are the result of the suit or enhancement itself! You cannot improve upon who you really are, really... not anymore than you can really be the clothes you wear.
We accept the various suits delivered unto us by our inner tailor, the Ahumkara or I-Maker. We abdicate our naturalness of who we are to the psychological mind’s assessment of our dimensions, the worldly trending styles and our “needs”. And we move in the world, like the man, uncomfortable and having to hold ourselves in a particular way, thinking we are enhanced!
And we can live our entire lives in this way, crippled by our own wrong self-identification with that which limits and constrains our freedom and expression.
In summary
Retreats, quite simply, especially silent meditation retreats, give us a chance to take the suit off! When we do, we get to relax our shoulder, level out our hips and free up our diaphragm. We get to breathe and be breathed by the natural power of our own being, unconstrained by the unnatural posture required in donning the suit.
As we sit, align with and abide in silent awareness as who we are, we get to see very clearly the ahumkara, the I-maker at work. The tailor will present us with images, memories, thoughts, fantasies, habits, grievances, fabrics, style considerations, measurements, aesthetic choice points, prices and timelines… it all comes to be seen and recognized for what it is... something secondary to who we really are.
And as we choose the silent, immutable space of awareness over the temptation to be fitted for the next suit or to have alterations done on the last one; the fitting process, the suit and the tailor all disappear! This is when the silence of being as the true inner posture becomes more than just a concept... it becomes a lived reality.
I said at the beginning of this article that retreats can straighten us out. And that can mean something different to everyone. What I mean by being “straightened out” is the chance to relax into the natural posture of who we really are, most fundamentally. To drop the false inner posture of being who we are not.
In doing so, again and again, we begin to relax into a body and mind more aligned with the naturalness of our being, which blesses our life in innumerable ways.
If inspired to join a silent meditation retreat with TNS at the Vichara Yoga Shala, please take a look at her retreat schedule at tiffanynicholson.smith.com/retreats. If the article resonates and you long to explore who you are beyond persona, beyond who you've taken yourself to be, book a discovery call with me at alexanderbon-miller.com/services.
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