ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: Thank you for joining us today. In this special episode, we’ll drop into an immersive meditation designed to help you reflect on someone in your life who embodies a quality or qualities you’d like to cultivate. 

With it being Women’s History Month, I’ve been reflecting on the women who have made an important impact on my life, and in particular the teachers who helped me along my adventures in meditation and mindfulness. 

And I realize when I’ve spoken about my teachers in the past I have mainly spoken about men. That’s due in part to how male-dominated the monastic elements of the traditions I’m most closely aligned with are. But I have to admit that it’s also due to my own bias. An unconscious bias that so many men carry around. So in an effort to balance that out and celebrate this special day, I want to dedicate this episode to the woman who has had the most influence on how I understand and share meditation. Christina Feldman. 

Christina Feldman is part of that generation of teachers who traveled over to Asia, and ended up training incredibly deeply in meditation, only to then come back to the West and essentially create the structural foundations of modern mindfulness as we know it today.  While the likes of Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, and Joseph Goldstein are perhaps better known (the latter two having featured on the podcast before), Christina is just as important. Not only did she co-found Gaia House, the UK retreat center which is arguably the most influential non-monastic centre outside of Asia and the U.S., she also set up the first major Women’s Retreat in the West, run out of the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts. So it’s perhaps especially fitting to celebrate her this month.

It was at Gaia House that I first met Christina. While not officially resident there, she lived nearby and as the guiding teacher was often at the new year retreats which I would regularly attend. I remember her talking about what it was like as a young woman trying to learn meditation in Asia — in Thailand in particular — in a culture and a time where it just wasn’t done. She ended up basically refusing to leave until she got taught. At the time, I could not reconcile that fiery character she described with the small, softly spoken older woman in front of me. And I became an instant fan.

At Gaia House, the vast majority of the meditation retreats are silent. So for the weekend, the 10 days or however long, the only time you are expected to talk is when in sessions with the teachers or when doing your chores if you need to or during any emergencies of course. Some people struggle with it, but I never have.

Of course, there does still need to be some sort of communication system and the answer at Gaia house is the famous notice board. 

Up in the corridor halfway between the dining area and the beautiful main meditation hall, this is where you’ll find the daily schedule, other general messages and most excitingly personal notes. With little in the way of entertainment on a silent retreat, a slow walk past the notice board becomes its own form of excitement — a kind of extremely analogue social media feed.

So imagine my excitement when on one of these slow fly-bys, hang on … is that my name? It is! There’s a message for me. A small slip of paper, folded over with Rohan written on it in ballpoint pen and pinned to the board with a drawing pin. You take what you can on retreat, and this was as exciting as watching your favorite Netflix action show. 

“Rohan, come and find me in the teacher’s room when you’ve had your lunch. I’ve got something I’d like to ask you. Christina.”

Wait, what? 

Later that day, amongst the quiet murmur of the teacher’s room, Christina tells me that there won’t be any teachers available for the sitting meditation session before the evening talk and that she’d like me to sit up front, in the teacher’s seat. And to ring the bell to mark its end. I’ve only really been meditating for a couple of years so on the inside I’m super confused why she’s asked me. On the outside I say, “Of course I will.”

The sitting hall at Gaia House is one of my favourite places on earth. The whole building is an old priory and the high vaulted ceiling of the hall just resonates with that which is special. 

The session lasts 45 minutes from 6:30 to 7:15 in the evening. I sit facing the 70 or so other participants, the black digital clock with the red numbers facing me, a small Tibetan singing bowl beside me to act as the bell.

It’s here for the first time that I experience what it’s like to be in a position of someone sharing meditation. Obviously I’m not teaching or guiding anything, the way that evening session works is just that people do what they need to do based on the instructions they’ve had on the retreat so far. But I am guiding things in a way. Through my posture, how I am, through my energy. I’m sharing my being. And it’s thrilling. My mind drops into a kind of steadiness that is so vibrant and on. I’ve not experienced anything like it before, certainly not as quickly in my regular practice. I open my eyes and gaze on everyone there doing their thing in their own way, and I feel so connected and so great. Years later when I hear the phrase ‘holding space’ I realize a-ha, I know what that means, what that is.

 At 7:15, I strike the bell, It sounds nicely, filling the hall but not too much. I let it the sound disappear before I strike it again and then stand and take a place with everyone else for the talk. It’s Christina’s turn to give the talk tonight and she talks about equanimity, what it is, why it’s often misunderstood and how it can be the key to everything. The wisdom delivered in her sing song voice is the best. It resonates like a bell, reverberating in each of our minds and bodies. I think that if the Buddha was a cool badass grandma, they’d be like Christina.

The talk ends and there is another shorter sitting. Christina stands and files out and as she passes me on my cushion she looks at me and smiles. You’re welcome, say her eyes.

It’s that evening which plants the seed in me that I might — maybe not be a teacher in the way that Christina is — but be someone who shares their understanding, and I found my own unconventional way to do that. That’s all Christina. And I only really just realized that now as I say this. Thank you Christina. 

As we start to close, let’s take some time and bring to mind a woman in your life who shares some of the qualities that so speak to me in Christina. Wise, generous, strong, surprising, expressive. A woman who has pointed things out in yourself that you might not have otherwise seen. A woman entirely themselves.

Allow that woman to hold space in your mind, in your heart, in your body. Allow their presence to resonate with yours. You don’t have to be exactly like them, you don’t have to mirror them, but you can allow their essence to influence you in a positive way.

Just as when I was sitting up top in the meditation hall I held myself as an expression of Christina’s trust in me as an example, can you in your body, in your posture be influenced by your hero?

And with them in mins, celebrate them. Thank them.

Love them as you always love them.

You can find like a million of her talks online if you fancy hearing from Christina’s depth of knowledge. I encourage you to  find something with a title that speaks to you maybe, it’ll be time well spent. 

Thank you Christina for everything. And happy Women’s History Month. 

And thank you. ‘Till next time.