10 days of silence.
I will be going away for 10 days to Vipassana Meditation Centre at Igatpuri, 150km outside of Mumbai. It’s the mother temple that I applied months ago to and finally got a place. Vipassana is a form of meditation focused on observing your thoughts and gaining better insights to yourself. In simple terms: to see things the way they really are. I know too little to go on about it right now.
What I do know however is that we are to remain silent for full 10 days, rise at 4am, start meditation at 4:30am, meditate 10 hours a day, go to sleep at 9pm. The last meal is at noon. No mobile phones, no book, not even a writing pad. No sports. It’s just you, yourself and you. You better like yourself…
People ask me why I want to put myself through this.
My answer is; it’s the end benefits I’m interested in, not the process.
And what would the end benefit be? A calmer mind, more controlled emotions, more forgiving soul, more of a quiet self-confidence. Just a happier Magda. It’s not that I’m in shambles, falling apart, ruined by bad relationships. None of that. I’ve had brief and inconsistent affairs with meditation (India, Sri Lanka, China) and found them essential to everything I do and am; how I interact with people, how my friendships develop, how I feel about myself, about the things I want to do and the vibe I project on you.
I have a fridge magnet (now in storage, of course) which reads ‘What would Buddha do?”. And you have no idea how many times I made decisions; from trivial to big ones; based on the little I know and admire about Buddha.
For now, I cannot wait to get back on Facebook in 11 days’ time and tell you all about it.