Discovering in Silence. The Vipassana Meditation Experience.
It turned out to be probably the most challenging 10 days ever. And it wasn’t the getting up at 4am, the last meal at noon or the code of silence. It wasn’t the lack of coffee. It was the whole journey to your deep insides that overwhelmed just about anyone.
I went there with an expectation of achieving a quieter mind by seeing things they way they “really were”. But I don’t think I really knew what that meant. Little did I expect to see the meditation practice alter daily behavioural habits. Deeply rooted, stubborn, practiced from childhood habits. Reconditioning, reforming, rewiring.
We are conditioned that what is outside of us is the real world and that is the world that shapes us; who we are and who we become. How we respond, how we develop. An alternative view is that it’s all in your mind, our insides and insights that shape the person you want to be.
Surprisingly, meditation is hard hard work; so demanding physically and mentally that I refuse to call it a ‘retreat’ and would settle only for a ‘boot camp’.
Surprisingly, not all insights from self-observation are pleasant. We are very selective in our view of ourselves. We unknowingly strike a flattering pose when we look at a mirror. We exclaim: “Did I really look and say this?!” when we look at a candid video recording playback of ourselves.
We see the images we want to see of ourselves and not what they really are.
Vipassana meditation taps into this basic fact and teaches a technique for observing reality from every angle.
This is my story how I learned it.
Vipassana, as a meditation technique
Vipassana means ‘insight’ and is the purest form of meditation technique taught by Buddha 2500 years ago. Its pragmatic nature and emphasis on experience attracts thousands of students. It’s completely non-sectarian, not idolizing any individual. A calmer mind is not the end benefit but the means to our own mind which can make us a happier person. Buddha was a good marketer back then, to grasp the technique idea he packaged the practice into the Noble Eightfold Path. I don’t plan to lay it all out here in detail, can be read here, but all I will say is: it just makes things simple, logical and actionable. None of that lofty philosophical mambo-jambo my little mind switches off to after 2 minutes.
I will describe the practice in Part 1 and Part 2 teachings; it’s my own way but it will work best this way.
Part 1: Practical Philosophy. The premise of the Noble Eightfold Path is eradication of aversion, craving and ignorance that is the foundation to a better self. It’s simple; take aversion: I see something I don’t like, I react; with anger, fear and all sorts of undesired actions. I allow myself feel miserable right after; “Oh, I should have not been that harsh to this waiter”, “This lawsuit took 3 years of my life away”. Next, take craving and attachment. We get a promotion, 2 months later we start comparing ourselves to someone else and feel miserable if no next uplift happens. Latest car model, latest iPod, latest, latest. More, more and more. The ever-present feeling of misery when we don’t get it. Attachment also refers to clinging to feelings and emotions such as self-praise, inflated egos. “Oh, how wonderful is the day when I’m quoted on the papers”. And how low I feel when I don’t get the media attention. Attachments, cravings - our silent madness creators.
Having said that, it does not mean we should not be driven, ambitious and strive for a better future. It’s about moderation and having the bell ring in our head to signal when too much is coming.
Part 2: The Technique. The meditation technique is taught in 10-day, 30- and 45-day courses. The 10-day course starts with the first 3 days focusing on observing (not modifying, speeding or controlling) our own breath. Just the breath. It’s calming, relaxing, it starts getting you in the zone. Day 4 afternoon the real Vipassana starts; the focus now expands to observing your body sensations; tickles, pains, air brushes, tingling, throbbing, whatever. You are taught to find, observe these sensations first. Then, the focus is on NOT giving them reactions such as hating your pain. Or craving pleasant sensations. Sounds easy? Well, try; sit down like a yogi with an unsupported back, close your eyes and do what I just described. Try 30 min first. The trick is not to hate the pains you get. We used to do 10 hours a day, including 3 hours of ‘strong determination’ when you should not move at all. It’s not easy to go against your conditioned responses ie “I hate this darn back ache!”
I have to admit it took me good 2 days of thinking to connect why we observe our breath and body sensations without reacting to them (Part 2), and how they are connected to practicing the Noble Eightfold Path (Part 1), which together they make an impact on our behaviour.
So here it is (they don’t really tell you this in the course): the meditation practice of observing yourself and not reacting to aversions such as for example severe body aches is like a re-conditioning exercise for your mind. Our poor little conditioned mind does as it pleases most of the time; it REACTS. It is meant for us, in real life, similarly to the meditation practice, to start observing our daily behaviour and responses and stop reacting. Which means pausing and realizing ‘yeah, this email is not what I expected but I’m not going to get all pissy about it and fire back the sender”. With a daily mediation practice of Vipassana where breath, awareness and reactions are observed scrupulously, they will eventually become our second nature. A calmer, happier nature.
The technique gets a little more intricate that this, but this is the highlight. It’s taught from video and voice recordings of the late SN Goenka who is as enchanting, pragmatic, humorous and inspiring, just as Dalai Lama.
I hope this explanation clears the difference between a 1-week meditation retreat where they teach you how to relax and calm your mind and this boot camp. At the end, I see this technique as one that equips you with tools for a long-term drive rather than a superficial ‘feel good’ that vanishes 2 weeks after you land back home and go back to your old habits and conditioned reactions.
My own Vipassana Journey
I signed up 4 months earlier to make sure I get a spot at Dhamma Giri, the global Vipassana centre at Igatpuri, 150km outside of Mumbai. The courses are popular, they fill up very quickly. To get a fuller perspective, I read many blogs of people who completed the course and the experiences varied as colours of a rainbow. I was in for my own ride but nothing prepared me for this journey.
I broke one code of conduct; I kept a daily journey. Writing is my remedy I wasn’t going to give up. Looking at the journal today it is an emo-screaming blonde on a roller-coaster of wanting to run away one moment and run to the pagoda hall for the 4:30am meditation session another.
From Day 1 I withdrew to a perfectly sterile world of my own thoughts and observations. Set under a mountain range resembling the rock formation of the Grand Canyon, clear blue skies, crisp air, you can’t ask for a better world.
In this world, you get up at 4am easily as you are feeling light from not having any heavy meal the night before. Strictly vegan food (delicious) cooked with no onions and garlic (so no farting). No coffee. Gender separation is good, it does not bring any distraction. Silence is the best. I broke the silence to show a struggling girl how to use pillows to sit more comfortably and that completely distracted my next meditation session. Not reading (supposedly writing) is just a way to get you focused. Needless to point out the absence of mobiles, PCs, MP3s, right.. I started weaving a cocoon of silence, reflections, practice and hard work that took me on a solitary but wonderful ride.
We meditated more than we slept. 10 versus 6 hours.
To master the technique we needed consistency, repetition and total calmness. I was so highly aware of the simplest tasks I was performing in the day from taking off my watch to splashing water on my back in the morning bath. There is something beautiful about going back to basics, breaking it all down to a manageable simplicity.
However, I admit counting down EVERY SINGLE DAY. The first 3 days are calming but get boring. The back and knee pains became unbearable. Day 5 and 6 were my lowest points. Even though I never thought of quitting, I did question my decision of doing it, its effectiveness and my own motives. You do it. And so do the 600 other men and women in this pagoda.
It’s one thing to read about people seeing light, having sensations of floating. It’s another to experience it yourself. It firstly feels like walking in a dreamy maze looking gently for something. When I finally got to that extraordinary point of total silence in mind and body sudden memories of childhood starting coming back. My sister and I, age 5 and 6 at our first-ever summer camp somewhere in Denmark. The Danes like doing crazy things with the kids, I remember being out camping by the bonfire on the beach awaiting the sun to rise. And when it did, the sea was so calm, so flat and so immobile, as if god forgot all about it. My mind and body become that sea.
And how wonderful that feels I cannot tell you.
I got up from that session feeling like I owned the world, light on my feet as if I was walking on clouds. Did I mention that I sat through the ‘strong determination’ session without moving a limb? And the pains were gone. All of them.
Now, this is where the danger is, you see. You form a craving for more sessions and wonderful sensations like this. But as a young meditator, they don’t happen every time. The next session was not the same and that throws you off, the pains are back, you focus so hard on not reacting to these pains, accepting them as a sensation not an emotion. Sounds easy? Well, you try now.
I have probably never gone through such an internal battle of having to stabilize my emotions, constantly observe myself, recapping the teachings, pep-talking myself. And you never knew what you were gonna get. I’m so used to very hard work; of stress, timelines, concept creation under pressure, dealing with characters, opinions et al. But you also ‘set up’ some fundamentals to get some predictable results. But here, my Days 1-7 encountered nothing of predictability.
Day 8 brought a break-through point. I was just calming down, getting more consistent. As I sat through these wonderful sensations, a thought of Lucius and Rob came, how happy I was for them. And I burst out crying. So profusely and suddenly it scared me that I’m losing my mind.
And no tissues. The white T-shirt sleeve became useful.
It was not a sad cry, just a release, diffusion, de-grudge kinda cry. I went to talk to my teacher, she assured me it’s perfectly normal, it’s the mental surgery they refer to that brings out lots of knots and deep complexes to the surface. Maybe. I felt better.
It was a home run after that. Day 9 diary entry reads: “I never thought I would write this but I wish we had a few more days here”.
On Day 10 afternoon the silence is broken. I’m not convinced this is the best way to do things but the sudden chatter, unrest was so disturbing that I ran away to the meditation hall. The coming out of the dream was too abrupt to handle.
Who are These People?
In the absence of speaking, I started creating personality maps of the few individuals I would hope to meet later, when we can talk again. It’s fascinating how your body language reading skills sharpen. You then have to wait to validate if what you think is what you get when we all are gabbing again.
Meet Veena, she was Miss Canada and in the top 10 Miss Universe back in the day. Then TV presenter and talk show host. Came here to give Bollywood a chance. There is something magnetic about her and I mark her in my top ‘get to know’ list. Meet Oksun Kim, Korean, teaches yoga, is writing a thesis on advanced yoga and studying Sanskrit at the Puna University. Meet Param, a Punjabi girl from Delhi. When 7 months pregnant, her husband wanted her to abort the pregnancy as it was a girl. She refused. He left her when she was delivering their baby at the hospital. She’s forgiven him and now can only feel sorry for him missing out on being a father. I tell her she’s half-enlightened already. Where does one get that strength and so much compassion? I have tears rolling down my cheeks even now.
Meet Pavini, she’s a beautiful girl whose father got into financial lows. So they married her off to a man in Rhodes Island, the US. She’s still coming to terms with the idea of having to share a bed with a man she met and does not connect with. Meet Faith, she’s a Nigerian journalist, taking time off. Finally, meet Washa, 19 years old. She wants to come to my room later tonight to tell me why she’s here. I press on to learn she saw her sister die in labour, was not allowed at the funeral and still has not come to terms with all of that. I dodge and take her to the teacher to help her cope. Or perhaps help me cope.
These are real stories of women who I think Oprah Winfrey should make Season 35 about. Once I’m done with this article, I’m writing to Oprah. Oh, yes.
It’s these stories that did me in. I was unprepared for all this, especially when delivered in perhaps a total of 2 hours of interactions.
I don’t want to go on about how trivial your world is compared to these women, but it is. And one cannot have more than unconditional respect for them.
Closing Thoughts
It was a time of many “firsts”. The first sitting ultra-marathon, first time sitting unmoved for 1 hour, first concentration span for 2 continuous minutes, first floating sensation, first ‘still sea’ sensation of my mind, first time no coffee for 10 days (since age 16), first time completely tuned into chanting, first time not feeling bored with seemingly little to do, first time losing 3kgs by just sitting on my arse the whole day.
So what now?
It’s only been 3 days since I left so hard to tell, but I’m determined to continue the technique by practicing meditation daily (have been), to make sure it gets reflected in my life consistently and whole-heartedly.
Breaking it down to the simplest of terms; to be happy. And let my happiness spread to you so you can be happy too.
What a simple yet rare idea is that.