Given that a large part of my inspiration to create this blog has come from my experience studying Vipassana meditation, I thought I would include a message that I sent to my peers about my experience studying the technique. For me, Vipassana was like doing 3 years of therapy in 10 short days. Anyway, here is the message:
First, I’d like to thank all of you for the compliments on my updates. I must admit I am flattered and even a little startled by the enthusiasm of your responses. Secretly, I am thrilled that you have asked for more details on the retreat. I wanted to write about it in the last email, but it seemed so incredibly long… as is this one…
Anyway, when I last left off, there were about 40 of us waiting on the curb in front of Hotel Terminus in Laroches-Migennnes. After about 2 hours, the shuttle arrived to take us to the center. I guess there were only 34 seats in the shuttle so 6 people were left standing outside on the curb. Apparently, they hadn’t read the email instructions in their entirety so they had not RSVP’d for the shuttle. They ended up sharing a taxi shortly after we left.
It was a very beautiful ride into the countryside, but it was riddled with anxiety for me. I still had no idea what I had really signed up for. After about 20 minutes, I finally realized we were being taken away from society. I am sure quite a few car commercials have been filmed in these areas. No homes or structures were in sight. Just perfectly paved roads, somewhat narrow, stretching into the countryside. Where we were going, there would be no computers, no radios, no televisions, no newspapers, no cell phones, no ipods, and no talking. We were being stripped of all the things that we take for granted.
After about 45 minutes, I began so see a farm here, a house there. Deep off in the distance, I saw some large structures, and I knew that must be the Vipassana Center. Finally the shuttle turned down a long road that had these large, beautiful trees on each side, planted in formation. They almost appeared as columns along the road. Once the shuttle parked, we unloaded our things and were herded into the building to check in.
They had all of us fill out a questionnaire, which was identical to the one we had already filled out online. The final question on it was, “What is your current state of mind?” As fantastic as the retreat was, this was a very appropriate question. Vipassana stirs up a lot of demons. If your state of mind isn’t in the proper place, one could easily crack.
During check in, I surrendered my cell phone, ipod and my journal. I was given my room assignment, so I rushed into the next building to see what the accommodations were like. The dorm was essentially a huge room divided off into sections. In each section there were 6 beds. 5 people were assigned to my section, so we had one empty bed. At this point, I prayed that there were no snorers in my group (and luckily there weren’t).
At the end of the main hall, there was a huge bathroom with 8 to 10 sinks, about just as many shower stalls and 3 toilets, one of which was a Turkish toilet (pretty much a porcelain hole in the ground that you squat over… ugh!). Thankfully, the regular toilets were almost always available, so I was able to avoid the Turkish one.
Shortly after I set up my bed, I returned to the main hall where they fed us. It was about 5pm by then. After our meal, we were given the code of conduct, and then the silence began. Several people had begun chatting on the shuttle, but I chose to remain silent pretty much from the time I deboarded the train. To my dismay, when I returned to the bathroom just before lights out, I discovered a sign that said, “Hot water to return tomorrow.” There was no way I was going to take a cold shower on that first night. It had gotten a little chilly after sundown, so I washed up in the sink, and went to bed.
Day one started with a gong going off at 4am. About a month before, I had done another retreat in Barcelona. There, we reported to the Dharma room at 6am. There is a huge difference between 4am and 6am. 6am is early, but I at least felt like I was present in the room at that time. At 4am, I was in some kind of a daze. Luckily, I had readied my things the night before, because we dressed in the dark.
At 4:30 we reported to the Dhamma Hall. The first technique that we were given was to close our eyes and concentrate on our breathing. We were asked to be aware of the breath coming in and out of our nostrils. This exercise is so much harder than it sounds. I would concentrate on my breath and then I would think, “I wonder if that hot water’s gonna be back on by the end of today.” Every couple of breaths, I would find myself thinking about this thought, or that thought. I thought about what a nice time I had in Austria and in Paris. During the instruction, we were told, “Your mind will wander, and as soon as you become aware that it has wandered, bring your attention back to your breath.” After a few hours of this, I began to get really frustrated. Luckily, the instruction said, “Don’t get frustrated.” That helped me to relax.
For several hours this went on. My attention wandered literally about every 3 seconds. Toward the end of each day, we were shown a video discourse featuring the man who created the course, S.N. Goenka. During his first speech, he said, “Probably a lot of you couldn’t hold your attention for more than a couple of breaths. You are probably wondering what kind of mind do you have. Why can’t you pay attention?” I was so happy when I heard this because that is exactly what I was thinking. As the discourse continued, I realized the technique had helped me see just how stormy my mind can be. I had spent about 8 hours listening to the chatter in my head. It was like someone was tuning a radio, but they never stopped on one channel. Therefore there were pieces of this memory and that thought, but no focus. No clarity. Believe it or not, this went on for two more days. Each day was a little better. The wanderings of my mind became less frequent, changing from every 3 seconds to every 10 seconds. There was improvement, but still not what I thought I would be capable of.
I have never been to psychotherapy, but I figured that it must feel something like this. Sitting in a room, sifting through all of the thoughts in your head, and trying to figure out which ones are holding you back from succeeding at whatever. It was such a great feeling to begin having some sense of clarity about what goes on in my own head.
To my surprise, at the end of day 3, Goenka said in the video discourse, “Tomorrow is a big day because you begin Vipassana.” I was caught off guard because I thought we had been doing Vipassana all along. As it turned out, the first method is called Hanapana Meditation. I guess I wasn’t paying attention with my wandering mind.
On the 4th night, after we had completed our first Vipassana lesson, the dorms were strange to say the least. On all of the previous nights, all of the meditators pretty much retired at 9:30pm, but on this night, people were still wandering around, talking, banging about in the bathroom. After I finally fell asleep, I was awakened by one of my roommates around 1am. He was arguing with someone in a dream, and talking out loud in his sleep. He was so loud that people in other sections of the dorm were commenting on what he was saying. It was kind of funny, but a little annoying. The 6.5 hours sleep that our timetable allowed turned out to be about 5.5 hours that night.
So, what is Vipassana? Goenka described it as a complex surgery to remove impurities from the mind. Once you begin to see what’s going on in your mind, you have to begin cleaning house and remove the thoughts, ideas, concepts, experiences that are bringing negativity into your life. It’s too complex for me to explain how it works in an email, but suffice it to say that it works. Once you start Vipassana, you will notice subtle to severe changes in your breathing, and heart rate. There were quite a few people hyperventilating in the Dhamma Hall. And you knew they were getting aggravated because of their issues and traumas rising to the surface.
Immediately after starting Vipassana, I found myself getting very agitated. On day 6, I was in the Dhamma Hall sobbing uncontrollably. I thought of what I had heard from people who have done therapy. Pretty much all of them have said you don’t really experience a breakthrough until you cry in a session. Well, I knew I had just had a big breakthrough… quite a catharsis I had that day.
In one of his discourses, Goenka explained that in India they categorize 3 different kinds of wisdom. There is secondhand wisdom that you hear or read about. There is wisdom that you intellectualize, and then finally there is experiential wisdom. In their esteem the best wisdom to have is experiential. I can tell you about this method, but the best way to understand it is to do it for yourselves.
One of my roommates quit on day 3, and a second one dropped out on day 8. I say this to underline how challenging the program is. Because we weren’t able to speak at that point, I have no idea why they left, but this retreat really does require a strong state of mind and determination.
I certainly recommend it, and I am eternally grateful that my friend, Dave, steered me in the direction, pushing me year after year to do the retreat. Honestly, it has been 5 or 6 years since he first mentioned it to me. I am glad however that I waited until now to do it.
If any of you are interested, here is the website. You will see links to the different locations on the left.
http://www.dhamma.org
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