I have wanted to take a 10-day vipassana course since a few friends told me about it a few years ago. Since I was traveling to India and a town called Sarnath, about 14km from Varanasi I found a place called Dhamma Chakka Meditation Center.
Here’s a bit of a description of what the process of Vipassana is like…
Vipassanā means “insight” in the ancient Pāli language of India. It is the essence of the teaching of the Buddha, the actual experience of the truths of which he spoke. The Buddha himself attained that experience by the practice of meditation, and therefore meditation is what he primarily taught. His words are records of his experiences in meditation, as well as detailed instructions on how to practice in order to reach the goal he had attained, the experience of truth.
If a technique exists that has been maintained for unknown generations, that offers the very results described by the Buddha, and if it conforms precisely to his instructions and elucidates points in them that have long seemed obscure, then that technique is surely worth investigating. Vipassana is such a method. It is a technique extraordinary in its simplicity, its lack of all dogma, and above all in the results it offers.
Vipassana meditation is taught in courses of ten days, open to anyone who sincerely wishes to learn the technique and who is fit to do so physically and mentally. During this time, participants remain within the area of the course site, having no contact with the outside world. They refrain from reading and writing, and suspend any religious or other practices, working exactly according to the instructions given. For the entire period of the course they follow a basic code of morality which includes celibacy and abstention from all intoxicants. They also maintain silence among themselves for the first nine days of the course, although they are free to discuss meditation problems with the teacher and material problems with the management.
The experience of ten days is likely to contain a number of surprises for the meditator. The first is that meditation is hard work! The popular idea that it is a kind of inactivity or relaxation is soon found to be a misconception. Continual application is needed to direct the mental processes consciously in a particular way. The instructions are to work with full effort yet without any tension, but until one learns how to do this, the exercise can be frustrating or even exhausting. Another surprise is that, to begin with, the insights gained by self-observation are not likely to be all pleasant and blissful. Normally we are very selective in our view of ourselves. When we look into a mirror we are careful to strike the most flattering pose, the most pleasing expression. In the same way we each have a mental image of ourselves which emphasizes admirable qualities, minimizes defects, and omits some sides of our character altogether. We see the image that we wish to see, not the reality. But Vipassana meditation is a technique for observing reality from every angle. Instead of a carefully edited self-image, the meditator confronts the whole uncensored truth. Certain aspects of it are bound to be hard to accept.
At times it may seem that instead of finding inner peace one has found nothing but agitation by meditating. Everything about the course may seem unworkable, unacceptable: the heavy timetable, the facilities, the discipline, the instructions and advice of the teacher, the technique itself.
Another surprise, however, is that the difficulties pass away. At a certain point meditators learn to make effortless efforts, to maintain a relaxed alertness, a detached involvement. Instead of struggling, they become engrossed in the practice. Now inadequacies of the facilities seem unimportant, the discipline becomes a helpful support, the hours pass quickly, unnoticed. The mind becomes as calm as a mountain lake at dawn, perfectly mirroring its surroundings and at the same time revealing its depths to those who look more closely. When this clarity comes, every moment is full of affirmation, beauty, and peace.
Thus the meditator discovers that the technique actually works. Each step in turn may seem an enormous leap, and yet one finds one can do it. At the end of ten days it becomes clear how long a journey it has been from the beginning of the course. The meditator has undergone a process analogous to a surgical operation, to lancing a pus-filled wound. Cutting open the lesion and pressing on it to remove the pus is painful, but unless this is done the wound can never heal. Once the pus is removed, one is free of it and of the suffering it caused, and can regain full health. Similarly, by passing through a ten-day course, the meditator relieves the mind of some of its tensions, and enjoys greater mental health.
As my Uber takes me through fields and fields of rice patties and I get to witness another way of impoverishment from the city of Varanasi I was coming from. I arrive at the center having no idea what to expect. The center is fenced in by 10ft high brick walls with barbed wire around it. I wasn’t sure if that was to keep me in or others out. <wink> After I get all signed in they show me to my room and I was ordered to surrender all my electronics, books, journal and mobile phone.
I get to my room and it wasn’t very clean and the bed was one step above sleeping on the floor, a thin hard mattress. At least I had clean sheets. I knew the Buddhist practices weren’t at all about comfort, so I made a point to settle in. I surrendered my electronics and all the other material that would distract me from what I’m here to be doing.
I take a walk around the place and it’s incredibly beautiful and an oasis compared to the outside world of rice patties and the dirt, dust and poverty of the local area. I’m surrounded by banana, papaya and mango trees, many varieties of huge hibiscus and other incredibly fragrant flowering trees and plants. Brick paved walkways lead to the meditation hall, dining hall and the pagoda. It didn’t register in my mind at the time that the center was intentionally set up this way for our own sensual pleasure because of some of the challenges we would be facing in our meditation.
As the other 60 people arrived and got checked in I realized I was the only person from the USA and one of four white skinned people. I’ve been completely in the minority the whole time I’ve been here in India and have been treated with love and respect.
We are given a little snack at 5pm and then the introduction to the course before we are put to bed to be woken at 4am. Here is the daily schedule….
4am – wakeup
430a-630a – meditation
630a – breakfast
7a-8a – rest/walking
8a-9a – group meditation
9a-11a – teaching and meditation
11a-1130a – lunch
1130a-1p – rest/walking
1p-215p – meditation
230p-330p – group meditation
330p-5pm – meditation
5p-6p – snack/rest/walking
6p-7p – group meditation
7pm – Discourse
830p-9p – meditation
9p – bedtime
I’ve been an avid meditator for years, meditating in the mornings for about an hour using various methods… but nothing like what I’m about to experience. I’ve come this far and made a commitment to do this… so I’m all in. I also know what kind of sitting position I need to be in to be “mostly” comfortable sitting on the floor and how to care for my back after a back injury many years ago. I spoke with the teacher and he gave me some extra cushions and a support seat after my first day was extremely hard for me to try to find a place where I could sit for about 10 hours a day like this. UGH… I know discomfort is supposed to happen, but how much? How am I supposed to care for my lower back after the injury and still be able to do this course?
NOT SAFE FOR WORRYING MOM’S TO READ THE NEXT PARAGRAPH… PLEASE STOP READING HERE…
FUCK! My back is killing me. I’m in tears a couple times and received some guidance from the teacher to continue to work hard. I did eventually find a more comfortable position while still experience the discomfort without compromising my lower back. Plus, when you get 60 people together to do this kind of work… someone has a cold/cough which gets passed around in the group. Especially when everyone’s bodies are in pain and are dealing with their misery. I’m listening to people coughing, sneezing, sniffling and of course I catch it too. I get a sore throat, mild cough/cold. Not bad enough to prevent me from sleeping but, just enough to make things a little more challenging.
After 3-4 days I’m final able to settle in to the technique and the discomfort I’m experiencing in my body becomes more manageable. Am I doing anything different? Not really… it’s just the time and learning the technique that has me become more relaxed in what I’m doing. Thank god… because I had moments the first couple days where I wanted to leave. After all, the past 2500 years when this technique has been taught has left people feeling free of their misery… I had to have some faith in the technique.
After the fourth day where the embodiment piece is introduced it was becoming clearer and clearer to me that this was a meditation technique that seemed to be a missing link in my life that I was looking for. Meditating on the sensations in my body, both the pleasant ones and the gross ones were allowing me to release the echoes from the past and find more peace in my life. I was amazed how the technique was working and was looking forward to the upcoming days of sitting even though it was still experiencing discomfort in my body. I learned that I didn’t have to sit for 2 hours straight and I could take a 5-10 min break each hour. And I had to change positions even though there was an intention that I wouldn’t change positions. I was settling into all of this really well.
As the course went on I experienced some blissful moments as I was feeling some things of my history dissolve in front of my eyes while I was experiencing pleasant and grossly unpleasant sensations in my body. The peacefulness was incredible. We also learned at the end of the course that sharing our peacefulness is another part of the process.
When the 10 days were over they gave us our electronics back and I was one of the last ones to get them. After all I experienced I was ambivalent about getting them back and being introduced into the world again. Since I wasn’t going to become a monk it was best to get myself back into the world.
This experience has been truly wonderful. I would recommend it to everyone. Something I will never forget. Now to keep up the practice even in my travels.
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