A Little Introspection…Ten Days in Solitary Confinement
I have to say, now that I am on the other side of the Vipassana Meditation course I can only wonder just what prompted me to so strongly insist that I take this ten-day spiritual boot-camp of sorts. I just don’t know why – I’ve never really previously meditated and have to admit that I wasn’t entirely prepared for what I was getting myself into.
Some of the rules and restrictions of all Vipassana courses: you sign a contract stating you will stay for the whole course; noble silence means no spoken or non-verbal communication with anyone except the server and teacher, no reading and writing (I broke this one!) and then five other main precepts: no killing of any living creature, no lying, no stealing, no sexual activity, and no intoxicants. Additionally, religious people are asked to suspend all practices such as prayers, mantras, and rituals. Old students only get lemon water at the evening tea break – new students get a small dish of fruit, puffed rice, and milk tea (I had to request a special snack at 9:00pm for personal health reasons and they obliged and gave me milk and biscuits).
Our schedule for the ten days:
4:00am Wakeup Bell
4:30-6:30am Meditation
6:30-8:00am Breakfast
8:00-11:00am Mediation
11:00-1:00pm Lunch and teacher interviews
1:00-5:00pm Meditation
5:00-6:00pm Tea-break
6:00-7:00pm Meditation
7:00-8:15pm Video teachings with Goenka
8:15-9:00pm Meditation
9:30pm Lights out
Here is my journaling for the 11 days of the course (10 days plus the arrival day!). I cracked on day four so though this is a long post, that day is worth the read!:
Pre-Course: Arrival Day
I made it to the Vipassana Meditation Center outside of Pokhara – there was some drama with the cab driver in getting here – he wanted to charge us more than the agreed upon price so Helen and I had to pull out some very firm tactics to make it to the Center on time! We just had our orientation thingy in the front lawn – this is a truly beautiful spot on the lake…really spectacular! – anyhow, based on the orientation, this course is going to be INTENSE; I am kinda wigged out about it. 10 days sounded so short when I was pondering taking the course and now, with just 45 minutes until Noble Silence begins, the prospect is entirely and wholly scary.
There is so much that I just don’t know about yet – I know next to nothing about the actual teachings of the course…really only what I read in Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure and the brief bit on the Web site. I also worry about the prospect of nearly 11 hours every day of thoughts just racing through my head. I expect that in 10 days my mind is going to be in an entirely different place…for the good or the bad is the question! I truly hope and believe that this course has the ability to bring about profound changes…I just wonder if I have the power to stick with it for the full 10 days…I’m down to 15 minutes left – YIKES!
DAY 1 – Oh the Endless Pain
9:20pm: Focus on the breath, the air coming in and out naturally of your nostrils – this was the sole task for today. For 10 hours and 45 minutes today I focused as much as my attention as possible on by nostrils…but I have to be honest, not a lot of focus was actually making to the nostrils for long. There was a lot of traffic going on in my mind – traffic jams, semis coming through – a lot of thoughts just running around in there…I think I made it back to the breath about every 2-3 minutes…then I’m focused for a whole three breaths and off again.
Today’s discovery: my left nostril is working overtime and doing most of the work. The right nostril must be on vacation today because it was only taking in about 20 percent of the breath – what is that about! Another discovery: Nepali songs are annoyingly catchy. Though I was determined to keep the trekking songs out of my head Chati Ma Mero was echoing through my mind for hours.
One of the best moments of today was pretty brilliant. Near the end of the day the teacher called everyone up in small groups of 2-4 people so they could ask questions. When it’s my turn I tell him “I can’t stop falling asleep…what do I do?!” His response: “Yes, you are rather fond of sleep aren’t you?” Nice! I thought maybe I was getting away with it…although we sit crossed legged in meditation pose my head was doing that jerky head-bobby thing for many hours of the day as I fought to stay awake. He tells me to focus harder…hmm.
Oh – and eleven hours of sitting on a cushion on the floor – not pleasant…I was shifting every 4-5 minutes! An up note – the food is really good!
DAY 2 - Goodbye Cousin of Mine
7:02am: Focus on the nasal cavity – today’s task has branched out a bit. The bulk of the course is via video by Goenka and teacher is really an assistant teacher…Goenka has a really slow voice – it makes it hard to stay awake since we watch his hour and a half of discourse in the evenings. Oh! And teacher plays tapes of Goenka singing as we are meditating – what is with that? Helen’s leaving today – I broke Noble Silence this morning when she told me…
11:45am: Morning meditation was actually a bit better on the comfort level – or maybe I was just too tired to shift a lot…could really be either one. My brain has really been drifting today and I have actually been having some really creative brainstorming sessions. But brainstorming isn’t the point of the meditation so I had to reel my thoughts back in and focus on my breathing again – left nostril is still doing all of the work!
The song today has branched out from Nepali songs and I welcomed Madonna into my mind – more like it snuck in there until I felt swaying and singing along to “Like a Prayer” -as that would have been wholly inappropriate I refrained. Today was totally better than yesterday on so many levels!
DAY 3 – It Never Ends
5:32pm: Um, wow. Who knew there were so many hours in the day? – like interminably long hours when you are doing nothing but listening to the air in your nostrils. Oh, and I think that right nostril is on strike for a bit.
Anyway, today we have another task besides just focusing on the breath – we get to focus on sensations in the nose area – thank god for the small gifts, another day of pondering the air coming in and out of my nose might have driven me insane. I contemplated leaving today. Like SERIOUSLY contemplated it but I am trying to get over my own self-belief that I am a quitter.
Back pain today was intense – I was shifting constantly to try and alleviate the shooting pain through my butt and back. Oh, as a cruel joke I had “Freshman” by the Verve Pipe stuck in my head for hours. And as if that were not bad enough the Red Lobster version of the Happy Birthday song accompanied me for the four hour afternoon meditation…yea, now let me tell you how tortuous that was!
Broke silence on accident…I was napping after lunch and woke up about a minute after the gong rang to indicate that we should make our way to the meditation hall – I had a flashback moment to highschool and thought it was the bell ringing for class. I sat straight up in bed and blurted: “OMG was that the bell?!?” Then I clamped my hand over my mouth when I realized what I did.
Upside of the day – no more falling asleep – my mind is like a steel trap of focus, attentiveness, and awareness now, so, points for me!
DAY 4 – Totally Cracked
7:20am: As if it were a cosmic joke, at 4:30 am I had a mini disco-tec blaring in my head. To accompany all of my weighty thoughts “Don’t Stop Believing” kept me company. Seriously! I couldn’t make this crap up – I mean who would voluntarily have Journey pulsating through their brain at that ungodly hour? We start the actual Vipassana technique today (everything else was apparently just a warm-up). Don’t know what that means yet…
5:35pm: Ace of Base kept me company this afternoon while the voice of the teacher slowly killed my soul. I really began to fantasize about meeting up with Helen – of course when I told this to teacher she told me to talk to teacher – then she adds that I am in the middle of a mental surgery and it wouldn’t be safe for me to leave in the middle of the operation…
Huh! I am doubting that I make it past the first two hours of meditation tomorrow morning – even the uplifting and oddly appropriate lyrics of “I Saw the Sign” couldn’t cheer me up as I pained my way through the “real” Vipassana meditation. Now, for one hour three times each day we have to sit perfectly still without shifting or moving – the is literally voluntary torture! Basically, after evening meditation I plan on informing teacher that I am outta here.
9:32pm: More groaning/moaning/singing from Goenka had me fully ready to get the hell out of here as I waited my turn to talk to teacher after the evening meditation and discourse. So, I patiently wait until he calls me up. When he prompts me for my question I bluntly inform him that Goenka’s singing is slowly killing my soul and that I want to leave. His response: he laughed at me and responds “So, you want to join Helen do you?” I sputter out that that is not wholly the reason – that is the singing/moaning of Goenka on the tapes that are making me die a little inside every time I hear them – I plead with him to let me leave and save me from the urge to kick puppies that comes every time I hear Goenka’s voice. All I get out of him is a prompting to go get some sleep.
Teacher is actually a pretty funny guy – he took my overly dramatic requests in stride and good-naturedly laughed at me as I dragged myself off of the question cushion and virtually crawled back to my own cushion. So, apparently I just have to get some sleep tonight and if I still want to leave tomorrow I can talk to teacher again – I am so close to freedom I can taste it!
(FOUND THIS LINK TO HIS SINGING SO THAT YOU CAN SEE WHAT I MEAN!)
DAY 5 – Still Here
5:00pm: I am still here. And I do feel better about being here although I made one last desperate plea to leave earlier this morning. Teacher shut down all of my arguments. He said I could go if I could give him one good reason – so I stated my case…I even brought the Dali Lama into it (HHDL says that Buddhism isn’t always the right path for all Westerners). So I stated my case and teachers main rebuttal: “How can I say that Vipassana Meditation is not for me after just four days of a ten day course…I mean, I guess he has a point when he puts it like that…it’s just, I sit there for hours imaging all of the fun Helen is having on the outside and I want to have fun too!
On an up note, I kicked ass today for the first two of our one-hour sittings. One more this evening should go just as flawlessly!
DAY 6 – Relieving Tedium
11:20am: I may have been too optimistic about the one-hour meditation sittings with no moving – it’s more like a one hour pain endurance test. We were asked to observe sensations today and to take all of the sensations – both pain and pleasure, and merely observe the sensations without a reaction of craving or aversion. Really? So as there is intense pain shooting up my legs and pulsating through my butt and then up my spine, I am expected to merely observe this and go “Gee, there is a sensation of knifing pain in my knee…now what other sensations are there?” Not a whole lot of other ones besides the pain actually!
5:26pm: During part of this afternoon’s four hours of marathon meditation I actually starred in my very own karate movie…it doesn’t even matter that I don’t know karate (the Kenpo videos in P90x are about as close as I have come); I was doing some fancy-schmancy moves that even Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee would have been proud of! But then I had to end the mental film because we are not allowed to do mental visualizations – only breath and sensations…blah, blah, blah.
DAY 7 – Not Too Bad Actually
Nothing too exciting to report meditation-wise, more the singing – but Goenka’s singing actually isn’t driving me as nuts as it did. It’s true what he teaches that everything in life is impermanent…which is why we are training ourselves to stop reacting with craving and aversion.
Anyhow, the most exciting happening today was the Spanish girl in my room (she talks and laughs REALLY loudly in here sleep at night – it’s a riot) got a bit of a free show from me. Se opened the door to the shower I was in (the lock on my side was faulty and didn’t hold out to her tugging) but was brushing her teeth and not looking up. There I am, stark naked and about to dry off giving a free show to anyone looking in the direction of the outdoor showers! Not being able to speak, I cleared my throat – she squealed and threw the door closed. A couple of minutes later, there I am dry, clean, and dressed and as I try to open the door I realize that it is locked from the other side! I start knocking, she rushes over, and when she opens the door we both just burst out in laughter.
It hailed today and a huge storm cleared all of the haze from the mountains – it is really spectacularly pretty here – I couldn’t have asked for a more idyllic and picturesque spot for this intense introspective process.
DAY 8 – A Pretty Positive Day
11:42pm: Everyone is much more serious today. Teacher keeps putting on a stern face and telling us to work very, very seriously (imagine this said with a thick Indian accent). I have to admit, this whole thing has got easier over the past couple of days – either that or I am now wholly resigned to the fact that I have to stay the full ten days. It’s easier to sit for the full hour too – I found that position is key to lasting for the full hour. I can actually sit in the Dhamma hall for the 11 hours every day and meditate like they ask without feeling like my soul is dying inside.
Today it is sinking in that I am glad that I stayed; there is a certain balance creeping into my thoughts…and I kinda like it. I don’t know if everyone feels the same though – I seem to be one of the only ones still smiling (although I am not supposed to notice this since we aren’t supposed to look at each other!).
Indigestion guy finally got schooled by teacher – for the past eight days we have all listened to the sound of his burping/stomach growls as they echo and reverberate through the Dhamma hall. I tried hard not to mind so much because I though it wasn’t voluntary…but he CAN control it! – it’s so much easier to focus without his stomach as a distraction – thank god teacher addressed it. When you combined his noises with Goenka’s singing it was like nails on a chalkboard raking through your soul.
DAY 9 – One Day Until Freedom!
5:45pm: Oh thank the sweet baby Jesus that this is almost over. We get to end Noble Silence tomorrow in the late morning and then it’s mostly discourse for the rest of the day. I am glad I have stayed this course through, but I am also pretty ready to leave…or at least talk.
Today was more “very, very serious” meditation. I have actually grown to like the technique but 10+ hours every day is a bit more than I can handle. The end is in sight – just a couple hours of meditation left today…I’ve essentially made it!
DAY 10 – A Breath of Fresh Air
Yea!! I made it to the course finish – or at least all of the hard parts. We have discourse for the rest of the day and we still have to do our one-hour sittings. Today has been really positive. Once we were able to break Noble Silence we all burst out with incessant chatter. If you want to hear some motor-mouths talk to a big group of Vipassana mediators at the end of their course!
We watched a movie this afternoon that was actually pretty interesting – it was a documentary on the implementation of Vipassana Meditation centers at one of the hardest-core prisons in India, Tihar Prison. The course teachings really focus on a person taking personal responsibility for their own misery and suffering and by practicing this type of meditation you are able to begin to implement a technique that limits personal reaction to pleasure and pain with craving and aversion. Goenka recons that craving and aversion are the root of all misery and personal suffering because of the law of impermanence – nothing in this world is permanent and if you crave it then you are bound to cause yourself misery when it is gone. There is a lot more to the philosophy but basically Vipassana is a way to free yourself from some of your misery if you practice – this technique is the first step on the path toward full Enlightenment according to Buddha.
I don’t know about all of that, but I do know that I have come out of all of this feeling lighter and more able to cope with both positive and negative situations with a really balanced reaction. I don’t know how much I will actually keep up with the recommended two hours a day of meditation, but I am going to try – I like the positivity that has infused my soul right now
:) BE HAPPY!
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