Silence of the minds
“So have you done anything like this before?”
“Nah man, I’ve done some meditation before but nothing like this” — I reply
“It better not be a cult. If they make us sit through pain and tell us it’s good for us… cleansing or some shit — I’m out of there. That’s how you know it’s a cult”
I laugh nervously and take a sip of my tea. Is there some truth in that? I mean my brother didn’t think it was a cult, he came out the other side intact. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I mean, if they chain us up and start whipping, I’ll run out of there in a heartbeat. Or will it be too late? Fuck it, I’m sure it’ll be fine. I’m overthinking it again.
I was siting in a cafe in Pokhara, Nepal, with a british dude called Sam. We had met a week earlier on top of a mountain at Annapurna Base Camp. He was pretty intense. He had started — and recently sold — an aerospace company. Probably a bazilionaire, but I didn’t ask. He was really wired, switched on. His brain was in overdrive, you kind of got the impression he’d just been powering through life at 200mph, without ever stopping to enjoy it.
But he was sound. And for better or for worse we were in this together now. We had both signed up for a 10 day silent meditation retreat. Vipassana, as taught by S.N.Goenka — the late Burmese meditation teacher who popularised it around the world. It’s also known as Insight meditation.
I had dabbled with meditation before, but nothing like this. I’ve always been fascinated by how the mind works. With how everything works actually. I’m an engineer at heart, I always loved asking why. I always want to understand why things are the way they are and how they work. I was taking things apart from as far back as I can remember. My favourite toy was a screwdriver. I played with lego way past the acceptable age. I built my own computer. I studied engineering at uni and taught myself how to code — for fun. Yes, I’m THAT guy.
I’m not saying all of that to make myself sound vaguely smart. I feel like it also had another unintended side effect. It means my brain thinks A LOT. And not just about the things it’s supposed to, but everything. A lot of negative stuff too. It spins up preposterous what if scenarios. It makes me self conscious about a lot of things. It constantly judges, compares and analyses things. I realised I lived in my head most of the time and I wanted to do something about it. I wanted to apply that engineering, dissecting attitude to my mind.
So as with anything I do, I went balls deep from the start. 10 days in silence, with my brain under a microscope. Let’s do it. What’s the worst that can happen? Go insane? Unlikely. Worst comes to worst I waste 10 days of my life. No biggie. The best thing that can happen is I get enlightened and live forever in eternal peace and at one with the universal. Like Yoda. I tried to lower my expectations just a little bit.
“If I learn something about myself, I’ll be happy” — and with that thought, Sam and I head for the meditation centre.
“I think it’s around here somewhere” — I said to Sam.
“Yeah I think it was through those bushes. Let’s get out here”.
We jumped out of the taxi, snaked back up the hill a bit and followed a dirt road to the right, which turned into a walking path, which turned into reception. We’re here! “Shit, we’re actually doing this” I said — and Sam definitely thought the same thing to himself. We were now in a small room with 40 other people waiting to sign their lives away. I was surprised to find that Sam and I weren’t the only western white dudes there. There was a pretty international hippie vibe, with mostly backpackers and travellers from all around the world — Russia, Taiwan, China, America, Holland, Norway amongst others. There were also a few Nepali men and women, but weirdly they were in the minority.
Everyone seemed very friendly, down to earth, nervous but pretty chilled and in good spirits about the whole thing. I was expecting a bunch of hardcore monks or spiritual devotees or just, I don’t know, for everyone to take it a bit more seriously! Instead everyone was cracking jokes and chatting like bezies.
The Vipassana centre is located in the most serene place, on top of a hill, about 10km outside of Pokhara. From one side, it overlooks Begnas lake, a large pool of crystal clear water. As you gaze up, green hills wave into the picture with small farmhouses and the odd hotel dotted around. The snow capped peaks of the Himalayas tower in the distance. It’s a real tear jerker of a postcard. You can’t help but feel a sense of calm, a sense of peace.
We’re surrounded by a beautiful forest, but unfortunately this sense of peace is neutralised by the screaming hordes of cicadas — the most annoying insect in the world — which you can think of as a grasshopper on speed. A gazillion times louder, lives in trees and “sings” all night long.
Checking in involves locking all your possessions away with the monks. No phones, laptops, kindles, books, notepads, anal beads, etc. Nothing that can stimulate you in any way is allowed. Just me, myself and I for the next 10 days. Our phones are like crack for the brain anyway, it’ll be a nice detox I thought. But it does seem a bit extreme. We are only allowed to eat, sleep, rinse, repeat. There are only 2 vegan meals a day. We cannot exercise apart from some mild stretching. No running, pressups, yoga, capoeira…anything.
This could go either way, I think to myself. But just to make sure I don’t run away when shit inevitably hits the fan, they also took my passport and my wallet. They claim it’s for safe storage, but I’m convinced otherwise. Alas, all these other people are doing it, so fuck it, I’m in all the way. I’m part of the cult now.
I’m taken to my dorm room, which I’ll be sharing with three other guys for the duration of the retreat. No females allowed. Guys and girls live and eat completely separately. In fact the only time anyone ever sees a person of the opposite sex is in the meditation hall. Even then, we are at opposite ends of the hall. No one must show skin. No one must talk. No touching, hugging, hand shaking, ball tickling or eye fucking of any kind — seriously — we’re not even allowed to make eye contact with each other. Guy on guy included.
Here’s an idea of what a typical day looks like:
Pretty hardcore, right? Did I mention there’s no talking? There’s no talking. It’s called ‘Noble Silence’ which you must respect throughout the 10 days. I’m not so much worried about this. I’m fairly introverted and I enjoy my own company. I’m sure I’ve gone one or two days before without speaking to anyone before. What’s another eight?
That evening we all congregate in the meditation hall for our first taste of what’s to come. We each pick a cushion, and slowly realise that it’s where we’re going to be spending most of our time over the next 10 days. 120 hours of meditation. Holy shit.
The teacher comes in and greets us. He’s an older guy, wearing white loose clothing. He’s not a monk, but a trained teacher in facilitating these retreats. He faffs around with a remote control for a few minutes and finally taps the play button. Goenka’s face lights up the TV and we’re introduced to the world of Vipassana.
Vipassana, or Insight meditation, is the technique by which The Buddha achieved enlightenment 2500 years ago. He must have done something right to get there, so I’m excited to learn his tekkers.
S. N. Goenka is an influential meditation teacher from Burma, who popularised this meditation technique and developed centres around the world to teach it. He’s known and respected for his non-sectarian approach — which is what attracted me to this — and for bringing it to the west with these 10 day courses. He taught in person at the start, but quickly realised this wasn’t very scalable. Luckily Goenka had some business wits and started training meditation teachers that would run their own centres across the world. This was one of them. He wanted everyone to be taught in the same way, so he recorded himself on tape and distributed it to all centres. Hence the TV. The teacher is to act as support, as a guide and as a pause/play button.
In this way, he created a legacy for himself, A legacy that would live on past his unfortunate death in 2013. A legacy that a lot of people have bought into.
When looking at the programme, it sounds like it’s going to be mega hard and the sort of thing that takes 10 years in a cave to perfect. But actually, it’s simple. Too simple. There are three parts to Vipassana:
Sila — morality. The idea is that you will not get anywhere, if you’re a dick. Now the Buddha had some higher standards than most. He also loved making lists, so here are the 5 precepts that define what it means not to be a dick. We must follow all of these throughout the 10 days.
- No killing
- No stealing
- No sexy time
- No wrong speech (lying, calling someone a bum’ole, etc. This is what the silence is for)
- No intoxicants — (drugs or alcohol are a given, but also includes coffee)
Samadhi — concentration. Before you can have amazing insights, you need the focus first. Our minds are built to go from one thought to the next like wild puppies. We must tame the puppy.
Panna — wisdom. Once you’ve not killed anything and sat still for a while, eventually you will have different insights into things. These are supposed to be things you feel, things that you know deep down, not just passing thoughts.
So there you go. We are already practising morality by following all the crazy rules and not speaking to each other. For the first 5 days, we will practice concentration meditation. We are to focus on our breath. Specifically, the area just underneath the nostrils. We just watch the breath go in and out of the nostrils. That’s it. Sounds easy, but as I’m about to find out, it’s far from it!
Day 1. It’s 4am. Rise and shine! I’m woken up by repeating gong hits. I open my eyes, and get out of bed, dazed and cranky but exited to get started. Is that oranges I smell? Are they waking us up with fresh oranges? What a treat. I sit up and gain a bit more consciousness. As I look across the room, I start to chuckle. No fresh OJ, just my crusty roommate spraying his balls. He was sitting up spread eagle on his bed going to town on his crotch with a little spray bottle of…god knows what. Orange scented aftershave? Anti chafe? “What the fuck is he doing?” I wondered. Is it an STD or is he trying to impress the girls in the meditation class? I’m very intrigued. I want to question him, but I remembered the vow of silence and I bit my tongue.
4.30am. Meditation time. This is the first session and everyone looks pretty pumped. We all sit down on our cushions and wait for the teacher. He enters the room some minutes later, through his own private door. Kind of like when the pope comes out of the altar in the church. He introduces himself, says a few words and presses play on a CD player. Goenka’s voice emanates through the speakers and starts guiding us into meditation.
The session is 2 hours long, and it’s all about the breath. We sit, and we constantly bring our awareness to the breath. We tame the puppy mind. The crazy demented puppy that just won’t sit. Every time I focus on the breath for a few seconds, my mind wonders off. “It’s pretty hot in here. The teacher is pretty weird. 2 hours is a long time, I’m never going to last. Oh shit, I’m supposed to be focusing on the breath”. And back I go.
After a while, I can stay with my breath for longer. My mind starts to calm down a bit. The puppy’s starting to obey. And then the pain hits. Left leg goes numb. I readjust my position slightly. The right knee aches now. I readjust again. My back is sore. It feels impossible to sit for more than 10 minutes without something aching or hurting.
But that’s all part of the plan. Sitting cross legged for 12 hours a day isn’t going to be easy or comfortable by any means. We are supposed to be mindful of the pain, but not focus on it or let it control us. When your knee starts to hurt, you acknowledge it, and you focus your attention on the breath again. No biggie. It’s just my knee. So what if I can’t walk again after this? That’s exactly the thoughts that we are supposed to avoid. By saying “it’s just a bit of pain in my knee” and not making a big deal out of it, I’m building equanimity. I become less reactive. If the pain gets too much, of course I can move my leg or change position. But I don’t do it right away as a reaction to the pain. Kind of like a boxer. He gets punched in the face, teeth fall out, eyes bleed…but he’s still in the ring until the bell rings. Same with me. I’m the Rocky Balboa of sitting on a cushion.
It’s 6.30am and I feel relieved to hear the gong. I feel a little stiff, but calm and relaxed after the first session. Everyone heads up to the canteen for breakfast, which is a mixture of porridge, vegetables and tea. Yeah, it’s a weird breakfast. We eat in silence on a long table. I look around and everyone is minding their own business, head down, staring at their food. I’m a little spaced out after 2 hours of meditating too, so I understand. And I’m not big on small talk, but the idea of sharing a meal in silence was very uncomfortable at first. It took me a while to get used to that.
After breakfast we have an hour to relax, wash and walk around. Since we’re not allowed to do anything fun, I mostly used these breaks to get some extra sleep in. The 4am start didn’t sit well with me, especially for the first few days, so for me it was a quick wash and back into bed for an hour.
Three more hours of meditation from 8–11am. More of the same, a mixture of frustration, painful knees sprinkled with moments of peacefulness and concentration. It was becoming more and more apparent that this wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. This wasn’t going to be the calming type of meditation I was used to. This was work.
Lunch was served at 11am. It varied from day to day, but it was always a combination of rice or noodles with veg, plus a tea and a biscuit if you were lucky. Another silent meal on the long table, with blank stares out of windows and into food bowls. Everyone was in their own world, in their own trance. We were encouraged to be mindful at all times when we are not meditating. When we’re eating, we focus on eating. We pay attention to how we move the spoon, how it tastes, how we chew. I normally inhale my food so this took some practice. Same with washing up, walking, showering, shaving, shitting…be in the moment they say, give no thought to the outside world. And for a while, it worked. Many mindful poos were had. Especially when you have to squat for them.
Lunchtimes were the most free time we had in the day. It was well treasured and involved all sorts of exciting activities like showers, clothes washing, walking, staring deeply into nature and my favourite…applying a second round of ball spray.
It was also a very strange time because again, we couldn’t really do anything fun. Or productive. Or anything. We couldn’t talk to each other, we couldn’t read nor could we numb our minds with instagram. We had to be present. The most fun thing I found was going for a walk and trying not to step on any ants. I probably looked like a lunatic, but it caught on after a while and I spotted other people doing the same! I tried my best but I reckon I must have taken a few lives during my time there.
1pm cames around and guess what that means? That’s right, 4 more hours of medi. Yay! The afternoons are especially difficult as the meditation hall turns into a sauna. A faint scent of sweat started tickling the nostrils, which makes it that much harder to focus. Everyone is dripping, including me. There are a few fans dotted around and they help a little, but it doesn’t stop the mind from straying towards mountain tops and ice cold beers.
“NO, you’re here to work. To find yourself. Get back to your breath you sweaty bum’ole.”
So I did. Over and over again, for 4 hours. I faffed and I fiddled and I changed positions every 10–20minutes when a limb would go numb or my back started aching. I took a break every hour, stood up, stretched and walked around outside for a few minutes to regain some feeling in my body parts. It was uncomfortable, weird and painful. But I could also feel my concentration improving. I could stay with the breath a little longer each time.
Four hours of sitting later, I jumped out of my seat with excitement when I heard the gong being struck. Like Pavlov’s dog, I already knew that meant tea time, and with it came a much needed break from myself. I thought I would be way more hungry than I was, but lunch was filling and I’ve done nothing but sit since so I’m starting to think that 2 meals a day might not be such a bad thing after all. A cup of tea and a bowl of the oddly familiar Rice Krispies — or what tasted just like it — would do me fine.
Again we have an hour to kill, and at 7pm we head back into the meditation hall for one last evening session and a discourse from Goenka himself. This happens nightly just before lights out. He goes into more detail about the meditation technique, it’s history, the whys and the hows. He explains it’s non sectarian, it’s about learning about yourself and the world. It’s about shedding the lens through which you see the world in order to see the truth of how things really are. It’s buddhism 101 and it’s the best part of the day because it give you something else to focus on other than yourself. I find this stuff fascinating, so it’s a double whammy for me and it gives me hope for the next day and the rest of the retreat.
As I lie down in bed that night, my mind starts racing and a million and one thoughts come to mind. It feels as though I’ve been suppressing them all day, and now they are all screaming for attention. Or maybe it’s just that my mind always does this, but I’m now somehow more aware. Whatever’s happening, it does not feel good. I’m doubting and hating and judging myself, the meditation and everything around me. “What am I doing here? This is weird. What will my mates at home think of this? Am I turning into a monk? Is this a cult?”. This might have kept me up if it wasn’t for my sheer exhaustion switching everything off and sending me into a deep slumber. It was 9.30 and I was fast asleep. One day down, 9 more to go. This was going to be tougher than I thought.
Day 2 was a real test. Sitting became more painful as I tried to bend my legs like a thousand year old yogi. My back was in equal amounts of pain from sitting up straight in the same position for 12 hours yesterday. The ridonculously hard bed I slept on couldn’t have helped either. It was the first test of endurance.
We had an interview with our teacher once a day, where he would call up 5 people at a time and check how we’re doing. I opened my mouth to tell him about the pain and a deep, raspy barking-like sound came out. I realise I hadn’t spoken in a day and a half and I quickly cleared my throat and proceeded to bitch about stuff. Everyone else nodded in agreement which made me feel slightly better that I wasn’t suffering alone. He told us it’s natural for sitting to feel uncomfortable and painful and it’s because our bodies weren’t used to it. Well no shit, Sherlock. What do I do about it? I am told to acknowledge the pain, and not react to it. I am to try and remain focused on my breath, even though my knees hurt. This is building mental toughness. Resilience. Equanimity. And it’s all part of the plan. It’s easy to focus when there are no distractions. It’s hard as shit to focus when you feel like your knees are about to blow.
Obviously there’s a limit. A little pain is good. A lot of pain is not. After all it’s your body telling you something is wrong. If the pain gets too much, I was to move my leg or change position mindfully. But what exactly is “mindfully”? I’m glad you asked. The way I understood it is that it’s all about how you relate to the situation. So instead of reacting to the pain immediately by moving my knee, I first acknowledge it. “There is pain in my knee”. And then you choose to move it, or if the pain is bearable, to leave it as is and re-focus my attention on the breath. By doing this repeatedly, I train my mind to be less reactive to things as they happen to me.
Pain is just one example. It’s just one feeling. This is what we are taught to practice for the whole time we are there. A drop of sweat running down your face? Acknowledge it, watch the sensation it creates on your skin, then go back to the breath. Don’t wipe it. Itchy nose? Watch it, don’t pick it. Breathe. Balls tingling? Cool. Let them tingle.
It was tough. I felt mentally and physically drained at the end of the day. It doesn’t sound like much but it takes a lot of conscious effort to sit cross legged and not to think for 12 hours. But I did feel a slight sense of progress again. In between bouts of frustration, doubt and aching limbs, I started seeing these peaceful moments of deep focus. They didn’t last long, a few seconds at most, but surely it was a good sign. It was enough to get me through to the next day.
Day 3. I noticed my buddy Sam wasn’t there for the morning meditation. He did look like a broken man at tea time yesterday, and I instantly thought back to his skepticism of cults that make you bare pain for “the greater good”. I bet he left because he thinks it’s a cult. I mean, I can see why one would think that, Goenka’s whole vibe seemed very culty if you’ve never come across more spiritual people before. Luckily I had travelled around India 3 years ago and I’ve met some pretty ridiculous characters, so while I thought a lot of things to be odd, I knew it wasn’t a cult.
For one, a cult wants something from you. There is always an ask. Money, connections, your life…whatever it is, you’re always asked to sacrifice something for whatever belief they brainwash you with. This was different. They weren’t asking for anything except a small donation to cover the costs. And even that wasn’t compulsory. If you thought it was bullshit, you give nothing. If you felt it was beneficial, you gave some money — $5 a day we were told covers our costs. They are feeding and putting us up after all, seems fair.
Sam had other ideas. I didn’t see him for the rest of the course, so he had packed it in. Others looked like they were struggling too, myself included. Leaving hadn’t yet crossed my mind, I was determined but I could feel my thoughts get more and more negative. I had never sat still for this long before and a lot of things came up to the surface. A lot of them too personal for the world wide web, but let’s just say I was in a bit of a fragile state. I had left London with no idea of what I was doing or where I was going. I didn’t really know what I wanted in life, I was indecisive and I gave way too many fucks about what people thought.
Luckily, I didn’t have too much time to ponder these big life worries, as I was mainly just thinking about breathing. But they did come up from time to time, especially in the evenings and in the breaks, where your brain had a chance to catch up. Those were the most difficult parts for me and I often couldn’t sleep because of it. But I was stubbornly determined, so I persevered.
Up until day 5, we practiced mindfulness of breathing. We were taming the puppy mind. I was starting to feel good about most of the meditation sessions. I was starting to enjoy it. I could feel my concentration improve with each session. Those moments of deep focus would come around more often and last longer. The pain was still there but I started to see it as more of a challenge than a burden. I turned it into a game. How long can I sit without moving? We had something called the power hour, where we were encouraged to sit for an hour without moving. This took a lot of restraint and equanimity. At the end of the first of these sessions, a few people tried to stand up, including myself, only to immediately collapse back onto the cushion into a fit of nervous giggles. There was absolutely no feeling in either leg. Nada.
On day 6, we learnt the technique for practising Vipassana. This was it. This is what all that breathing was for . This is why we came here. This is going to change everything. I could sense a feeling of anticipation, as Goenka’s words filled the room.
We were to use our spartan like concentration skills to move our awareness over every point of our body. From head to toes, and again from the toes to the top of the head, we would shift our focus, moving it slowly, one point at a time. Again, sounds super simple, and a bit pointless at first, but there is method in the madness.
Now I’m going to have to get all buddhist on your ass again in order to explain this. Feel free to skip the next section if you’re not into it or if you’re thinking of doing one of these retreats and don’t want me to spoil the fun for you.
So in buddhist psychology, there is a term called sankhara. This is important, remember it. The way I understood (and remember) this, it’s kind of like your mental conditioning. Basically, all of the baggage you picked up throughout your life, in tiny, bitesized sankhara form. It’s all the stuff that makes you do what you do, feel the way you feel and react the way you react to everything that comes your way. It’s what makes you, you. All the good — or what we think is good — and the bad.
And what makes you, you, is how you react to what happens to you throughout life. Unless your reaction is out of pure love — which is pretty rare, there are only two other choices. You react with craving when you want something, and with aversion when you don’t.
Like when you see a hot chick and your head turns 180 degrees. That’s called lust. It’s a craving. You’re craving sexy time. Or a good spoon. Or attention. Whatever it is, it’s a craving.
Let’s go the opposite way. When someone calls you an asshole, you hate it and you want to punch them in the face. Obviously. Who wouldn’t? Whether you do or not, you’re feeling aversion towards this person/situation.
Still with me? Good. Let’s stick with the asshole that called you an asshole as an example. Say that little Johny had a rough childhood, and that asshole was his father and he called him an asshole for the first 10 years of his life. A very extreme example — thanks for not calling me an asshole dad, I love you! But Johny would be pretty messed up. He would have reacted with aversion each time. He would have hated his dad. He would have been conditioned as a very angry child. He’d have some pretty deep sankharas.
Much like emotions, these sankharas are usually stored in the body in some way. Very strong, obvious ones can be felt as tension, tightness, discomfort, pain, etc. I bet Johny is not the most relaxed guy in the world.
Deeper ones are less noticeable — they are stored at a cellular level in the body and deep into the subconscious parts of your mind. A western psychologist might call these unprocessed emotions. Trauma. Extreme fuck giving. I’m not a psychologist.
I’m over dramatising here. I’m not Johny. Nor are the majority of people. But everyone’s been through some shit. The intensity of a sankhara is proportional to the amount of fucks given about a particular thing. The more attached you are to something, the more it hurts if you loose it. As a kid, you might have really wanted a shiny new bike you didn’t get (or got but then later lost). Johny gave a fuck about his dad calling him an asshole. Of course he did. It’s not his fault. But he could also have been slightly pissed that he ran out of peanut butter to spread on his toast that morning. Two sankharas, different amount of fucks given.
Everyone has a lens through which they look at life. And the idea is to see through that lens, and see things as they actually are. As objective as possible. Without frothing at the mouth with rage when someone calls us an asshole.
With Vipassana meditation, we do this by sitting still. By having nothing to distract us, we are not generating any new sankharas. No one is calling us an asshole. No bikini babes walking past. No cravings, no aversions. When that happens, things from the past — our stored up sankharas — start to slowly come to the surface. These manifest as either thoughts or feelings in the body. It could be a memory, an image in your mind, an ache, a bit of sweat, a jolt of excitement, tingling in your fingers, an itch on your balls. Whatever it is, we train our minds to remain equanimous. To give zero fucks.
And by giving zero fucks, we are not reacting any more. We relax, we accept what’s there, whether painful or not, and eventually it dissipates on its own. By moving our attention across our body, we essentially dig out the sankharas, and “burn them up” by not reacting to them. By not giving them space to thrive and take us over. There is no thinking about it. Sometimes you don’t know what you’ve let go of, it just happens. It’s not immediately obvious.
By doing this over and over again, you can eventually get to a state where you’ve burned up all your sankharas. You set all your baggage on fire. You don’t give a fuck about anything any more, you’re just present, enjoying every moment as it is. And then, my friend, you’ve made it. You’re free. You’ve reached nirvana. You’re rocking out in heaven with Buddha, Jesus and Curt Cobain.
So there you go. That’s a 2500 year old sacred text summarised and riddled with profanities for you.
I found the technique a bit cumbersome at first. I had a lot of questions. How big should the area I’m focusing on be? How long should I spend on each point before moving on? What should I be feeling there? What if I can’t feel anything?
Luckily our teacher anticipated this and called us all up to the front, five at a time again, to check in and see how it’s going. I fired my machine gun of inquisition at him and got the answers I was looking for.
I meditated like a boss for the rest of the day, and I could start to feel different sensations throughout my body. Some areas were relaxed and I could feel the subtle vibrations on my skin. Other areas were tight and I could just feel tension. Others felt hot. Others felt cold. Different sensations popped up as I scanned my body and I did my best to remain equanimous.
By the end of the day, I felt like I had gotten the hang of it and I was in a good place. Day 6 and 7 also went pretty well. My body was getting used to sitting cross legged for eons at a time and my joints and back weren’t aching as much. I could concentrate for longer periods of time and the tension in my body was starting to dissolve. I could feel more subtle sensations in more areas of my body.
In one of the power hour sessions — where I was completely still for an hour — I had quite a tripy experience. By focusing really hard on a point that was painful, my knee I think, that pain became something else. It had disappeared and I could feel the subtle vibrations underneath it all. It’s almost like I could feel the cells, the molecules move around. Freaky, I know. This was very short lived, lasted only a second or so.
It was amazing though. Had I just transcended pain? Was that nirvana showing a cheeky nipple, teasing me to enlightenment? Who knows. I tried not to get too attached or think about it too much. I was not supposed to give any fucks.
Easier said than done. On day 8, it had gotten to me and I was breaking down. I couldn’t sleep the night before as everything came up to the surface. I had made a surgical incision into my subconscious and the pus was coming out. A mixed bag of negative thoughts, memories, images, feelings floated around my body and brain and there was nothing I could do but ride it out.
I couldn’t concentrate all day, and the harder I tried, the more frustrated I got and the more I beat myself up about it, adding to the shit storm that was already in full swing. I tried to find the eye of the storm and hide there, and for brief periods that day I did. But I found myself hurled back in over and over again. I’d been chewed up and spat at and booed off stage. Right back in my dorm room, wondering what had happened that day. I had lost all my equanimity. I was giving fucks left, right and centre. And to top it all off, my stomach had knotted itself into a tense ball of anxiety, frustration, guilt and self pity.
I didn’t think this would be easy, but i didn’t think it would break me either. I was determined to make it to the end. I had a heart to heart with myself that night, and decided this was all normal, and that I would get back to it the next morning and — as my brother would later say — smash through those sankharas.
Day 9 was a rollercoaster of emotion, flipping between excitement that it’s almost over and feeling frustrated and annoyed that I couldn’t do it anymore. While the mental storm had calmed down a bit, I couldn’t get back to that deep focus again. I practiced the best I could, I got my ass on that cushion and I scanned that body like a barcode scanner in a supermarket. But I was trying too hard. I was forcing it. There was an air of negativity and frustration in my practice now. In hindsight, I should have worked on that, on getting my equanimity back, before going back to Vipassana. Oh well, live and learn.
On day 10, everyone looked disheveled, but there were smiles starting to form as the day — and the retreat — drew to a close. In our last session, we were introduced to a new type of meditation: loving kindness meditation. This was going to act as the stitches for the incision into our subconscious we just created. It’s exactly what the doctor ordered.
We do this by mentally repeating a few phrases in our minds. “May you be happy. May you be well. Maybe you be free from suffering”. We first direct this at ourselves. We wish these things for ourselves. Then we direct them at a friend or family member. Then at a neutral person. Then at an enemy or an asshole. Then at everyone.
By wishing ourselves and others well, it makes us all tingly inside. I felt like I wanted to hug everyone in the room. Who knew you can achieve the same feeling as ecstasy with a half our meditation!
The final bell rang, everyone stood up and raced for the door. I felt like I wanted to explode with energy, laugh, cry, puke and scream all at the same time. I didn’t quite know what to do with myself. I started by letting out a big sigh then blurting out something along the lines of “Not sure I remember how to speak”. What actually came out was probably more like “Nhggt sre A mmmber haw t shpiek”, quite a few decibels louder than I intended. A few of the guys turned around, looked at me, I looked at them, and we all burst out laughing.
We could hear laughter coming from the girls side too. At the end of the last session, we could see and hear one of the girls, Emma, run out the door in a fit of laughter. She got everyone in hysterics just with her hysterics. Once she calmed down a bit, she looked up with innocent puppy dog eyes and said
“I have no idea what equanimous means”.
Everyone lost their shit. (The word was mentioned about 1000 times during the guided medis)
It was over. I survived. And so did about 36 of these beautiful people that I knew nothing about, yet I’d seen every day for 10 days. I made up stories in my head about who they were, what they were like, where they were from. Now I was actually meeting them for the first time, I felt a little nervous but excited and intrigued about what everyone’s experience was like. I felt a sense of connection with these people, a sacred bond, a sense of belonging. It was beautiful and so the VIP crew formed.
Later that day, a few of us were heading back into town when we cross paths with my old buddy, old pal Samwise the deserter. He seems shocked at how happy we all are. We tell him it’s because it feels like we’ve just escaped from prison and I ask him why he left on day 3.
“It just wasn’t for me” — he says. Hmm, vague, but ok. We swapped a few quick stories, agreed to meet in town for dinner that night and left to find somewhere to stay. That afternoon I opened up my emails and I see one from Sam, with the subject “I hope you got out. It’s a cult”. I sent him a lengthy reply with my thoughts, after which I never saw or heard from him again.
It’s not for everyone. I think 6 people (out of a total of 40) quit before the end. I’m not judging one bit. I can see why Sam thought it was a cult, and I can see why it can be too much for some. It’s tough as balls. If it wasn’t for my pure stubbornness, I probably would have jumped on that delivery guys’ scouter and got the fuck out of there on day 3 as well.
I was still trying to make sense of it. I came out feeling like something had changed, something had opened up inside me but I wasn’t quite sure what. I felt different that’s for sure.
For the first few days, I felt quite drained, negative, sad, lost, wondering what it was all for, what it meant, how I had changed. After a while— and after a few beers — I started to notice the subtle differences. The first example was a dog howling outside my guesthouse all night. I would have been up all night before, fuming and getting pissed off that I can’t sleep. But this time, I found myself calm as a hindu cow, just acknowledging it, shrugging my shoulders and going back to sleep.
That was what I got out of it. I found that I gave slightly fewer fucks. Most of my friends would say I didn’t give many fucks before either. And they are half right. But there are many more times, when I pretended not to give a fuck just so I can seem like I don’t give a fuck. But deep down, I gave all the fucks.
So I didn’t have any big epiphanies or life changing moments as I kind of half expected. There was no big aha moment. There is no eternal peace. No enlightenment.
Instead, this 10 day Vipassana retreat significantly reduced my internal fuck giving counter and made me more aware of all the fucks that I did give. Truly give.
And that’s a good step towards that elusive inner peace we all crave.
