Vipassana:the 10 day silent retreat

>>Vipassana is not what people think it is<<

This article is to share my Vipassana journey which transformed my understanding of meditation, as well as my boundaries.

I absolutely loved the routine of waking up at 4 am, meditating in the hall, breakfast then another 6 hours of meditation. Sitting down for 7.5 hours a day is physically difficult at first. I started with pillows all around me supporting the pain in my back from a skiing injury and at times my knees felt like they were going to fall off. With my analytical hat on, I started to notice things like the derogatory terminology used by the teacher, Goenka. He kept saying it isn’t religious but it felt like we were worshiping. For the record Vipassana is used in Budhism. Sanskrit is a beautiful language but every time he said something contradicting himself, I was reluctant to hold my hand up and chant ‘saaaaaddhuuu’ ‘saaaaaddhuuuu’, once you had completed a discourse (meditation session or teaching). It felt like the equivalent to Amen. I am very curious about religion, particularly open to Hinduism and Budhism. I tend to do research after I have experienced something to keep my responses fresh but I think this is changing. The website does advise you not attend if you have mental health difficulties so please bare that in mind. I will say if you do you go and your application is accepted, you won't be the only one with a condition. There were women that had physical health conditions and some mental health conditions.

A few days in, I continue to walk around the beautiful grounds, not making eye contact with anyone, as instructed, and listening out for the bell to tell us when to meditate again. By day 3 I felt well versed in scanning every part of my body from head to toe but my mind kept singing Lilly Allen ‘I don’t know what’s write and what’s real anymore’ on loop. I kept refocusing my mind onto my body as instructed but I was very distracted by more comments made in the evening training like, I quote ‘crazy’ people would have gone by now, I did think "well that’s my que". It felt the opposite to compassionate and I wasn't being compassionate towards myself. The teachings stated every time you sin it creates another sankhara which will cause you suffering. I believe this, so I practiced becoming aware of my impulses and thoughts to let them pass... equanimous. I was experiencing emotions and physical sensations and practising not reacting to them by turning to distractions. After a while I had no pain in my back, I felt comfortable in my own head and was enjoying the practice.

A sankhara (or saṅkhāra) in Vipassana meditation is a mental reaction, habit pattern, or conditioning stored in the subconscious mind, usually manifesting as craving (lobha), aversion (dosa), or ignorance (moha). Thank you reddit.

I thought about how we treat trauma in our culture which reminded me of Dr. Bessel van Der folks ‘the body keeps its score’. We talk a lot about neuroplasticity and I recommend a book called Breaking the habit of being yourself: How to lose your mind and create a new one' by Joe Dispenza who talks about the use of meditation in detail through quantum physics. I'll add another link to a youtube clip I recently come across The power of quantum thinking. VERT INSPIRING.

It wasn’t until day 7, I truly become the observer of my own mind which helped me feel present, at least thats what I thought was happening. I noticed that the girl in front of me had a top on that said on the back ‘What is real’ upside down in digital font. Made sense as to why Lily Allen was playing. I felt like I had taken some kind of psychedelic and reached a point of pure bliss when meditating that I didn’t feel connected to my body, there was a vast amount of space in my mind and I felt complete peace. It was so alien to me that I burst out laughing my head off after we had finished and ended up having to go to the teachers office to be spoken to. Before this I did speak to someone, a girl that started talking to me in the bathroom about her ADHD and sisters mental health problems, after we exchanged a few moments of child like eye contact. My lack of boundaries irritated me. I'm assuming she was then triggered by my rejection and kept talking to me even though I tried to politely decline her interaction. I slipped out of observer and become reactive. Funny how these lessons turn up. I felt guilty that I had spoken and done something wrong. Enraged with myself that I didn't make it to the 10 days without talking and some past stuff had been coming through at that point. I probably wouldn’t have left and had more chance to let pass what needed to but I struggled to manage in the disappointment I felt. It wasn't until I left that I thought that the Goenka teachings of Vipassana wasn't a gentle way of handling my internal world at the time.

Over all, I do feel more connected to my myself and to others through experience what felt like a void. It was quiet. The meditation is very powerful! The organisation however is questionable and up for debate. I recently come across this talk by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche: Vipassana is not what people think it is  which makes me realise I don't need to be silent for 10 days and not have any human contact in order to practice.