My Vipassana Experience
“Discover real peace and harmony within yourself, and naturally this will overflow to benefit others.”
Vipassana means to see things as they really are. I attended a 10 day training in the method of Vipassana practice rediscovered by Gotma Buddha over 2500 years ago.
This method will help you come out of your habitual patterns of clinging and aversion which result in suffering. It is an exploration of the self at an experiential level and not just at an intellectual level. S.N Goenka described it as a deep operation of the internal. It purifies the mind and removes agitation.
What does the research say?
Benefits of Vipassana:
-reduced depression and anxiety
-reduced stress
-improved sleep
-improved compassion and empathy
-enhanced self awareness and self confidence
-reduced heightened reactions in anger and other strong emotions
-happy hormone release
The course requires following 5 morals (sila) for the ten days which can be continued following the course for best results:
-refrain from harming another being
-refrain from lying
-refrain from stealing
-refrain from intoxicants
-refrain from sexual misconduct
Noble silence is practiced for the nine of the ten days. Before I went in most people felt the silence and no access to a phone would be the most difficult part. At times it was difficult but, for the majority, silence was necessary to get to the depths of the reality of the mind and matter phenomenon over the ten days. There is also no reading, writing or listening to music.
We meditated 2 hours from 4.30am, 3 hours from 8am and 4 hours from 1pm. There was another 1 hour meditation at 6pm, then a teaching discourse and another short meditation at 8.30 pm with bedtime from 9pm. There were three 1 hour determined sits where we were encouraged not to move at all. These were at 8am, 2.30pm and 6 pm.
The first 3 days we concentrated on the breath as it is, called Anapana. The idea is to see the truth of yourself in the present moment. Reality as it is, not as you wish it to be. No changing the breath. Just observe the natural breath and all its natural changes. We started with awareness of breath in the nostrils and progressed to sensation of the skin between nostrils and upper lip. Everytime the mind wandered or sensation was felt anywhere else we were instructed to bring the mind gently back to the breath. Keep in mind we are meditating 10-11 hours a day so the concentration required is intense. The instructions are to remain equanimous (serene and calm) in the face of all highs and lows, clinging and aversion, pleasant and unpleasant sensations throughout. After the first 3 days the body scan is introduced. Again exploration of the entire field of mind and matter in an equanimous way in the face of anything that comes up, good or bad, is key. The impermanence of every sensation, feeling and thought is observed. This too shall pass.
The whole experience was the hardest thing I have ever undertaken but the most beneficial. The focus and endurance required each day to bring the mind back to the breath or the scan I could only compare to the focus required to getting through child birth. At first the body aches and pains were my biggest distraction but this settled after a few days. My memories of this stage were of focusing the mind by delaying the need to move to provide temporary comfort (craving) and get frustrated at the pain (aversion). Then later it was a further taming of the mind from all its need to distract me with pleasant thoughts or difficult memories and/or tell me to get up and run away. My mind was moving from past to future over and over. The mind was wild in the beginning. It was in total control and couldn’t stick to the technique for more than a few breaths or a few body scans. This helped me to observe my patterns of clinging, craving and aversion. When the mind wandered we were encouraged to just gently bring it back until it this became automatic. Equanimity, equanimity, equanimity. Eventually around day 5 my mind began to focus where I wanted it to for longer periods of time. I had an experience on day 5 of the mind chatter being quiet for the first time. I observed my breath sound and sensation, the sound of my heart beat and I became aware that my mind was focused on the body scan. The mind was quiet because of the focus and I became aware that I was not my mind. I describe it like sitting in a back seat of a car that another person is driving. The car being my body and the driver being my mind. It felt like the driver (my mind) thought it was in control of the car but I in the back seat knew this was not the case. This was my first awareness of my unconscious mind which is not unconscious at all but completely aware and in the present moment seeing reality. It could be called a deeper consciousness. After a few more days I became aware of the quietness of my mind during rest periods which allowed me to have complete present moment awareness when eating meals, drinking a hot drink and looking at a wood grain pattern on the base of the bunk bed I lay under.
Everybody will have their own experiences but one of the main lessons is that we become aware via experience in our bodies that we can overcome our addiction and craving of the pleasant and our wanting to fight back or run from the unpleasant. When we observe the sensations of pleasant and unpleasant in a non reactionary way and we accept the law of nature of impermanence, we become liberated from suffering.
“For real happiness, for real lasting stable happiness, one has to make a deep journey within oneself and see that one gets rid of all the unhappiness and misery stored in the deeper levels of the mind.”
I’ve been home nearly six days. I’ve kept up an hour of meditation in morning and evening but have noticed that the meditation is a lot more difficult now that I am speaking and interacting with people again. I feel like I’m back at the mind wandering days of the first half of the course. However I have a sense of inner peace that I have never felt before. I’ve had conflict this week with my children and with a colleague but my inner peace did not leave me as I observed all the sensations in the body and my breath as emotions rose and fell away and thoughts came and went. I also had more compassion in conflict for myself and others as I am so aware now that we are all the same. We all are reacting all day long to the pleasant and unpleasant. When you become aware that we are all the same it becomes easier to stay away from the blame game. I am noticing the craving, clinging and aversion patterns I have with the external world. I observed my ability to overcome these patterns internally during vipassana with the awareness that this too shall pass. So I am applying this now on a daily basis and trying to stay alert and aware to the best of my ability.
This will be a journey. A ten day course is a stepping stone on a path to a new way of living in the world.
“The consequence of today are determined by the actions of the past. To change your future, alter your decisions today.’”
Resources and references:
https://www.dhamma.org/en/index
https://psychcentral.com/health/vipassana-meditation
https://www.dhamma.org/en/schedules/noncenter/ie this is a link to the Co Clare location where I attended the course
