14 Sep Vipassana Course
I recently went on a ten-day Vipassana course in Lava Hot Springs, Idaho because after writing every day for an entire year I needed a break from words. I heard friends talk about it as being a helpful experience underlined by silence, no communication for the duration of the course.
Wonderful, I thought. I’ll do it.
Here’s a list of course characteristics easily fulfilled:
- Wearing modest clothing.
- Being separated into women/men.
- Sleeping in a tent (hot in the afternoon, cold at night).
- Not speaking.
- Not making eye contact.
- Not reading.
- Not writing.
- Eating a light breakfast, lunch, and a piece of fruit for dinner.
- Waking up at 4 am.
- Having no physical contact while on the course premises.
- Not having access to the cell phone or car keys.
They sent us the timetable several times prior to the course, and yet I seemed to miss the actual emphasis and resulting most difficult part:
- Meditation, ass-on-cushion, for twelve hours each day.
Before I left I told people it was a silent retreat. When I returned, I called it a meditation intensive.
The meditation did not entail chanting or fostering peace by pleasant visualizations. Vipassana isn’t about feeling good; it teaches to feel sensations in the body exactly as they happen at the moment. Pain, heat, coolness, pleasantness, numbness, buzzing, tingling are a sampling of the sensations.
One of the fundamental laws of the universe proves true if we observe sensations in our body. The law of impermanence; sensations change.
The theory is that the gap between what your body senses and what you wish it were sensing is suffering. If you experience pain and wish you weren’t (aversion), you suffer. If you experience nothing and wish for pleasantness (craving), you suffer.
If you do not hold onto a sensation or let it control you, then you practice equanimity (non-judgment and composure). If you remain present to your sensations without wishing them to be what they are not with equanimity, then you are at peace and in harmony.
Here’s a list of the key principles.
- The law of Nature is impermanence. (Everything changes.)
- Sensation is the root level of experience. (Physical sensation, like temperature on skin (cool/warm) humidity, tickle, buzz, ich.)
- Sensation is on all parts of our body whether we are conscious of them or not.
- Wishing for a sensation we do not have now = craving
- Wishing for a sensation to not be here now = aversion
- Not feeling sensation/numbed sensation = ignorance
- The gap between actual current sensation and what you wish for or do not feel = suffering.
- Feeling sensations without holding on to a sensation or letting it control you = equanimity.
- Being present to all sensation as it is, without craving, aversion, or ignorance = peace.
I experienced the mind as a wild beast, wandering and imaginative, dramatic and detailed. They taught us to treat our minds with patience and acceptance, the way you would treat a wild horse. At first, I still thought about what others might be thinking of me, but the environment gave little for the mind to contemplate. No conversation to review, or stares to analyze, or entertainment to relive. I started noticing the wildflowers and the way the sky looked like silent possibility at 4:15 am.
On day two, I had a moment of bliss – white circling energy dissolving the concept of me and filling the entire room.
One day three we started scanning our bodies giving each part our full attention. This is when I felt pain. Lots of it. It didn’t seem to go away. I even felt it outside of meditation. Could the law of impermanence be false? Do some things, especially terrible, last forever?
Pain filled many of the sessions. I never felt that sense of bliss again. In fact, on the last day, they told us that we may experience metta, a sense of loving-kindness. And I did not feel it. Not one bit.
When they lifted noble silence and permitted speech, I remained silent for over an hour. I needed time to process. I didn’t feel bliss, or loving kindness, or some major change. What was I supposed to talk about? Did people want to hear about how much pain I can endure?
A friend from Boise and I spoke frankly and honestly, which helped. Some conversations came easily and I had moments of deep connection with some of my fellow students.
I volunteered for a chore requiring knowledge I did not have. No person seemed to be in charge and I felt helpless without support or friendliness. Speaking and eye contact felt sharp, scary. Social anxiety felt precise. I felt myself caving in from all sides, a belittling of comparison, dissatisfaction, frustration, agitation, and most distinctly disappointment.
I wanted to leave and never come back.
When I turned the corner off course property onto the vacant highway, I sighed with relief. Alone once again.
Without the social anxiety, I traveled with ease and a greater sense of peace. When the food truck said the sandwich would be an hour wait I said no problem and read in the shade with no sense of hurry. I noticed how reoccurring thoughts zapped energy and that by coming back to my body, I regained stability. At the end of the day, I wanted to meditate. Twenty some days later and I still want to meditate every day.
The course did not give me what I wanted, a pleasant experience away from the world of words. But it did show me a source of my suffering and way to decrease it.
I’m not one-hundred percent going to call myself a Vipassana meditator. But I am impressed enough with the results to give it a full one year practice. If I do the course again next year, maybe I’ll accept whatever sensations occur, exactly as they are, disappointment and all, with a little less suffering.
Here’s the technique:
- Start with feeling the sensation of the breath coming in and out of the nostrils.
- Notice how the mind wanders.
- Bring the mind back to the sensation without judgement or commentary.
- Use no imagination, no visualizations, no mantras, no words to help. Just bring your awareness back to the sensations in the nostrils.
- Once your mind is sharp enough to stay with the sensation in the nostril without wondering for thirty seconds or so, move to the sensation below the nostrils and above the lip.
- Notice what the sensation is.
- Notice how the mind wanders.
- Bring the mind back to the sensations. Just notice. No commentary. No stories. No punishments.
- Once your mind is sharp enough to stay with the sensation below the nostrils, then scan the body by side from head to toe. Scan a three inch chunk at a time. Notice any and all sensations or lack of any sensation.
- Notice the physical experience of each part of your body.
- If you feel nothing, stay at that part of your body for a few minutes and move on. Avoid wishing for something that you are not currently experiencing.
- As you move through the body, remember the law of nature. Whatever you feel or do not feel will change.
Here’s a summary of the days.
Day zero:
Nervously ate 30 cinnamon Altoids while setting up the tent.
Met cool people.
Excited.
Shooting stars.
Day one:
Difficult.
Bliss! Amazing.
Day two:
Difficult. Realized, “This is WORK.”
Sandhill cranes!
Day three:
Pain. Pain.
Noticed a canal running through the property.
“Lunch tastes amazing.”
Day four:
Pain.
Skunk!
Day five:
Pain.
Peace.
Tears.
Kindness.
Bright orange wildflowers.
Day six:
Work. Work Work. “Am I making any progress at all?”
Sky huge and vast.
Day seven:
“Finally a week!”
Pain.
Peace.
“I love food.”
Blue wildflowers.
Day eight:
“Must make use of this time. Be diligent.”
Pain.
Peace.
Agitation.
Deer!
Purple wildflowers.
“I feel my pants brushing my legs as I walk.”
Day nine:
Agitation.
Pain.
Peace.
Day ten:
Started talking.
Social anxiety.
Connection.
Gratefulness.
“The wind feels amazing on my body.”
“Maybe I don’t like people.”
“I’m never doing this again.”
Day eleven:
Charity of others.
Agitation.
Social anxiety.
Disappointment.
“Get me out of here!”
Five days after the course ended:
Peace.
Stability.
Gratefulness.
“Maybe I’ll go for a ten-day course every year.”
“I’m going to continue with the practice for two hours each day for a year.”
“This just might work.”