Towards the end of October, as we were preparing to leave Chennai after 2 months of studying yoga, a sense of open, undefined space surfaced. It was the first time in 9 months that we were without any plans or definite destinations. We were heading south and wanted to experience ashram life during the winter. I knew above anything else that we needed a place to settle down and just have time to ourselves.
We now had to integrate all the learning of the past 6 months. Integrate by creating a complete, daily, personal yoga practice. Integrate by having time to read reference texts and add to the notes from our classes, taking time to reflect and time to write. To attain any depth and to shape long lasting habits, these activities require stability, space, focused time and regularity.
A challenge when you are working and under time pressure, which was a good reason to do this now that we actually had the luxury of time, but equally difficult to accomplish if you’re traveling around. Using our time to settle somewhere and concentrate was clearly the next “right thing” to do. We had been consistently selecting our experiences based on the purpose of our journey formulated last December, “… to put our lives into perspective, claim our spiritual aspirations through learning and practice…” and we firmly intended to maintain this direction.
But our travel budget was expiring with an end-date mid January, extending to mid March if we reduced our expense rate 50% that was feasible only if we stayed in low cost locations for a few months. In order to replenish our travel budget, I had initiated networking contacts in September for potential consulting work in Bangalore that at first gave several promising responses. With the impact of the US financial meltdown on corporate expenses and the challenge of remaining on people’s minds when so far from the US, things slowly came to a standstill. What to do? You can’t force networking; you can only keep at it…
It took a day to make our way to Pondicherry, several hours of which we waited at mid point, on the side of the road, in the beating sun. Our challenge was to get a bus to stop, be it with standing room only but that would also have room for our luggage...
When we arrived at the Swades guesthouse in Pondicherry, we were welcomed by Ilyas, the owner of this charming 5 room home stay http://www.swades-guesthouse.com/. Ilyas is Pondicherry native –it was French at the time of his birth- and left for France as a kid. He lived there 30 years before coming back to the family house a couple of years ago to improve his family’s quality of life. His story reminded me of my own, leaving Ohio for France at age 9 and returning to my mother land 33 years later... Ilyas was a source of warmth, attentive care and peacefulness during our stay, half of which we spent sick in bed with a flu virus we had brought from Chennai.
For a long time Pondicherry http://www.pondicherryonline.in/Profile/History/ was one of the few French colonies in India, until it was handed back over to India in 1956 . The French Quarter that lines the waterfront spreading inland for several blocks is designed as a grid of tree bordered, stone paved avenues, lined with 100 to 300 year old colonial houses and mansions with lush green tropical courtyards, fountains and grand staircases leading to roofed terraces above colonnades.
The atmosphere is quiet and relaxed, the streets clean and well paved, all of which are rare in India. It’s a lightly populated part of town with a good deal of the real estate belonging to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. We fully indulged in several of the French restaurants there, as a change from months of daily Indian meals. French families still own property there that has been passed down from one generation to the other. And many current owners have never seen the property they inherited, that is often going to wrack and ruin.
I was feeling at home in this islet of French history and culture; it reminded me of one of my favorite cities in the world, Aix en Provence. But my mind was struggling with our travel issues. Our visas are due to expire in January and we’ll need to leave the country to get new ones. We still don’t know where the optimal place to go is or for how long new visas will be issued, despite my research on the topic... We were also hoping to attend an intensive yoga program in February for which we needed funding, and had put aside the idea of spending a month at an Ayurveda center in Kerala for the same budgeting reasons.
Kamala and I were getting tired of packing and unpacking, moving every several weeks or days. I was feeling anxious with the open-endedness, needing more direction and control on our life.
I needed some longer-term plans that would direct the coming months. Along with my networking for short term consulting in Bangalore, I had been contemplating starting a fully-fledged consulting business here and was researching legal status and administrative procedures. I was feeling the urge to locate and design our future life and my next professional venture.
Not one single question we faced had a straightforward answer. The buildup of interdependent issues and timelines was drastically changing our experience of the trip from the preceding 9 months. All the actions I had initiated on any of these moving targets had been fleeing, at best. How any of this would play out was unknown.
Here we were, again treading the curves of the great labyrinth (see Jan ’08 blog in the archives).
Pondicherry was a sharp turn in my outlook on our journey. Kamala and I both loved the place and I started feeling that we could actually live there. Ilyas explained to me that Pondicherry had specific, simplified procedures for business creation and how the network of French entrepreneurs there could be a support system to my endeavor. Kamala and I visited the Sri Aurobindo hand made paper manufacture and before I knew it I ended up with freshly printed business cards including my India cell phone number and the name of a company to be.
We headed inland after 10 days in Pondicherry, fully recovered from our Chennai virus. The idea of creating a company and visions of a life in India were growing and getting me more and more excited every day. The idea of having my own business to manage –just like during the first 10 years of my professional life– and the prospect of being in a unique position, as an American-French global management consultant based in India felt like a great adventure to shift into!
Then we arrived in Thiruvannamalai to stay at the Ramana Maharshi ashram. The town is one of the major holy Shiva sites in India, at the base of mount Arunachala, the red mountain, where Ramana Maharshi spent more than 20 years in meditation in the early 1900's. His main teaching is about finding the divine essence of who we are through the path of self inquiry.
On our second day here, all of our questions and wonderings clashed.
Our trip was actually hitting a wall.
Kamala was feeling empty and out of energy for the first time in 9 months; I was clutching to my latest idea, like to a buoy that would save us from the deep, dark waters around us. Then, I understood that my excitement around creating the future was in fact my best answer to close the open-endedness of our unresolved situation and regain the sense of control of our trip and of our life.
Thiruvannamalai leads to drastic readjustments; several people have told us how empty and aimless they felt for the first days after arriving. It is as though there was some cleansing power to the place itself. This could be associated to Shiva, the god who destroys illusions and ignorance through the devastating fire of divine truth. The same friends explained that their vision became clearer after their initial helplessness and that they found new direction thereafter. In our case we could see it happening; we were here at a very special point in our trip.
For all I know, our “productive” travel may be accomplished at this point. Perhaps is it time for a deeper journey, one that extends beyond the uplifting learning experiences, yoga classes and travels; one that confronts us with our deeper selves, with our desires and our fears. This could be a time to integrate our philosophical and spiritual learning, by putting equanimity, perspective, insight and clarity into practice.
On the spot.
A time to see how we can actually deal with the challenges we have created for ourselves.
A time to learn to surrender to the process we’ve generated and maintain faith in the outcome.
We are smack in the midst of what Bill Bridges’ calls the “Neutral zone” of personal transitions.
The Past is over, with a point of no return.
The Future remains to be created, completely undefined yet inevitable.
Everything is in flux, unpredictable and with an uncertain outcome; insecurity can paralyze the ability to move forward.
People don’t like being in this uncomfortable phase and try to get out of it as quickly as possible.
A few years ago Bill told me that because so much is happening at the subconscious level, the neutral zone is the richest period of development for individuals and organizations. It’s actually a time of gestation and profound transformation, where new, unexpected ideas can sprout and grow, where learning from the past and fresh insights on one’s self foster creativity and renewal.
The past week here in Thiruvannamalai has illustrated typical behaviors of such a period. We have each been going through ups and downs, ranging from confusion and emptiness to acceptance and excitement. We have been processing, reflecting alone in silence or talking together, about limitations, possibilities, what-ifs, yes-buts, about our expectations and our doubts. Two days ago we actually spent the entire day in our ashram room, without setting a foot outside. We did not want to go out into the world, were needing solitude and retreat. And no decisions or actions were coming out of any of this.
We have since felt more centered, ready to take each day for what it is. We are settling down here to work on our learning and practice for a few weeks, avoiding hasty decisions and allowing the future to shape itself during this period. And creating a business may be in plan, or not. With the inner work, we will delve deeper and with time create a new life.
A major requirement of the Neutral zone is to let go. Let go of control, let go of the past, let go of needing the future to be definite and reassuring. Only at this condition will the future actually bear the rich possibilities of transformation and renewal.
Yesterday, November 6th 2008, our return flight to San Francisco left Bangkok at 6:50 am. Without us.
We are here to allow our process to unfold.
Showing posts with label inner journey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label inner journey. Show all posts
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Sunday, August 10, 2008
The monastic experience of Vipassana meditation
I practiced different forms of meditation for some years in the ‘80s in France, as member of a traditional spiritual school. In the past 15 years, I only practiced occasionally, to rediscover meditation in 2003 while going through a major life crisis. Since then I felt the need to resume a regular, intentional practice.
I first heard of Vipassana a couple of years ago from Kamala. She had done a 10 day retreat near Yosemite, in California, and was deeply affected by the experience and its impact on her state of mind and on her meditation practice. My son Kevin was also a role model for me, as he recently did two retreats a few months apart and felt a deep and positive impact both times. I was now resolute to experience it for myself during our quest in India.
Vipassana meditation (www.dhamma.org) is the technique that brought Prince Siddhartha Gautama to his enlightment and the state of Buddha, 2500 years ago. He disseminated it until the end of his life to help people liberate themselves from suffering. Vipassana means introspection and insight into the impermanent nature of mind and body.
In a nutshell, the core of Buddha’s Vipassana teaching is that one can only be liberated by one’s own discipline, by learning to experience one’s own physical sensations with awareness and equanimity, by not reacting to these sensations. His teaching is very pragmatic and advocates direct, individual experience.
I’m attempting to make a profound topic as succinct as I can and to do it justice at the same time. Please bear with me and don’t discard the topic altogether if it seems a bit long (6 pages)! It’s a dense topic; you may need to have a second look at a sentence or a paragraph here or there. And if you have little interest in self development, meditation and Buddhism, this account may be irrelevant to you. I’ll introduce the theoretical basis of this Buddhist practice in my own words and understanding and then relate my recent experience.
Key words/concepts:
- perceptions: what our senses perceive from the outer world, including thoughts
- sensations: how we interpret perceptions into pleasant or unpleasant feelings; the basic sensations are pleasure or pain
- reactions: how our mind reacts to sensations. We crave pleasure and have aversion to pain
- impermanence: ever-changing arising and passing away of molecules, instants, sensations, thoughts, emotions, etc…
- awareness: heightened focus on our physical sensations and our mind’s reactions to them
- sankharas: sources of our reactions, memorized past cravings and aversions
- equanimity: equal, level attitude towards all sensations and events, whether “pleasant” or “unpleasant”.
Perceptions, Sensation and Reactions
Buddha’s experience revealed to him that suffering is an inherent part of human existence. The cause of suffering is that every sensorial perception we have from the outside world creates a sensation, to which in turn we have a reaction. Our basic reactions could be summarized as Like / Dislike, Want / Don’t want.
He observed that the source of our suffering is the constant antagonism of our mind’s Craving or Aversion reactions to our sensations. When we crave, we want a physical sensation produced by an object, an emotion, a thought, and suffer when we can’t get it, or enough of it, or at the time we want it, or the way we want it. Conversely, when we have an aversion to a physical sensation produced by an object, an emotion, a thought, we avoid it, are anxious about it, don’t want it.
Pleasure vs. Pain, Like vs. Dislike, Craving vs. Aversion, Wanting vs. Non-wanting.
Impermanence of reality, matter and existence
Through his years of analytical, inner discovery by means of meditation, Buddha directly experienced the impermanence of all matter and of existence as a succession of split-second moments and a constant flow of sub-atomic particles (that he named “kalapa”), incessantly coming to life and passing away, which make up physical reality. Through his direct experience he identified that everything is energy and vibration, since then demonstrated by quantum physics during the 20th century.
He understood that our mind weaves this ephemeral flow into a stable representation of time and of self to provide us with a durable, securing image of ourselves (ego) and of the world. He also observed that we develop deep and firm attachments to the representations we construct.
Who we are or are not, what the world is and isn’t, what feels good, what feels bad; what we like, what we dislike. Again, his quest was to understand and overcome the origin of human suffering.
Awareness of our sensations and the practice of Non-reacting
He experienced that within this transient, ever changing state of reality, any given sensation in our physical body has a very limited span of life. Be it a pleasurable sensation or a painful one, just like everything else, it arises and passes away. Inevitably, incessantly.
He found that practicing a fully aware, individual experience of these physical sensations and developing the mastery of the mind to not react to them through meditation is a doorway leading to personally and directly accessing the impermanent nature of existence. This is goal of the practice of Vipassana.
An Equanimous attitude in life
When we overcome the craving and aversion reactions to our physical sensations, and observe them for what they are –mere sensations, constantly arising and passing away–, we learn to develop an inner state of equanimity. This attitude can then prevail over all the sensations we experience: external events, thoughts, physical well/illness, human interactions …
The origin of suffering being our constant craving and aversion reactions to the sensations we experience, by developing equanimity and experiencing impermanence, we can eradicate our suffering.
How Vipassana developed in the past 40 years
The technique had been lost over centuries in India and other Asian countries, but was passed down in its original form through oral tradition, in Pali, the language spoken at the time of Buddha, within secluded Buddhist monasteries in Myanmar (formerly Burma).
S.N. Goenka, an Indian business man born and raised in Myanmar, came across it as a last recourse to treat chronic migraine, after seeking help in vain from the most eminent European and American doctors. After his parents retired back to India, he went there to teach it to them for their aging ailments. His courses generated a following and since 1969 it has broadly developed worldwide with some 75 full-time retreat centers. Dozens of thousands of students from all religions and venues of life come to learn Vipassana every year. The instruction has neither dogma nor ritual and the training centers are only funded through donations of former students.
My experience
We started our retreat on July 14th after packing our bags for our next leg of travel and leaving them at the yoga center. We would then leave Dharamkot -where we had spent the past 4 months- the day we finished the retreat and head directly to bus and train that would take us to our next yoga venue, 24 hours of travel away, in Rajpur near Rishikesh.
Number of fellow yoga students were finishing or undertaking Vipassana; the week preceding our retreat there was a lot of buzz around us, people sharing stories, opinions and emotions on the topic. I was enthusiastic, though apprehensive. I was above all trusting it would be a deep, transformational experience. It ended-out being beyond anything I would have imagined…
I was concerned by having to sit for extended periods of time, wondering if I would be able to quiet my hyperactive mind as well as my fidgety body. Vipassana is a silent retreat so there is no talking, eye contact or any sort of communication with fellow meditators. I was intimidated by the idea of 10 days of full silence, thinking my inner voices would become unbearably loud!
Then I read the schedule…
4:00 - 4:30 am wake up and wash
4:30 – 6:30 group meditation
6:30 – 8:00 breakfast and rest
8:00 – 11:00 group meditation (with a 5-10 minute break)
11:00 – 1:00 lunch and rest
1:00-5:00 group meditation (with a couple of 5-10 minute breaks)
5:00-6:00 dinner snack
6:00-7:00 group meditation
7:00-8:30 discourse (SN Goenka video)
8:30-9:00 group meditation
9:30 lights out
“About 100 hours… this is a LOT of silent, closed-eye meditation!” I remember saying to myself.
The Dharamkot Vipassana center is simple and modest, a few buildings on a small hill top covered with pine trees, overlooking the valley and surrounding mountains, and generously watered by the Himalaya Monsoon rains that make the grounds soggy and the living quarters moldy and for some even wet. The grounds, meditation hall and dining room are divided for men and women, and the one hundred students sleep in either dormitories or cells. I was lucky to get a cell, maybe was it due to the “50” in the age box on my registration form?
My cell was made of cement blocks, 7 feet by 5, so there was just room for a bed and a little bed table.
Any contact with the outer world is prohibited as well as any distracting activities such as reading, listening to music; writing/journaling, drawing etc…. it felt like I was going into monkhood. Goenka explained later that this is by design. Vipassana being a Buddhist inspired practice, trust is granted to students to respect the precepts without enforcement or policing.
I had given the travel clock to Kamala and surrendered my cell phone to the valuables check-in, so the first days I was without any notion of time other than the gong ringing when it was time to go meditate or eat. I was curious to see what it would feel like to live without any way of telling time. After all, how many times does that happen in the life of an adult? It was strange…When napping the first few days I would wake up not knowing if I had slept 15 minutes or an hour. Then a couple of –very- early mornings I got up, excited to start the day, thinking I was a bit ahead of the crowd for showering, to discover the first time that I was 1 hour ahead, at 3:00 am… and the second time that it was 1:30 am! I had slept 4 hours, was showered, with wet hair walking around the center at 1:30 am, feeling genuinely brainless! So I got a clock. From then on, I most often awoke around 3:30 to have time to shower, shave and be well-awake for the 4:30 morning meditation. Mid-way through the early morning session I would go out for a few minutes, stretch my back and legs, and gaze through the tall trees to admire the emerging dawn bring the small valley to life.
The meditation method evolved over the course of the retreat. The first 3 days, we focused on observing incoming and outgoing breath. Not controlling it, just observing; This is called “Anapana”. The idea is for the mind to be completely concentrated. Of course, at the first opportunity my mind starts to stray, so I bring it back to my breath… And it strays again. So I bring it back again. Then it decides to literally take off, on any topic of its choice; what happened yesterday, or last year, our family Christmas in LA, what will happen tomorrow; what about when we get out in 9 days from now? 9 days, wow, how long will that be? How will I start my long-due blog, let’s see,…? And by the way, what’s for breakfast, what time is it, what’s for lunch, what about Obama, how is Kamala doing?...
As Goenka would say, my mind was just like a monkey, jumping from one branch to another, then to the next, and the next… Like the dozens of monkeys we shared the grounds with, that trampled on the tin roofs above the sleeping quarters.
As the second day went by, my mind’s wandering drastically calmed down. The duration and frequency of mind-straying reduced and the simple focus on breath observation, as well as maintaining a straight posture, became all-absorbing. I started to feel unknown, subtle aspects of my breathing, such as differences between inhale and exhale air quality, moisture, temperature or facial micro-movements. The slight pull of my upper lip inwards and upwards when inhaling; a similar movement in my forehead and temporal skin, a tightening of my nostril rings and of the skin inside my nose... With the quieting I became aware of sensations I was otherwise completely oblivious to. A more subtle and refined experience of my body began.
The tight and well designed schedule left no room for distraction or restlessness. At breaks we would watch the ever-entertaining show of the monkey families in the trees and the roofs of the center, alternating with contemplation of the monsoon rain pouring through the trees. Little naps and short strolls were about all that would fit into the rest periods. I took time off from meditation sessions a couple of occasions when I felt I had crossed my learning threshold, so I was able to fit in some yoga practice, either stretching on my bed or doing postures in one of the small meditation halls. This was a treasure; my body was… craving for it!
In the mean time I was attempting to cope with the long hours of sitting, asking my body to stay cross legged or kneeling for hours at length. This body that was feeling hurts and aches, displaced vertebrae, pinched inter-coastal nerve pains wrapping around my chest, cutting my upper chest breathing. The one that was definitely feeling its age with its ankle and knee joint tensions.
Having just practiced 3 ½ months of Iyengar yoga which is all based on alignment, I was attentive to keep my spine naturally straight, ie. having my tailbone on a firm surface, at perfect height and my legs at a proper angle. We had access to a number of cushions to prop ourselves but most of them were too soft. On the second day I asked Krishna, our teacher, for a chair to sit in due to my infirmities, past accidents and high pain level. I was feeling really miserable and had all the best reasons to justify my request; after all, I have a handicap and even need to adapt yoga postures to my condition, so sitting for hours at length… He declined! He let me know that it was normal to feel a lot of discomfort on day 2 and that it would go away as time went on. Krishna was definitely not my best friend that afternoon. Now not only was I dealing with discomfort and pain, but with my request being declined… This was real work for my ego!
And 8 more days to go? With equanimity???
Every evening we would view a 75 minute video “discourse” by SN Goenka, covering the technique as well as a number of Buddhist precepts relative to achieving liberation and enlightment: Sila, Morality, the purity of wholesome vocal and physical actions; Samadhi, the Mastery/control of one’s Mind; and Panna, Wisdom - Bahavana-Maya Panna being the wisdom gained through direct, personal experience. These discourses provided food for reflection and were a silver thread throughout the retreat. The discourse hour was always relaxed, as Goenka is an outstanding teacher and story teller and has a great sense of humor. Our evening reward!
Most pains went away progressively after terrible, frightening peaks on day 4, and hours of practice, observing pain as closely as possible while letting go of my well-honed “aversion-to-pain” reactions such as “this is hurting, I have to change positions!”.
My famous last words to Paolo, a fellow yoga student, before heading up the hill to Vipassana, were: “With my experience of pain, I can do pain”. I discovered that it wasn’t that simple; that I had a lot of anxiety, past memories and emotions bundled along with the pains … that I also had to let go of! I learned that these were called sankharas.
Sankharas
Pains or pleasurable sensations that arise are called “sankharas”, meaning fruit of the past. It also means seed of the future. Every reaction creates a sankhara. We create them every time we react to a sensation with craving or aversion. The Vipassana process aims to let the sankharas arise and pass; each time we do so we eradicate an old sankhara and avoid creating a new one. Little by little we eradicate our stock of past cravings, past aversions and make progress on the path of equanimity. It was crystal-clear to me that the pains, past memories and emotions that were surfacing to my awareness qualified as sankharas. When I could let them pass without reacting, by just observing them, they would completely disappear. Completely!
Meanwhile, back in the meditation hall, my equanimity was pretty erratic… or perhaps should I say “impermanent”.
The entire experience was a roller-coaster ride, with little sense of progressing from one day to the next. I had inner experiences of total quietness and peace, my consciousness soaring to elated heights, my body’s absolute stillness, its most subtle sensations, all this with a fulfilling sense of discovery and progress. In the same day, I would feel shrilling pain, react to it by restlessness and posture shifting and feel helpless, in despair and self-pity. Still later, I could remain totally immobile for the prescribed hour and pains that I could observe literally stabbing my back for 40 minutes, without me reacting, would all of a sudden disappear and totally vanish, without leaving the slightest sign of tension. As though they had never, ever existed…
A fellow student had an extreme acute arm pain for several years that totally disappeared during our retreat, after not reacting to it when it was peaking at its highest.
Vipassana instruction per se started day 4. From the heightened awareness we had developed through the observation of our breath, day 3 we were asked to focus only on the sensations arising on and in our nose and upper lip area. Only nose and upper lip area.
The nose focus was a first step towards the full-body scanning that was introduced to us the afternoon of day 4. The technique is to sit totally immobile and scan the entire body from head to feet for any and every sensation. Feeling continual changes in our physical sensations gives us the direct experience that our body is in permanent flux; just like any other matter, it is composed of sub-atomic particles arising and passing away. We experience that there is no stable state of “I” and that by observing the sensations and not reacting, we actually can access their ephemeral, changing nature, experience and observe our body as an entity of vibrating energy.
Actually observing subtle physical sensations like sweat coming to the skin’s surface is fascinating; I felt my facial hair growing, my skull’s skin undulating, my blood flowing, temperature differences between tops and bottoms of my ears, energy flowing along my legs to my feet and back… I was able to explore the inside of my body like never before, ligaments under my knees, muscles, tendons, my skull cavity.
The following 4 days I spent learning the scanning technique and finding myself “in search of the perfect posture”, trying to avoid pain by engineering it away… Not the focus of the retreat; getting comfy to avoid sensations is not the objective. The end goal is to overcome craving and aversion reactions, reduce and eradicate our sankharas. Kamala would often get a glimpse of me from the woman’s side, thoughtfully re-establishing my sitting area for the next session. An Indian neighbor had two positions he alternated, with the help of two small cushions, while I was shifting, layering, folding, spreading, interchanging cushions. I made progress as to what did or didn’t work and on the ninth day I stripped my area and went back to the simple posture I’ve practiced for years – and dealt with the pains that arose.
My agitation or quietness and varied from one session to another, totally unpredictable. When I talked to our teacher about it, he looked at me with his caring smile and simply said “Anicca” (pronounced aneecha), the Pali term for impermanence. He was pointing out to me that my learning curve was inconsistent, like everything else. Impermanent,… and not to worry about it.
We have to get over it, there is absolutely no linearity, no stable state in human experience.
In any given day, any given hour, we go through a multitude of physical, mental and emotional states, ever changing, coming and going, arising and passing. And we like to think of ourselves and present ourselves as constant, stable beings.
I lack words to describe the power of 100 people silently meditating together for an hour in total quietness and peace. It’s a beautiful and moving example of the harmony human beings can create when they so desire.
My quietest moments brought breakthroughs in my awareness of physical sensations and in my ability to consciously develop equanimity.
The last day we broke the silence and had a lighter schedule so I got to meet fellow students and share impressions. Everyone had gone through highly agitated and deeply quiet moments. Those I talked with all felt moved and transformed for the better by the experience.
Kamala and I were also able to talk to each other that day. We were so moved that we agreed not to even attempt to find words or share insights immediately. We felt profoundly peaceful, with a new quality of balance and equanimity; the feeling has been lasting for the past 2 weeks as we’re integrating the experience through mindful practice in our day to day life.
I felt my mind and my body had been clarified, simplified and purified. As one of the deepest inner experiences I’ve had, it brought me a bit further in my quest of wisdom and knowledge of my Self… It reminded me of when we ended our two weeks of fasting in Thailand last February. We had taken a journey within, and cared for our very inner selves.
The shifts I’ve noticed in my attitude since this retreat lead me to think how critical a skill it is to withdraw within one’s self and “get our house cleaned up”, in order to be better people, to act thoughtfully in the world and live life to its fullest.
If you’ve read this far, this might have perked your interest. Here’s a great book that gives a clear, concise overview of Vipassana philosophy and technique: “The Art of Living” by William Hart, Harper and Row, 1987.
I first heard of Vipassana a couple of years ago from Kamala. She had done a 10 day retreat near Yosemite, in California, and was deeply affected by the experience and its impact on her state of mind and on her meditation practice. My son Kevin was also a role model for me, as he recently did two retreats a few months apart and felt a deep and positive impact both times. I was now resolute to experience it for myself during our quest in India.
Vipassana meditation (www.dhamma.org) is the technique that brought Prince Siddhartha Gautama to his enlightment and the state of Buddha, 2500 years ago. He disseminated it until the end of his life to help people liberate themselves from suffering. Vipassana means introspection and insight into the impermanent nature of mind and body.
In a nutshell, the core of Buddha’s Vipassana teaching is that one can only be liberated by one’s own discipline, by learning to experience one’s own physical sensations with awareness and equanimity, by not reacting to these sensations. His teaching is very pragmatic and advocates direct, individual experience.
I’m attempting to make a profound topic as succinct as I can and to do it justice at the same time. Please bear with me and don’t discard the topic altogether if it seems a bit long (6 pages)! It’s a dense topic; you may need to have a second look at a sentence or a paragraph here or there. And if you have little interest in self development, meditation and Buddhism, this account may be irrelevant to you. I’ll introduce the theoretical basis of this Buddhist practice in my own words and understanding and then relate my recent experience.
Key words/concepts:
- perceptions: what our senses perceive from the outer world, including thoughts
- sensations: how we interpret perceptions into pleasant or unpleasant feelings; the basic sensations are pleasure or pain
- reactions: how our mind reacts to sensations. We crave pleasure and have aversion to pain
- impermanence: ever-changing arising and passing away of molecules, instants, sensations, thoughts, emotions, etc…
- awareness: heightened focus on our physical sensations and our mind’s reactions to them
- sankharas: sources of our reactions, memorized past cravings and aversions
- equanimity: equal, level attitude towards all sensations and events, whether “pleasant” or “unpleasant”.
Perceptions, Sensation and Reactions
Buddha’s experience revealed to him that suffering is an inherent part of human existence. The cause of suffering is that every sensorial perception we have from the outside world creates a sensation, to which in turn we have a reaction. Our basic reactions could be summarized as Like / Dislike, Want / Don’t want.
He observed that the source of our suffering is the constant antagonism of our mind’s Craving or Aversion reactions to our sensations. When we crave, we want a physical sensation produced by an object, an emotion, a thought, and suffer when we can’t get it, or enough of it, or at the time we want it, or the way we want it. Conversely, when we have an aversion to a physical sensation produced by an object, an emotion, a thought, we avoid it, are anxious about it, don’t want it.
Pleasure vs. Pain, Like vs. Dislike, Craving vs. Aversion, Wanting vs. Non-wanting.
Impermanence of reality, matter and existence
Through his years of analytical, inner discovery by means of meditation, Buddha directly experienced the impermanence of all matter and of existence as a succession of split-second moments and a constant flow of sub-atomic particles (that he named “kalapa”), incessantly coming to life and passing away, which make up physical reality. Through his direct experience he identified that everything is energy and vibration, since then demonstrated by quantum physics during the 20th century.
He understood that our mind weaves this ephemeral flow into a stable representation of time and of self to provide us with a durable, securing image of ourselves (ego) and of the world. He also observed that we develop deep and firm attachments to the representations we construct.
Who we are or are not, what the world is and isn’t, what feels good, what feels bad; what we like, what we dislike. Again, his quest was to understand and overcome the origin of human suffering.
Awareness of our sensations and the practice of Non-reacting
He experienced that within this transient, ever changing state of reality, any given sensation in our physical body has a very limited span of life. Be it a pleasurable sensation or a painful one, just like everything else, it arises and passes away. Inevitably, incessantly.
He found that practicing a fully aware, individual experience of these physical sensations and developing the mastery of the mind to not react to them through meditation is a doorway leading to personally and directly accessing the impermanent nature of existence. This is goal of the practice of Vipassana.
An Equanimous attitude in life
When we overcome the craving and aversion reactions to our physical sensations, and observe them for what they are –mere sensations, constantly arising and passing away–, we learn to develop an inner state of equanimity. This attitude can then prevail over all the sensations we experience: external events, thoughts, physical well/illness, human interactions …
The origin of suffering being our constant craving and aversion reactions to the sensations we experience, by developing equanimity and experiencing impermanence, we can eradicate our suffering.
How Vipassana developed in the past 40 years
The technique had been lost over centuries in India and other Asian countries, but was passed down in its original form through oral tradition, in Pali, the language spoken at the time of Buddha, within secluded Buddhist monasteries in Myanmar (formerly Burma).
S.N. Goenka, an Indian business man born and raised in Myanmar, came across it as a last recourse to treat chronic migraine, after seeking help in vain from the most eminent European and American doctors. After his parents retired back to India, he went there to teach it to them for their aging ailments. His courses generated a following and since 1969 it has broadly developed worldwide with some 75 full-time retreat centers. Dozens of thousands of students from all religions and venues of life come to learn Vipassana every year. The instruction has neither dogma nor ritual and the training centers are only funded through donations of former students.
My experience
We started our retreat on July 14th after packing our bags for our next leg of travel and leaving them at the yoga center. We would then leave Dharamkot -where we had spent the past 4 months- the day we finished the retreat and head directly to bus and train that would take us to our next yoga venue, 24 hours of travel away, in Rajpur near Rishikesh.
Number of fellow yoga students were finishing or undertaking Vipassana; the week preceding our retreat there was a lot of buzz around us, people sharing stories, opinions and emotions on the topic. I was enthusiastic, though apprehensive. I was above all trusting it would be a deep, transformational experience. It ended-out being beyond anything I would have imagined…
I was concerned by having to sit for extended periods of time, wondering if I would be able to quiet my hyperactive mind as well as my fidgety body. Vipassana is a silent retreat so there is no talking, eye contact or any sort of communication with fellow meditators. I was intimidated by the idea of 10 days of full silence, thinking my inner voices would become unbearably loud!
Then I read the schedule…
4:00 - 4:30 am wake up and wash
4:30 – 6:30 group meditation
6:30 – 8:00 breakfast and rest
8:00 – 11:00 group meditation (with a 5-10 minute break)
11:00 – 1:00 lunch and rest
1:00-5:00 group meditation (with a couple of 5-10 minute breaks)
5:00-6:00 dinner snack
6:00-7:00 group meditation
7:00-8:30 discourse (SN Goenka video)
8:30-9:00 group meditation
9:30 lights out
“About 100 hours… this is a LOT of silent, closed-eye meditation!” I remember saying to myself.
The Dharamkot Vipassana center is simple and modest, a few buildings on a small hill top covered with pine trees, overlooking the valley and surrounding mountains, and generously watered by the Himalaya Monsoon rains that make the grounds soggy and the living quarters moldy and for some even wet. The grounds, meditation hall and dining room are divided for men and women, and the one hundred students sleep in either dormitories or cells. I was lucky to get a cell, maybe was it due to the “50” in the age box on my registration form?
My cell was made of cement blocks, 7 feet by 5, so there was just room for a bed and a little bed table.
Any contact with the outer world is prohibited as well as any distracting activities such as reading, listening to music; writing/journaling, drawing etc…. it felt like I was going into monkhood. Goenka explained later that this is by design. Vipassana being a Buddhist inspired practice, trust is granted to students to respect the precepts without enforcement or policing.
I had given the travel clock to Kamala and surrendered my cell phone to the valuables check-in, so the first days I was without any notion of time other than the gong ringing when it was time to go meditate or eat. I was curious to see what it would feel like to live without any way of telling time. After all, how many times does that happen in the life of an adult? It was strange…When napping the first few days I would wake up not knowing if I had slept 15 minutes or an hour. Then a couple of –very- early mornings I got up, excited to start the day, thinking I was a bit ahead of the crowd for showering, to discover the first time that I was 1 hour ahead, at 3:00 am… and the second time that it was 1:30 am! I had slept 4 hours, was showered, with wet hair walking around the center at 1:30 am, feeling genuinely brainless! So I got a clock. From then on, I most often awoke around 3:30 to have time to shower, shave and be well-awake for the 4:30 morning meditation. Mid-way through the early morning session I would go out for a few minutes, stretch my back and legs, and gaze through the tall trees to admire the emerging dawn bring the small valley to life.
The meditation method evolved over the course of the retreat. The first 3 days, we focused on observing incoming and outgoing breath. Not controlling it, just observing; This is called “Anapana”. The idea is for the mind to be completely concentrated. Of course, at the first opportunity my mind starts to stray, so I bring it back to my breath… And it strays again. So I bring it back again. Then it decides to literally take off, on any topic of its choice; what happened yesterday, or last year, our family Christmas in LA, what will happen tomorrow; what about when we get out in 9 days from now? 9 days, wow, how long will that be? How will I start my long-due blog, let’s see,…? And by the way, what’s for breakfast, what time is it, what’s for lunch, what about Obama, how is Kamala doing?...
As Goenka would say, my mind was just like a monkey, jumping from one branch to another, then to the next, and the next… Like the dozens of monkeys we shared the grounds with, that trampled on the tin roofs above the sleeping quarters.
As the second day went by, my mind’s wandering drastically calmed down. The duration and frequency of mind-straying reduced and the simple focus on breath observation, as well as maintaining a straight posture, became all-absorbing. I started to feel unknown, subtle aspects of my breathing, such as differences between inhale and exhale air quality, moisture, temperature or facial micro-movements. The slight pull of my upper lip inwards and upwards when inhaling; a similar movement in my forehead and temporal skin, a tightening of my nostril rings and of the skin inside my nose... With the quieting I became aware of sensations I was otherwise completely oblivious to. A more subtle and refined experience of my body began.
The tight and well designed schedule left no room for distraction or restlessness. At breaks we would watch the ever-entertaining show of the monkey families in the trees and the roofs of the center, alternating with contemplation of the monsoon rain pouring through the trees. Little naps and short strolls were about all that would fit into the rest periods. I took time off from meditation sessions a couple of occasions when I felt I had crossed my learning threshold, so I was able to fit in some yoga practice, either stretching on my bed or doing postures in one of the small meditation halls. This was a treasure; my body was… craving for it!
In the mean time I was attempting to cope with the long hours of sitting, asking my body to stay cross legged or kneeling for hours at length. This body that was feeling hurts and aches, displaced vertebrae, pinched inter-coastal nerve pains wrapping around my chest, cutting my upper chest breathing. The one that was definitely feeling its age with its ankle and knee joint tensions.
Having just practiced 3 ½ months of Iyengar yoga which is all based on alignment, I was attentive to keep my spine naturally straight, ie. having my tailbone on a firm surface, at perfect height and my legs at a proper angle. We had access to a number of cushions to prop ourselves but most of them were too soft. On the second day I asked Krishna, our teacher, for a chair to sit in due to my infirmities, past accidents and high pain level. I was feeling really miserable and had all the best reasons to justify my request; after all, I have a handicap and even need to adapt yoga postures to my condition, so sitting for hours at length… He declined! He let me know that it was normal to feel a lot of discomfort on day 2 and that it would go away as time went on. Krishna was definitely not my best friend that afternoon. Now not only was I dealing with discomfort and pain, but with my request being declined… This was real work for my ego!
And 8 more days to go? With equanimity???
Every evening we would view a 75 minute video “discourse” by SN Goenka, covering the technique as well as a number of Buddhist precepts relative to achieving liberation and enlightment: Sila, Morality, the purity of wholesome vocal and physical actions; Samadhi, the Mastery/control of one’s Mind; and Panna, Wisdom - Bahavana-Maya Panna being the wisdom gained through direct, personal experience. These discourses provided food for reflection and were a silver thread throughout the retreat. The discourse hour was always relaxed, as Goenka is an outstanding teacher and story teller and has a great sense of humor. Our evening reward!
Most pains went away progressively after terrible, frightening peaks on day 4, and hours of practice, observing pain as closely as possible while letting go of my well-honed “aversion-to-pain” reactions such as “this is hurting, I have to change positions!”.
My famous last words to Paolo, a fellow yoga student, before heading up the hill to Vipassana, were: “With my experience of pain, I can do pain”. I discovered that it wasn’t that simple; that I had a lot of anxiety, past memories and emotions bundled along with the pains … that I also had to let go of! I learned that these were called sankharas.
Sankharas
Pains or pleasurable sensations that arise are called “sankharas”, meaning fruit of the past. It also means seed of the future. Every reaction creates a sankhara. We create them every time we react to a sensation with craving or aversion. The Vipassana process aims to let the sankharas arise and pass; each time we do so we eradicate an old sankhara and avoid creating a new one. Little by little we eradicate our stock of past cravings, past aversions and make progress on the path of equanimity. It was crystal-clear to me that the pains, past memories and emotions that were surfacing to my awareness qualified as sankharas. When I could let them pass without reacting, by just observing them, they would completely disappear. Completely!
Meanwhile, back in the meditation hall, my equanimity was pretty erratic… or perhaps should I say “impermanent”.
The entire experience was a roller-coaster ride, with little sense of progressing from one day to the next. I had inner experiences of total quietness and peace, my consciousness soaring to elated heights, my body’s absolute stillness, its most subtle sensations, all this with a fulfilling sense of discovery and progress. In the same day, I would feel shrilling pain, react to it by restlessness and posture shifting and feel helpless, in despair and self-pity. Still later, I could remain totally immobile for the prescribed hour and pains that I could observe literally stabbing my back for 40 minutes, without me reacting, would all of a sudden disappear and totally vanish, without leaving the slightest sign of tension. As though they had never, ever existed…
A fellow student had an extreme acute arm pain for several years that totally disappeared during our retreat, after not reacting to it when it was peaking at its highest.
Vipassana instruction per se started day 4. From the heightened awareness we had developed through the observation of our breath, day 3 we were asked to focus only on the sensations arising on and in our nose and upper lip area. Only nose and upper lip area.
The nose focus was a first step towards the full-body scanning that was introduced to us the afternoon of day 4. The technique is to sit totally immobile and scan the entire body from head to feet for any and every sensation. Feeling continual changes in our physical sensations gives us the direct experience that our body is in permanent flux; just like any other matter, it is composed of sub-atomic particles arising and passing away. We experience that there is no stable state of “I” and that by observing the sensations and not reacting, we actually can access their ephemeral, changing nature, experience and observe our body as an entity of vibrating energy.
Actually observing subtle physical sensations like sweat coming to the skin’s surface is fascinating; I felt my facial hair growing, my skull’s skin undulating, my blood flowing, temperature differences between tops and bottoms of my ears, energy flowing along my legs to my feet and back… I was able to explore the inside of my body like never before, ligaments under my knees, muscles, tendons, my skull cavity.
The following 4 days I spent learning the scanning technique and finding myself “in search of the perfect posture”, trying to avoid pain by engineering it away… Not the focus of the retreat; getting comfy to avoid sensations is not the objective. The end goal is to overcome craving and aversion reactions, reduce and eradicate our sankharas. Kamala would often get a glimpse of me from the woman’s side, thoughtfully re-establishing my sitting area for the next session. An Indian neighbor had two positions he alternated, with the help of two small cushions, while I was shifting, layering, folding, spreading, interchanging cushions. I made progress as to what did or didn’t work and on the ninth day I stripped my area and went back to the simple posture I’ve practiced for years – and dealt with the pains that arose.
My agitation or quietness and varied from one session to another, totally unpredictable. When I talked to our teacher about it, he looked at me with his caring smile and simply said “Anicca” (pronounced aneecha), the Pali term for impermanence. He was pointing out to me that my learning curve was inconsistent, like everything else. Impermanent,… and not to worry about it.
We have to get over it, there is absolutely no linearity, no stable state in human experience.
In any given day, any given hour, we go through a multitude of physical, mental and emotional states, ever changing, coming and going, arising and passing. And we like to think of ourselves and present ourselves as constant, stable beings.
I lack words to describe the power of 100 people silently meditating together for an hour in total quietness and peace. It’s a beautiful and moving example of the harmony human beings can create when they so desire.
My quietest moments brought breakthroughs in my awareness of physical sensations and in my ability to consciously develop equanimity.
The last day we broke the silence and had a lighter schedule so I got to meet fellow students and share impressions. Everyone had gone through highly agitated and deeply quiet moments. Those I talked with all felt moved and transformed for the better by the experience.
Kamala and I were also able to talk to each other that day. We were so moved that we agreed not to even attempt to find words or share insights immediately. We felt profoundly peaceful, with a new quality of balance and equanimity; the feeling has been lasting for the past 2 weeks as we’re integrating the experience through mindful practice in our day to day life.
I felt my mind and my body had been clarified, simplified and purified. As one of the deepest inner experiences I’ve had, it brought me a bit further in my quest of wisdom and knowledge of my Self… It reminded me of when we ended our two weeks of fasting in Thailand last February. We had taken a journey within, and cared for our very inner selves.
The shifts I’ve noticed in my attitude since this retreat lead me to think how critical a skill it is to withdraw within one’s self and “get our house cleaned up”, in order to be better people, to act thoughtfully in the world and live life to its fullest.
If you’ve read this far, this might have perked your interest. Here’s a great book that gives a clear, concise overview of Vipassana philosophy and technique: “The Art of Living” by William Hart, Harper and Row, 1987.
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