Yoga in Goa

We reached the beaches of Arambol in northern Goa on January 31st, just 24 hours after leaving Chennai, four days after returning from Sri Lanka and one year after leaving California.


Kamala enjoying the open door train ride ~~~ Indian passengers in Chennai station

Ever since friends in France had been visiting India in the 70’s, I had thought that Goa was a town. Little did I know it was a state with some 24 beach towns strung along 80 miles of Arabian Sea coast line, each village with its own personality and type of tourist, ranging from young backpackers to charter bus groups, from old hippies to five star resort guests.

A brief glimpse of Goan history
In the Vedic times, Goa was referred to in Sanskrit as Gomantak, “a land similar to paradise, with fertile land and good waters”. Its geographic situation bordered by the ocean to the west and separated from the southern plains by a low mountain range to the east made it a destination of choice for colonists.
In 1510, the Portuguese fleet landed in Goa to establish a port and control the spice trade, so far dominated by the Arabs. Goa became the jewel of its eastern empire, referred to as "Golden Goa". Despite a turbulent history of repressed revolts, failed plots and the rise and decline of its commerce, it remained under Portuguese rule for 450 years - compared to the 250 years of English rule in India-. In 1961 Nehru resorted to military force to take Goa back from the Portuguese; he found no resistance.


We loved the old Portuguese houses everywhere around Goa



From 1560 on, the inquisition in Goa pretty much eradicated any Hindu religious practice; its goal was to convert all and prohibit any penetration of Hindu practices into the Catholic rituals. The Inquisition Tribunal had powers to confiscate property of the accused and to condemn them to death by burning on the stake. This lasted until the late 18th century. For more history, check out http://goacentral.com/index.htm.

Goans have thus been converted to the Roman Catholic Church centuries ago by the power of coercion. So nowadays, in a country that has an 82.5% Hindu majority and a strong 11.6% Muslim minority, Goa sticks out as a state of Christian majority, while only 2.3 % of all Indians are Christians. This may well have a lot to do with Goa’s popularity as a western tourist destination over the past 40 years.

I was reflecting on what a collective religious identity actually means, when a fraction of a country’s population is converted to a religion whose origins reflect a totally different culture and region of the globe...

Our first weeks in Goa
Back in July ’08 when we left the Himalaya Iyengar Yoga Centre (www.hiyc.com) in Dharamsala, we were hoping to stay in India long enough to participate in our teacher’s Spring Intensive class in Goa, 7 months later. At the time we still had our November return tickets to California and no idea how travel events would unfold… After my fall in November, I doubted I would be in good enough shape to do so. But by early January, 6 weeks after the accident, we were committed to attend and I was envisioning the intensive as physical therapy that would allow me to attain complete, in depth recovery.

We arrived in the late afternoon and found our teacher Sharat directing a class. It was moving to see him and his partner Lila for the first time in 7 months. We were all excited to be together again, as we had spent 4 months living around each other at the Dharamsala yoga center.

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Entrance to the yoga center~~~ Sharat had grown a beard and was looking great!

That evening, our first impression of Arambol was soft and relaxed. The weather was mild with a warm breeze blowing in from the sea and the beach was full of European families with babies and young children playing in the sand, young Indians playing cricket, volleyball or soccer, dreadlock tourists, fire twirlers, and several dozen beach restaurants made of bamboo and coconut leaves. We had the first lettuce and avocado salad in our one year in India, and even ordered a glass of wine to celebrate the crisp, fresh, delicious veggies!

Sunset beach cricket ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Locals playing on the beach

During the 3 weeks leading up to the Intensive, we attended class from 7am to 11am, then headed down to the beach for a swim in the ocean before having breakfast at Carpe Diem, our favorite beach café held by Arun and his family. The mix of sustained yoga practice and warm ocean bathing was starting to strengthen and energize my body.

Carpe Diem cafe ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Arun, Ayush and Arpita the owners

I had been physically struggling after the accident, especially recovering while traveling to Sri Lanka; at times, walking for more than an hour was an ordeal. At that time I was clumsy in my movements, and though I had since felt my energy slowly coming back, my body was lacking confidence, and for example would be tentative when walking up stairs in the dark. Though everything looked fine externally, my body needed to get a grasp of its balance, its strength and its ability; the active memory of the recent trauma needed to heal, fade and go away.

Time passed quickly in this relaxed setting and we found ourselves staying in Arambol without the yearning to discover the surrounding area. We took a memorable scooter excursion to Panjim, the capital of Goa, to admire the European architecture in the old Portuguese neighborhood of Fontainhas.

As the weeks went by we felt the increasing benefits of the regular daily practice and the swimming, and we were back into “yogic shape”, ready to start the intensive wholeheartedly.

The Intensive
Twenty students of all ages and venues of life were enrolled, coming from 15 countries: Poland, UK, Canada, Malaysia, Japan, Peru, Russia, US, Italy, Holland, Mexico, Sweden, Austria, Germany, and France About 70% were female and 30% male.

Our group of students~~~~~~~~~~Sharat during a noon lecture under the canopy

Schedule
5:00 wake up
5:45 inversion self-practice in the yoga hall
6:45 morning chants
7:15 posture/asana class
10:45 end of class, clean yoga hall (Kamala and I had this task)
11:00 lunch served at the center
12:00 daily lectures on Ayurveda and on Yoga
2:00 rest
3:30 relaxation postures self-practice (with guidance/correction)
4:30 breathing/pranayama/relaxation
6:00 break – sunset on the beach
7:00 dinner served at the center

By now we were missing our cherished time in the ocean! The schedule was packed and allowed virtually no time for other activities, by design. We had one day off per week that we spent doing some self-practice, going into the neighboring town for the ATM and errands, or just for hanging out on the beach. The next day of intensive arrived very quickly.

Kamala at Mapusa market~~~~~~~~~Nanda, the very friendly coconut vendor

Sharat’s teaching
Sharat is a senior student of BKS Iyengar and has taught for the past 25 years. Beyond this, the particularity about his teaching is how he shares his practice on the spot, himself doing the postures and taking the class through minute descriptions of what is happening throughout the body. With the detailed instructions of how to achieve the proper alignment and what we should be feeling in our bodies, he leads everyone from a live experience rather than from a scripted class sequence. In fact, Sharat re-creates his class every day, exploring his own body, which allows him to engage his passion and be totally present in his teaching. A perfect example of a teacher role-modeling an essential attitude for the practice of yoga: presence.

Being a Vipassana meditator as well, he brings a focus on the inner experience of subtle levels, on the being, while encouraging us to stay alert to keep the mind from taking over in its habit of controller-achiever, in doing. He constantly repeats “Let go of your mind. Be in your body, not in your mind!” and gives tips on how to tell when we are in our mind, thinking a posture rather than doing it, such as when we can notice a slight hardening of the eyeballs in their sockets or a tightening of the breath, the neck or the throat.

Applying his instruction I gain an unprecedented level of awareness, concentrating and listening into my body, increasing my ability to sense what is happening and reducing the craving my mind has to push the body into the posture through command and assess its “performance”. It’s a tricky game to tame the mind and distinguish when it is driving versus when the body is allowed to get into a posture and experience it on its own. Practicing “being” through my body versus “doing” through my mind has brought a centered, balanced feeling and a more relaxed state to both. The mind can now become the observer of what is happening within my body.

Stretchhhhh the groin!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Flexxxxxx the back and hips!

Over time I’ve discovered how different parts of my body are intimately inter-connected. For example, when I bring all the elements of my lower body together in a posture: the soles of my feet, mounds of my toes, equal extension of my toes, lateral stretching of my feet, grounding of my heels and activation of the center of my thighs,… it creates an extension and ascending thrust of my upper body, naturally elongating my spine and opening my rib cage, without any direct, local effort.

When standing, if I rotate my thighs slightly inwards and consciously ground my heels on the floor, a lateral movement of my hips is initiated that in turn creates space in my sacrum and my lower back…

Sharat is guiding us through each muscle, tendon and bone, while emphasizing how in doing so we can pull our energy towards the center, into the core of our body, and experience this powerful centering and self alignment, that then paradoxically creates an expansion from the core outwards and upwards.

Balancing Trikonasana ~~~~~~~~~ Flexing the back while activating the thighs

In Yoga, the practice of body postures is meant to eliminate physical and mental tensions and create the physical condition that allows us to still our body and calm our breath. This in turn allows us to silence our inner dialogue and quiet our mind through meditative practice, and gain access to higher states of consciousness. A good physical shape is the prerequisite to being still and to work on the next step. As an illustration of this step by step process, how can we find peace of mind when our body is in illness and/or in pain? How can we calm the mind if our breath is tight, shallow or erratic?

Our lunch was a moment of repose and joy. A fresh vegetarian salad buffet complete with sprouts, yogurt, bread and soup was the reward for a morning of fasting and long practice. We hadn’t eaten this much raw food since we had left Thailand after our fasting experience and our bodies had been craving for it for months. Of course we had prepared our own grated carrots and beets now and then, but it’s practically impossible to find lettuce in many parts of India.

The mosquito proof yoga hall ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Afternoon lecture under the canopy

The afternoon lectures were held under the canopy attached to the coconut trees in the yoga center, and covered principles of the ancient Indian science of life and health, Ayurveda, presented by Joilly, a local Ayurvedic doctor, or theoretical aspects of yoga such as yoga philosophy, breathing techniques, or how to consider the application of Ayurveda principles to a Yoga practice. After our experience at KYM, the yoga school in Chennai, and Arya Vaidya Sala, the Ayurvedic hospital in Kerala, this was an opportunity for us to integrate further our understanding of both disciplines.

After an hour of rest back at our guesthouse, we would resume the asana practice for an hour of relaxing poses, practicing new postures, or in my case consistently working on two or three postures that specifically addressed parts of my body that I needed to heal, by releasing the residual tensions from my accident. This session was meant to prepare for the later afternoon breathing-relaxation, by choosing postures that would open up the thoracic cage while being effortless from a strength or flexibility perspective.

Observing Richard's permanent back knots~~~ Kamala going further and further

I observed how difficult it was to maintain even a simple, non-demanding posture for a sustained amount of time, when it triggers tensions or pains in your body. To stay with the pain, submit to it, to not react and allow the tension to be, finally brings an unexpected, relaxed state to that part of the body. It acts in the same way as in Vipassana meditation, when one is sitting totally immobile, allowing pain to arise, observing it without reacting by shifting positions, which brings the pain to vanish altogether after some time. Relaxing in a posture, as challenging it may be, is one of the goals of the practice. It requires dropping tensions, letting go of our sense of pain, -our attachment to it- and softening our body at the same time it’s being stretched, twisted, or flexed.

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Kamala in hand stand~~~~~~ Very effective neck/shoulder release inversion

By the same token I admit that I would naturally gravitate towards wanting to achieve more by making my posture –even a relaxing one- challenging, by pushing my flexibility for example, to attain the healing goal I had set to myself throughout the intensive. Were we speaking earlier about not being in the mind and only being in the body?...

We practiced the pranayama/breathing and relaxation at the end of the day in lying position, with the objective of totally relaxing the body to allow the flow of breath to be completely free, unrestrained, to enhance the subtle life-energy (prana) circulation in the body. This was accomplished by a guided relaxation and simple breathing exercises.
It took us to the end of our day’s work.

Sharat -shaved - leading the meditation~~~~ End of pranayama session

During the late afternoon break we would head down to the beach to see the sunset. I would usually take this time for my daily swim and play with the crashing waves. Over the weeks we spent in Goa the weather got warmer and warmer, as did the water, and the days became windier, especially in the evening. The ocean could be furious with 6-10 foot waves and I had befriended it by sheer playfulness, deciding to learn to bodysurf. It gave me a fine sense of my body’s power and its liveliness, feeling so vigorous and daring. It reminded me of my sense of self when I was a young teenager. I knew that I was completing my healing with a renewed vitality…

After a shower we would head back to the camp and have a typical north Indian dinner with our fellow students, composed of dishes of rice, mixed vegetable sabji and lentil dahl, and a sweet porridge that would usually be in short supply... We then retired and would be in bed around 10:30.

Three weeks of this regime followed our three weeks of preparation, and I felt my body transformed, back to the shape it was in when we had left Dharamsala late July ’08. I felt in great physical and mental shape as I have each time we’ve practiced with Sharat. We feel a deep and pervasive well being, a centered, lively and balanced energy, and a heightened sense of our inner being.

In Panjim, a week after we arrived~~~~ 6 weeks later, the last evening in Arambol

At the same time we were doing the intensive I was daily emailing and calling colleagues and friends to set up what would be our next step: a couple of weeks of high tech business networking in Bangalore. As I write, we are on the train leaving Bangalore to Rajasthan, so stay tuned in for a very different next blog: “Bangalore Blast”.

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.