My Vipassana Initiation: Stairway to Heaven or Descent into Scary Depths?
{Photo via learningmeditation.com}
By Katherine Smith.
We’re speeding down the motorway; me, a shaven-haired pixie and a one-armed man famous in Thailand for his juggling abilities. Thankfully, he isn’t driving.
I am wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with a donut and a chocolate éclair.
The donut exclaims, “I’m searching for my inner self,” to which the éclair replies, “This could get sticky.” It was my idea of a little joke, but now, suddenly, it doesn’t seem so funny.
I have no idea what I’m letting myself in for. What am I doing?
I’m doing Vipassana, a 10-day meditation programme based on the ancient Indian technique taught by S.N. Goenka. This will be no holiday.
Amongst other things, participants have to renounce all contact with the outside world, hand over their phones, watches, any writing and reading materials, take off all jewelry, and promise not to kill, steal, use intoxicants of any kind or engage in sensual pleasures or do Yoga. Lastly, there will be no talking. The course is conducted in pure, unadulterated silence, which forbids gesturing and eye contact too.
I had always been fond of lentils and aromatherapy oils, but I can’t help wondering if perhaps this is a bridge too far even for me. With no external distractions, this was going to be an opportunity of a lifetime to reveal what really was going on inside my head. Who could say what I’d find?
Did I mention I have never really meditated a day in my life before now?
With knots in my stomach and trepidation in my heart, we arrive. I take a last breath of freedom and launch through the door.
We’re shown to our rooms and a gong chimes, for what will be the first of many times. We learn this sound will be ruling our daily schedule from the moment we rise at 4 am to lights out at 9 pm. Silence descends, and we file through to the meditation hall and find our allocated space on the floor.
I’m looking around expectantly, wondering what to do next when the chanting starts. Now, I’m used to the rhythmic song and soothing sounds of Sanskrit mantras, but the wailing that is now assaulting my ears is usually only reserved for the drivel that escapes the lips of the very drunk.
I’m busy trying to suppress my giggles, when instructions are issued to observe the area between your top lip and nostrils (only it’s pronounced Nooostrils) as we breathe.
For 10 hours a day, for the first 3 days, this is all we do. We observe our breath, with the intention of calming the mind. Only it doesn’t quite work like that.
Day One: All I can do is sing Intergalactic by the Beastie Boys and wonder when lunch is. Concentrating on the breath for more than a couple of seconds is impossible.
My mind won’t shut up, and I wonder if I’m not starting to go a little crazy when the visions start. They’re more psychedelic and fantastic than those induced by a tab of acid until finally my own face appears before me, just as I swiftly morph into a lioness and stalk off; okay then. If this is in my mind, I’ve seen enough!
Day Two: I want to run from the hall like a man on fire seeks water, as the reality of the situation kicks in — there is to be eight more days of this. I don’t know how I make it to lights out and collapse into bed exhausted.
Day Three: I take a walk in the woods and watch the most sensational sunrise. It’s incredibly quiet and I am acutely aware of the sound of the birds overhead, the rustling leaves in the trees and the breeze on my face.
I can’t get comfortable sitting in meditation today. My lower back is in agony, and my legs and hips are protesting from the long hours of sitting cross-legged on the floor. After a break, I come up with an ingenious plan and fashion a support device using a scarf, a hot water bottle and a number of blankets which I wrap and wedge around me. All that’s missing is the sticky back plastic.
I can hear people around me sobbing quietly and trying to hold back the tears as they break down. Undertaking a 10-day Vipassana program is like having open heart surgery without the anesthetic.
With nowhere to run and nowhere to hide unhealed hurts, things we’ve said and done, situations that should or could have been different, all come flooding to the surface. Our task is to try and break the emotional attachments we form to these experiences and the cycle of craving and aversion that usually accompanies them.
We are told to simply observe these sensations and not react in the knowledge that they will pass, just as everything passes, because the nature of the Universe is impermanence. Apparently, the physical pain we’re feeling is the body letting go of all the knots we have ever tied ourselves in, as it releases us from our hang-ups and digs up the roots of our complexes.
Day Four: Today is Vipassana day — a poster proudly announces. Finally, a change in the program! Up until today, all we had been doing is watching the breath in order to induce a divine state and sail on through to blissful transcendence, but I’m beginning to feel that this is about as useful as spending all day doing sit-ups when you’re training for a marathon.
I try to set aside my doubt, and focus on the new technique of scanning the body for gross and subtle sensation. From head to toe I go, trying to take note of anything I feel. My mind is delighted at finally having something else to do and feels as though it has taken off on safari across my body.
It calls out the sensations it spots as if they were game; heat, cold, throbbing, moisture, the touch of my T-shirt on my skin, tingling, stretching. Then things take a sinister downturn as my body melts into a mass of intolerable pain.
I cannot concentrate on anything but the pain. My breath has become heavier now and I am rasping and spitting my way through rounds and rounds and hours and hours of inhalations and exhalations.
Just when I begin to think it can’t get any worse, we are introduced to sittings of strong determination; sitting still for an entire hour, during which time we are encouraged to refrain from moving altogether. Eyes, arms and legs should all remain locked in our original positions.
Got an itch? Tough, don’t scratch it. Pins and needles? Never mind. No one ever died from pins and needles — stay where you are.
I try to work seriously but my mind is starting to put up massive amounts of resistance.
Day Five: The gong sounds at 4 am and it takes all of my willpower and courage to get up and find my place, awkward and cross-legged position on the floor in the meditation hall.
I negotiate with my mind and offer kind words of encouragement. With huge effort, I begin. Then stop. My mind wanders off and initiates a debate with itself about whether this or learning to ski was the most traumatic and painful thing I have done to date.
I reason, this is far worse on the basis that skiing is about 200 times more fun, and at the end of the day you can go and get plastered, smoke away your worries and make a total spectacle of yourself, in full ski clobber on the dance floor.
Next, I try and play a game and imagine that my untrained, monkey mind, is indeed an actual monkey that is inspecting the various body parts with curiosity. It picks up my arm, yanks it out of the shoulder socket, waves it around, shakes it upside down, then satisfied that there is no pain there, replaces it back to front. This isn’t going to work.
By breakfast, I am exhausted again. I choose to meditate in my room afterwards. I drift into a dreamlike state. I feel as though I am asleep, but I am too alert for that. I ‘wake up’ knowing that if I can just pass through the pain, tranquility will await me on the other side.
With new resolve, I face the next sitting with gusto. I don’t know if it’s my state of mind or the fact that I am now concentrating extra hard, but as I examine my body bit my bit, inch by inch, trying to pinpoint the pain, it completely dissolves. I am overjoyed.
Day Six: I woke up expecting to sail through today. Boy, how wrong I was. Despite my jubilation yesterday, scanning my body, I am once again confronted with pain everywhere. And it’s no longer dissolving, but intensifying.
I want to cry and retire to bed clutching my chest, because it feels like something nasty is pouring out of me, like I’ve sprung a toxic leak. I don’t know how long I sleep, but when I wake up, I have another epiphany and I see myself as a mass of pulsating light and energy.
Back on the meditation mat, I stop labeling the sensations I’m experiencing and sorting them into good and bad. I accept them for what they are. This helps and as I give no importance or prominence to the gross sensations, I start to detect an undercurrent of energy flowing through every fiber of my body. It’s gentle, and so delicate that I’m not even sure if I’m feeling something or absolutely nothing.
Day Seven onwards: Each day, my equanimity is becoming stronger to the point where I am not reacting to pain at all. My entire lower body can be enveloped in numbness and my back may burn, but it doesn’t bother me. I have newfound confidence in the knowledge that these feelings will pass.
I train my concentration on this elusive, mystifying energy — so exhausting is it to begin with that I sleep every spare second I am not meditating, no matter what the time of day. Yet, space, mind and matter slowly begin to become compounded and dissolve into one fluid mass of energy.
I am aware of my breathing, but not my organs and limbs. I am no longer the I that I associate with my reflection in the mirror, and scanning my body stops being necessary because I feel everything, everywhere, all at once.
I begin to move in rhythm with the Universe, feeling nothing but the expansion and contraction of the world both outside and inside of myself, with each and every breath. I realize everything is everywhere, and that there are no boundaries between the physical and non-physical world, only perception and illusion.
Day Ten: I wake up feeling like a kid at Christmas. We did it! I am overwhelmed with love for everyone that has meditated alongside me for the past 10 days, and inspired by the bravery and courage that each and every one has displayed.
I feel lighter and liberated.
I understand life itself is a neverending cycle during which we are born, we grow, we decay and we die; by its very nature, it is ever-changing… impermanent. Yet, beneath all of this, there is something in each of us, greater than any sensation or experience we have or can create, that simply cannot be extinguished and remains ever alert, ever present.
And, I know that whatever life chooses to throw my way, I can handle it.
*****
Katherine is a global nomad, a free spirit, a wild warrior yogi on a quest for her own truth. She is part of a new generation of women who are wild, wise, authentic and free. She has chosen to dismiss what society has dictated and instead pursue her own destiny. She is a devoted student of yoga with a travel addiction, a yoga teacher, an Ayurvedic chef, a life coach, a self-confessed foodie and an adrenaline junkie, with a healthy thirst for margaritas and moving her body in rhythm with a banging bassline. Besides writing two cookbooks, she is also the co-pilot of ‘Rebel Yogis’ who specialize in running yoga retreats and adventures in inspiring locations worldwide, and ‘Satya Creative’ — a brand development agency. She writes at Wild’n’Whole, a blog dedicated to inspiring change in you, through yoga, nourishment and unchained, unapologetic flourishing fabulousness and fun, so you too can live a luscious, luminous life of plenty.
{Shhh}
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