Meditation Course. Vipassana. English

I will translate only this post since some of my non Spanish friends have asked me about this..I hope is a correct translation :)

On the 15th of August I started my meditation course in Vipassana. I booked three months ago because my friend Ana did it and recommended it to me and besides, before leaving India I wanted to do something typical in this sense for what India is so famous about and know a bit more about it cause I did not have any clue on what meditation was. I though it basically consisted in being seated without having any thoughts and did not understand the real reason or what you were getting with that. This course have helped me on several matters and one of them is to understand what meditation is better so I want to share with you my experience in case there is someone like me before.

We arrived there on the 15th day and we left all our luxury articles: money, photography camera, mobile, and all distraction articles we were having with us like books, notebooks, pens, pc etc

We had our rooms assigned and I have to say, when I saw my room, I felt depressed..it was a small, lugubrious, humid room with only one window for two people but well, I went there to meditate not to enjoy the pleasures of life so I accepted it very depressed. As you do not pay anything precisely to eliminate your ego, you cannot complain much neither.

Once you are registered they check you know the rules and are willing to accept and live like that for 10 days. They also insist on your willingness to complete the course since it is really hard for other students to see others leaving.

Some of the rules are:

-          You cannot talk to other students in the 10 days. Neither verbally nor by gestures or looks or touch. There should not be any communication of any kind. You can talk to your teachers about doubts on meditation or with the volunteer workers if you have any problem on your stay in the center but completely forbidden to the other students.

-          You cannot have anything to eat after 12 am. Only tea but in the case of new students usually with something else.

-          Meditation hours are commendatory and everyone should do.

-          You cannot smoke, drink or take any kind of toxic substance.

-          No sexual activity of any kind.

-          Men and women are split into different sections of the center to avoid distraction

     Times are also quite difficult:

-          4.30 meditation in hall

-          6.30 breakfast

-          7 to 8 rest

-          8.00 meditation in hall

-          10.00 meditation in hall or your room

-          11 lunch

-          11.30 to 1 rest

-          1 to 4 meditation in hall

-          4 to 5 meditation in room

-          5 tea

-          5.30 to 6 rest

-          6 to 7 meditation in hall

-          7 to 8.15 Goenka.s speech

-          8.15 to 9.30 meditation in hall

If you look the timetable carefully you would see that are 10 hours meditation a day!..I thought it was a bit hardcore for someone who is just starting meditation but that was the way they did.

Even meditation in your room should be meditation, no nap :) at the beginning they put the first hour in the morning (from 4.30 t0 6.30) to choose between meditation in the hall and in your rooms but they cross “in your room” sentence after probably realizing that nobody was going to meditate in their rooms at 4.30 am in the morning.

First day was just horrible..they woke me up with a bell at 4.30 and told me I had to be focused on my breathing all time. I sat and try to focus on my breathing..it was just impossible. First I had to be changing posture all time because be sitting with only one pillow under your bottom is very uncomfortable. My back, my bottom, my feet, legs everything was in pain, I couldn’t stay still. After a couple of hours I planned to make a change every 10 min so that the pain would be focusing in a different part of my body. And at the same time you had that voice asking you to focus on your breath, not to force your breath only focusing on whatever it is like, real breath. That whenever comes to our minds instead of concentrating on our breath we shouldn’t take it with frustration or anger  by not being able to focus, only remember back the main point of the exercise and go back to your breath.

What a difficult task to do! Just try for one hour, half an hour..impossible. imagine 10 hours a day..crazy. I was sitting there and one story after another were coming to my mind.. previous weekend in Goa, days at university, days at school, the birthday of my cousin, where I would go after Dharamkot, what I will do in my future..all kind of thoughts, past and future, completely unrelated thoughts coming one after another..really hard to focus on the f** breath.

And then I have to tell my mind..”stop it” and go back to my breath and again, after two seconds, my mind again wonders away on this cuisine receipt, this thing I have to tell this person, whatever except the breath..and totally unrelated and surrealistic.

Day finished and I wanted to go. I imagined 10 days like that and thought I would turn completely crazy. Pain in my back too. But then, at 7.15 we had that chat (video) where mister Goenka (same voice we heard on the tapes) just described all feelings we have gone through the whole day with such a precision, completely right in everything he said that crossed our minds. It was like he just read mine and it was just a video!. He also explained the reason behind this exercise.

He told us it was perfectly normal that our mind was not focused and would go from future to past and past to future in a non connected way. That was the way mind behaves and we should be aware on how our mind behaves, it never lives in the present, always in the past or in the future. He also told us our mind is “wild”, does not obey us and we should “domesticate” it for us to be the ones to control it and not the other way around. The objective on this exercise was to start controlling our mind and reduce its strength on us to be ready for the next step which would be on day 4. It was very important not to generate any frustration feeling, anger or anything negative when we see we are unable to control it. We have to accept what happened with tranquility and go back to the exercise.

 

Everything he said made sense to me and awaken my curiosity with the expected “day 4” so i decided to stay. In any case I think I would have stayed because I am a bit masochistic in some cases and hate leaving things without finishing..it is like “be defeated” or “losing” so very rarely I do things like that though is not the good pattern to follow cause there are situations and cases where is better to admit “I just cannot do it” but this is a different story. In any case, I liked the speech and I was convinced to stay, being that the difference of case “B” (I stay cause I do not want to be defeated by the situation)..that I was convinced this will be somehow good for me.

So there i continued on day 2, waking up at 4, starving because I did not had any food since 12 am previous day and, despite my hanger and pain in my body to be seated the way we were, trying to focus on my breath. Regarding the pain, this day was worst because my body had the pain coming from day 1, so I finally ask for a table for my back that I saw some students were having (tables on the back start showing up next day suddenly). I was lucky and they did not have any more left so I was given permission to lay against the wall which was infinitive much better than the fragile table. People would look at me with envy and soon some other three joined the wall. 

In the wall it was much better. Again after 10 hours trying to focus on my breath I realized that, even though my mind continued doing whatever it liked and wonders away from past to future..the times I was realizing I was not focusing on the exercise were more often and the times focusing on my breath were longer (maybe 2 min instead of 2 secs), so a bit better than first day.

Breath is so important..it is something you always do, every day and keeps you alive but you never realized. We have different kind of actions in our body, voluntary actions and non voluntary. By voluntary could be, if some part of your body is itching you scratch it, if you want to say something you just said it. Involuntary..if your hart stops beating that is something you dont have control about. Breathing is a mix of the two, you have certain control and can stop it if you want but it is something you regularly do in a non voluntary way.

Besides, breathing is an act in your body that connects mind and feelings. If your feelings change, your breathing also changes, its speed, intensity..sometimes if you control your breath that feeling can also be controlled.

Actually the fact of not talking to anybody makes you think alone, outside any external influence so it makes you more aware on how your mind works which is the purpose of the exercise, you do not have anyone else to hear besides your self, no other advice to be influenced from.

Third day. Again with breathing from 4 am.

Bad news..my friend who had a big problem on her back (scoliosis) and asked for a table the first day, ask to be on the wall since table is not enough..so I am sent to the table because now we have an spare one. A little of obsession starts growing on my mind with the wall and that I am not able to do the same with the table. All contrary to what we are told during the speech sessions “do not feel obsession, bad feelings, craving” I was “craving “ for the wall!

At 6 my craving got distracted because some instructions in our meditation change. We are asked to start focusing on any sensation we might have around our nose, nostrils and area between nose and lips. If we don’t find any, then continue with respiration but that is now our main exercise.

As son as the voice mentioned that, I start feeling all kind of sensations in my noise, sleepless, itchy, dumbness and even I start feeling when any small particle gets inside and get mixed with the small hair in the nostrils..Unbelievable up to then, to hearing the new instructions I did not feel anything and all of the sudden..we are asked not to react to them, whatever is it, pleasure or hurt see it as it is, a sensation that will pass away.

Fourth day. Finally Vipassana is going to be taught. There is a sign in the lunch room. We should all be in meditation room at 6. We concentrated there as every evening, I guess all would be curious as me but as we cannot talk, we do not know what is in everybody.s mind.. 

Instructions start. For first hour they are the same than previous days. I felt my sensations in nose, they are big, I realized that my mind does not go away as often as first day finally.

After first hour we received new instructions. We are told to do the same we have done with our nose in rest of the body starting by our head. After head, forehead, eyes, nose again, lips, ears, neck, arms..type goes all over our bodys from head to feet, describing every single point and asking us to focus on all sensations there. It was like magic. Up to that day I thought I was not being good at that cause my mind was working too much on its own way but that day, I could follow every single instructions the tape was giving and I was feeling lots of sensations in every part of my body. And I had the control to pass my mind over the parts of my body the tape was asking me too making sensations in those parts stronger. I noticed little and strong vibrations, energy, compulsions when passing by my eyes which make them convulse and a strange pain feeling in my head, especially in the upper point of it. Arms and legs where very easy to feel, like energy was focusing and passing through them. The upper part of my body was a bit difficult though, chest, belly and back (well back I could noticed my pain staying there by the last days but nothing else). It was on that day (has not been again though) such a strong feelings that I almost got scared of them and wonder what created them..my own mind, the state of being on my own for so long?

That night the speech, as every night, was related to our daily experience and explained us what was the Vipassana technique, very old in India, used by budha and what we had experienced that day.

Our body, what we see like in solid status is, in reality, made by small particles and molecules we do not see and that are constantly moving and changing. Everything moves and changes, not day by day but second by second and our body is in permanent change. So whenever someone changes (grows old for instance), that is something happening every second, not from one year to another. Nothing is permanent and all changes, what is called “anicha” in Vipassana.

Our conscious or rational mind, do not see this change, is not exposed to it. There are several levels of knowledge in our mind and there is this part of it, the subconscious mind, which is every second dealing with this change and expose to it. This subconscious mind is the one that perceive the sensations outside, for instance see an image or hear a sound, and react to them, identify them by historic memory and send reaction to our body. It is the one that makes your eyes close if any mote comes to them without you realizing. It is always alert to all sensations coming from outside and is in charge to identify them and send reactions back to them to our brain.

We do not control this part of our mind. There is a barrier between our conscious and subconscious mind that we cannot erase. In Vipassana, with this technique we are trying to get expose to what our subconscious mind feels all time and try to change the behavior pattern of the same. Make that barrier thinner.

There are many things our conscious mind understand and respect but even so, we are unable to make the change in ourselves..for instance, we can be told that “revenge” or “anger” are bad feelings that will only bring us unhappiness but when something happen to us, our body will generate those feelings with us being unable to control that. How to change that? How to change the pattern our subconscious mind works? By getting closer to it and send different orders to the sensations we feel.

So there are two main stones in this theory..first you have to go closer to your body sensations, since everything happens inside as reaction of what is outside, connect to those sensations and feel them. Second stone, as important or more than the first, do not react to them, seeing them as temporary feelings that will pass away. React same, with equanimity to sensations of pain, suffering and pleasure. Do not crave for pleasure sensations, do not be averse to painful sensations, change the pattern of our subconscious mind so that we can control stronger reactions on us.

There were sensations while I was sitting that I loved, like this energy current that will come through my legs and arms and also some itchy points, that I hated..I have to try to be equanimous. Also parts where I could hardly feel like my cheek, breast, tummy and back but in any case, I should not feel deception or craving..treat them all same. We have also to perceive all these sensations part by part controlling our mind and do not stay longer in any part cause we liked it there, for instance. Or going to one part specifically because the sensations would be stronger there, even though if we noticed that. Equanimity and passing through all body with same time and intensity

From day 5 to 8 we continued practicing Vipassana. My mind was like a laser going up and down my body. My chest, and belly continued being tough to feel but with days of practicing I start feeling more on that part (and without being frustrated for that). I end up making like a kind of “energy ring” that will start by my head and pass through all my body scanning every part. Sometimes I was so focused that I could feel energy going up and down really quickly through all my body. Of course, even at those times, I could not get excited by the feeling because I will lose the whole point of the exercise and will be like moving “backwards”. Everything is temporal and will pass “anicha”.

One of the most painful feelings I had practising this was on day 5th. A small drop, that could not even be called a mocous, fall from my nose and was going slowly slowly to my lips. All that way was really painful and was burning my skin. There was really hard to take it like a “feeling” and equanimally and was very tempted to just move it away with my hands. This episode that in my daily live I do not think I could have noticed, was extremely painful at that time. There I realized how little we are focus on our body sensations in our daily lifes

Basics and pillars fo the teory..do not create craving, do not create aversion. We have to change the pattern of our mind.

Another important point of this theory are the “sanjaras”. “Sanjaras” are actions we have made on our past and that are heavy for us. We are carrying many sanjaras, and their weight made us unhappy..If we continue acting as we have done in the past we create more sanjaras and increase our weight and unhappiness. If we can change the pattern of our mind, subconscious mind, and change the way we behaved (a theory very related to the karma, or destiny wheel) a small change, will be enough to make this wheel to stop and change its directions. Only us can change our destiny by small changes. Small changes in our behavior will be followed by big ones and old sanjaras will also come to the surface and disappear, making us free.

                                                                      

Sanjaras (hatred, anger, envy, etc) are feelings that make us miserable and to be repeated constantly in our behavior, leads to misery, must be free of them. The good meditator sees them in himself and also see them in other people, see in others with compassionate feeling as they make those people be miserable.

I know that sounds strange theory, and as they say in Vipassana is not a question that nobody tell you anything that your rational mind understands but you should experience it for yourself.

If I would recommend this stay? Well I do not know, depends on the person and if you like this sort of things, because there are times that a very hard too and others where you think you're wasting your time. If you take advantage of the time and follow the instructions you should have a "good" experience .. if you start to suffer and do not heard what you are told, it can be horrible.

For me, it was interesting and I hope it will help me control my "demons". Vipasana did not teach me anything I did not know about myself as other people say. I just hope it would help to control reactions and feelings that I have and that I do not like. Of course, you have to practice daily for the technique to work, or these days might just be a mere anecdote or experience of meditation without any results, which would not satisfactory to me.

I hope I have clarified some doubts. This is how I lived. I do not want to put ideas on people mind since everyone live it differently. Everyone experiences it differently. For example I've heard comments from people who have gone out there are of the type:

"It gives you more confidence in yourself"

"It has remind me things about myself or my past that I did not remember and left me a strange feeling. I think it is better now because I can really forget  them and forgive"

"It made me think about human nature. It was hard to return to interact with people after that re-trait, all looked selfish and worldly. I had to learn the second part of the art, acceptance and compassion "