In Depth: My experience of a 10-day Vipassana Meditation Course in Sri Lanka
Through my eyelids I can sense light and guess it must be a little after 6am. That means we have only 20 or so minutes left of the first meditation session and that breakfast is soon, the event my stomach has been anticipating since about 4:30am when we started. Already my right hip is keening from sitting cross-legged for so long, but at least now the pain in my upper back has gone quiet.
I’m scanning through my body from the crown of my head down to my toes to observe sensations as Goenka has instructed. The sensations I’m seeking are proof of the kalapas, the tiniest particles of which we are composed, that are constantly in flux. If I can sharpen my concentration to feel these sensations, I will be a little bit closer to the ultimate goal of gaining mastery over my mind by internalizing and accepting the natural law of impermanence.
Only there are large sections of my body like my throat, the back of my neck and my entire abdomen that I can’t feel at all, except for my pulse pumping blood to my organs. My breath continues softly as I scan. When I notice my thoughts have strayed too far into the future or the past, I return to anapana, focus on my breath entering my nostrils and exiting.
By now the pain of sitting in the same position for nearly 2 hours is becoming intolerable, and my mind is circling around and around the burning sensation in my hip joint, begging to release when I hear the click of the recording and the crackle of the speakers. Goenka’s frog-like voice reverberates throughout the hexagonal meditation hall, chanting words in Pali I can’t comprehend. This continues for ten or so minutes until I hear the closing phrase we know by heart: Bhavatu sabba mangalam. May all beings be happy.
The morning session is over. Two of the ten hours of meditation for the day are done. We shuffle in a daze out of the meditation hall, slide our feet into our shoes and slowly walk down to the dining room.
What is Vipassana Meditation?
Vipassana means “insight” and is a type of meditation that asks practitioners to attempt two things: awareness and equanimity. Vipassana meditation courses are conducted at official centers you can find through www.dhamma.org all over the world. We have the inspiring S.N. Goenka to thank for salvaging Vipassana meditation once taught by Siddhartha Gautama, a.k.a. the Buddha, 2500 years ago that was kept alive in his home-country of Burma. Goenka brought Vipassana first to India and then the rest of the globe.
You can read all about Vipassana meditation on the website or skim this great article on how Vipassana differs from other types of meditation. I will humbly give you my understanding of it. Vipassana means to see things as they really are. In order to gain insight into this “ultimate reality” if you will, we need to learn to control the mind and to remove impurities to reveal the truth of our highest self, the world and the universe. The mental impurities are the result of craving and aversion: craving pleasant sensations and developing aversion towards unpleasant sensations. Craving and aversion cause suffering and misery, and the main source of our misery is our inability to comprehend and accept the natural law of impermanence, anicca — that everything is constantly changing.
If we cling to pleasant sensations, we suffer when the sensation ends or even in anticipation of the end. If we develop aversion to unpleasant sensations, we prolong and intensify our suffering by thinking it will last forever. If we are aware and equanimous as we experience pleasant and unpleasant sensations, we can reduce our suffering. When we accept everything that happens to us and accept the fact that nothing is permanent, including life and our bodies, we can achieve liberation from all suffering. Nothing can disturb your peace.
The tool that we use to sharpen and control the mind is the breath. The breath is the bridge between what is involuntary and voluntary in the body; our breathing is automatic and continues whether or not we are actively thinking about it, but we can also command it with the mind. The breath connects mind and body.
In Vipassana, you breathe naturally and observe the breath as it is. This is anapana. You focus your attention on the upper lip just beneath the nostrils to observe sensations in this small area. Once the mind has been sharpened by observing sensations here, you begin scanning the entire body for these sensations. You must work to avoid reacting with aversion to unpleasant sensations and craving for pleasant sensations. By practicing this meditation for a long time, you can cleanse your mind of past impurities and prevent the creation of new impurities. You learn how to practice awareness and equanimity to liberate yourself from suffering and to gain the ability to perceive the ultimate truth.
There is much more to be said on the topic, and I’m happy to discuss anything I’ve described here (if you have questions or corrections), but this is my summary of the theory behind Vipassana as I understand it.
What happens during a 10-day Vipassana meditation course?
The first day when you arrive at the center to check in, you hand over all of your valuables — that means your money, cell phone, computer, electronic devices, books, notebooks, paper, writing utensils and anything else that could become a distraction.
You will be assigned a room (possibly with a roommate) and provided lunch if you are hungry. These are your final hours of communication, so I recommend that if you have a roommate, you talk about some basics with them like if you want to sleep with a fan on and if you can borrow their toothpaste because you just realized you ran out…
Your first meditation happens in the evening and after you listen to a discourse from S.N. Goenka on a video. Then it’s lights out. From then on, you are maintaining the noble silence: no speaking, eye contact or any other form of communication with the other meditators until the silence is lifted on the 10th day. If you have an issue, you talk with a dhamma server or if it relates to the meditation technique, you talk to the teaching-assistant. The daily schedule at every center is as follows:
When you add it up, it is 10 hours sitting for meditation a day. Let me tell you, it is exhausting. It is challenging. For me, each day felt like 3 days to get through with many ups and downs. I’d have a good session that lifted my spirits followed by a session that left me depleted and despairing. While I appreciated that we didn’t communicate with others to spare us comparison angst, there were times I felt a strong urge to ask people about their pain: Is your pain as bad as mine?! Is this normal?! Alas, I survived. And I was surprised in the end to hear a few others tell me how still I sat because I felt like I moved way more than I should have.
The group sittings are 3 hours in the day when you are to really try to sit still and concentrate the mind (you are always trying to do this, but during these hours, you REALLY try). Each day you strive to become more still. By the seventh day, more or less, I was able to sit through an entire group sitting without changing position, although it was often painful to get through the hour…
The evening discourse is when you watch the video recordings of Goenka who tells stories to explain why the meditation is this way and to motivate you to continue because it’s difficult! I found that I would look forward to this hour in the evening, even when I struggled to sit comfortably through it all because of physical pains. Every thought or doubt I had, Goenka invariably addressed at some point in the course.
And I waited the whole time for the sales pitch — the catch if you will — only his focus was not on encouraging donations but encouraging people to serve in a course since these courses all rely on volunteers to operate. I’m always skeptical, but after 10 days spent listening closely, I decided that I trusted Goenka and the Vipassana organization because I felt that the underlying, simple wisdom of the messaging made sense to me personally.
Why did you do a course in Sri Lanka?
A good friend of mine introduced me to Vipassana meditation when I worked with her in Lima, Peru in 2013. She had done a few courses in which she would meditate in total silence for 10 days with just two small meals a day. It sounded terrible to me, but I continued to think about it and read about it over the next few years. I considered going to courses in the U.S., but I could never bring myself to sign up for one given that it would take a full week of vacation time for what sounded like voluntary torture.
However, since I’ve taken a year off to travel, it seemed like the ideal time to finally do a course. I decided to go to a Vipassana center in Sri Lanka and ended up at Dhamma Sobha in Kosgama, a small city about an hour and a half from the capital Colombo. The course ran from January 22 until February 2, and it was conducted in English and Sinhala. There were three times as many women in the course, but I’d say it was about 50/50 Sri Lankans/foreigners.
Who can do a Vipassana course? Do you have to be Buddhist?
Anyone can attend a Vipassana meditation course so long as you can commit to their guidelines, which is basically to follow the daily schedule, abstain from alcohol, drugs and any sexual relations and maintain noble silence for the duration of the course.
Vipassana is secular. Although Goenka talks about the life of the Buddha during the evening discourses and sometimes pokes fun at the religious beliefs he grew up with as a strict Hindu in Burma, Vipassana meditation is not religious. There is no religious dogma, as the entire point of it is that you must experience firsthand the benefits of the meditation practice rather than believe what you are told by others.
Sitting is difficult, but that is the whole reason why you go for 10 days. It’s supposed to be hard! That said, if you have a physical disability of some sort, adjustments can be made for you. There were many older women in my course and most of them sat in chairs with cushions. I was impressed by their commitment! And if it becomes to difficult, you can always leave!
How much does a course cost?
The courses are free. You can make a donation at the end depending on how you felt the course went. Goenka does encourage people to pay by serving in a future course as a dhamma server, the people who make these courses possible by cooking, cleaning and taking care of meditators’ needs.
Why only two meals a day?
Eat a huge meal and then try to sit and meditate in complete stillness for an hour or two. Let me know how it goes. Also, did I mention it is 10 hours of sitting a day??? I know you like food, I do, too, but you don’t need so much for the course. You’ll survive!
Was it hard?
Yes, but in different ways than I’d expected. I’d assumed my thoughts — sifting through past traumas and bad memories — would be the source of the pain and anguish I’d have to battle during the 10 days. However, the pain was much more physical, and I saw then, how the physical and the mental are intricately linked, even though we often think of them as separate. We are constantly reacting to sensations we feel on the body, and these reactions make us who we are and determine many decisions we make in life.
For me, the strongest unpleasant sensation was the pain that manifested in my upper back, spread into my lower back and connected to the most severe pain, that was at times excruciating, in my right hip. I sometimes felt a heaviness in my chest on the right side, and I also struggled with my legs and feet falling asleep during a session. I alternated between sitting cross-legged and sitting with my legs bent under me. Each had its pros and cons, but seriously, the physical discomfort is the main dish at Vipassana — when you realize that the mind is more powerful than the body, you realize how weak we are when it comes to controlling the mind! And then you begin to ask…what is this thing controlling the mind…
I was also surprised to discover that for me the primary emotion that surged during the course was anger — not sorrow or guilt or shame. Unpleasant sensations would cause fear and my inability to ask about what is or isn’t normal (or to get a satisfying answer from the teacher) led to anger. And often I was angry that I felt weak, a common concern I have — feeling that I’m not “good enough.” So it all made sense, it just felt different than I had originally anticipated.
There were also pleasant sensations…maybe a taste of the free flow of energy that Goenka describes and the peace that comes from voiding the mind of thoughts for even a few solid seconds.
Each person will have a different experience during the course, which is why it is completely pointless to compare your experience to anyone else’s! It’s great to share your experience, but don’t do it to see who is a “better meditator” because you are missing the whole point.
Have you noticed any changes after doing the course?
Yes, but very subtle changes that were more apparent in the days immediately following the course. For example, in the first few hours after leaving the center, I was on a hot, cramped local bus heading from Kosgama to Kandy, and I tried to sit in an aisle seat next to my friend but ended up squashed between two men for the sweaty ride. Normally, I would have been miserable and would have spent the entire 3-hour ride angrily cursing the men in my head and searching for a way to change seats. But instead, I was okay with it, thought it was funny and read my book. Eventually, I was able to move and sit with my friend who asked if I’d done it on purpose to avoid people standing in the aisle from rubbing against me! She had her own trial on the bus ride…
The next test came at the end of my stay in Sri Lanka. In the van to the airport in Colombo, a guy sitting next to me stole my cell phone from my backpack as he left the vehicle. When I discovered it was gone minutes later at the airport, I was upset but stayed calm. I contacted people about it and tried to take actions to mitigate any trouble the stolen phone could cause down the line. But I didn’t cry, and I didn’t lose my temper. And the next morning when I arrived in Bangkok to discover I had bedbug bites all over my body from the hostel in Colombo, again, I was upset but began moving ahead, doing research and handling the situation rather than wasting time feeling sorry for myself…well, I felt a little sorry for myself…I’m working on it…
I’m certain that my (relatively) composed behavior in such unsavory conditions was a direct result of skills I gained during Vipassana, and I’m thankful that I was able to deal with it in a much healthier, calmer way than I imagine I would have even a month earlier.
I should mention that you are expected to continue meditating regularly after the course— at least 2 hours a day — to reap the benefits of Vipassana. I try to meditate when and where I can, but as a backpacker, it isn’t easy. Still, I manage here and there to get a session in, and I do feel that it helps me.
Do you recommend that I try a course?
If you are interested in trying a course, then yes! Some people I’ve spoken with feel that only those who are serious about meditation should try a course. Because some centers have waiting lists and spots fill quickly, these people feel that you shouldn’t sign up for a Vipassana course unless you are committed to it since your spot could be given to someone who really needs it.
I understand and agree to some extent, but I think that if a person has done some research, feels ready for a course and wants to give it an earnest try, they should attend an intro course. I think anyone who is searching for a solution to stress in their life; who has exhausted other methods (medical, physical, psychological) for dealing with long-standing issues; who wants to probe deeper into their psyche; who wants to get a solid foundation for meditation in the future — should consider attending a 10-day intro Vipassana course.
The most important requirement for a course is going with an open mind. If you have never sat for meditation for even a minute in your life, you will be okay if you go to a course with the willingness to relinquish doubts for 10 days and give it an honest chance. If you are unable to do that, then you are not ready for a course!
