Why self-compassion was the missing ingredient on my meditation retreat
What a 10-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat taught me — Part Four: Does enlightenment come before or after the breaking point?
This is part four of a series of articles about my experience at a Goenka Vipassana 10-day meditation silent retreat. To read parts one to three, please click below:
For the first six nights, I was sleeping amazingly well. I don’t usually have trouble falling asleep but, truth be told, I was so physically exhausted that the moment I turned off the lights, I was out.
On the seventh night, however, I could not sleep. Apparently, this happens quite often to participants, only that usually it tends to happen earlier on.
That was the first night in which my room truly felt small, like the walls were closing onto me, compressing onto my self. And that was the first time that I really craved having a book, a meditation manual or any kind of instructions. But I was truly alone with myself, sleepless and exhausted.
I struggled for hours in bed. I tried to meditate but didn’t have the mental capacity for it. I tried to stretch and move my body a little, but everything just hurt, the result of days of constant immobility and long hours of sitting practice. Minutes felt like hours; hours, like days.
It wasn’t the first time that I had doubts about what I was doing there. Everybody has doubts, and so did I — but this time it was different.
From Goenka’s teachings, there were constant reminders to practice diligently, to work patiently and persistently. And that we were “bound to be successful”.
Also, from Goenka’s discourses, I had the constant feeling that this was it: a 10-day sprint, a unique opportunity to reach enlightenment.
And so I applied myself — diligently and persistently — throughout those six days.
During that sleepless night, however, I all of a sudden realised it is not a sprint.
It’s a marathon.
Or, better yet, it’s a journey — a life-long journey.
During that sleepless night, I realised the path to enlightnement is not a sprint.
It’s a marathon, a journey — a life-long journey.
Brief intermission: On how I got to self-compassion
I got to meditation through self-compassion. I learned about self-compassion in therapy, several years back.
I had successfully applied the principles of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) when I was coming of age, with the help of a therapist but mainly doing a lot of reading and applying it myself. In case you are curious, some of those books were “A New Guide to Rational Living”, by Dr Albert Ellis; and “The Feeling Good Handbook”, by Dr David D. Burns. It worked.
When I went back to therapy a few years back, I of course mentioned REBT, and my therapist recognised the value of it but said that self-compassion would be the next step on my journey. She recommended two books in particular: “Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself”, by Dr Kristin Neff; and “The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion: Freeing Yourself from Destructive Thoughts and Emotions”, by Dr Christopher K. Germer and Sharon Salzberg (yes, the famous New York Times best-selling author and meditation teacher).
Before I started my journey with meditation, I read both of those books on self-compassion. And I put a lot of work and energy into it because, as I soon realised, this was something I was severely lacking.
One thing led to another, and I started meditating.
During that sleepless night in the Vipassana’s retreat, I did struggle. On the one hand, I did not want to give up. On the other hand, I was feeling like a failure, and like I wasn’t advancing in my practice. I was stuck, and my body could not take it anymore.
For hours, I turned in my bed, again and again.
Until I realised where I came from — a place of self-compassion.
And this place was so hard to get to — I couldn’t just let go of it.
I don’t function well under a drill Sergeant. I never did.
Maybe it’s a problem with authority when it pertains to those experiences that I decided voluntarily to undertake, such as working out or meditating. I have my motivation source inside me. Push me too hard or try to tell me what to do, and I’ll naturally resist and put up a struggle.
And that was the feeling that I was having on the retreat. There was no compassion from the assistant teacher, no wise words of any kind — except for “(shut up and) keep on following the instructions”. No buts, no doubts. Just do it and trust the process.
As mentioned before, there was always this feeling of pressure, of an opportunity lost if you, as a practitioner, did not take every possible moment to meditate strictly according to the instructions.
After all, enlightenment is just around the corner, on the tenth day, right?
Only that things do not work that way for me. Maybe they do for other people. There are plenty of those that either enjoy or need a drill Sergeant when they work out. I don’t.
When I finally realised that the missing ingredient was self-compassion, I automatically decided to leave the retreat early.
I felt at peace.
The struggle had ended.
And then I fell into a deep sleep.
I communicated my decision very early the next morning, and was asked whether I would like to see the teacher first. I declined.
I was friendly invited to partake breakfast, and they arranged for me to leave during a group meditation, so as not to disturb my peers.
At the reception, I mentioned that I would like to make a donation, and was told that since I did not complete the course, the organisation could not accept anything. Only after I insisted, they allowed me to donate for “outreach activities”, but not for the maintenance of the centre itself, and not for the next meditator to be able to undertake the course. Fair enough.
They called me a cab to the next station, and I was happy to leave the centre.
To be continued on Part 5: The Outcome.
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