I woke up after sleeping for about four hours and felt well-rested. I showered and brushed my teeth, then immediately sat outside and practiced. I was pleasantly surprised at how similar the experience was. Time flowed by quickly, and my thoughts remained quiet despite the relative chaos of the city. …

“I realized that everything moves, no matter how slow.” Compared to when I first arrived, sleep hardly ever came at all. Goenka-ji described it as a side effect of rigorous meditation practice — one requires less sleep. It’s a positive feedback loop: meditating for two hours a day gives one…

“I forced myself to sit when I didn’t have to, and no longer dreaded the prospect.” Morning practice was challenging — I couldn’t wait to break the silence. Nevertheless, I sat well, pulsing awareness throughout my body. Time became difficult to quantify again. When the silence was finally broken, the…

It had been a while since I faced desires to leave. Consistent progress and the delights of bhanga held the restlessness at bay fairly well — until today. I arrogantly felt like I had learned everything I could for now, and my practice suffered. …

I felt a wave of hellfire resonate throughout my entire being, like every ounce of blood in my body had been replaced with molten lead. Emboldened by yesterday’s experience, I redoubled my efforts in my practice. …

“For the rest of the afternoon, I was able to immerse isolated parts of myself, sometimes all but my ears, into the pool again. Yet I never experienced it on the same scale.” That morning I took Van’s words to heart and established a functional yet still reasonable seat upon…

Was this it? Was this salvation? Was some terrible emergency back home liberating me from my struggles? The final session of the day before felt like a revelation. On this day I sat still through every group session without any furniture, smilingly and indifferently. …

For the first time, hearing the first bell of the day was a relief. 4AM was no longer a challenge, but an opportunity. The terrors of the previous hours loomed heavily in my mind, and I still debated diving into the outside world, my imagination a sudden mess of activity. …

“That night, I was visited by a host of most vicious temptations and distractions from the Path.” Day three represented the end of our first phase of learning. Observing the gentlest touches of respiration was merely a primer for the real lesson — the study of vipassanā meditation. By Goenka-ji’s…