I just completed a Ten Day Vipassana Course ending at 8am on New Years Day. Based on what I’ve done for the past 15 years on New Year’s Eve, this was a really powerful milestone for me and a great way to go into 2016. The course was one of the most intensive and impactful things I’ve done in my entire life! It was so beneficial to me, that all I can think about is how to convince others to try it! This article is my first attempt….
Vipassana — A Quick Overview
A Vipassana Course is basically a 10 Day deep dive into your unconscious mind — for me specifically, it was a way to confront deep rooted weaknesses and past emotional issues.
The Vipassana method is based on three precepts and the retreat has a number of strict rules in order to make it easier to follow the precepts.
- Precept 1: Morality — Maintaining a moral base is the first part of the practice. The whole process is about building compassion through understanding and to do this, morality is of the utmost importance — basically, you cannot perform any action that would hurt another being. To do this, the following rules are in place:
- You may not kill any being (insect, plants, etc.), You may not tell any lies (ie. to do this, Noble Silence is enforced), You must not engage in sexual misconduct, You must abstain from stealing, You must abstain from all intoxicants.
- Noble Silence — There is absolutely no speaking with any of the other students. You can speak with the teacher during specific periods if you have questions about the technique or with staff if you have questions about the rules/food/lodging. This goes beyond silence — No eye contact, no gestures, no physical contact, no communication at all.. This is to make sure you are not telling lies and to improve concentration (Precept 2).
- Precept 2: Concentration of the Mind — This is a major part of the program. To do this, a perfect environment for concentration and awareness is created. No cell phones are allowed, no journals or reading materials, no movies or TV, no exercise (walking is allowed during break), no books, no cameras, no luxurious bed etc. It is a fully monastic lifestyle. The Noble Silence really helps here because you don’t need to put any awareness or thought into communicating with others.
- Purity of the Practice: The whole program is so pure — No religious symbols are allowed, there are no rites or rituals. Everything is based on meditation techniques and is universal, so can be practiced by anybody. Further, everything is done by donation based on what you feel is appropriate — at the end of the course and only for those who have finished a 10 day course. All lodging and food is provided based on the gratitude of others, the teachers donate their services, all cooks and cleaners and management donate their services as well. This guarantees that you are getting a pure experience coming from the gratitude of others so you can fully focus on your practice and don’t have to be distracted or develop feelings that you aren’t getting “your money’s worth”.
- Precept 3: Wisdom — This is the main part of the practice and a technique is used everyday in meditation to get here. I’ll explain in more detail later.
- The schedule for the practice is super intense — I actually had no idea what I was getting into here … It’s basically a 4:00am wake-up everyday with 10.5 hours of meditation, 2 Vegan meals, a one hour discourse in the evening and bed at 9:00pm — Think about ten days of this.. Crazy
I won’t get too deep into what Vipassana is, as I’d prefer to tell you more about how deeply it impacted me and what I experienced… but quick overview — It is the practice of the meditation technique used by the Buddha 2,500 years ago in its purest form. It was started by SN Goenka in the early 1980’s in India and there are currently over 200 centers worldwide. All of this crazy growth happened through word of mouth. There has been no marketing and everything is done by donation — growing a program to hundreds of thousands of followers using strictly word of mouth is amazing. The benefits are so intense, that it is impossible not to tell your friends about it and encourage everybody you know to try it.
Why Vipassana For Me
For most of my 20’s I had really simple and basic goals, which I think are common in Western society.. Try and be as successful as possible in a career. Translate — I needed recognition from friends, family and especially females.. I had such a huge need to be liked and I thought this would happen through achievement / material things / monetary gain / appearance, etc.. Better career, more money, more things — more desirable person. For some reason, I thought without a good career (ie. as defined by how much money you made) I was lazy or wasn’t living a good life. As I got older, this desire got more and more perverted resulting in the need to display material things more and more — again to look cool, validate myself, impress people, etc. Everybody knows this feeling — its pure ego. “I want to be attractive, popular, have the best clothes, live in the best place, have people like me, etc.”. Eventually this gets so out of control and can become dangerous. From 22–27, all I wanted to do was party, sleep with girls and make money… Enough money that I could buy all the things needed to do the first two and continue to feel good about my self image. This was extremely satisfying at first.. Going out on the weekend with tons of friends, always having pretty girls around, and getting super fucked up was tons of fun and hugely validating for a long time… And it still is to some degree.. I don’t think that will ever change. In the specific moment those motivations are very powerful. But something really bad started happening to me… my motivations became so extreme and I had no real goals outside of those above. I was turning into a person that I didn’t like at times and would even say at my worst was a complete monster.. All my goals were self-motivated. I’m not saying these are are a bad thing, I was just super consumed. Living through craving alone with little thought for truly compassionate action. This sounds like I am bad person, but it wasn’t in that sense. I wasn’t out to hurt others.. I was just incredibly selfish and all my goals revolved around “me”. I have always had tons of friends and am legit a super fun person. In our society, this lifestyle is somewhat normal even though I was a super extreme version. As I approached 27–28, I was starting to experience strong anxiety and regret and the pleasures related to the things I was looking for started to fade. To get the same results, I had to be more extreme in what I bought, how I partied, who I spent time with, etc. and this started having a severe impact on my mental well being. At the beginning of every week it was like trying to get back to a balance of normalcy and repair after huge weekends and work was always tumultuous after taking on so much responsibility. These got more and more extreme and all I was really accomplishing was fighting so hard to stay neutral. Over 5 years, I realized I had made hardly any headway with health goals or personal development and I started getting serious anxiety and unhappiness. During this time I started to look for other outlets…
I tried doing some altruistic things like Big Brothers and a Habitat for Humanity Build in Africa.. I tried super intense things to be more present — kitesurfing, bungee jumping, skydiving and I got my motorcycle license amongst other things. I tried a lot of activities for fun and self growth like cooking school and joining a hockey team. I even tried working in progressively more intense environments — with better responsibilities, more exciting work projects and finally a product that I was actually passionate about. While this stuff was good for personal growth and helpful to start the process, things were still missing. During the beginning of this personal transformation I went through some really tough experiences that really crushed my ego and the need for the lifestyle I quoted above. Firstly, a Company I founded and grew to 30 employees completely broke down. After spending four years of my life completely devoted, raising over $25mm from friends and family and personal connections and building a full scale telecom platform combined with innovative hardware we built from scratch, the entire thing blew up. I had to deal with laying off 40 people and over $2.5mm of outstanding debt. Think of the angriest people possible… Ex-employees, angry vendors, angry shareholders calling me everyday… This was so negative. At this point I was basically broke, had lost a ton of money and had went through a huge emotional burnout. At the same time, I went through a really difficult personal relationship that was heartbreaking. The combination of these two things crushed me. I have never been a depressed person, but for the first time I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning and needed to get help with personal counselling. I had a pretty simple life to this point and everything always worked out by normal standards. I had tons of fun, did well in school, had money, tons of great friends, freedom to do what I wanted, awesome relationships and an amazing family so this was a huge shock for me. It was one of the biggest reasons I realised I was unhappy with the way things were going for me and with the way I was living my life…
At this point, I started really putting in effort to make changes. I cut down my drinking to a minimum, quit smoking, started journalling everyday, meditating everyday… I wrote down a set of core values for how I wanted to live and read them every morning. I decided to really push my boundaries at work and move to the Middle East full time completely alone to really start conquering my fears. Right now, I live in a rural area near my office with minimal english.. Slowly things have started getting better. My confidence was building, my happiness was coming back, my openness to meeting new people and being comfortable alone was growing along with my desire for new experiences. Basically, what I am trying to describe is the mindset I was in and how Vipassana found me and why I was open to trying it..
While I was in London for a single night, I met with some friends for dinner. They brought along a friend from Germany and somehow we got to talking about meditation practice. I told him I meditated daily, and he looked at me and just said something like, “Dude.. Do you want to make serious changes with your life? Like deep changes to your perception. Meditation is great, but I’m talking about changing the way you are on the inside. You need to check out a Vipassana retreat”. I wrote a note down in my phone. That’s all we talked about it. Like, how coincidental is that??? What are the chances, that I would meet a stranger in one night in London and we would discuss meditation while at a night club?? After this I forgot about it for two months, but when I moved to Israel, the first thing I did was sign up for a retreat. I thought Dec 21 — Jan 1 would be great because it would start off the New Year on the right foot and also would be light for work because people would be on holidays.
Again, keep in mind, I still didn’t know what Vipassana really was or the discipline required to do the technique…. I kind of thought it would be some type of relaxed retreat and a good way to be healthy over the holidays. I was on the waitlist for a long time… Every two weeks I would email asking if there was a space, but I had basically given up hope of attending this retreat. Fast forward to December 19th — — I get an email saying they have a spot for me but I need to be there ASAP. WOW… What do I do.. My brain is saying, this is too last minute… what about work… what about my exercise routine, what about my diet well there, what about XMAS and New Years, etc.. standard excuses. I was having a huge aversion to going. At this point I read about what the course entailed, but still didn’t really internalise how hard it would be. After some grueling debate, I thought about my internal goals and desire for personal growth and said fuck it. This was one of the best times for me to attend.. I had only drank a handful of times in the last three months, I wasn’t smoking and I was working out and eating as clean as possible, so my mind was in the right place. I called my friend Mike Apollo who has been to countless retreats and started the preparation… Getting the recommended items, blankets, pillows, hiking shoes, mosquito repellant, umbrella.. Packing my stuff and reading articles about the experience… Still I don’t think I realised this was going to be a tough and life changing week. Even though I knew I still needed healing, I was more in the mindset that this would be a cool experience to add my list of growing out of the box things I do…. Again, fast forward to arrival..
Vipassana — My Course Experience
I drove up about 2.5 hours on Monday morning to a Kibbutz (Israeli version of a Commune). I was super pumped. Listening to all kinds of loud alternative music — Led Zeppelin etc. I was thinking about how crazy it was to be alone in the middle east and driving through the desert to a meditation retreat. The drive was peaceful and I was thinking about how happy I was to be doing positive things for myself. After some quick messages to friends and family about where I would be for the next ten days, I went in… The first day included a check-in, room assignment, an orientation, a dinner and the first meditation intro. I was assigned to a room with three people and the living conditions were sparse.. I have basically been homeless since April and slept in probably 50 different beds in about 10 countries including some floors, many couches and a bunch of shitty hotels — so I was prepared for this. Had a brief discussion with the roommates… Basically said good luck, handed in my phone and computer, put a sheet on the bed and went for a little tour of the grounds. The grounds are beautiful and primed for meditators.. They were just built in 2014 and are still only half done, but include a huge meditation hall for about 100 meditators, a kitchen facility, a number of meditation cells for people to bunk in, an arbour — with a bunch of trees and flowers to walk through… although most of these were just planted so will be growing strong only in the future.. And finally an expansive view of mountains on all sides. Past the course boundary there is a great view of tons of palm trees that are harvested by the commune… Everyday you can see the sunrise and the sunset.
After about 15 minutes of touring the grounds, I was already bored… “When is this going to start.. When is dinner, I’m hungry, what am I supposed to do, where is my phone…” This is when I started realising this would really be challenging. I was already getting a bit overwhelmed so I sat down in a chair facing a nice valley and watched nature for a bit while waiting for dinner — this wasn’t a spiritual thing. It was purely out of boredom.. lol. Dinner was much better than expected. In fact, the whole food experience was awesome. I generally am super particular about my eating habits (ie. to the point of being obsessive) and I’ve been trying to gain weight so I was worried there wouldn’t be enough food and I would be hungry all the time. Luckily this wasn’t the case. It was hard to get a lot of protein but you could basically eat as much as you wanted at breakfast and lunch… Dinner was only fruit and tea. Although, if you eat too much, it makes the next meditation really tough (ie. you get drowsy and its hard to focus), so eventually you settle into a rhythm of eating to about 3/4 full. Although at the start, I was greedy and would stuff my face with as much as possible.. For breakfast I eventually settled into yogurt and fresh vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers), two toasts with olive oil, butter, cottage cheese, zaatar — middle eastern spice, and a bowl of oatmeal with tahini, cinnamon, date syrup and a cut up banana. This was my jam… Sometimes, I would go so far as to crush an open faced tahini and date syrup sandwich which was kindve like a PB&J… I know, rebellious.. Everyday at 6:30am you would be so hungry because you hadn’t really eaten since noon the previous day, so I would literally be craving this. For lunch it was always some type of bean, lentil etc, brown and white rice, a soup and some type of potato/sweet potato/root vegetable concoction. There were also vegetables with tahini, lemon juice and olive oil and a small dessert each day which I would have about 4–6 of like a true piglet.. little cookies/cakes etc all dairy, egg and gluten free. So this was super healthy, filling and overall awesome but definitely a bit boring after ten days. If you aren’t used to a healthy diet this alone could be hugely challenging.. I was definitely craving meat and pizza by the end.
At the end of dinner, there was an intro to meditation. Everybody was awarded a small square they would have for the week in the meditation hall and we listened to audio of Goenka (Teacher) describing the first meditation technique. During this part there was some chanting and I almost burst out laughing — no joke, I found it so fucked up that I was in a hall in the middle of nowhere meditating and listening to chanting with a bunch of strangers… My Ego was literally saying “What the fuck are you doing here” craving for what it’s used to… The meditation was short and I went right to bed after a little nervous and agitated.
In the meditation hall, there are very strict rules.. No sitting with legs towards the teacher, no laying down, no mixing of sexes — there is actually strict no mixing of sexes during the entire of the retreat (accept the last day). Both males and females are relegated to their respective sides of the compound (ie. No sexual misconduct). This is to again provide the proper conditions to gain focus. In the hall you can choose whatever cushions, benches, blankets, etc you want to try and make yourself comfortable — Try being the main word. This is such a force as its impossible to get comfortable sitting for ten hours a day…. but i’ll get into that later.
Day 1 — Acclimation
Woke up at 4:00am to some haunting gongs. These would sound at the end of most meditations through speakers throughout the entire property and also about 10 minutes before meditations, and to wake you up.. This sound will haunt me for the rest of my life.. lol. By the end of the trip this would wake you up more effectively than a bucket of ice water dumped on your head. I was pumped — it was fully dark and I was ready to meditate… This eagerness would fade real quick though… The first meditation was for two hours: from 4:30am — 6:30am. I had been meditating almost everyday for a year using the headspace app for 20 minutes a day and while this was very useful for helping with focus, when it came to sitting for two hours straight… it didn’t help. The pain was excruciating.. I couldn’t keep my eyes closed, my thoughts controlled, I had to move every five minutes… Basically I wanted to leave. Try right now to sit in one place for just five minutes with no distraction.. Now imagine this for two hours — now imagine thinking of ten days of this with over 100 hours total. The thought was freaking me out. During the meditation it is dark, and there is an audio tape playing with chanting, Goenka’s voice providing very detailed instructions on how to meditate and what the technique would be that day. The first day is to focus on the breath.. No judgement — just breathe in and out… If you start thinking, you’ll notice you’ve trailed off and you bring your attention back to the breath.. For 10 hours.. Basically, you are building your power of awareness for the Vipassana meditation techniques used to develop wisdom later on in Days 4–10. After two hours, I had breakfast and then immediately went to sleep. The power required to meditate would make me so tired initially.. I would fall asleep after every breakfast and lunch. I think my mind didn’t know how to react and so would focus on sleep. After lunch, I had some inspiration and determination come over me — I can make it at least one day I thought. Excitement was there. Happiness I was making positive changes. The rest of the day was easier. After dinner, we watched our first discourse. Basically an hour video of Goenka talking about the technique, questions and ways to apply it. This was the only form of entertainment for the duration of the retreat and I grew to love it. He is like an Indian Santa Claus.. So charismatic, compassionate and loving. In later days I would find myself close to tears watching these talks when he talked about specific stories. He was also very funny and it was amazing to laugh together at jokes as a class — One of the only times you felt a combined interaction with others. On another note, the talks could also be super boring and you had to watch sitting down, so again fucking excruciating pain — always trying to shift to a more comfortable position. It didn’t matter how many benches, cushions, mats — whatever… It sucks… real bad and is tough. Later you find out why this is necessary though. During the first few days I would look at people and what types of formations they would be using and experiment.. I would go either kneeled on a bench with a cushion on it or sitting with my legs crossed (again on a couple of cushions or bench with cushions under my knees).. Eventually I would switch between these two positions and my money position in between was sitting on a bench with my legs like a catcher in baseball to relax stretch my knees. Eventually my knees would fucking kill and would pop while walking afterwards.. Never did I feel like I would be injured or do damage though — just intense soreness. It does get a lot better, but is never excellent.. If you really have a problem, you can get a back rest — so dont worry if you’ve been injured before.. Everybody can practice. I opted to go classic form though even though I thought about a back rest almost everyday. The discourse on the first day was delving deep into what the practice is as I described above — morality, concentration, wisdom and the technique for tomorrow. They talked about how we were already living morality and now needed to build concentration. Overall, I meditated for about 6 hours.. I had deep sleeps after breakfast, lunch and during the 9 and 1pm sessions.. Basically if the session wasn’t mandatory in the hall, I would immediately go to my room and fall asleep. The day ended with the most vivid dreams and I could remember them along with the images in the morning. This seemed to be common for most people although not significant to the practice… It just further intensified the craziness of the whole experience. Think about how much is changing from your normal life — your thinking pattern, perception, diet, routine, basically everything.. One piece of learning here — I realised during day 1, I am a combative person… I think this develops through school, sports, work — we are always competing with others in our own minds and if you are type A, you often want to be the best. I noticed I was judging others even though I knew nothing about them. Instead of a sense of a shared “togetherness” experience, I had a bit of animosity or indifference to others at this stage. Naturally alienating… This was a normal thing to feel, especially because you feel kind’ve weird about the whole thing at this stage so your ego tries to distance itself from the people there. Also, regarding the teacher… it reminded me of being in elementary school where the teacher is there for discipline and seen as an adversary.. It’s so funny, because nothing could be further from the truth. Its more like “Oh, I better not talk in class, I better not let the teacher see me stretch my legs.. I better not move around” — this is so funny to think of now as the teachers main purpose is to help you get to your goal — not to discipline you.
Day 2 — Acclimation
Today I meditated for about 8 hours. Less sleep and more time in the hall. Today’s technique was focus on the breath, but also on the sensation of the breath in a smaller area. We were taught to focus on the sensations of the breath entering/leaving the nostrils and the feeling in a triangle from the area above your lip all the way to the top of the nose.. So you would sit and breath and focus on sensations in this area (ie. throbbing, pulsing, temperature, tickling, perspiration.. You don’t force it.. just whatever is happening). There are no mantras or numbers involved with this technique. Just pure focus on the breath.. Everybody breathes and it is one of the best ways to focus the mind without adding any additional layers of complexity (like counting or a mantra). By focusing on a smaller area today, we were again building the strength of our concentration for the coming focus on wisdom. Today was about the same difficulty as day 1, but I was getting more established and comfortable with the technique. My mind had noticeably slowed. This was the first revelation of the retreat. A calm mind allows you to enjoy simple things.. My whole life is spent thinking. So much energy towards thinking. “What am I going to do, meeting, gym, need to read, need to eat this, can’t wait to go to this party, does this person like me, what is this person doing, I can’t believe he said this, wow the news today, I don’t want to read that boring text book, I don’t want to wait in line, that fucking guy cut me off”. Just endless thinking and no notice of the present moment. Today I could actually walk around in some sort of peace, noticing some of the things outside… Like the sunrise, the birds flying, etc. Again, not because this was super spiritual, but just because it became a main focus with no backdrop to ruin it. Looking back, this focus on nature and simple things was actually awesome. There was a point here where I ate a persimmon for about 20 minutes, really tasting each bite and another point when I stopped for a few minutes to smell a strong scent of one of the flowers that were growing. I can’t overstate how unlike me it is to do this. Also, I have such a problem in daily life with always feeling overwhelmed with things to do — even when I have a day off, so the ability to enjoy the simplicity of the present was something really special. During this day, there were times I felt great as well. “I’m actually doing this, i’m going to be so focused when I get back.. I can’t wait to start crushing life in Israel, I’m so pumped to be here”. But at the same time, there were still challenges with boredom and the thought of ten days was daunting. When I went to sleep, this was the first night where I had problems sleeping. This would be a problem throughout the trip as 9pm is an early bedtime. Usually, I would come home and lay down and all the thoughts that didn’t happen during the day started coming up. At first it would be manic — amazing thoughts with tons of energy of what I was going to do when I got back, but after 2 hours, this started to wear thin and I would toss and turn — it takes time to adjust to a 9pm bedtime. On a side note, at the dinner/tea break, I noticed how much fruit people were eating (this was all that was served). Because all the meals were within a 5 hour time frame, people were starving by this break (5pm-6pm).. I was watching tiny guys eat 3 oranges, 2 apples, a persimmon and a banana.. Huge plates of fruit. This was also bad for meditation and even sleep, so I eventually moved to just lemon water at the dinner break.
Day 3 — Confusion
Today I meditated for about 8 hours. In the morning I felt determined. It was getting easier to adjust to the schedule and I was excited about meditating and really enjoying the sensation of a calm and focused mind. You realise that the technique is totally up to you. The teacher can’t see what you are doing — nobody is evaluating you. All progress rests with you which is extremely empowering. It means you need to come in with the right mindset and prepare to work hard if you want the best results. You also need to be ready to confront your emotions. The technique today was to focus the mind on an even smaller triangular area just below the nose and above the lip. They call it feeling the “tip of the breath”. Basically on every in/out breath, you try and feel the sensations here and you can actually feel the breath on that area of your skin. It’s so subtle and distinct and drives your mind into pure focus. This was the last step in improving your concentration. After a few hours of this, things started to change. I started developing what felt like a dark cloud all through my body and mind. I just didn’t feel right. It was very strange to go through these feelings of excitement, nervousness, focus, purpose and then to this blackness. Later on in the day, I started getting really angry and irritated and had no idea why. For example, people were making noise during the meditation (like sniffling or shifting — which I was also doing) and my mind would say “what the fuck, these people are so inconsiderate.. How dare they make noise”. At one point, my roommate was taking a shower and I got super pissed for literally no reason. I asked the teacher about this, and he told me that as the mind starts to settle, emotions will begin to arise and its normal. Wow, would this ever get intense in later days... At this point, you could see people start to drop out. One of our roommates left. I think there are a lot of people that aren’t ready to confront things they are feeling and about 15–20% of the people leave the course. I always had trouble meditating in the sessions after breakfast and lunch — my body has always focused better in the evening. So I would generally lose focus around lunch (where there is a 4 hour session) and start getting down on myself and my mood would spin. Around dinner, I would gain focus again, and then get really inspired by the nighttime talk — which would explain what your feeling and provide you with power. On this night, I felt amazing on my way to bed. I had this deep feeling that everything was okay… There was no pressure on me to do anything and no matter what I did, it was okay.. I kept thinking “You’re okay” and it was such a light feeling with none of the stress or worry that you usually have in daily life. Most people are self conscious about something — looks, career, how to act around strangers, how to act around the opposite sex, intelligence.. It could be anything. So this feeling was again priceless and so relaxing. When I layed down to sleep, my thoughts were on fire. I was thinking — How can I remember everything that’s happening.. I need to share this with people, I need to tell them how amazing it is, I need to convince my family and friends to go.. I am going to absolutely have an amazing year at work, I can do anything, I can’t wait to start living.. Really confident and turbocharged thinking. This was great …until I wanted to get to sleep.
Day 4 — VIPASSANA
Man.. This was a big day. Thinking about it now is crazy. We started the actual Vipassana technique to build Wisdom today. I’ll explain this one a bit.. Basically, whenever you do something — let’s use the example of something everybody can relate to — eating a cookie.. You eat the cookie, you get a pleasant sensation via taste, your brain tells your body the sensation is pleasant, your body feels this and stores the reaction to the sensation. Over time, your unconscious body knows that eating the cookie is pleasant and the thought of it causes craving because the body wants the pleasant sensation. This happens with every single sensory input:
- This happens at the basic level of sensory perception, think craving for food, alcohol, cigarettes, dessert, music, a workout, sex, etc.
- This also happens at the deeper emotional level.. For example, if you were really smart and determined in school and you always did well on tests and the teacher and your parents always gave you praise, you would get a good sensation and start developing craving for recognition/achievement. Emotional Craving also exists at much subtler levels — the need to be admired by friends, the need for validation from others (ie. when buying new clothes, cars, or material goods, etc.) — these things make you feel good and validated and then drive more craving for the same feeling. The feeling of having a girl/guy that likes you at a romantic/sexual level.. So many people turn to feelings of others towards them to boost their confidence because this sensation is extremely pleasant. This is why you often see younger people having trouble committing to a single person and cheating is so prevalent — often people want to know they are desirable continuously and turn to multiple people to fulfill that craving.
- Basically everything you do is driven by “I want” and the wanting of some sensation you have developed a need for throughout your life. Cravings for the things above aren’t bad.. They just are. If you want a beer or a cigarette or a new car.. go for it.. The issue arises when you can’t control the craving and your reaction to it. So perhaps you don’t want to smoke because you know it’s not healthy and end up smoking anyways.. Or you don’t want that Doughnut but can’t say no.. The idea of Vipassana is to identify these sensations at the unconscious level so you can break these cravings and really determine what you actually want instead of what you’re body has become accustomed to.
- Cravings also result in misery… When you want that promotion but don’t get it, you get angry/anxious/defeated/upset.. This happens with every craving. So the meditation helps to avoid misery because you remove the power of a craving to impact your mood.
- On the opposite side of craving is aversion. This means to “want to avoid something”. Everybody knows this feeling. “I don’t want to go to work on Monday morning, I don’t want to do that essay so I’ll watch TV first, I don’t want to file the reports, I don’t want to go to the gym”. Aversion is the main reason for procrastination and is a huge reason why this technique helps to increase your focus and ability to work towards things you really don’t want to do. Aversion also exists as pain — it’s anything the body doesn’t want.. Maybe a fear of public speaking or to approach that guy/girl to say hello, a fear of a physical encounter or asking for a promotion..etc. Everybody has aversions and they are built up over a lifetime depending on what unpleasant sensations somebody has experienced.
- So to sum up, imagine a technique that helps you break down your fears and aversions and cravings at the root level. How much benefit would it be to have no fear and to be able to always be moving towards what you actually wanted??
The technique to break down these cravings/aversions is simple… You use the focus you have developed over the past three days to go part by part through your body (top of the head, face, neck, right arm, left arm, front torso, back, butt, right leg, left leg, etc.). You do these sweeps slowly (10 minutes per sweep) feeling the sensations in each part of the body. As you do this you start to notice both painful and pleasant sensations. At this stage, mostly painful because sitting is difficult and it’s hard to really focus on deep sensations. So when the pain arises while sitting, you notice the pain, but don’t react. You just notice it and let it go without any feeling towards it. As you do this, massive emotions start to come up. That’s why they call Vipassana — THE SURGERY OF THE MIND.. YOU GO IN DEEP WITH A SCALPEL TO REMOVE IMPURITIES. How fucking awesome and empowering is that?
“The observation of the physical sensations without reaction during Vipassana meditation produces a remarkable effect. It causes the old stored-up past conditionings such as anger, hatred, ill-will, passion, etc. to come to the surface of the mind and manifest as sensations. Observation of these sensations without any reaction causes them to pass away, layer after layer. Your mind is then free of many of these old conditionings and can deal with experiences in the life without the color of past experiences.” — S.N. Goenka
As I started letting the painful sensations pass, crazy things started happening over the next few days. The first thing I noticed was a massive surfacing of old memories. It was emotional memories from my entire life. Because there are minimal new sensory experiences and you aren’t thinking for most of the day, memories start coming up. This isn’t the point of the practice, but it was pretty cool. I saw stuff from teachers in grade 1, times spent with my family as a small child (going to the park with my Mom and playing board games), sports tournaments, parties in high school, times when I lived in LA, encounters with friends I hadn’t thought about in years, old relationships... Basically significant memories from every part of my life. Even as a small child. It was awesome. Some of these were painful and really embarrassing (like I remembered getting rejected brutally by a girl in Los Angeles and also being flipped upside down on my first day of High School by a huge bully to shake change out of my pockets) but overall it was powerful. You were reliving your life without judgement. Moving past personal issues you have developed.
Day 5 — Misery
Today, the dreaded “Sitting of Strong Determination” was introduced. This was brutal. For me especially, because my flexibility isn’t great. Three times a day, for one hour, there would be a sitting where you can’t change position — Your hands and legs must remain in the same position and your eyes must remain closed the entire time. This allows you to go real deep. Painful, painful and more painful sensations start coming up. And as best as you can, you notice them, feel them and let them go. After awhile, you realise how impermanent these sensations are. So you still scan your body, feeling all the sensations and when painful ones arise, you feel them, note them, and let them go and eventually they pass. This translates to real life big time.. It helps you face real pain you’ve had in your life and makes it easier to tackle activities in which you used to have aversion. You eventually start to notice how all situations and feelings are impermanent so you don’t get so attached to results. I really went hard in the meditation today. You’re not exactly supposed to do this, but I was trying to bring up as much pain as possible to let it go, so forcing the same position for the full hour even though it hurt brutally. I would imagine each painful sensation was an old emotion I was letting go. From a technique perspective, you now ran the sensations from head to foot and then back up from foot to head. Today is the first day when things started getting really fucked up and hard for me. This practice started bringing up the most intense situations. Pure embarrassing stuff from middle school, times when I was so mean to people, times when I was so egotistical, times when I was a brat. Things that were very hard to face. This manifested in a dark mood and a seriously angry face. I didn’t know what was happening. You are supposed to notice these emotions while they come and remember their impermanence but it was just way too intense!!! I needed to lay in bed on a few different occasions just to deal with everything and I actually felt like I was being poisoned at one point. Imagine the intensity of everything you don’t like about your life and have trouble thinking about coming to the surface at once.. This helps you discover a lot of past weaknesses and solidified a lot of the things I wanted to work on. Again after the evening talk I started feeling better and when I went to sleep I was okay.
Day 6 — Self Doubt
Another crazy day… Today the technique continued in the same manner, but now you scan your body in a bit of a flow, so you are able to start feeling subtle sensations on your skin. It feels kind’ve like electricity flowing through your body. So you sweep your attention through your whole body once or twice and then go back to analyzing part by part. In all bodies, you are able to flow through some parts and then some parts are blocked or have no sensation. This depends on the emotions coming up at the time. You keep scanning with no judgment and no craving feeling both the pleasant and painful sensations and noticing them. Again, there is more to the technique but it’s hard to describe 100 hours in a single blog post.. lol. I would highly recommend going to the course if you are interested in practicing. The technique again brought up some intense feelings. Some of the sensations were so painful, I almost wanted to cry. Crying was a common theme and could be heard during most sessions. You could often even hear grown men sobbing for hours which is pretty crazy. Today, my theme was doubt. Midway through the day, I felt like all my progress was gone. I felt like I was back in day 1.. Nothing felt right. Again I felt confused. I was having awful thoughts like “This isn’t working”, “This technique is a fake”, “What am I doing in Israel”, “I need to go back to Canada”, “I’ll never be successful”, “I dont have any real friends”, “I’ll never find love”.. Really dark fucked up stuff. I know this sounds bad, but you are purifying your mind. Removing decades of old psychological patterns.. This is soooooooo good for you. There is no real way to describe the benefits I feel now. It’s such an amazing practice and amazing thing to do.
Day 7 — Ecstasy and Hurt
I woke up ecstatic and ready to practice deeply today. I had a lot of energy and ended up doing every meditation session in the hall — I had the urge to recommit and push myself harder for the rest of the trip. It was the only day I was able to meditate the entire 10.5 hours, and I think I paid for it with the feelings I unearthed later…. lol. I really felt in the zone in the morning — I even had the energy to go for a walk around the grounds at lunch (ie. usually I would nap). The meditation technique today was the same as the previous days, but you really started to be able to feel the pleasurable sensations throughout the body during the “sweeping flow”. I also was really able to notice the painful sensations and start feeling how to notice these without aversion and let them go. The technique was starting to teach me about impermanence — all sensations fade away, so there is no need to hold on to them or develop craving or aversion. This was a key learning for the course and super applicable to life. Most misery is caused by reaction — reaction to painful, hurtful, pleasurable things outside of your control. So imagine getting really angry… let’s say somebody does something to piss you off… Maybe they steal your laptop. Sure you will be angry, but the feeling will eventually pass as all feelings do. Will you still be angry about this 1 week later, 4 months later, 2 years later? It becomes obvious that growing super attached and influenced by your emotions is silly because they change so frequently and you have no control over them. The practice helps to keep you from getting overpowered by your emotions and to be more balanced throughout life. This was a huge weakness of mine — especially relating to anxiety, stress and patience. So the ability to let go and realize that most things aren’t nearly as important as they seem is amazing. I felt like I was having a breakthrough here and was obsessed with writing all these thoughts down and was thinking about them deeply all morning. I was imagining how many people I could convince to try this and how beneficial it would be for them. I was also having a huge craving to go home and write about my experience and tell as many people as I could. The happiness that I was feeling from the technique made me want to share it so badly. The teachers say that introducing people to the technique provides one of the best feelings as you see them coming out of their misery. I could already tell this would be so helpful, especially for couples in serious relationships — helpful getting rid of old pain and fears, unearthing feelings, building communication and trust, etc. I was thinking how excited I was to tell my sister and her boyfriend and my parents about it and how good it would feel if I could be the one to help make their relationships even stronger! Just after the afternoon meditations, I started breaking down as usual. Massive feelings of hurt were coming to the surface. I started feeling so hurt by past relationships. Insecurities, feelings of rejection and issues I had with prior girlfriends really came out. Specific fights were played out over and over. I think I had been holding onto some feelings that were too painful to address. Not that I would think about them daily or be bothered during regular life, but the feeling were there and I hadn’t properly internalised them and was having a lot of self confidence issues. The feelings of hurt were so intense, all thoughts of impermanence went out the window. I was completely consumed.. In the end this was very helpful and one of the best things about the trip as these feelings have completely disappeared! I was able to realize I hadn’t faced certain feelings and to accept them and as I experienced them again, it was much easier to finally let go. Think of how beneficial that is! The energy it takes to carry these things around is so negative and makes it hard to feel proper compassion and gratitude towards others, so this was a seriously important experience. This feeling of anguish, as usual dissolved after the evening talk — again making me realise how impermanent feelings are when you are aware of them. On my way to bed, I started to feel amazing. Genuinely excited about life… I don’t remember feeling like this since I was a kid. It was like going to sleep on Christmas Eve. All I could think about was how lucky I was to be working on a project I loved, to be in a new country, to be doing exciting things. It felt like I was making all the right choices and had so much to look forward to. It was hard to want to stay for three more days because I couldn’t wait to get back to life.
Day 8 — Anger
After the intense meditation yesterday, I was a bit burnt out. I think I was most focused during meditation when I was around 7–8 hours per day. I started to crave going home and was feeling indifferent to the practice. (ie. I didn’t care if I continued or not and again felt like there weren’t any benefits). If you are constantly aware of your emotions, you’ll see how quickly they change — also you generally have no control over how they change, so the feelings themselves and getting attached to them starts to seem a bit foolish. The technique today was again the body scanning process with 1 flow through of the entire body for subtle sensations (ie. pleasurable tingling), then a part by part scan to try and feel each part (some parts are very difficult to feel — these are dead areas) and some parts you can only feel gross sensations — like a big block in an area instead of a subtle flow. The blocks and dead zones change each day again driving home points about impermanence. The idea is to dissolve the blocks and dead spots over time as you burn through more and more old emotions related to craving and aversion. Eventually, you will be able to experience subtle pleasurable flow throughout your whole body and even start analyzing internal feelings (like sensations inside your stomach, etc.) instead of just on the skin.. I didn’t make it to this level during the ten day course though. It’s also important not to develop craving to the pleasurable sensations, so you have to go part by part as well instead of just the continuous full body scan (which kind’ve means doing all the parts at once) — which is quicker and easier and your mind is naturally attracted to it. It’s really weird, because it takes absolutely no effort to focus your attention on a part of your body.. Think about your left pinky finger right now.. See — 1/4 of a second. However, when thinking about going through your whole body to do this, I started to develop a resistance to it. It felt like the feeling of procrastination when you know you have a lot of work to do. My mind just wouldn’t want to do it, and I would have to be aware of this and continuously let the feeling go. I had more difficult feelings again today. I would say days 5–8 were the worst with each being terrible in a different way. So this was the last day that was really tough. Also, the program wasn’t emotionally so intense for everybody, so don’t be scared. You can go as deep as you want. I just had it in my mind to go real deep and face whatever pain and issues I could, and my life has been really unstable the past two years as I discussed earlier. So I was carrying a lot of unresolved tension going in. Today the feelings were mostly anger related. I am generally pretty relaxed and often try to forgive or avoid confrontation and I don’t really let myself experience anger — I block it out. In the afternoon, something exploded. At one point during a determined sit, I felt like a ball of fire burst in my stomach and I was in a rotten mood the rest of the day. Just furious with people for all kinds of things — friends, family, previous coworkers, etc. Again these feelings evaporated later on in the day. I also experienced a bit of greed. There was a huge desire for money, recognition, material things and a certain lifestyle for when I move back to Toronto. Nothing is wrong with wanting nice things, but after watching your thoughts all week, it’s easy to identify when you are in the midst of craving and your body is taking over without your control. It doesn’t feel healthy and I could recognize this which was great. I think practicing the technique over time automatically decreases your want for material items — and provides more gratitude for what you already have. During the evening session I started to get really excited to talk with my friends and family. I was still having so many memories of all my friends and seeing so many things I had forgotten about my life. I couldn’t wait to talk to them and see them again.
Day 9 — Impermanence
On Day 9 you can feel the process coming to an end. The technique remains the same. The excitement starts to build for going back to real life. However, there is still a bit of boredom — a ten hour day of sitting will always generate that. It’s weird because the day goes pretty fast while it’s happening but there is always this feeling that “there are so many more days…”. I think it must be because the meditation is difficult physically and mentally so your mind has an aversion to it. Today I started again experiencing both negative and positive thoughts (ie. craving and aversion). Nothing really stuck out. It was stuff along the same lines as day 5–8 but with less intensity. The real revelation here was impermanence. We had been told to focus on this all week, and were moving away from sensations in our meditation and finally this started to filter into daily life. Whenever emotions would come up, I was starting to be able to look at them as if they were happening to somebody else. I would still feel them, but wouldn’t react and they would just dissolve. This is hard to explain in words, but was incredible. It was so powerful to think that it would be possible to get to an end goal where I wouldn’t be fearful of anything and could live a life without misery. After the huge roller coaster of emotions throughout the trip, providing the ability to be aware and experience these without reaction was like giving water to somebody in a desert.
Day 10 — METTA
This was an amazing amazing day. We began the process of closing the wound we had so deeply opened. This happens with Metta meditation. This is the process of focusing on positive sensations and then sending them out into the world. I would go deep into my chest/heart area to feel pleasant tingling and then send these out into the room, imagining good vibes for everybody I was practicing with, my friends, family and even strangers or people I had only encountered one or two times. This technique leaves you so satisfied. I would think of each friend, imagine them smiling, imagine amazing things happening in their lives and imagine them feeling content. It’s such a powerful technique. At points I felt like the room was vibrating with love. Imagine 100 people in tune in a small room doing the same thing… How great is that? If you meditate with Metta frequently, its actually supposed to improve the atmosphere of the room so anybody in it will immediately feel more at ease. That’s one of the reasons it’s great to practice in the same place daily if you can. The second massive experience today was talking.. It was very strange after being silent for 10 days. This is probably the first time in 30 years where I had been silent for so long. It felt like I was thinking twice.. Once to think and then again to talk. It was also strange after sitting so long in isolation to have to think about what to say. I kind’ve found it was an unnecessary stress at first. But then as I started to speak with the other students and hear about their experiences I got a lot more comfortable.. Although, I still retained this feeling that I shouldn’t talk so much or shouldn’t waste words on things of little consequence which I think is a very strong way to live. You also immediately notice how much your meditation suffers when you start talking. My afternoon sessions were much weaker and more difficult to focus. Talking introduces so many distractions into your mind and now that you know the people around you, you start to think about what they are thinking as well and what they think about you.. I wondered at the start of the course if the silence was necessary and after speaking and then going back to meditating, it’s unquestionable that it is needed. Being able to talk with people on the last day was great though. I learned that almost everybody struggled with the technique, so its very validating that it really works. Not one person said they wouldn’t recommend it although it definitely varied in intensity for each person. It was also funny to learn what people were actually like. My roomate, who I had internally gotten angry at for “making noise while taking a shower” turned out to be an amazing electronic producer and in a band and was on his way to Berlin to promo his album. He was also into Ayuahuasca and had 4 circles in the past month and provided a contact to try this which I am super pumped about. The whole time, I had a completely different judgement of him. Further, most people thought I was Israeli and were shocked when I spoke English. One guy had even said he thought I was a professional meditator because he saw me sitting in a chair on the first night looking out at the horizon (again remember I was just super bored) and I always walked around with an angry focused face. In reality I was as beginner as it gets and struggled just like everybody there. There is a really funny thing that happens when meditating. You need to move around a few times within each session, usually around 4–5. Each move takes about 2–4 seconds.. So of the total hour session, you are noticeably moving about 30 seconds max. However, you are always thinking about moving and how hard it is to continue to hold the same position and when you open your eyes.. nobody else is moving (again because everybody only moves around 30 seconds during an hour session). Because of this, it looks like everybody is a pro and you don’t know what you’re doing. When I thought about this I found it really amusing.. So don’t fall into this trap — dont even open your eyes. I was also shocked by how interesting most of the people were.. I guess committing to a Vipassana requires a pretty big desire for self improvement, so that in itself is interesting, but the people were so diverse. I met:
- Genius biomechanical engineer from the US that happened to love to do acid on occasion to boost creativity
- PHD Astrologist
- Somebody that grew up on a Kibbutz in Israel, was in the army and worked security in a Mexican prison in Suarez (one of the most dangerous in the world). He invited me out to Tel Aviv in the upcoming weeks to show me around.
- Army Intelligence and Combat Officers that had already experienced so much — this is pretty common in Israel though
- City Planner and Architect that would spend winters in the Caucasus mountains living primitively with nature
- Environmental fanatic that spent time working on organic farms in different countries as a form of civil service
- Somebody from London on her second Vipassana, that was then taking time to travel across India and Sri Lanka to increase her spirituality.
Everybody had a story. Of the 100 people there, I got the chance to meet around 20 and everybody was amazing. When you experience something so intense, you immediately develop a bond. A lot of hugs were going around. If I saw anybody who had done a Vipassana course I think I would talk about it with them for hours.. lol.
Day 11 — Closing
Day 11 ended with a morning metta meditation and hour discussion around how to maintain the practice going forward. Basically, it was suggested that you should do a retreat once per year, meditate for one hour in the morning and in the evening and find a group sitting once a week if possible (one of the evening hours). So for a total of 14 hour commitment to meditation per week and a commitment to living a moral life based on committing only actions that don’t hurt others, you can really live the practice and see continual benefits. The teacher also suggested that when meditating daily for 2 hours your sleep will improve along with your focus, so you will actually gain time in your day. I am telling you the increase in focus and determination is very real. After the metta, I had a feeling of total contentment and happiness. I went around offering people extra spots in my car for those that didn’t have a ride. I usually hate cleaning — but because I felt such gratitude for being able to participate in this for free, I spent hours getting my room and the meditation hall spotless for the next guests. I was working with a smile on my face and cherishing the opportunity to do things for others. This is so beyond how I would regularly feel, so it’ shocking for me to even write it but I hope that it’s the start of some very positive changes. I wasn’t expecting to make any friends or even really have any interactions here but left with about 20 new facebook friends and contact info. This is perfect for me, because I had been feeling a bit alone here and now I have a ton of people offering to do cool things. In the next few months alone, I have planned the following:
- 3 Day guided motorcycle tour
- Advanced Scuba Diving Certification and a Night Dive (Somebody was friends with an instructor and linked me)
- Kitesurfing — they have a school right beside the scuba diving
- Israeli version of the Burning Man in June
- Dinner at a real Kibbutz with an Israeli Family
- A number of music festivals, one of which is in a forest
- Weekend trip to the Dead Sea and Jerusalem with a friend from the Vipassana
Having all these activities planned along with a rock solid work routine and a meditation path that I know leads to a more fulfilled life has me feeling the best I have in years. It feels great that slowly my goals are moving away from the unhealthy desires I’ve been fixated on for the past decade. After dropping everybody off I went out for lunch with a friend in Tel Aviv and it was my first experience of society in 11 days. The food tasted unbelievable (we ate at Miznon, which is known for whole roasted cauliflowers), the music in the restaurant was loud hip-hop and it sounded so good. My senses were all coming alive and everything was so sharp. At one point later in the day I was ready to burst I was so happy. Like so happy, I was almost tearing up. Again, this wasn’t a real emotion, I didn’t have a longing or need for it and it didn’t last past that day.. (remember the impermanence theme). It was just really overwhelming to be experiencing such awesome things and talking with friends and family after the 10 day period (10 days doesn’t seem like a long time, but it is an eternity when there is nothing to focus on but your thoughts).
Conclusion — How Many…………. Benefits
Overall, I found a ton of benefits, most of which I wasn’t expecting. The ability to let go of a lot of past emotions is the number 1 thing that sticks out in my mind as a healing of my most acute pain. However there are a few more that were fantastic. In late summer 2015, I had identified a bunch of weaknesses that I wanted to work on. I have problems with patience, moderation of things — I can easily get really worked up to “go to the max” in work, a new activity or even going out with friends, I am often too hard on myself and I don’t send enough love and positive thoughts my own way, I occasionally have a lack of concern for people’s feelings and also respect for others possessions, I have a deep need to be “liked” by others — this one is the worst, I take things too personally, and I have a lot of fears that I want to break — fear of rejection being the strongest. I have slowly been working on these by affirming core values I want to live by. For example, I wrote down a list of core values to help battle these weaknesses. There are about 20 in total and I read them every morning. Things like, dont validate yourself through opinions of others, work for goals that you design, look at your weaknesses objectively, continue to ask for self-criticism from others, have patience, etc. I figured that reading these everyday would remind me how to act, and they do to some degree, but it is similar to reading “Cigarettes will kill you” on a pack of smokes. You know it at the intellectual level, but need to also know it at the experiential level. Vipassana helps you realise these truths at the experiential level through meditation. I realized I don’t need to continue trying to outthink my cravings / aversions/ emotions. As long as I keep practicing Vipassana, I’ll automatically start living my core values as I reduce my cravings/aversions and build compassion. So while I came in hoping to work on my weaknesses individually, I realised I can work on them all at once using the technique!
Overall, whether you believe you can handle a 10 day retreat or not, or whether you are interested in confronting your feelings at all, the process is extremely beneficial for everybody. There is no way you won’t gain something and learn a few things about yourself that will have value. The only cost is 10 days.. Think about what you did in the last 10 days — is that something that you couldn’t give up to guarantee a surefire method to eventual deep happiness and satisfaction? I really want to encourage as many people to try this as it is so beneficial and seeing the smiles on each person’s face at the end of the trip was truly a blessing. Imagining my friends and family with those same smiles is a really inspiring thought. If you are interested in more information, the link to a nearby center is here:
https://www.dhamma.org/en-US/locations/directory#CA
Just to recap the benefits one last time…
- Detox from information overload and social media
- Healthy vegetarian diet for 10 Days / No unhealthy substances or intoxicants
- Emotional cleansing of old emotions. Removes painful self conceptions that may be harming current relationships
- Craving reduction — Super helpful for addiction, but also good for all facets of life. Allows you to readjust and focus on goals you truly care about
- Decrease in aversion — Ability to conquer fears that may be holding you back
- Developing awareness of impermanence — Allows you to live life with a little more joy and less stress and to react to problems in a sharp decisive manner
- Relationships — Living with no craving. No craving for what you want another person to be. This is so healthy and allows you to love deeply for who somebody is instead of who you want them to be.
- Deep self discovery — Realize your weaknesses, your strengths, and find the compassion that is already inside you
Hope you enjoyed! If this can encourage even 1 person to attend a retreat and put them on the path to finding happiness, it is totally worth it. If you go, remember to send me some good vibes in your Metta meditation. Feel free to contact me with any questions!
THANK YOU for reading. The goal of the article is to provide an education around what Vipassana is and provide people with the tools to conquer their problems.
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