Meditating in Silence for 10 days
To say that my Vipassana experience in Myanmar was challenging is an understatement.
We are in 2019, and in 72 hours, I will be entering a Buddhist temple in order to meditate about 11 hours a day, for 10 days. All this in Myanmar, a country bordering India on its eastern side, about which I know nothing. Why am I doing this? To step out of my comfort zone, to get to know myself better, to gain some clarity after a tough year on the personal side.
The journey from Amsterdam to Yangon, the capital of Myanmar, felt long. Two hours of sleep for a 36-hour trip is a bit light. My lack of care for sleep will soon turn into a nightmare.
I have two nights to acclimate and adjust to the time difference. I try to meditate for 10 minutes on the eve of my entry to get into the rhythm. Only a few minutes in, my back is in pieces and my brain is boiling. Well, I just have to hold out 84 times these ten minutes a day, for ten consecutive days. I am worried but determined to get the best out of this opportunity.
Arrival at the Temple
Late afternoon in Yangon’s surroundings, I briefly get to meet my future meditation colleagues. There are about ten Westerners among the sixty participants. Men and women are separated.
I wonder what brings them here. Personally, I feel on a real quest. I want to learn to know myself, to go deep into my soul, and maybe even become a little more spiritual.
This Texan guy seems very comfortable in his skin: what is he looking for in so many hours of silence? I project myself into the shoes of others, trying to understand, to compare their situations with mine.
Here’s the schedule for the next 10 days:
- 4:00 AM — Wake up
- 4:30–6:30 AM — Meditation
- 6:30–8:00 AM — Breakfast
- 8:00–9:00 AM — Meditation
- 9:00–11:00 AM — Meditation
- 11:00 AM — 1:00 PM — Lunch and rest
- 1:00–2:00 PM — Meditation
- 2:00–3:30 PM — Meditation
- 3:30–5:00 PM — Meditation
- 5:00–6:00 PM — Tea
- 6:00–7:00 PM — Meditation
- 7:00–8:00 PM — Discourse by S.N. Goenka
- 8:00–9:00 PM — Meditation
- 9:00 PM — Opportunity to ask questions to the teacher, then bed.
This spartan schedule is accompanied by some rules designed to enhance the purification of the mind, the primary goal of the method.
- Noble silence. No talking, looking at, or interacting with anyone in any way.
- No killing. There are plenty of mosquitoes.
- No lying.
- No stealing.
- No sexual activity.
- No intoxicants. Coffee, tobacco, alcohol.
I share an austere room with the Texan. Before turning off the lights, I want to adjust the fan to a lower setting, it’s damn noisy. But it’s impossible to ask my roommate’s opinion. What do I do?
Anyway, I don’t expect to sleep due to jet lag, so I leave it as it is.
Day 1
Sleepless night. The first day, meditation focuses on observing the natural nasal breathing: paying full attention to your breath and concentrating on it. My natural breathing is quick and light, much to my disappointment. I breathe like a stressed-out hamster.
Everyone keeps moving to avoid back pain. Especially me, it seems. The day before, I realized during a conversation that I was the only guy coming without any meditation experience. I used to take pride in my nonchalance: not this time.
At the end of the day, I begin to feel the breath on the upper surface of my lips. Cool. Efforts pay off.
My thoughts raced all day, without a break. Luckily, I find my mind good company, though a bit repetitive. As soon as I catch myself thinking, I bring myself back to breathing. Sometimes, I wander in thoughts for 15 minutes before realizing I was no longer attentive.
Day 2
Sleepless night. I struggle to focus due to fatigue, and at the same time, my stream of thoughts becomes more distant. I’m really observing myself. The back pain seems more bearable.
The evening audio discourse, a speech by S.N. Goenka, emphasizes the importance of living a moral life. The late sage explains why our thoughts are a source of suffering, hence the technique.
Tomorrow, we will focus exclusively on the sensations under the nostrils.
Day 3
Another sleepless night. My worry about sleep deprivation weighs heavily on my mind. Despite this, I have very good sensations under the nostrils: burning, warmth, and cold. Occasionally, I find moments of pure mental silence. Is this the flow state, on demand? It reminds me of boxing, where my entire attention is dedicated to a single action: fighting. Here, the fight is internal, against my chatty ego. My thoughts are like a wild horse I must gently bring back to the center of the arena.
Tomorrow, we will narrow the concentration zone to a triangle under the nostrils. That night, still waiting for Morpheus to welcome me, I decide to meditate lying down. I enter a strange trance where my body feels asleep, but my mind remains alert. Only my breath exists. My thoughts disappear, and gravity pulls me into a cloud of comfort. The mosquito net around my bed undulates in the fan’s breeze. This moment feels divine, my sensations caress me. Finally, I fall asleep, feeling a rare sense of peace.
Day 4
I slept 2 hours tonight. I wake up with a bit more energy.
From today, it is asked to stay completely still during three one-hour sessions, spread evenly throughout the day. These sessions are called mental strengthening sessions.
I hear most people moving. No way I’m moving, I want to prove myself. I finish the morning hour in sweat; my T-shirt is soaked. Pain has become just another sensation, though hard to bear, which I can observe with less judgment.
In the afternoon, I have a lot of trouble concentrating, I think I fall asleep.
A new painful sensation appears between my eyes, a feeling of pressure.
In the evening, the pain is still present. I decide to talk to the teacher.
The teacher, an old Burmese sage whose enlightenment can’t be mistaken, is dressed simply in a faded white robe. He wears glasses and, like all Burmese monks, is bald. When I sit in front of him, I feel immediately lighter. I can’t help but smile. He looks at me with a grandfatherly smile, sincere, and a luminous gaze whose depth seems to contain only kindness and tenderness. I explain my issue.
He nods and replies in a hesitant English: « It’s a good sign, you are sensitive. Observe. »
Not the answer I expected. I laugh. He laughs too. I thank him and leave satisfied nonetheless.
I go to bed, I keep moving all night: my roommate must hate me.
Day 5
Two hours of sleep. A mosquito got under my net, and I had to chase it away without killing it.
Today begins the third phase of meditation: the Vipassana method.
We extend our attention to the entire body, starting from the top of the head. We must be on the lookout for the slightest sensations, both coarse (pain, heat, cold, contact) and subtle (burning, lightness, pressure, tingling, vibration, etc.).
According to Buddha’s teachings, with our attention now extremely sharp and focused on the entire body, we should soon experience increasingly subtle sensations, which are manifestations of our subconscious. Coarse sensations should appear from time to time, and these are the result of the release of Sankaras: emotions/memories blocked in our subconscious. How do you know if a Sankara is released? The sensation vanishes, eventually releasing attached memories.
I recalled so many things during these ten days. A Gameboy game I played when I was 7. The time a shamefully stole a 20-euro note from my mother to buy cards. A fall down some stairs, a faceless person, an action… also far more intimate memories that I won’t discuss here. Each experience was positive, or at least constructive. We strip away the subconscious, deconstruct ourselves, and analyze each piece with equanimity.
This last term is at the heart of the method: each sensation must be analyzed with total detachment. No aversion to bad sensations, no craving for pleasant sensations. This is how one would reach the highest awakened state of mind, free from all suffering. The mind, pure by definition.
Back to thoughts.
At first, I felt that my roommate despised me. I imagined his thought patterns based only on a few observed gestures. While meditating this morning, I realized that by doing this, I was trapping myself in a constant feeling of distrust of others.
Looking for culprits occupied my time and saved me from introspection. Sylvain Tesson.
I don’t trust people. By digging deeper, I realized that I project my own insecurities onto others and interpret their slightest actions through my subjective, imaginary lens. I actually have no idea what my roommate thinks of me. His reality is not mine. The source of my insecurity is therefore the fruit of my imagination.
It’s up to me to deal with this now. This realization has helped me immensely. I take ownership of my feelings.
A way out, I think, is to be fundamentally kind to others, and thus to oneself. As if every person were your father, mother, or child. Stoic philosophes formulated the idea that no external event should disturb your inner peace. It is your reactions to these events that can sink your ship. Acting is beneficial, reacting is harmful.
Day 6
Three hours of sleep.
The day goes by, and realizations come gradually. I still have a lot of pain between my eyes, which sometimes prevents me from concentrating. My more subtle sensations are heat and burning. I’ve always had a warm body, but now, I’m like a damn nuclear reactor. I’m holding on. The lesson is painful. In the evening, Goenka’s course tells us that the burning might be unexpressed anger. I barely ever get angry. I must have a serious stock of anger to release.
That night, I really almost left the center.
Around 11:00 PM, I feel my pulse racing. My breathing is really fast, and my heart is pounding. With only a few hours of sleep in six days, I figure it was to be expected. My left arm starts to hurt. Damn.
I think of that movie where Robert De Niro anticipates a heart attack by noticing his left arm tensing up. I’m going to die silently; they’ll find me dead in the morning. I wonder if the teacher would be equanimous in front of my corpse.
I try to control my breathing. I make an odd decision: I’d rather die than give up. I’m here to get to know myself, and I don’t want to discover that I’m a quitter. This year has been rough, and I need this win more than ever. I try to reassure myself by thinking that I’m making all this up due to fatigue.
After a while, I remark that my heart hasn’t been racing so fast. I just felt its beat so strongly that I doubled the count! Dong-dong, dong-dong… My sensitivity is such that each pulse is a small explosion inside me. Although unpleasant, being aware of this at least allows me to relax a bit.
Day 7
I’m in good spirits. I survived the night. I may not have won the war, but at least a battle.
Today and until the end, we are told that some meditation hours will be done in a small cell, in isolation. The idea is that each person will be alone for the last breath, the last journey. So let’s practice! Great!
I thought I was going to die last night, and now they’re sending me back to the front. Entering the cell, a million thoughts cross my mind. I realize that I’m not so afraid of my own death, but I’m absolutely terrified of the death of my loved ones. I haven’t accepted the mortality of my parents, my brothers, my sister. These are my demons. I’m a child facing the mortality of those I love. I lull myself into the illusion of an endless life. We are just passing through. I sit down, alone, trying to find peace with that inevitable truth.
Day 8–9
Sleep becomes better, I almost sleep through the nights.
My forehead pain reaches a pinnacle. My mind is calm.
I saw a monk stumble, a squirrel climb a tree.
Day 10 — Last day
Around 10:00 AM, we are taught Metta meditation, directed towards others. It’s a meditation where, in short, we emit good vibrations and thoughts for others. For a moment, the air in the room seems transformed. Anyone who entered the Dhamma Yoti meditation hall on November 24 at 10:55 AM would have felt uplifted be the atmosphere without knowing why.
At 11:00 AM, the noble silence ends.
We leave the hall. “Hey man,” I say to an Israeli lad, the first person I see. We laugh. We gather in front of the hall with the few Westerners. We share our experiences, and… everyone laughs. We all cry with laughter. I feel like I’m high. I can’t stop smiling. The forehead pain is still there, but the suffering no longer exists.
Whenever someone speaks, everyone goes silent, listens attentively, with smiles on their faces. The laughter keeps coming, no one can resist the joy of others. I will remember this for the rest of my life. Our experiences were so different. A German was floating in happy bliss since the second day. His eyes literally sparkle. Another dude thought he was going crazy on the seventh day: having reached an enlightened state, he panicked at the idea of losing his ego. A third is frustrated at not having experienced strong sensations. We all had a different experience.
My Texan roommate.
I tell him that he talks in his sleep. He bursts out laughing. Spontaneously, we hug.
He tells me that from the beginning, he wanted to tell me that I seemed like a good guy.
For a long time, I imagined the opposite. I tell him about my intellectual journey. He listens with such attention. What a delight to talk to someone so present. I swear to always make an effort in this regard: it has never been my forte. I’ve tried to keep that promise since then. Attentive listening is a free gift to offer everyone, at any moment. We would spend hours that day and the next talking about navigating life difficulties. One of the most enriching encounters of my life.
I make a donation to the center: Vipassana centers operate solely on donations.
Back to the Real World
A day in Yangon with colleagues, now friends, from the meditation center. The world seems very hectic to me. I guess I haven’t reached the deepest layers of my subconscious, but I feel like I now know myself better.
In the evening, I take a bus to go on a three-day trek in the Burmese mountains. On the bus, I put on my headphones: I hadn’t listened to music for eleven days. Queen, “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
I had to contain an orgasm. I felt like I was on stage with them. Sitting on my bus and surrounded by locals, I silently vibrate with pleasure. I explode with every note.
The next day, I stub my toe on a table corner. It hurts for a second or two. Then, nothing more. The pain is there, but not the suffering. During these three days of trekking, people seem very talkative to me. I notice how everyone seeks comfort in others. Some fear silence like the plague. Not wanting to cut myself off from the world, I force myself to integrate as much as possible. I think it works pretty well.
I am much more attentive; that might be the biggest change.
Would I do it again? Not sure.
Would I recommend it? No. Meditating every day, definitely.
In such a rigorous fashion, not really.
My pessimistic self says too much suffering. My optimistic self says so many lessons. The answer is probably in the middle. It’s a matter of perspective, as always, isn’t it?
Louis
