Adhivāsanā: Day Four — Lust
“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 logic, training to focus on a specific, subtle and usually-unnoticed part of the body, our mind would become sharp enough to notice such sensations, and isolate them, across the entire body.
We started by running consciousness down our entire body, from the very peak of the head to the tips of the toes, part by part. Down the scalp and face, the neck, the shoulders, elbows, forearms… every major part and articulation.
The first few times were difficult, but progress was made and marked. I managed to consistently make two sweeps from top to bottom in an hour of practice.
Time became shorter again. Goenka’s chanting was no longer something I longed for. Instead it came as a shock — I would sometimes physically jump at the telltale crackling that heralded his return, not realizing the intensity of my focus or the speed at which time had passed.
The rest of the day would pass by in a haze of constant concentration, with occasional breaks for lunch, tea, and stretching out the limbs.
That night, I was visited by a host of most vicious temptations and distractions from the Path. A brazier of lust suddenly erupted into being, a lust for sensual external pleasures — music, decadent food, human contact, connection, anything. I fought my way into sleep for hours, and when it eventually came, the distractions became more sinister.
I found myself ‘awake’ at the witching hour. My sister stood at my bedside, impossibly tall and lanky, looming above my bed with an unnerving grin on her face and a smartphone in her hand. She scrolled down Facebook for me, showing me everything I missed out on. I caught a glimpse of something and willed her to stop scrolling.
She stopped on a post describing the tragic death of a close friend of mine on the Sea to Sky highway just hours prior, and I witnessed a whole slew of posts lamenting the accident. Seamlessly, I jumped out of bed and looked out my window.
A night terror. A very subtle one.
Anxiety tugged at my vocal chords and I wrestled with the idea of waking the male manager to check my phone for a long time.
I eventually slipped back into tumultuous slumber.
