Into the Subconscious
My Vipassana Experience
I became interested in Vipassana since reading some posts about it back in October of 2013. I was recently unemployed from a failed startup that I was a founding member of. All my energy, hopes, dreams, mental and physical well-being were invested in this startup. When it went under it took a large piece of me with it, and that is when my depression really started. I know, you’re supposed to learn and move on and in many ways I did, I just didn’t realize how much I had lost before then. So I signed up for the first available Vipassana course that was in February. However life had other ideas, I burned through my emergency funds paying for life’s everyday needs and had to get a job. Luckily finding one wasn’t a problem (perks of being an engineer) and I began working, forgetting all about the Vipassana course as I was now unable to take the time to go. I thought I had turned the page, I thought I was happy.
Then a change occurred in my personal life that managed to derail the entire plan I had set for myself. It shook my foundation to the core, and when the foundation is unstable one should probably reexamine and rebuild the entire house. So I began rethinking all the different aspects of my life, and I came to the realisation that I was miserable in what I was doing. I didn’t want to do tech anymore. Didn’t want to do startups anymore. I was done. I am done. I don’t think want to see another piece of code unless it’s absolutely necessary.
So I quit my job, broke the lease on my apartment, moved all my belongings onto a pallet in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and went off. I was going to discover what made me happy in life. And I was going to finally do this Vipassana course and see what it was all about.
Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.
What is Vipassana?
Vipassana is an ancient Indian meditation technique, rediscovered by Gotam Buddah some 2500 years ago as part of his enlightenment. He taught this technique to others and it was very popular for a while, but the true practice was lost eventually as it was polluted with sects and dogma. The practice went deep underground and it was almost entirely lost if not for the continued practice in Birma, where it was taught selectively from teacher to student over generations. The practice was re-popularized by the late Satya Narayan Goenka who had the means and the will to reintroduce the practice to the world.
Vipassana literally means to see things as they are. This meditation focuses on the deep connection between the mind and the body. The technique can be used to cleanse the mind of all impurities and, if you so choose to believe, reach full enlightenment. It’s our impurities that cause us to be miserable, and so this technique is lovingly referred to as The Art of Living. It’s also important to point out that the teachings are completely non-sectarian. If you come in as a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, or even an atheist, you’ll leave as the same. Misery and suffering are universal, and this technique aims to teach how to live a life that is full of love and happiness, regardless of your background.
We make ourselves miserable, no outside force in is world can do that to us, only we can do it to ourselves. Misery manifests itself deep inside us and comes up from the subconscious through to the conscious mind. There are two ways we make ourselves miserable: we crave things we like and become miserable when we don’t get them; and we have aversions to things we dislike and become miserable when those things happen. The old Pali term used for these cravings and aversions is sankhara. For example, let’s say someone says something mean to me. I would probably spend the rest of the day dwelling on how and what led up to it happening, how I should have responded, and how I will respond in the future if it ever happens again. And right there is the existing habit pattern of our mind: our mind is either in the past or in the future, but very rarely is the mind actually focused on the here and now. We are completely driven by these reactions to cravings and aversions, and it is these deeply rooted reactions that then cause us to be miserable. Vipassana aims to teach how we can change this existing habit pattern of the mind, and to stop reacting.
Our bodies are constantly changing, old cells die and new ones are born. If you go even deeper than that, we are actually all just vibrating blobs of atoms. Constant, continues, inevitable change. No one person is the same from one moment to the next. The surface level of our mind, the conscious mind, is usually unaware and not involved in this ongoing change. Our subconscious mind however is. This is where Vipassana comes in, and the idea is actually relatively simple. The technique, as it literally means, is to see things as they are. You train and sharpen your mind to go deeper, to enter the subconscious level and to simply observe these sensations. The keyword is observe, to observe these sensations calmly, equanimously, to never react with pleasure or displeasure, to never create any new sankharas, and with the realization that these sensations will come up and pass away because that is the nature of our body, constantly changing. You’re essentially training your mind, at a very deep level, to not react and instead to observe things calmly.
For every sensation that comes up, an old sankhara is attached, or when a thought from the past comes up there is usually a sensation that come alongside with it. The sensation may be pleasurable or it may be painful. So you can either focus on the thought, follow the usual habit pattern of the mind from past to the future, or you can instead focus on the sensation, observe it, and realize that it is bound to pass away as everything eventually has to. Soon you’ll notice that these thoughts simply don’t come up anymore, your mind becomes calmer, it becomes purified at a deeper level. Your old sankharas are disappearing, you’re developing a happy mind, a mind without these deeply rooted reactions.
I should probably also quickly point out what a sensation is. A sensation can be anything you feel on or inside your body. It could be a scratching sensation, a itching sensation, a burning sensation, a pressure sensation, a pain sensation, a vibrating sensation, a sensation of cold, a sensation of hot, a sensations of moisture, a sensation of dryness. Any kind of sensation. They all serve as a tool to train our mind to be equanimous, and to sharpen the mind to feel ever more subtle sensations.
Vipassana is taught in a residential 10-day course. Through time and experience teachers found that ten days is the minimum amount of time needed to see results, where a person is then more likely to continue the practice after seeing positive results.
All the above is slowly taught over the 10-day course.
Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
Volunteering & Donations
All Vipassana courses are absolutely free. You pay nothing for lodging, food, the course information. Nothing. Gratis. Free.
All Vipassana centers are run purely on donations. Donations of time, and donations of money. What is remarkable about this is that they don’t just take donations from anyone. For example, a Bill Gates can’t come along and donate a billion dollars. Only old students, that is someone who has completed at least one 10-day course, may donate. That means that the minute you enter the center to checkin, you’re talking to a volunteer. The people cooking and serving your food are volunteers. The teacher is a volunteer, the course managers are volunteers, and everyone else who is there to help out with the various logistics of hosting a 10-day course for course sizes ranging anywhere from 100-1000 students is a volunteer. The idea is that you have to experience Vipassana meditation and realize the benefit from it before you can donate. If you do the course and derive no benefit from it, then don’t donate. That means every single person there, and all the money spent on your lodging, electricity, food and other supplies are provided by ex-students who learned the technique and wanted to pass it forward, and give others the opportunity to learn it as well.
Let that sink in for a moment.
If you want to awaken all of humanity, awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate all of the suffering in the world, eliminate all that is dark & negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own transformation.
— Lao Tzu
Precepts & Rules
There are certain precepts and rules every student must follow. To learn Vipassana, for the duration of the course you agree…
- to abstain from harming any being;
- to abstain from stealing;
- to abstain from all sexual activity;
- to abstain from telling lies;
- to abstain from all intoxicants.
There are some other rules, like no physical contact with anyone of the same or opposite sex, no contact with anyone from the outside and, most notable, all students must observe Noble Silence. Noble Silence, which is in effect for all 10 days of the course, says you may not communicate with any other student at the course. That means no talking, no eye contact, no hand gestures, nothing. Of course you can talk to the teacher if you have questions about the technique or your meditation, and the staff too can be talked to if there’s a material need, but these interactions are actually pretty rare because they specifically make sure there aren’t very many concerns left for students. Everything is handled for you, just sleep in the be provided rooms and beds, wash up in the facilities provided, eat the food you’re served, and then you are free to concentrate on your meditation.
I found Noble Silence to be an invaluable tool to learning this technique. Your mind is able to become quite sensitive towards the tail end of the 10 days which then obviously helps with meditation. You essentially have almost no new sensory input, so the only thing left to deal with in terms of distracts are thoughts from the past.
There cannot be peace in the world when people have anger and hatred in their hearts. Only with love and compassion in the heart is world peace attainable.
— S. N. Goenka
Course Timetable
Just to give you an idea, here is the timetable that is followed every day except the last. To save you some math, out of 18 hour days roughly 11 hours are spent meditating and 7 hours on food, rest and tea breaks.
- 4:00 am — Morning wake-up bell
- 4:30-6:30 am — Meditate in the hall or in your room
- 6:30-8:00 am — Breakfast break
- 8:00-9:00 am — Group meditation in the hall
- 9:00-11:00 am — Meditate in the hall or in your room according to the teacher’s instructions
- 11:00-12:00 noon — Lunch break
- 12noon-1:00 pm — Rest and interviews with the teacher
- 1:00-2:30 pm — Meditate in the hall or in your room
- 2:30-3:30 pm — Group meditation in the hall
- 3:30-5:00 pm — Meditate in the hall or in your own room according to the teacher’s instructions
- 5:00-6:00 pm — Tea break
- 6:00-7:00 pm — Group meditation in the hall
- 7:00-8:15 pm — Teacher’s Discourse in the hall
- 8:15-9:00 pm — Group meditation in the hall
- 9:00-9:30 pm — Question time in the hall
- 10:00 pm — Retire to your own room - lights out
We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.
— Buddah
The Experience
Day Zero
I arrived, checked in, and had my room and seat in the meditation hall assigned. A small dinner was served where we frantically tried to socialize and get some last talking in before Noble Silence began at 8PM at the sound of the gong. The facility in Shelburne, MA that I went to is absolutely top notch. Females all get their own rooms while the most men have a room as well though some are still housed in huts and tents during the summer. A new mens facility is planned but it will likely be a few years before that is completed. Being an able-bodied, young man I was of course put in a tent. It wasn’t bad except there is absolutely no meditation happening in those tents. At night and in the morning it was too cold, and during the day it was too hot. So I was in the meditation hall the entire day. Either way, this is the 5-star Vipassana experience a far as what a few people told me who had been courses both in the U.S. and India.
*GONG*
And so it begins.
Days 1 — 3
Day 1-3 are all about Anapana meditation, which is simply awareness of the breath. We were asked to breathe through our nose and observe the breath. That’s it, simply concentrate on the breath as it goes in and out. Easier said than done. The mind is a monkey, grasping at and swinging from thought to thought. Day 1 I could hardly concentrate for 5 seconds at a time, my mind always being either the past or the future, never here in the present. But as with anything, practice made it easier and on day 3 I was able to perhaps concentrate for a minute at a time. The point of Anapana is to introduce awareness and stillness to the mind, I would imagine trying to sit down for Vipassana meditation right away on day 1 would be a fruitless exercise in frustration.
It was interesting and even humorous to see everyone observing Noble Silence the first few days. I kept thinking how to someone from the the outside looking in, this must all look like some kind of free-roaming insane asylum. Everyone was walking around, with mostly emotionless faces looking at the ground. If someone held the door open the other person correctly would not even acknowledge them. Occasionally in the lunch room I would observe people when they weren’t looking, but even that got old and by day 3 I had solidified my breakfast and lunch spot facing the wall. Silence, and I liked it that way. There was the wall, my food, and some clanking of forks hitting plates as background noise. It was a pretty surreal feeling but incredibly humbling and peaceful at the same time.
I realized quickly on day-zero that the food was going to be excellent, and it turned out exactly so. The menu consists of very simple vegetarian meals, and being a vegan this was not an issue for me. For some people I could see how this experience could be a full-on detox though, both of body and mind. Day-zero when we arrived there was a divine lentil and vegetable soup. Day 1 was some rice/quinoa/pasta with an incredible tomato and vegetable sauce. Day 2 was sautéed tofu with vegetables over rice/quinoa. So on and so fourth. They were all simple, delicious and satisfying. Each meal was served with salad and either some baked goods or fruit for dessert. Tea was also available at every meal. However, breakfast was always the same, with cooked plum compote over oatmeal, a few cereals, tea (no coffee), bread, butter, jams, peanut butter and some fruits. The breakfast got old pretty quickly, but after eating almost nothing for 18 hours previously you wouldn’t be complaining all that much.
Sometime on day 3 I realized that rule 3 was going to very, very difficult to follow. By the end of 10 days I had come to two “deep” realizations about myself. My knees are absolutely shot and I should probably see a physical therapist before I get old, and that at best I’m a complete pervert. Many guys afterwards jokingly admitted to having problems with rule 3, so I wasn’t the only one but still. That was tough…
Days 4 — 9
Halfway through day 4 the actual Vipassana meditation technique was introduced. It started with observing the triangle area around our noses to above the upper lip. Vipassana always starts with concentrate of the breath, as it serves as the vehicle to both relax and focus the mind to concentrate on the area you’re observing. Then every day the area or technique was widened and expanded upon, and by day 8 we were “scanning” our entire body, top to bottom, bottom to top, methodically, observing every sensation on our bodies.
By day 4 I had settled into my daily routine. After breakfast I would try to catch some shut eye for 30 minutes before the morning meditation. Then after lunch I would walk the grounds for a few minutes to walk at least some of the food off and help with digestion, before again trying to catch a little power nap before the afternoon meditation. I was surprised how much sleep I needed, considering that I wasn’t doing anything besides sitting.
I noticed throughout my time there that people slowly started dropping out of the course. Day 2 had the most drop outs, followed by day 6. By the end of the 10 days perhaps as much as 1/5th of the students had left and the meditation hall felt significantly emptier. Hmm, well, their loss.
I started eating less and less as the days went on. Where on days 1-3 I would go back for seconds and sometimes third servings of food, days 4-9 I slowly went down to one plate and eventually to not even a full plate. It just didn’t feel necessary and I noticed that meditation was much easier on a half empty stomach. I simply wasn’t as hungry, and the days following the course I also found myself eating less than normal. Part of it also is that I eat much slower now so I feel full faster. Believe me, hour long lunches with nothing to do will make you take your time eating.
My meditation sessions were slowly improving. There were some frustrating days, but most days I felt I was at least making progress. Sometime around day 5 or 6, sittings of strong determination (adhitthana) were introduced for all group sittings. This meant that we should come in with a strong determination to not move, open our legs, arms or eyes for the entire hour of the group sitting. This was incredible when it was first introduced, people really tried to quietly meditate for that entire hour (whereas before people would freely shift positions when they deemed themselves to be uncomfortable). It was in line with the teachings, pain is simply a sensation, don’t react to pain in your knee or legs by moving positions to try and alleviate it, simply observe it mindfully with the realization that it too will pass. And amazingly it did. I would completely get in the zone during these group sittings and come out of the meditation hall in a complete daze, but with happiness and calm in my mind. On day 8 the Pagoda was opened up to new students and everyone was assigned a cell. A pagoda cell can vary in size but is generally a dark room about the size of a small closet. It is meant for more serious meditation, as you are completely isolated. There are no distractions in the cell, no sounds except the occasional foot steps in the hall and complete darkness. Meditation can be excellent in a cell but I also found it a bit more difficult to get started because you really have to keep yourself accountable, there is no one else there with you who might get upset if you shift positions or cough.
Day 10 — 11
Halfway through day 10 Noble Silence was lifted and we could talk again. The reason was simply to get us reacclimated a bit before dropping us back into the real world on day 11. So we spent most of the day talking, putting names and personalities behind the faces we had seen so often over the past ten days, especially our neighbours in the meditation hall. It was fun to talk again, and it was great meeting a bunch of people I had shared this experience with. You have to consider, everyone who was there had taken 10 days out of their lives to better themselves and to learn something new. So in that sense everyone there was someone you could relate to and perhaps even admire. Smiles were everywhere, as we talked about the most difficult parts, about how the experience changed us and how we were going to keep this going when we went back home. I have to admit though, sometime towards the evening as I was sitting in the lunch room that was now filled with people talking, and I found it all to be a bit too much. I took my tea and sat outside by myself, I actually missed the peace and quiet. After 10 days of almost complete silence you become pretty sensitive to voices, noises and it was just a bit too much for me. But better to experience this here than back in NYC.
Another important thing happens on day 10. The Metta meditation technique is introduced. S. N. Goenka likens this to a soothing balm that can be applied to the wound resulting from the deep, ten day long operation that was just performed on the mind. As far as meditation goes, this is simple. After Vipassana, we take a few minutes to wish peace, happiness and harmony to all beings in this world. “I pardon all those who have harmed me, through their words, actions or thoughts. I seek pardon from all those who I’ve harmed, through my words, actions or thoughts. May all beings be happy. May all beings share my peace.” I then proceed in a circle out, from myself, to my family, to my friends, to my acquaintances, to my neutrals, to my enemies (I don’t actually have any), to every being in the world. I imagine all who I know and have met in my life, flashing their face or a thought about them in my mind and wishing them well. I feel amazingly peaceful and clear afterwards, people have even said that I shine. It sounds stupid and simple, but I still get a smile on my face every time I do it.
On day 11 there is a final discourse about how we can continue our meditation in our daily lives after we leave the centre, followed by a morning meditation and Metta. Then at around 7AM we were free to leave and go back to our respective lives.
Rather than converting people from one organized religion to another organized religion, we should try to convert people from misery to happiness, from bondage to liberation, and from cruelty to compassion.
— S. N. Goenka
Closing Thoughts
I wanted to write this to both document the experience for myself and to give others a chance to learn about this wonderful technique. Even after reading numerous articles and blog posts about the technique and peoples experiences, I still came into the course with some misconceptions. I hope I have cleared these up and presented a clear picture of what Vipassana is and what you can expect from the course should you decide to undertake it.
Should you do it? Absolutely. I would recommend this to anyone and everyone. It is a wonderful technique and practice that will perhaps not make you reach enlightenment and liberate your mind, but it will make you a less reactionary person, a more calm person, a more mindful person, a person more able to deal with life’s every days ups and downs. Have I been alleviated of all my misery and suffering? No, not even close. But it’s a process, and I am excited to have learned this. Having no previous meditation experience I went from barely being able to concentrate for 5 seconds to being able to meditate an hour at a time without movement and feel incredibly subtle sensations. It is simply interesting to me that the mind can be trained in this way. Though most of the teaching are non-sectarian, S. N. Goenka’s belief in an eternal mind and reincarnation become clear. As an atheist this held absolutely no water for me and the idea of completely liberation or enlightenment is a bit suspect to me. But still, meditation as a technique is fascinating and I believe it makes me a better person. I don’t have to accept everything he believes to practice mindfulness and derive benefit from it, so why not? I do believe that anyone who practices this in their daily life will be happier and this happiness will spread to others. I have seen and experienced the effect of it myself, I am happier in my life, I am calmer in my life, and I’m able to stay more mindful within situations. Meditation has become an invaluable tool for me.
If you do decide to do this just be aware of what it entails. It is going to take 11 days of your life. It is going to be a grueling test of endurance, will, and patience. It will probably be one of the more difficult things you’ll do in your life, but perhaps also one of the more rewarding. Previous students will have paved the way for your opportunity to take the course, so take that opportunity seriously. Come in with an open mind, work hard, and I promise you that you will see results. Still, don’t turn off your critical thinking part of your brain and don’t blindly accept anything as fact where there is no proof provided. Take is as a practice of meditation, take in the good messaging of peace and happiness towards others, just don’t lose yourself in this. It is a tool, not the answer to all in life. So then, perhaps you’ll do it, and perhaps you’ll want to tell others about it. You may want to take another course and perhaps even donate your time to help others learn it. I know I do.
