7 Reasons to Stay Silent for 10 days
Egypt, Jordan, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Morocco, Portugal. This is a non-exhaustive list of how my Stanford GSB classmates spent the last winter break. Through a series of unconventional choices, I ended up by myself in rural Guatemala, without knowing Spanish, on a mission to complete the life changing 10-day monk fellowship called “Vipassana Meditation.” Over the next 10 days, I would abide by the following rules:
No Speaking
No Connection to the Outside World
No Eye Contact
No Reading
No Writing
No Working Out
..
Basically, no external stimulation of any kind.
Ten days is a long time to go off the grid. But every second of my experience was worth it. Having experimented with other techniques, including a four-day silent stay in a Zen Buddhist Ashram, I can say that they are like reading about running a marathon, while Vipassana is running the marathon. Here are seven compelling reasons to do Vipassana, especially for an aspiring leader.
Reason 1: Build focus, inquiry, and self-control like a monk
I first learned about Vipassana six years back. I’m someone who struggled to go 10 minutes without checking my emails but I also love a challenge. So, I signed up.
Vipassana Meditation is one of India’s most ancient meditation techniques based on the teachings of Buddha. The teachings are not rooted in worship of any deity, idol or guru, and reject all forms of religion, encouraging one to form one’s own sense of inquiry.
The 10-day residential course was established by the non-profit Dhamma in the 1980s and is now taught across six continents. When I registered for the course, I saw no option to pay and kept waiting for a payment link. But the link never came. The service of the professors and the servers, the accommodation, and the food all come from others’ Mettā which in Pali, an ancient south asian language, means selfless love and kindness. Metta that as temporary monks we accept. Dhamma is completely run on donations that are accepted only after the course ends.
My objectives going into Vipassana were:
1. Completing all 10 days, as ~50% of the people leave halfway or earlier;
2. Cut out external noise to go internal and learn more about myself.
Reason 2: Learn by doing, instead of watching lectures, which will internalize the lessons, even the painful ones
I arrived in Guatemala City early morning on the day after Christmas and traveled to the center with another participant. Upon checking in I said goodbye to my phone, laptop, iPad, and Sudoku book, which would be locked in a cupboard. In the evening, “noble silence” was instated. No communication of any kind, even eye contact or gestures, was to be made for the next 10 days.
My days started at 4am with meditation, followed by food, followed by more meditation. Meditate, Eat, Meditate, Repeat. We had two meals, one at 6.30am and another at 11am, and had to listen to a one-hour lecture in the evening. Outside that, the only agenda item was to meditate: the technique focuses on learning by doing meditation instead of listening to spiritual lectures.
To start, we had to pay attention to our breath. It seems easy but doing it for more than a minute felt tedious. I would dream about what I would do after the course and ruminate on past memories. Distraction, obsession over random thoughts, and more distraction. And everything hurt. Sitting without any back support for hours was tiring and frustrated me for not being able to do something so simple. I calculated every morning how much I had completed — “10% complete”, “20% complete” — reminding myself that “Meditation Prison” would be over soon.
Reason 3: Build self-awareness through deep introspection about one’s life patterns
After three days of just observing my breath, I was bored. I felt restless and eager to learn the “actual” vipassana meditation, which goes beyond observing one’s breath. Introspecting more deeply, I realized how this restlessness mirrored my patterns in life: impatient for the next step and not present for the journey.
On Day 4, we were taught the technique of Vipassana Meditation. The technique focuses on observing what is happening for you right now — scanning your body for sensations — without any judgment, hatred or love. Vipassana in Pali means to see things as they really are.
As someone who had tried different techniques of meditation before, it sounded way too simple and almost anti-climactic. In addition, we were told about the “Sittings of Firm Determination”: we now had to sit firmly in the same position, without moving our hands, back or legs, when meditating.
Meditating for an hour without moving was excruciating. My back hurt more than ever, and I hated failing at something that I had imagined to be so simple. I kept failing and then picking myself up again. and again. and again.
I’m not running a marathon. This is as simple as just sitting still and observing your body while not thinking about anything else. Why is this so hard? Why am I so weak? How can I solve larger issues like climate change or healthcare access if I can’t even quiet my mind for a few minutes?
On Day 5, December 31, 2022, after the 6pm sitting of firm determination, I broke down. I wanted to escape the pain in my back. I knew that I was supposed to learn to accept the sensations that come with being equanimous. But I could no longer stay still. I went up to my professor, Erica, after the hour was over and told her “I just don’t want to feel the pain.” Tears rolled down my cheeks as Erica compassionately reminded me to not judge my pain as feeling it is a part of life and that no pain is permanent. I, of course, rubbished it. My back pain is permanent, that misery ain’t going anywhere.
That night, we listened to the tapes of the late founder of Dhamma, S.N. Goenka, who laid down everything happening inside me in that tape he recorded 40 years back.
One cannot change others; one can only change the misery happening inside. The cause of your misery is craving, craving when you don’t get your way.
Lying in my bed that night, hearing New Year’s Eve fireworks, I realized that I had come into the course with the wrong goals. This is not a bucket list item. I don’t have to prove to myself that I can achieve something — Vipassana or even landing the perfect job — to feel worthy. Vipassana is a philosophy of life. If I adopt this philosophy of approaching my “cravings” with equanimity, only then would I truly master my mind. I stopped focusing on just completing the course: my new goal was to learn the equanimous way of life.
Reason 4: Foster resilience by failing, with no one to blame, and by trying again, and again, and again.
New year, new me. I was firmly determined to rewire my brain. On Day 6, my back pain had gone away. I got obsessed with meditating for an hour without moving. And I failed again. And again, and again.
The first 20 minutes of the meditation were a breeze. The next 20 minutes, I would be distracted, bored, and restless. Every second felt like an hour.
I’m 100% sure that an hour has passed, the professor has forgotten to play the chanting that ends the meditation. Are they too lost in their own meditation? AH, I want to be able to open my eyes to see what’s happening. This is DEFINITELY way beyond an hour.
I would stop feeling any sensation in my body from the waist down other than the intense pain in my knees. My legs would fall asleep, and I’d be tempted to move them to remember that they’re still there. I would wager between what was worse: hurting my ego by failing again or feeling this physical pain.
And I would take a blow to my ego.
I know for sure that 55 minutes are down, so I’m just not doing the last five minutes.
With my eyes now open, I would check my watch and I’d be just 30 or 40 minutes in, and sometimes just 20 minutes in. I obsessively tracked my time, and it felt impossible to get back into a meditative state after I had given up. I craved sitting still for an hour and obsessed over repeatedly failing to meditate with equanimity and a calm mindset.
Reason 5: Learn the mindset required to thrive and let go of the inner negative voice
The day you stop obsessing over failure and start believing that you’ll thrive, you will be able to do it.
Erica’s words stayed with me. To adopt a “thriving” mindset, I had to first stop worrying about the outputs, and focus on the inputs instead. So, on Day 8, I stopped wearing my watch to the hall. Why did I need my watch if I was to meditate the entire hour? The chanting would wake me up.
I still failed, but this time felt different. I wouldn’t know how far I’d come along in the hour and it felt easier to get back into a meditative state again. I was more resilient now that I had stopped worrying about the success.
After many failed attempts, I FINALLY meditated for the entire hour without moving. The first time, to my shock, somewhere in the last 15 minutes, my legs that I’d written off by now as being miserable the entire time, came back from the dead. My knees didn’t hurt anymore, and I could feel sensations in my legs again. This was when the concept of impermanence struck me.
No misery is permanent. Life will surprise you. Even you are not permanent. The only thing permanent is impermanence.
Reason 6: Meet the most diverse people, even more than at business school
The afternoon of Day 10, as noble silence ended, I got to talk with my prison mates. I met Fernanda, a Guatemalan who teaches English to underprivileged kids; Keeley, a psychologist who helps refugees with the UN; Donya, an Aussie who is an engineer for six months and yoga teacher in Latin America for the rest of the year. I even met an ex-BCG consultant. It was truly the most diverse set of inspiring people I had met.
These were people with whom I had not talked but developed a strange and strong familiarity. People I know I can always turn to, because we went through prison together.
Reason 7: Understand what true happiness means
My jaw hurt from smiling on Day 10 and 11. I felt true happiness.
Happiness from the simplest places. This was a time when I found joy lying in the grass and feeling the sun, eating a banana, or even just looking at the stars every night after the last meditation.
It was also happiness that I went on this journey to rewire my brain and learnt about myself in the process. I learnt the practical application of all the theoretical concepts I knew going in: determination, equanimity, and impermanence. It helped me cross the chasm from knowing to internalizing. It has shaped how I look at failure in relationships and career and how I adopt a mindset focused on thriving. I have reframed “I need to prove to myself and others that I can do this,” to “I know I can do this and I will have fun learning on the way”.
Editor: Anne-Sophie Martin
