Beyond knowing and thinking
Enlightenment isn’t for everyone. The reason behind this unfair conclusion is my core belief in our collective failings. Why do you think our successes continue to be fleeting while our failures remain perennial? We desire more and then get more before desiring much more and then getting much more. There is no plausible end to the circus. Amid such a scenario, how can we bother ourselves with existential questions and drop stinky bombs like “we are all going to die anyway” or “no matter what we do, we’re always going to be inadequate”? It reeks of pessimism. And nobody keeps a skeptical person on their speed-dial.
Buddha used to say that there are four types of people in this world: those who move from darkness to brightness, those who move from darkness to darkness, those who move from brightness to darkness, and those who move from brightness to brightness. This is what I feel about each one of them: They are designed to be lost. And by lost, I don’t mean their physical location. We are stepping up here and our area of concern is our mind. It’s easier to lose one’s (flow of) thoughts than one’s body.
And this is the part where meditation enters the picture. If enlightenment isn’t for everyone, then so is meditation. Particularly when you’re getting started. Last month, on the insistence of my boss, I signed up for a 10-day Vipassanā course at Rohtak. I chose that location over Dharamshala/Dehradun/etc because I thought I won’t last even two days and it’s better to be closer home if I am planning to flee anyway.
I lasted 10 days.
Which translates to varied experiences which I wouldn’t have had anywhere else. For starters, meditation is tough but what’s tougher is isolation. They take away your phone and valuables as the course demands absolute dedication; you have no contact whatsoever with the outside world. During your stay, you aren’t supposed to talk to any of the fellow meditator. Oh, only one proper meal a day and two snack breaks, followed by washing the utensils you use.
On day 1, I am struggling to sit still in that lotus position for barely 5 minutes. When your body is uncomfortable, how are you going to train your mind? And isn’t meditation all about the mind? Turns out it isn’t. Meditation is about finding a cord between your mind and your body. Your body, on decomposition, enters the stream of newer life forms. Your mind is no different as it moves on to another being. An idea that forms the backbone of Dhamma (Pali for the Sanskrit Dharma).
Anyhow, for 10 days, we are expected to meditate 11+ hours, with the day kickstarting at 4am and you retiring at 9.30pm. As your body becomes more and more comfortable, your mind is able to concentrate narrower. You learn to focus (a bit sharply) on your breathing and feel minute sensations erupting under your skin. Your mind turns into a radar looking for sensations throughout your body. And the trick is to become more and more aware of what’s going on and care less and less about what they mean to you.
Remember you are there to find you, nothing else.
The process is indeed tough but it’s meticulously planned. Everything runs at a pace that would put military to shame. Little space for excuses and you end up being amazed by the efficiency of the system in place. What makes it endearing is the bhikshu lifestyle factored in: you don’t pay a penny and you basically lead a life of a monk with no say in what s/he’s going to eat. The whole organization, present in 5 continents, runs on donations, so it’s a given that you can’t waste resources be it food, water or electricity. Something that comes easily to me.
Things got difficult when I hit the wall of empathy. Inside the premise, you aren’t supposed to (intentionally) harm any living being, which, sadly, included lizards. If you’re a regular reader of this random blog, you must know by now how I feel about them. To make my case worse, they were everywhere. Inside the room I was allotted. Inside the bathroom. Behind the utensil stand. Beside the water cooler. Everywhere. Since nobody harmed them, they’ve built an admirable friendliness—instead of skirting away, they move towards you—which is the last thing I’d want. I don’t hate them but I don’t want them around either. But, as the days passed, it became clear that there isn’t any escape. They are either hiding behind the jeans on the hanger or climbing up the door; basically doing everything that a city lizard wouldn’t lest for safety reasons.
Yet, when it came to meditating, I somehow managed to do relatively better. I don’t know how it happened though. In fact, I preferred the spacious coziness of the meditation hall over the ceaseless fear of my claustrophobic room. However, that didn’t mean the pain was gone; it never went away. Back hurt. Knees felt like they would explode. Ankles were screaming. Calves went to sleep. Despite all these distractions, the mind tried to stay focused on the breathing and the resulting sensations inside the body. And even when the mind scattered, it moved back into the crevices of my past, pouring out events from my life that I’d almost forgotten. I started missing Arnold (my childhood chum whom I haven’t spoken to in ages) and an old neighbour named Aai and whonot. In one such episode, I found myself crying going through all the moments I’ve hurt my amma: quitting engineering, leaving city, no say in my wedding, no grandkid, etc. Almost like your brain has these files that stay hidden somewhere. What’s the difference between meditation and reminiscence? Where do you strike the balance?
Tough job.
There are many changes I noticed in myself while I was in the middle. For once, I never yawned. Maybe when you are constantly in pain, you don’t yawn. Your mind has bigger shit to deal with. In fact, as you progress towards the 4th day, which is the deciding day for a lot of meditators whether they’d stick around or not, you are constantly changing as a person. You are slowly becoming immune to your discomforts. And before you realize it, you sit in that difficult position long enough that your body starts ignoring the painful sensations. After a while, your body realizes that pain is not harmful enough. Just like your eyes can see your nose at all times but your brain chooses to ignore it. A game of distraction at its very best. By day 10, I was able to sit in adhisthan (immovable position) for upwards of 40 minutes.
By the way, on the third day, I broke. Went to the acharya and told him that my back is killing me and kneecaps are about to explode. To which, he said something very practical —this is no sanctum for philosophy—before asking me to give it one more day. I never went back to him.
For somebody who is squinting at electronic devices all the time, it was a pleasant shift of view. For a change, I checked out how Saturn flirts with the moon at 4 in the morning. I laid on the grass during tea-break and consciously let a fat black insect crawl across my face as my eyes stayed fixed on the passing egrets above. There were bees and wasps who would touch me but would never do anything untoward. One morning, while having breakfast, a tiny spider was walking by the plate and I was about to gently blow it away but for some reason, I didn’t. A few seconds later, its mother showed up out of nowhere and escorted the little one off the table as if telling it, “Here! This is the way home! Where are YOU going?”
My visit was full of such intimately magical moments. And this is why I don’t want to give the physical pain more credit than it deserves. Meditation is obviously difficult but with practice, we can learn to ignore the discomfort and focus better. I guess, over time, we can learn to divert our attention to things that are necessary and ignore what’s unnecessary. And pain is unnecessary.
Nobody talks about their time in prison and yet, here I am trying to describe my short tryst with Vipassanā. The technique was proposed by The Enlightened One himself and the philosophy behind it is universal as well as timeless: we suffer not because we want to but because overcoming it is the only way towards liberation. Moreover, although Buddhism was the first organized religion in human history, Dhamma doesn’t subscribe proselytism. To Vipassanā, your religion is your personal space (read: problem) and it’s least interested in converting you.
On returning home, I’ve been asked, both online and offline, whether I’d recommend others to try this technique. My answer ought to be two-fold: it’s up to you because the real test is not within that meditation hall but once you step outside and go back to the noisy world we inhabit. Quite often than not, it’s only when the noise ends that we learn there was noise in the first place. Getting enlightened under these circumstances has to be an uphill task.
PS. No, I am still not OK with lizards around me.
PSS. On the final day, you are requested to continue practising for two hours at least. I am aiming for 30 minutes daily. Let’s see where this goes.
