Vipassana retreat: my 10-day experience (2/2)

Vipassana, Day 4

The Vipassana retreat kept on going. My 10-day experience was far from over. The first hour out of the two at the hall was alright. But the next one was way harder. After breakfast I decided to take a nap (instead of doing some exercise) and, during the meditation session at the hall… it was the same hell as the previous day. I was falling asleep again! I did my best to change the reality by breathing harder but, no chance. So, I just accepted it as it was. For the next two hours I decided to remain at the hall, but I put a cushion in front of the one where I was sitting so in case I fell asleep I wouldn’t hit my head lol.

The two hours before lunch were similar to the first hour. It was kind of alright. By the way, I tried the ginger tea at breakfast and it was super strong! I never tried something like that before but I forced myself to finish it. As I had been doing the previous days, after lunch I took a nap and then meditated in my room. That session was one of the best of the day. My mind was focused and quite for several minutes and I could feel different sensations on the small triangle area.

At the hall they gave as a speech about Day 4. Basically, the previous 3 days were nothing but a training for Day 4 and the days to come. Day 4 was the real beginning of the Vipassana technique. From that day on, we would need to scan the whole body from head to feet. That’s why the previous 3 days we were training the mind to get it focused on a specific area. As mentioned already, there are sensations happening at all times in the body, but our mind is not sharp enough to feel them. So, what we needed to do next was to scan the body, stopping at every area for one minute and, if after a minute we couldn’t feel anything, we kept moving to the next area. We have to do it in order, without jumping back or forth depending on the sensations.

Another new instruction they gave us was that, during the 3 mandatory hours at the hall, we had to avoid changing posture. That simple detail led to the worst (so far) hour of meditation. My left knee seemed to be about to break. So much pain! I tried to remain equanimous and keep on scanning my body, but all my attention went to the knee. And, the more attention I gave to it, the stronger the pain became. That’s the “magic” of the mind.

I started to question the technique. I started to hate S.N. Goenka because his instructions were really long and then they were translated (and repeated) in Chinese. So, my mind found that as a excuse to get less and less focused on the whole body scan. Instead, it was just focused on the unpleasant sensations like the knee pain and the never-ending discourse. I tried to remain strong and told myself I wouldn’t change the posture. And, eventually… I succeeded  The highlights of the discourse of Day 4 were the following:

• Vipassana is observing reality as it is. We have to observe the reality from the framework of our body.
• Everything changes in nature, the planet and the universe. And the same goes for ourselves and our bodies. That’s the point of the body scan, to become aware and experience change and impermanence.
• We have to divide the body to its tiniest particle to realise we are nothing but a flow of energy, just like the universe. We also need to get to the root of the mind to understand why we do what we do (unconscious mind).
• The mind can be divided in 4 parts and/or processes. First we observe something, then we feel it, then we tag it and then we react to it. If you cultivate negative thoughts you will react in a negative way. We need to become aware of the 4 processes so we don’t tag them and react to them.

Vipassana, Day 5

So, remember how I wrote that, starting on Day 4, we were asked to keep the posture during the three 1-hour sessions that took place at the hall? These were the “mandatory” ones, the ones that always took place at the hall. The others, depending on the time, could be done at the hall or in our room. Anyway, not sure why but I didn’t understand that we have to keep the posture just during those 3 sessions, but during every session… lol.

So, because I didn’t understand the instructions properly, I tried to keep the posture for the whole 2 hours! The result? I had to change the posture twice. Never before in my life had my knees hurt so much. They seemed to be about to break! Of course, they can’t break just because of spending a certain amount of time in the same posture, but, once again, that’s the “beauty” of the mind.

Depending on how well (or bad) trained it is, it can give more or less attention to something. At that moment, it didn’t care at all about the body scan, but just about the pain. It wanted to run away from the painful situation (instead of accepting it as it was) and, because it couldn’t, the pain (intensified by the mind) just got bigger and bigger.

Just some clarification here. Vipassana is not about burning your hand on purpose and do nothing about it. Meaning, if there is a painful situation and you can fix it, solve it or run away from it, you do it. But, what happens when you find yourself in an unpleasant situation you can’t run away from? That’s what you train your mind for. To remain calm and equanimous, knowing that that particular painful situation will also come to an end, sooner or later.

So, as I just mentioned above, my particular painful situation eventually came to an end. And, after the unpleasant one, a pleasant one came: breakfast! After a short nap, I went back to hell. Once again, regardless of how hard I tried, I was falling asleep! I surrender to the situation and accepted it as it was and… I didn’t fall asleep but it was a pretty tough hour, just using all my energy and concentration trying to escape from the tempting sleep.

During the next two hours, the ones right before lunch, I did my best to focus on the body scan and… I couldn’t believe it but I started to feel sensations on different parts of my body. I didn’t know we could do that! Sweat, tingling, itching, shivering, vibration, etc. I didn’t feel them in my whole body but mostly in my skull, forehead, ears, throat, and lower arms. Of course, there was also a sensation I felt throughout most of the meditation sessions: pain. I felt it mostly on my knees, upper back and butt. That good and faithful friend was there to stay.

After lunch and a nap, I had sessions where I could feel sensations on different areas but also where I wasn’t very focused. I dealt with the one hour of strong sitting meditation (meditate without changing posture) well enough. Then, we had a brief chat with the teacher where he asked how we were doing. Some of them answered they couldn’t feel anything but pain. So, I guess I wasn’t doing that bad! 

After the tea break it started pouring. It hadn’t rain so far since I had arrived at the Dhamma Malaya Vipassana Centre but, that rain, wouldn’t be the last. When we arrived the first day they told us that, at that time of the year, it was normal to have small monsoons with a lot of rain. I had just experienced it and I would get to enjoy it many more times during the last days. All in all, I like rain and I also liked the beautiful nature surrounding the centre so, I was happy with the new weather. The highlights of the discourse from Day 5 were the following:

• Feeling pain is a way to remind us that, ever since we are born, we are exposed to suffering. In fact, with sentences like this one, people feel like Vipassana is very negative. But it’s not that, it is just describing the suffering we will encounter in our lives, regardless of who we are. We will all get sick, old and eventually die. And the same goes for our loved ones. So, yes, ever since we are born we are exposed to suffering.
• The physical pain itself is not that strong, but the mind makes it stronger. Pain, like any other sensation, is bound to come and go. Below the pain there is vibration and energy, just as with a pleasant sensation.
• The mind reacts to the sensations of our body. These sensations are the result of thoughts (generated by the mind) and experiences (caught by our senses). Depending on how we tag the sensations (pleasant or unpleasant), we’ll react to them with craving or aversion. That will keep going on forever. And that’s the point where we have to cut the chain.
• If we can become aware of the sensations (so the “unconscious” mind is not taking over) and we don’t react to them, they will disappear sonner than later. As an example, the pain on my knee. If instead of thinking: “Oh my God, I have so much pain, I want this to end right now”, I would think: “It is just another sensation, it will go away”, the pain will be less stronger and it will disappear sonner.

Vipassana, Day 6

The gong woke me up yet once again. It was 04:00. It was the 6th day of my 10-day Vipassana retreat. I was already halfway and I felt like, indeed, I could make it. For a change, I decided to spend the first 2 hours in my room. During the session, there was a moment where I felt a lot of itching in my arm. And when I say a lot I really mean it. I could have easily scratched it but I decided to apply what I was learning. Thus, I accepted it and tried to keep on going with the body scan. “Surprisingly” enough, little by little, the itching sensation disappeared. Magic? No. Just another sensation following the law of nature and impermanence 

I had survived the first challenge of the day but there were more to come. After a while, my right leg got completely numb and the left side of my butt was in a lot of pain. Again, I tried to keep on going with the body scan but this time was way harder. My mind wouldn’t cooperate. It just wanted to run away from the unpleasant situation. It was generating so much aversion… it wanted the situation to end as soon as possible! As you might know, that didn’t help at all. It just made my pain sharper and longer lasting.

I was about to give up. The pain was really intense and, not sure how but, eventually, little by little, I started to feel my leg again. It wasn’t numb anymore. For the pain on my butt, while it was still there, it was way less severe. If you think about it it is just normal. My body was not used to spending that much time in that particular position. But, once again, when the mind is focused on the pain, it just makes it worse. Thus, the moment I overcame that situation and kept on going with the body scan like if nothing was happening, the pain started to decrease. In the end I was able to remain in the posture for 2 whole hours. Hell yeah!

I took a short nap after breakfast while listening to the rain. It was pouring again. The nap kind of kept on going during the next meditation session at the hall. Nothing new at that time unfortunately. But, at least, I felt I got something positive from that harsh time. I realised that, since my mind was more focused on sleeping (or on avoiding falling asleep), I didn’t feel as much pain on my body. Why? Because my mind was not feeding that sensation. It was busy on something else. That was just another proof of how important is to have the mind focused on the right thing.

The rest of the day went on in a similar way. I felt a lot of pain but sometimes I managed to focus my mind on the body scan. That helped reducing the pain. Some other times though I even have to come out of the posture because my mind made the feeling of pain way more stronger. The last session after the tea break was good and I could feel sensations pretty much throughout my body. The discourse was interesting and fun like always and, the highlights of Day 6 went as follows:

• If you are thirsty you go out and look for water. If you find it, you drink it, if you don’t find it, you don’t go crazy about it. You accept it and try again whenever you can.
• Vipassana is not pessimistic. On the one hand, it is truth that there is suffering ever since the moment we are born. On the other hand, there is a way out of that suffering: accepting reality as it is without reacting with craving or aversion.
• We don’t cling to objects but to the sensations they generate in our body. You don’t cling to the phone or to the ice cream itself, but to what it produces in your body.
• If you provide people with food or clothes, after a while, they will need more. If you teach them a way to come out of their misery, they will be able to follow their own path.

Vipassana, Day 7

I forgot to mention that, at the end of Day 6, we were asked to scan our body symmetrically and simultaneously. So, during the first 2 hours at the hall, that’s what I tried to do. I wasn’t very focused though and, for the first time since I arrived at the retreat, I opened my eyes and stopped meditating for a few minutes. It helped for a little while. I was able to feel sensations at the same time on my arms, legs (a few times) and on some face areas.

After breakfast and a nap I went to my typical sleepy time except for, that time, not sure why, I didn’t struggle as much. The session went way smoother. My knees and butt hurt but I managed to bear it. During some of the instructions they gave us in the morning, we were told that we should refrain from comparing our situation and experience with the one of the other students. Why? Because everyone has a different past and life situation. Therefore, everyone would have different sensations on different parts of their bodies.

Comparisons will lead to craving or aversion. If we can’t feel a sensation on some area and another person can, we’ll feel like we would like to feel it as well. The same goes for comparing what we feel now with what we felt before. Just because 5 minutes ago I felt something on my right arm doesn’t mean it will still be there 5 minutes later. Again, we should avoid generating craving or aversion and just become aware of the sensations (if at all) without judging them.

After lunch, for a change, I decided to attend to one of the interviews with the teachers where we were allowed to ask some questions. I had some doubts I wanted to clarify and I felt I could give it a try. These were the answers/highlights:

• The strong sitting determination (the one hour where you are advised not to change your posture) is done on purpose so we can feel pain. Why? Because there will be situations in life where we can’t run away from pain. The more trained our mind is, the easier and sooner we’ll come out of that pain.
• I wanted to know how to apply what we were learning in real-life situations. Like, if you are on your way to work and the train stops working, you might get pissed off. That will create a sensation in your body. Are you supposed to sit and meditate so you can become aware of it right on the spot? The teacher told me that, in the following days, during the discourses, S.N. Goenka would provide real-life examples.
• It’s not about how many sensations we can feel but about not reacting to any of them. Why? Because we must understand that all of them are bound to come and go, regardless of how pleasant or unpleasant they are. It’s like with an itching sensation. The more you scratch, the worse it gets.

I had time for a short nap and, after that, like always, I meditated in my room. It went well. I could feel sensations on different areas of my body and, at some point, I could feel like if there was a current or a stream of ants coming from my shoulder to my fingertips and back. Little by little, my old friend came to scene. Pain was there yet once again. I tried to remain equanimous but I noticed I was generating a lot of aversion. I felt relieved when the gong came to rescue me yet once again. Who said it was easy?

Remember how I told you it was the first time I didn’t feel sleepy at the meditation session in the morning? Well, that feeling found me at the session from 14:30-15:30. In one of the discourses they told us that, if we felt very sleepy, we could open the eyes, go outside for a short walk and come back. The only problem was that that session was the strong sitting determination. So, I couldn’t (or shouldn’t move). I struggled a lot and my mind wandered too much. Towards the end of the session though, I managed to calm it a little bit and it was then that I started to feel “more” pain.

It wasn’t actually more, but it was clearer because my mind was focusing on the sensations rather than on sleeping. That’s what S.N. Goenka meant by unconscious and conscious level of the mind. At the unconscious level, when we don’t feel deep down, we feel like everything is alright. But that’s just a mirage. Because we don’t feel the sensations, we are not even aware we are reacting to them. That means that we react to situations that happen in our daily-lives in whichever way. If the mind is calm, quite and awake, you can feel the sensations. Then, it’s up to you to decide how to react to them. But at least you are aware you are reacting (or not). The highlights of the discourse went as follows:

• When you are not sitting down with your eyes closed (meditating) you should try to be mindful of whatever it is you are doing. At night, if we can’t sleep, we acknowledge the sensations but don’t react to them. Little by little, as our mind gets calmer and quitter, our body will get a better rest.
• The next step was to scan the whole body from head to feet in one go. Then, stop at every part where we didn’t feel anything for 2 minutes. After that, move on to the next part.

Vipassana, Day 8

I couldn’t focus much during the first 2 hours at the hall. My mind was drifting and showing different images, memories and imaginations. Since those two hours were not under the strong sitting meditation, I decided to go outside, stretch and walk for a bit. It helped somehow. The sensations changed and instead of feeling pain on my knee I felt it on my upper back. After breakfast and a short nap I managed to stay awake and I felt sensations in many areas of my body.

There was a discourse before the two-hour session, right before lunch. The key points went as follows:

• Whether you feel a free flow or gross sensations, try to remain the same. Both sensations are subject to disappear. By the way, “free flow” means feeling sensations in your whole body in one go (from head to feet or from feet to head).
• If you feel a “pleasant” sensation, try to use it as a tool to eradicate your stock of old craving sankhara. A shankara is basically a sensation that was pushed deep down by your unconscious mind. The idea is that, if you stop generating new sankharas and eradicate the ones that come to the surface (by not reacting to them), you’ll be able to free from them.
• Following the same principle, use the “unpleasant” sensations to eradicate your stock of old aversion sankharas.
• Again, the most important part of the meditation sessions is not how many or what kind of sensations we feel, but remaining equanimous towards them.

I decided to spend the two hours in my room, just for a change. I also decided to try with a new posture. The result was pretty much the same. I felt pain in other areas of my leg and, after a while, it was so intense that I had to surrender to it, open my eyes and come out of the posture. The sensations were different as well. Was it due to the food, to the past sankharas or to my current thoughts?

The rest of the day went on in a similar way. The 1.5 hour in my room was alright at the beginning but, towards the end, my mind was giving all its attention to the pain on my legs. I managed to remain with the posture but generating too much aversion. The session before the tea break was alright. I was focused and I could kind of scan my whole body, although there were still quite a few blind areas remaining. Blind areas are the part of the body where you don’t feel any sensations, just so you know. 

It is very important that we don’t generate aversion towards those areas. The same goes for generating craving towards some areas where you “always” feel some sensations. Again, the goal is to remain as equanimous as possible. The more equanimous the mind gets, the easier it will be to feel sensations throughout the body. The highlights of the evening discourse were these:

• Awareness of the sensations on the body plus an equanimous mind are the keys to Vipassana.
• If you want to eradicate a tree you have to cut its root. Otherwise, it just keeps on growing. The same goes for the sankharas. We need to stop generating them and then get rid of the old ones. Like that we’ll eradicate them all.
• You will have to face unpleasant situations in life where you are forced to take action. Do it. Vipassana is not about doing nothing when you have to take action. It is about not reacting to the situations you can’t change. For example, if a kid is running towards the road you pull him away from danger. You take action. But you do it in a nice and calm way, knowing he is not aware of what he is doing.

Vipassana, Day 9

Day 9 started the same way than Day 8. I wasn’t very focused and had to go out for a short walk and some stretches. I ate too much during breakfast, which made my meditation session even more difficult. Nonetheless, it was the third consecutive session where I wasn’t falling asleep. I realised that, ever since I accepted the situation and stopped fighting it, I was doing better. I felt like I had some questions so, after lunch, I decided to go ask the teacher.

• How to make the mind sharper? Remember that I told you that the first 3 days were actually a “warm up” for the following days? We were building a scanner with our mind. Sometimes I couldn’t focus and the scan didn’t bring any sensations. Thus, I started to think that maybe there would be a way to make the mind sharper, by training it to focus on smaller areas or something like that. The answer from the teacher was that, by not reacting to the sensations, the mind becomes sharper and sharper.
• I was also thinking of a way to tame my mind more and more, so it wouldn’t “distract” me with thoughts. The teacher said that, unless in a very high state where mind and matter no matter, the mind will always generate thoughts. It is like a child asking for attention. Don’t give it to it. If you are so agitated that you can’t feel anything, go back to the breath for some minutes. If you can feel something, keep scanning your body.
• The unconscious mind is actually conscious. It is constantly reacting to the sensations, even when we are sleeping. When a mosquito bites you, you scratch. It is an automatic reaction. With that as an example, we must train our mind to avoid reacting to sensations. With a lot of good train, we can change the old habit pattern of the mind.

Day 9 went on and every session was similar yet different. In some, I could feel sensations because my mind was at peace. In others, I couldn’t feel anything but pain. And, yet in others, my mind was jumping from the past to the future and back. The best time of the day, once again, was the evening discourse:

• When you have no escape from an unpleasant situation, you have to try to become aware of it and remain equanimous. Using distractions like going to the cinema, buying stuff or doing drugs will seem to have a positive effect on you. But that’s just at the surface level. What you are actually doing is pushing them deep down so they keep growing until, eventually, one day, explode.
• To pass from the intellectual level to the action level we must focus on the breath and the sensations. Saying “I shouldn’t get pissed off about this” will work just at the surface level. An unpleasant situation will change your breath and will generate sensations on your body, so you can become aware of it. Then, try to remain equanimous, by knowing it will pass.
• We spend our life trying to change others and blaming everything that happens to us on others or on the outside world. But, when you think about it, a situation experienced by 5 different people will generate different reactions on them. The same goes for a person. The same person will be judged quite differently by those 5 people. So, the problem and solution are not to be found outside, but inside, in your mind.
• We can’t love anyone as long as deep down we expect something in return.
• The better we get at remaining equanimous the more will change the habit pattern of the “unconscious” mind. That will lead into reacting less and less.

Vipassana, Day 10

The gong went off just like any other day, except for it wasn’t just any other day. It was Day 10. I was so close to make it! The day wasn’t also just another day. The whole night was pouring. It was raining so much and so strong that at some point I thought the water would come into the room and I will drown. I tried to remain equanimous and figured that, if I noticed the water touching my body, I could then worry. Just kidding lol.

I couldn’t focus much during the first hours. My mind was just generating sharing thoughts. I would depict situations in the future where I would be sharing what I had just learned with my family and friends. It would make more sense to share it when the actual time came right? Yes, but my mind didn’t agree. It felt nice to it to spend time in the future, just as some other times it enjoyed thinking about the past. I still have a long way to cover but I felt happy I was so closed to finish the course.

Then we had a “weird” session named “metta meditation”. It was something like sharing the positiveness and love we had been generating during those days but, to be honest, I didn’t understand it very well so it didn’t make much sense to me.

The end of the Noble Silence

After that… we were allowed to talk again. I couldn’t believe it! We went to the dining hall to have breakfast and, even if we could speak, nobody dared to take the first step. I was on the queue to get my food when a guy asked me if I was from Sweden. What? He was staring at the badge of my pants. I was wearing the pants from the University of Linköping, which I bought when I was studying there during my Erasmus year. Just like that we started talking and it turned out he had also studied there for one year.

Then I started to speak with other people and even with some women. Yes, segregation had also stopped. You wouldn’t believe it but something as simple and common as talking became an amazing gift. I felt so happy. It was an incredible feeling. I would speak and listen and then they would do the same. I noticed I was looking in the eye when talking and I wouldn’t interrupt them until they had finished. It seemed like everybody was way more focused than normally. Just having a simple conversation was becoming and incredible experience. I felt ecstatic!

Sharing the 10-day Vipassana experience

I met Miguel, a guy from Spain who was going to Australia with the Working Holiday Visa. He had been travelling quite a lot and I felt happy for him and for the step he was about to take. I spoke with the guys who had been sitting next to me every day at the meditation hall. We shared experiences and feelings and I realised I had a constant smile on my face. I eventually spoke with Diego and Viky and we also shared our experiences. I was feeling so much joy!

Before (and during breakfast) the donation counters were opened. I think most of the people donated. There were also books you could take with some donations. There were posters depicting different Vipassana centres around the world. They gave us our wallet and passport back and told us that they would give us our phones back the next morning, right before leaving the retreat.

The day went on but it wasn’t like the other days. We were allowed to talk but we had to respect the noble silence during meditation and when we were next to the hall. We saw a couple of videos about the first Vipassana centre as well as about Vipassana for kids. The last meditation hour took place at around 16:00. Then we had some more discourses and some instructions on what to do the next day. There were some volunteer jobs available like cleaning the kitchen, the hall, etc. I volunteered to help cleaning the kitchen. I would find out it was one of the toughest jobs but I was happy I could help.

A reflection on my 10-day Vipassana retreat

At night I went to see the stars with Diego and Viky. I felt really happy I decided to take the course. While I still have a long path to go, I am proud I decided to take the first step. It was probably one of the toughest experiences of my life, but also one of the most rewarding.

To be honest, I didn’t struggle that much with the Noble Silence. It was a weird feeling seeing people and sitting next to them without saying a word. It was weird, but I knew it was just another rule we had to follow and, when I thought about it, it made sense. If we had been allowed to speak to each other we would have generated tons of new thoughts for our minds. It would have probably also meant that we would have started to compare experiences and feelings even before finishing the 10-day Vipassana retreat. Which, when you think about it, would have made the whole experience even harder.

Keeping the posture wasn’t also that hard. I guess it had something to do with an old habit of mine of sitting crossed legs. That plus the fact that I spent several months trying to meditate at home. Of course, keeping the posture for one hour was kind of feasible, but keeping it for 2 hours or more was still a challenge.

The first days made me realise I had zero control over my mind. Nothing new because I had already meditated before. Yet, spending so many hours trying to focus on something (the breath in that case) and realising that, out of 60 minutes, you were focused on the breath maybe just 5, was a shocking reality. Nonetheless, I knew that was one of the reasons why I decided to take part in the Vipassana retreat: to try to get better at taming my mind. Since the only way to get better at something is through practice, that’s what I tried to do.

I am not a person who goes to sleep late at night. I try to sleep 8 hours every night or, at least, to spend 8 hours in bed. Having to wake up at 04:00 made that an impossible task. Yet, except for the session after breakfast, I didn’t feel sleepy or tired. Even more, during the evening discourse, after having been awake for more than 12 hours, I felt very sharp and focused.

I strongly believe that the problems that we see in the world are caused by human minds. All the atrocities that we live nowadays and the ones that happened back in the day have to do with human minds. If you think about it, you don’t wake up one day and say I’m going to kill that person. Before that happens you must have generated tons of negative thoughts in your mind. Those thoughts can be anything from anger, to jealousy, to selfishness, to hatred. Thus, if we can become aware of those thoughts and the sensations they have in our body and choose not to react to them, I really think that the world would be a much better place.

I felt like I learnt quite a few interesting stuff and I was also really happy I met people like Diego and Viky. Deep down I decided I would take part in another Vipassana retreat but, next time, as a volunteer. I hope to see you guys again soon. Take care and happy lives! 

So, what do you think of my Vipassana retreat 10-day experience? Have you ever tried it? What was your hardest day? How did you feel about the Noble Silence? Was it hard not to use your phone or another electronic device? Did you feel the experience was worth it? Do you agree with me that most of the problems in the world come from human minds? Let me know in the comments below!