Vipassana Meditation

Juliana and I signed up for a 10-day Vipassana Meditation course, as taught by S.N. Goenka, in a small Buddhist town called Sarnath, about 10 km outside of Varanasi.
Just as a set up... I have never meditated seriously before, the longest time I've sat for was 30 minutes. Sure, I've taken a few meditation courses through my university, but it was never getting deep into a specific type of practice... they've been more of survey classes. So when Juliana told me about this course, and what kind of impact it had on her life (she has taken one in California), I didn't really think what it meant to be meditating for 10 hours every day, for 10 days, in complete silence. No talking, no writing, no reading. Every day wake up at 4 am, and lights out each night at 9:30 pm.

I could not have been more unprepared. To begin with, I had no idea why I was there. I knew that I liked meditating, I liked yoga, I liked spending some time by myself, but I did not realize just how serious this practice was.

And looking back, I don't know if there was anything more meant for me, at this particular time and place. We forget how little time we spend looking inward. I can't remember a day of my life I spent by myself, with no distraction. Even if I were silent for an entire day, I was still distracted by external forces... the Internet, the television, advertisements... it could be anything. The amount of time we spend looking at an external reality -- a superficial reality -- is almost every minute of every day. And I don't mean to blame it.. I don't mean to come down hard on myself or anyone else for living in such a superficial reality, because how can we help it? It's funny, both Juliana and I thought about Sex and the City at one point during the retreat, and it's sad really, what emphasis externalities play in the happiness of those characters. And I grew up on it. I grew up identifying with one character or another, wanting Carrie Bradshaw's wardrobe or job, thinking in terms of making my surroundings good, so that I could be happy. This is our society. This is how we deal with our problems -- externally, and not internally.

I cried four times while at the center.
On the first day, I sobbed, in my own room, and plotted my escape. I decided this was not what I wanted and I had no idea why I was there, and I couldn't believe I was wasting my precious time in India to be locked up in this center, and I even broke the rule that says you're not supposed to read, and I looked up some different Yoga ashrams in Varanasi that I could stay at when I left in the morning.
Then I watched the Discourse that night (every night, we watched a 90 minute video of Goenka explaining the practice and philosophy of Vipassana), and I settled down. Goenka has this way of saying exactly what you're thinking. He talked about how so many human beings are on this mission their whole lives to find real truth and happiness... and they talk about it, and they read about how to do, but they do not do it. They do not do. Here it was -- here was this path to enlightenment, to real truth, to breaking the chains of attachment -- and I was complaining and crying about how my back hurt. I always talk about doing, I'm a huge believer in it... and yet there I was, refusing to do. Goenka also said something like, "You think you cannot do it. Your body wasn't made for sitting for this long. But that's only because you aren't used to it." I realized at this moment I had to stick it out.

Day 3 I cried again, after our teacher called us up individually for some Q&A, and he commented on how I cannot sit still for more than 5 minutes. He said, "You move every 1, 2, 5 minutes. How can a mother bathe her child if the child's always moving around?" Kind of a funny example, but I wondered, why couldn't I sit still? Why could I not control myself to just sit still? A lot came up. I went pretty deep into myself, my "subconscious"... and I questioned this. A lot came up. Feelings that I have suppressed for years came up, feelings that I never wanted to look in the face. Well, I finally did. And I sat with these feelings, and looked at them objectively, and let myself go deeper.
Goenka often describes Vipassana as surgery of the mind. Like in surgery, if there is a wound very deep, one must cut through other wounds first. And as one goes through these wounds, puss comes up. And it's not pretty. Well, I was going through these gnarly-looking puss-filled wounds, and watching them ooze out.

And in every one-hour sitting after this moment, I did not even flinch.

On Day 6, I cried again. But this was a different cry. I was eating lunch and all of a sudden, I was completely overwhelmed. I was thinking about the past few days, what I had gone through emotionally and physically, and I was simply shocked. Tears started flowing, out of pure happiness. It was this moment that I realized, Every moment, every single emotion and conversation and happening of my entire life, has been leading up to this moment. And this moment is perfect. I knew this thought, and this feeling, were not permanent, I knew it would pass away. But I was filled with a calmness that I cannot even describe.

Day 9... oh, day 9. The retreat was nearly finished, I had worked through some pretty serious issues that had been hiding in the depths of my mind, and I was feeling very content. Then there was this moment. I just finished eating lunch, and I was sitting outside, on a brick stoop, and I look up to see one of the elderly Indian women sitting on another brick stoop across from me. She had long, gray hair and held her face in her weathered hands. She sat there, in silence, but looked as though she was about to cry. I realized at this moment, what impermanence truly means. During the entire retreat, Goenka always emphasizes impermanence. Everything is impermanent, rising and passing away, rising and passing away. Every emotion is impermanent, always changing, which is why we cannot become attached to anything, and this is how we become liberated. For me, this meant my thoughts were impermanent, these deep-rooted emotions were impermanent, and I was working to let them go. But for this Indian women, who had to be well into her 70s, maybe 80s (because you really can never tell with Indian people), all this talk about impermanence ... well, she was probably thinking more about the impermanence of life, rather the impermanence of emotions.
The impermanence of life -- death. Who has not experienced it? Who will not experience it? Every single living being will someday die; that is the law of nature. So why cling to anything that is impermanent? It will pass away, rise and pass away. Change is the only constant.

Vipassana meditation has no mantra, nor does one use any visualization. Rather, you just observe what is. As it is.