My Vipassana Experience

I went on 10 days silent meditation retreat few days ago.
The technique that was taught there is called Vipassana and it is related to the teachings of Siddhattha Gotama, also known as Buddha, the Enlightened.

Vipassana literally means "seeing through", "insight into the true reality of life".
It is basically a meditation technique like many others, but it is explained by the leader teacher/guru S.N. Goenka as the most effective technique because it works in a scientific way, as a rational investigation of the mind-matter phenomenon.


The explanation he gives is synthesised as such:
due to the continuous modification of the matter, the atoms, the whole substance our body and mind are made of, through Vipassana we are able to feel and understand things as they really are.
Observing from within our sensations from the top of the head to the tip of the toes and back up, we manage to grasp they continuous flow of things.
Sensations are always changing. We might sometimes feel a pleasant sensation throughout the arms, like a kind of electric shock, but few minutes later we might arrive to a painful feeling in our legs that have been immobile for forty minutes already.
Our mind's task is to welcome and detach from such feeling of pain and pleasure, cause they are all ephemeral (ANICCA).
I think this is really a good exercise for the mind because it trains it to be equanimous towards all the various CHITTA VRITTI (from Patanjali's Sutras, means: "the modifications of the mind").
Nevertheless, I reckon that Hatha Yoga helps in reaching the same goal, Samadhi, Enlightenment, Liberation, yet through other forms of mind (and body!) exercise.

During my 10 days of retreat, we were asked not to communicate to anybody (not even the red gorgeous cat that was hanging around sometimes), no eye contact, no reading nor listening to music.


The daily schedule was very strict and tough: 4am wake up (still dark), 4,30am start meditating in the Hall, 6,30am breakfast (amazing selection of food), 8am back to meditate for one hour of sitting still, without moving unless really necessary(not so hard for me though), then again meditation till 11,30, lunch till 1pm (wholesome vegetarian food), at 2,30 again sitting still for one hour (this time harder cause of my slow digestion), at 5pm tea break (and some fruit), at 6pm back to the Hall sitting for one hour without moving, then at 7pm screening the video of Goenka teaching the technique (which is basically the only moment of a sort of 'leisure activity' of the day). Back to meditate till 9pm. At 9,30 the day is over, bed-time.



The hardest thing of the whole experience was for me the amount of hours sitting.
I am a IBS sufferer, therefore I was always fighting with my mind to turn it away from the movements and the struggles of my bowels. Additionally, since you cannot express your feelings to anyone (apart from the managers, which are very professional and cold) you basically end upgoing deeper and deeper into your fears and paranoias.

Goenka's words: "Practising Vipassana is like making a surgical operation to your own consciousness. When you cut open the wound, the pus is bound to come out. It is a good sign that the pus comes out. It comes out to go away."

I managed to stay till the end. That was, I think, the biggest challenge I have ever accomplished in my life. It was hard, painful. I cried a couple of times, feeling miserable as Goenka always repeats in his discourses "we are all miserable. Vipassana helps us coming out from our misery." I had my moments of bliss and total harmony with the universe I have to say. It has been heaven and hell at the same time.

In the two following days, I felt weird: weak, emotional, fragile, like the wound was still wide open.
I went to see an Exhibition of Outsider Japanese Art at Wellcome Collection (I recommend everyone to go, really interesting!) and I felt like crying in front of many of the artworks. No comments.

Now I am definitely feeling better. I am discovering how much this experience has added to my practise. Concepts as equanimity, awareness, compassion, impermanence, detachment, love... are precious concept and in the ten days I really got to understand them on a deep level.

No, I did not continue to practise Vipassana after the retreat. One should meditate one hour in the morning and one in the evening.
I'd rather do Yoga, and Yoga-related forms of meditations.
My body needs to move, and this makes my mind quieter and clearer.

But yes, I suggest you to go once in your lifetime. It is a very worth experience to know yourself and your limits.

Thanks for reading this ;)



Please comment anything you feel relevant! Critiques are more than welcome.