Vipassana Meditation: to see things as they truly are

‘Life hasn't been made to be filled with grief and shadows’ said a song I used to hear a lot as a kid. But more often than not, how can we help it when so many things around us are out of our control. It would help to be like Moses and be able to open, with one hand, the Red Sea of suffering to walk through it, unscathed, but as it is, the tide barely heeds the whims of the moon alone.

Last January, I went to a Vipassana meditation centre in Córdoba, Argentina and from there I took a trip that made me consider:

-In general, life has not been made, but is constantly being made, and

-what fills it with grief and shadows may be nothing but the deepest, most unforgiving sea of all: that of our very own mind.

What is Vipassana?

Vipassana means seeing things as they really are, and it is one of the oldest meditation techniques in India. it was practised by Gautama the Buddha 2,500 years ago and its main goal was to attain a balanced and calm mind, free from suffering. The Buddha taught it as an art: the art of living.

The practice in itself is a journey of self exploration to the common roots of mind and body and it is based on the premise that the physical sensations that form the life of the body are profoundly interconnected with the life of the mind, and they condition it. This, I thought, is quite interesting: he/she who observes their sensations closely, will be capable of experiencing, in their own body, even the most obscure truths about their own thoughts, feelings, judgements and negativity that cause their suffering.

This way, Vipassana meditation intensifies the conscience of things such as they are, without any covering make up or deceits. Meditators start unravelling their own mind until, eventually, they obtain complete mental balance. There is no more to it than delving deep into the life of the body, and observing its sensations.

It is hard work and it takes unfaltering dedication. The question remains, who of us who leads a western way of life and is constantly inebriated with the elixir of frenetic stimuli has time, will power or is even in the mood to exchange this elixir, at least for a while, for a good dose of oriental medicine?

The 10-day course

A few years ago, when I first arrived in Melbourne, Australia, I met an American boy at the hostel, and one morning, he offered to help with some stuff I had to get done as I was settling in. After that, we went for a walk to the botanical gardens. I had just met him but, while we walked, he casually told me about how he had been a wayward teenager who once got expelled from school for carrying a penknife in his bag, and how he went through a bad period of popping pills and drinking heavily but that now, at 23, he was all better.  As part of his story, he also mentioned, in passing, a meditation course he had taken. Later that day, I registered this new character in my journal:

''[...] he lost 10 kgs meditating Buddha style during ten days in which he couldn’t talk to or look at anyone… [...]''

It did not add up in my head, meditation did not have anything to do with me and I just vaguely thought 10 days of silence in a row seemed like an excessive amount of time. It was not my moment. Three years later, however, meditation came to my attention again, and the time was right.

Not long ago, I spent almost two months in the south of Italy, after three years travelling. They were quite special, those two months. It was the end of a long journey and it came to symbolise the conclusion of some other things in my life, which had me feeling I was in a point of no return: my head felt like a magnetised compass.

During that time, in which I lived by the Vesuvius, near Naples, every weekend I visited the Amalfi Coast and, like never before, in each city, I went looking for the church. I took advantage of their cool silence in the European summer and for 45 minutes, I sat down to meditate. Truth be told, I had no idea what I was doing.

By that time, it had been a while since a short explanatory book about Vipassana  had come to me and later, no sooner had I landed in Argentina than I signed up for one of the 10 day courses that my American friend had taken years ago. Even then, I did not know what I was doing.

In the web page, I found the timetable for the course: daily activities started at 4 a.m. and concluded at 9 p.m.. Noble silence and  fasting (after midday, except for a fruit in the afternoon) were to be observed for the duration of the course. Reading, writing, listening to music, exercising, and having physical contact or any kind of contact with other meditators and the outside world,  were not allowed. Also, it was in plain sight that it would be 11 hours of meditation a day, but this somehow escaped me.

I refilled an old cushion which used to be granny Ita’s, packed loose clothes that covered my knees and shoulders -as instructed- and travelled the 12 hour distance there was to the meditation centre. Quite unsuspecting, like other amateur meditators, I arrived in this oasis, far off from the bustle of the city, looking for calm and mental peace. Being me, even if I would not have admitted it, I was still skeptical, because I never get involved with any superstitious or religious rituals, simply because I  don't really care for them. Somehow, nonetheless, something brought me to meditation, and I gave myself up to it.

On the first day, the rippling sound of the gong called to the first two-hour session of the morning at 4:30 a.m.. Outside, under the dark sky of the early hours, almost fifty silent bodies walked like sleepy zombies from the residential quarters to the meditation hall. There was a sign that read ‘DAY 1’ by the door of each entrance, one for men and  another one for women -they would remain segregated while the course lasted. That is how each day would begin, for ten days in which we would be asked to close our eyes and look closely inside ourselves, shutting down the outside world, because it would only interfer with clarity of vision.

As soon as the meditation began, three things happened:

The first one is that I realised that this was not about professing blind faith in any mantra, any image of an enlightened person, Gandalf the Grey or even any theory deeply rooted in the infallibility of the centuries past. Instead, I was asked to sit down and observe my own respiration and sensations (11 hours a day, 110 hours in ten days), so as to experience, in the flesh, the reality of the body, which is the reality of all things -trusting no one in the process, but myself. At this stage, I thought, These guys have more faith in me than I myself do!

The second thing that happened, was that I was slightly taken aback to see that the mental peace and quiet I had come for were difficult to find: as soon as I tried to sit still, my mind and body writhed and fought back like wild animals in sudden captivity. I understood that when you do observe yourself carefully, you unveil nor more nor less than what actually is within, be it peace, war or anything in between.

The third thing that happened was that I started noticing how there is no cushion on the face of this earth plump enough to endure all those hours of meditation, and that every bone in the body had the ability to pop and crack all the way to the end of the day at the slightest movement.

Each day, an assistant teacher played the recordings Mr Goenka -our referent Burmese teacher- left the world before passing away in 2013. In those audios, he chanted in Pali and imparted instructions in a strong Hindu accent. With excessive calmness to the ears of those who had just arrived from the hustle and bustle of the world, this man instructed us to observe, because ''each and every answer lies within''. To observe what? you may ask if you were not following, the image of  Buddha who would deposit all the answers in our heads if we contemplated him long enough? no, not quite. During the first three days we observed our respiration to calm and sharpen the mind. On the fourth day, we started observing bodily sensations. In theory, this sounded all very good, even doable...

In the first couple of days, the 4:30 a.m. meditation was pure torture. I inevitably kept dozing off and felt hungry and extremely uncomfortable in one posture. I would have paid money to just disentangle my legs and get back to bed. Respiration? yes, I could do that when I was not paying attention, too, thanks. Two days went by like that, my mind whinging non-stop. 

On the third day, as I kept trying, my mind started bending to my will and I was able to observe my respiration for a while longer.  The whole day I was seized by a pervading sense of well-being and made peace with the monsters in my head. This is so good, I have to recommend it. On the fourth day,  we were ‘ready’ and the actual practice of Vipassana began. Three times a day we sat in Adhittana (‘strong determination’) in which we did not not move arms or legs and we literally did not bat an eyelid for an entire hour. Mr. Goenka instructed us to observe our bodily sensations without judgement: ''Just observe how they arise and pass away, arise and pass away'' he repeated. ''It is the law of nature, the law of impermanence, anicca'' his voice came from the speakers overhead as I sulked in silence. That day, I woke up so upset that the feeling almost took up physical space -literally, my stomach was swollen like a football all day. Only the day before was I making peace with the monsters in my head and today I was waging war on them: enough, I’m sick and tired of you being there, get out of my head, leave me alone. It soon started dawning on me that these mood swings were probably not a mere case of coincidence.

On the fifth day, however,  I was able sit still like a rock, observe my sensations, scan every part of my body, sweep from head to toe and back without any disruptive thoughts or monsters popping their ugly heads. My mind was like a well, not a drop of wind. When the mind concentrated like that, the body did not ache or itch or find it difficult to stay still. The outside world faded and subtle sensations started flooding my head, because they were all there was. Fabulous, I’m amazing. Concentration brought more concentration, and out of the blue, an unknown anguish quickened my pulse and burnt my eyes… and I cried right there, sitting in the meditation hall, amongst all those silent people.

With the first gong of the sixth day, one of the girls grabbed her stuff and stormed off. She could not stand the silence, or the fasting, nor the facilities of the centre, and she was not convinced of the benefits she could get from this meditation technique -you could tell, she kept talking to everyone. There is also place for those, as other opinions are available. That day, I still doze off badly in the first meditation session at 4:30 a.m.

I spent the seventh, eighth and ninth day with what felt like a knot down my throat, so much for ‘subtle’ sensations. In spite of this and the crackling bones, as the course neared its end I no longer dozed off during the early hours of the morning, I had my most successful sessions and started really practising equanimity  (observing without judging): instead of  trying to scare thoughts away disgustingly when they appeared to interrupt me, like you would scare flies away, I would just step away and observe them without getting involved, like they were not my own. One of these morning, when I got full concentration, a part of my body vibrated with rippling waves of energy for short and slightly overwhelming seconds.

On the tenth day we learnt Metta meditation, and we practiced it after the main meditation session, to share with the world the positivity with which we vibrated while we practiced Vipassana. After that, silence was over and everyone burst out into chatter.

It became evident that the course had been hard for everyone and also that, apart from the practical hardships, no one had been indifferent to the experience. In their own way, each one of us felt moved. Now, as we passed the pizza tray, lively laughs were heard here and there while we processed and shared the psychosomatic symptoms we experienced in silence for the past then days.

I left the place thinking about how it is possible that the mere act of observing the body can be moving in that way. The truth is that, as the days go by and the more you observe, you seem to resignify certain fundamental ideas in your head. Conceptions of your ego, the feelings that you harbour, the human relationships you are in  and the like, start shifting slightly, almost imperceptibly, but crucially, in the manner of the planets. 

I also considered how the western mindset seeks out answers in external stimuli and, when it cannot find them, it sweeps its frustrations, big or small, under the carpet. I was certain the course had not worked magic on us, and that we were far from stopping chasing the need to satiate our senses; but a seed had been sown: with time and patience, it could grow.

Lastly, I thought it is probably easier to find the way to Dhamma* when, for some reason or another, more common paths in our lives become meaningless dead ends. However it may be, I said to myself -as I was reminded of my American mate whose name I forget-, each one of us finds their own time. From there, like one of the meditators said as he disappeared into the dirt track back to civilisation: Safe journey!.

*The law of nature, the way to a universal cure for universal sufferings.