my Vipassana days

Vipassana /vi.puh.shya.nuh/ is seeing things as they really are. Not how you seek, desire or imagine them to be. 

I read on this decades back in a Sunday Statesman Miscellany. It had a cover page picture of sunset behind a pagoda. This October, I went for a ten day venture to learn the technique. Of seeing things as they are. 

Till this point in life, my meditations were unambitiously limited to running, writing and 10 minute breathing with daughters at bedtime. In other words, I was safely uninitiated, and unaware of what I was getting myself into. 

Day 0

is when one signs up for the rules. Staying put for the full course, Observing noble silence. Abiding by the 5 Silas or moral precepts - no killing, no stealing, no sex, no lying, no alcohol. Also no reading, no writing. Turns out reading and writing are meditative and communicative activities  hence forbidden as they may disrupt the process. 

So Buddha told us 4 home truths.

1. There is misery

2. Misery is due to - craving or aversion

3. if these stop, suffering stops

4. There is a way to stop these (Good thing)

The way, or the path, the teacher said, has 3 parts.

(1) Silas (the 5 precepts listed above), (2) Samadhi (controlling the monkey mind) and (3) Panna (/pan.ya/clearing the mind with wisdom)

OK. I was curious, interested, taking it in. Mildly afraid of unknowns. Hoping I will stay sane after 10 hours a day of looking inside my head. 

Day 1

There was this garden. And in it, a solitary Shiuli tree. One among the few friends I made over ten days. It was silent and giving, like trees are but it was graceful how she flowered and then let go. With nobody knowing, or watching, or even taking what she gave. 

She must be flowering for someone every night, I thought. 

Walked past her every morning, picked flowers from the ground brought the fragrance to my room sometimes. One morning I went early, stood and watched her shed blooms. Flower by flower, one at a time, sometimes several drizzling down, like raindrops. 

A gong at 4 am, and an unstoppable bell thereafter, woke me up after I snoozed the alarm clock. In the quiet dimly lit meditation hall at dawn, the teacher told us to focus only on the air entering and leaving the nostrils. The idea was to use breath as a tool to experience the present. Worth noting, and I had never thought of this before, is that there is no need to crave or be anxious for this breath thingy. It will come, it will go, but it will always come back again. Nice. 

Was I getting a sense of the dance? Oh well not yet. The mind. OMG the mind. It raced and wandered and chattered and did quick round trips of my life's timeline past future included till I drifted far, far away before thinking nostrils again. 

Re-center, re-focus, repeat. 

Day 2

Wild elephant, Mad monkey. I felt you with every "breath". Was this the first time ever I was trying to train and tame the mind to stay the course? All the Vedantic realizations about how I am not my body or mind did dawn years back but experiencing it this helplessly all day long, was new. 

Today as the homework was to observe the full nasal area, the mind tuned in to Taranas from my daughter's daily riyaz - tana der tanum tana dim tana dere na, and a few forgotten MTV songs from my teenage days. Now they alternately played on loop like a nonstop radio station, while I was trying to get into the rhythm of my natural inhale-exhale and failing miserably. Fascinating, and brought home such an infallible experiential truth hopefully not to be forgotten for life - my mind is most certainly not me. 

As silence prevailed, I was almost thankful for the comfort of not having to smile or talk to people while passing by and not get judged for it. I noted in my mind, "People when silent are the best versions of themselves".

Day 3

was all about observing and focusing on sensations around the nostrils. "Kisi samvedna ki khnoj n kare, kaamna n kare, kalpna n kare. Bas jo hai, usi ko mehsoos kare. Jaane." The teacher's voice was slow, deliberate and it flowed in and filled the quiet hall at dawn. "Do not seek, desire or imagine a feeling. Feel what is. Know what is."

Deep. The words, and the experience in context of those words. 

I still drifted. 

To a seventh grade classroom with all voices but one fading at dusk. To a bed in an unknown emergency room with bright lights and doctors speaking in Dutch. To a starlight screensaver shimmering in loop in a quiet dark room. To a childhood Diwali when I am lighting long lines of candles with a melting shammes. 

But I came back each time to know what is here and now. After 3 days and 30 hours of the same drill, I could  now re-focus easily. That there is and always was, a thing of my own, the rhythm of my breath, to focus and anchor my mind, felt strange and safe. 

Day 4

is when one is ready to graduate from Samadhi to Panna. From mindfulness to wisdom. From Anapana to Vipassana. 

For personal reasons, this was the toughest day for me. Not because one was required to do Adhitthana (determination to sit perfectly still and refrain from even slightest movement) for hours on end. It was difficult to journey and acknowledge my own body and touch (for want of a better word) the flowing enveloping consciousness with my mind. It was a first.

Day 5

It is a strange and silent peoplescape early morning and evenings in the garden. Pity one cant take a picture. Thank God one cant take a picture. Persons walk past each other, some unhurried leisurely some with muted urgency clocking miles in the mind some sitting on the grass. no words, no gestures, no eye contact. Still, they connected.

There is a girl who wore these fun t-shirts and I loved reading the lines. One day was a Nike with "Run past the future" while she was lazing on the grassy little hillock at one side of the garden. Another day, it said "Eww, David" and I almost laughed, without sound. Hey wasn't aversion forbidden, I wanted to ask. But then I smiled at her. She had no clue why but smiled back at me. 

Impermanence

Detachment

Transience

Anicca /a.nich.ya/

Everything that one knew and heard of and read and understood so well, was being brought to life through the Vipassana drill. Journey the body for sensations and when you observe one, know its impermanent nature and at that very moment, practice feeling non-reaction, balance and equanimity. Not craving not aversion. Create no new Sankhara, reaction that is, and the old precipitate will dissolve over time.

Day 6

Buddha was a selfish man. Don't be like Buddha.

Solitary meditation cells, or Shunyagar, is a thing. A soundless 3 X 5 X 7 feet chamber with mild AC vent and a faint light for each meditator to sit and practice during individual sessions. Between 5 to 6 hours a day. This is where the meditators were allowed access from day 6 when they had learnt the technique and now needed nonstop practice. 

This was the day I thought I would quit. I was not ashamed or elated. Felt neither craving nor aversion. Life saw me quit so many things, what was one more thing added to the list of incompletenesses. I was totally non-reactive, balanced and equanimous and I figured out the technique and the build-your-defence thinking behind it and just wanted to not do this anymore. Leave not to see someone or be somewhere (anyway kids were on vacation) but just not wake up anymore at 4 am or have the last meal at 5 pm and then lay in bed from 9 to midnight without sleep then focusing on the breath so the mind could get rest. 

I figured the last bit was hurting and I was missing my younger's warmth in bed. So there was craving after all. I stayed back. 

Day 7

The daily 1.5 hour long evening discourse from the teacher was like a community movie show at a time when nobody had a TV at home. 

My aversion, craving, fear, whatever was the ailment, The teacher said it made no sense because there really is no I. Knowing that intellectually is not enough, experience that and live that and you are free from suffering. He summarised Dhamma's benefits crisply.

1. Here and now benefits pre-death. Practise and get immediate results. Is also ala carte. Choose one or more - Sila, Samadhi, Panna - Morality, Mindfulness, Wisdom. And be happy.

2. Assured benefit post-death. Freedom from rebirth for good. Be happy again. 

I was thinking more like no rush. I should go slow before the cycle abruptly ends. Need one more life for sure. I have stuff to do. Nirvana thereafter is fine. 

Day 8

My younger was on my mind today as I crushed big dry ochre leaves under bare feet during my evening walk in the garden.. She is a restless soul. A lot like my mind. Chattering, anxious, hyper, easily excited, confused, but a good soul. Realized in past 8 days it is super tough but the mind can be trained. It does listen. Not at the beginning but at some point, Even after 40 years. My younger will too. My elder will too. 

One can start anytime.

With a calm and quiet mind. 

Alert and Attentive mind.

Balanced and equanimous mind. 

Oh. Also today, I and another girl, a fellow meditator Anouk, watched a squirrel together. 

Day 9

I walked and sat down on wet grass this dawn and discovered and touched dewdrops at close quarters. Took one on my fingertip and it slipped and dropped from the leaf blade like a baby rabbit. Put one drop on my nose tip and one each on a cheek. Nature can be "breathtakingly" beautiful, bountiful. 

What happens when someone brings you a gift and you don't want it ? Well you can choose not to accept. So he has to take it back home. 

So if someone brings for you gifts of abuse or pain, choose not to accept it. How about choose not to remember as well and not carry the hurt with you because you really dont want those gifts after all. Choose freedom instead. By forgiving and forgetting.

Day 10

The Silent Peoplescape 

- the beautiful thin girl with sad distant eyes, perhaps the most sincere meditator in the group

- the bubbly nerdy smiley girl with glasses, perhaps the youngest of the lot

- my favourite t-shirt girl, short haired, with black rimmed glasses and intelligent deep eyes behind them

- the long haired serious looking lady who walks the garden like its a treadmill, she must have daily target miles and boy is she diligent

- the old meditator girl super helpful to everyone helping even the helpers 

- the pretty long haired daddy's daughter type girl wearing the Oxford univ t-shirt that looked genuine

- the happy German girl who stops in the garden even more than me to look at birds and trees

- the noiseful yawner and burper aunty in front of me who helped me work on my compassion and patience side of things

- the tallest girl in town I used to look "up" to so I could catch her flashlight smile

- my friend, a colleague from another time and country but a beautiful stranger for 10 days

- and so many other interesting faces and people I didn't write about but will remember. 

While I came to know their names and stories later, and they are all wonderful people, these thoughts are from a time of silence. To me, silence made each one of them a person they may or may not be. Beautiful with possibilities. 

Anicca. Impermanent. 

   [view from my window for the 10 days. the garden]