Vipassana Diaries: Beyond Words, Within Silence
From 4 am wake-up calls to the struggle of silent meals, discover the highs and lows of my Vipassana experience.
Hi everyone! After procrastinating for a week, here's my blog on my journey at Vipassana’s 10-day Meditation course.
Firstly, what is Vipassana? As a friend said, "You are the 5th person I know who went for Vipassana, but what is it?"
Vipassana is a type of meditation that Lord Gautam Buddha practiced and achieved Nirvana. Well, surprise, I didn’t achieve Nirvana in 10 days xD Vipassana, the 10-day course, is an introduction to this lifestyle.
While I think I can write multiple blogs on the theory of Vipassana itself, for the purpose of this blog, I’d just stick to my experience.
Rules of the 10-day course:
Phones? Forget about it.
No talking.
No reading or writing
Rise and shine at 4 am (yes, you read that right).
Bedtime at 9:30 pm.
10 hours of daily meditation.
Oh, and no dinner.
Why Vipassana?
I was feeling overwhelmed with life. I think a lot of people who were academically smart in the former years of their lives got constant validation for the same and turned out to be pretty unhappy adults. For now, there is no real benchmark on what is topping life now.
People find different ways to find that benchmark.
If I am not earning a crore then am I living life right?
Social + personal life
I was often feeling like all the bad things in life are happening to me.
I was always drawn to meditation but never seriously pursued it.
Wanted to challenge myself and live a stimulus-free life.
Now coming to the meat, how was the experience?
Not going to sugarcoat, it was the hardest 10 days of my life. The most difficult part was not being able to speak with my loved ones, and in case something life-changing happened in their lives, I’d miss it. Also, there was everyday waking up at 4 am in Delhi ki sardi.
I really wanted to try out Vipassana ever since a few friends went and came with the feedback that, “Muskan, you will enjoy it a lot. Well Did I? As in my own words, a mental note to myself on Vipassana Day 2, “Kis pagal kutte ne mujhe kaata tha, that I signed up for this madness.”
Well, I was pretty excited to go for Vipassana, and since I had taken a break from work for a few months, I couldn't find the perfect time. Having explained the motivations above, I applied for Vipassana in late September to go from 15th-26th Nov. The process was fairly simple, you choose a center on the website and the dates and then hit apply.
Two days before going to Vipassana, right before going, fear and anxiety crept in.
What if something happens at home when I am not here?
What if the washrooms are not clean?!
Then I spoke with a few friends, and their advice helped me:
If it gets too tough someday, think if it is this tough even the next day, I’ll leave.
Don’t expect anything, just go with the flow.
Don’t leave the course!
Don’t leave the course!
Don’t leave the course!
Alright, then coming to the D day, I was home in Faridabad, for Diwali, Dhamma Sota (The Center) was 35 km from my place. My Mum dad were dropping me, Google maps confused us and we spent 2 hours on a one-hour route. I started thinking, is it a sign, should I just go back home? I was awaiting results for a couple of job opportunities at the moment. I was super nervous about that as well. I was just looking outside the window; it was a rural area, all the shops were basic utility shops, no women in sight on the streets, that ached my heart, and I just wondered sitting in Bangalore and Delhi it's easy to picture startups, glittery world, foreign vacations, fancy cafes, huge titles at work but the bigger India still seems quite away from this. Looking at their living conditions, I was a bit ashamed that I was worried and thought my entire life depended on the job opportunity whose result I was awaiting.
Engrossed in thoughts we reached the center, Finally! my mum, more nervous than me on how I would survive. She trying to convince the volunteer at the center her best on how critical it is for her to talk to me regularly. A defeated mum came, and then we went to my room, and saw the campus was beautiful. It reminded me so much of Pilani (a small lil town, where my college was). The rooms were better than Pilani, and we were given individual rooms with attached washrooms. My parents left post that; I had 2 hours left with my phone. I called up a few friends and scrolled reels like I was dying.
I was continuously checking what kind of people are coming in; entered this blonde woman, who needed help with the internet. She was surprised how Hotspot could be shared by Wifi QR. It was cute. While talking to her, I got to know she was from Lithuania. She was a product designer for 7 years, and now she quit all of it to become a mindfulness teacher. She mentioned that mindfulness stemmed from Vipassana, and hence here she is trying to get the original experience. At that moment, I actually felt committed to the idea.
Day 0 was exciting, everyone trying to get as much talks as they can since post 8 pm, no one would be able to talk to anyone. The old students advising the newer ones on just going with the flow. It was interesting; My mum being my mum, asked a few aunties who also were part of the course, to take care of me, and they repeatedly asked me if I was okay. Day zero ended with us being assigned seats in the meditation hall and a small meditation session at night. and we retired to rooms by 9 pm.
Now the biggest concern was how do you sleep at 9 pm? I spent time fiddling around with my alarm clock (my only friend) ; At certain moments I felt as if I had taken a journey back in time. Eventually, I slept.
Next morning, the excitement made me wake up at 3:55 am, even before any bells or alarms, and was ready by 4:15 am. Super charged to learn meditation, and when I went to the hall, they said sit and observe your breath, I am like, if this is meditation, why am I up at 4. Reluctantly, sat there for 2 hours, from 4:30-6:30, I think I slept in between as well xD. Then came the breakfast. OMG, it was soooo good.
There were a few theories that kept me entertained -
Theory 1: I had read somewhere that certain cults add minor quantity of drugs to their food, to make people return again and again, I was wondering if I had joined a cult and the food is so yummy because its drugged. (Clarification: I don’t think that was the case though)
The entire day, I followed my meditation sessions religiously, and, my mind wandering, feeling a bit disheartened as well sometimes but kept going. Then came the discourse sessions in the evenings, in which a video of S.N Goenka was played for 1 hour.
The moment he started, my mind blew as to how does he know exactly what I am thinking. Throughout the 10 days, that was the part I looked forward to the most. He talks about how truth is of 2 types, intellectual truth and experiential truth.
We all know, “nothing is permanent, stay in the moment” intellectually, at Vipassana you get to experience that physically. One of the key takeaways I took was - we often blame others or situations but the way Goenka puts it is, “you aren't sad or angry or unhappy because of situations or people you are unhappy only because of yourself.”
The moment he was saying this, my certain life situations starting playing in front of me, I understood this concept with the help of those examples so that might help you as well.
A friend, who suddenly lost his shit, never apologised, and later stopped talking at all and became rude and super aggressive, because of his fault that he wanted to blame on someone else, and for a few weeks, I was like, I have nothing but kind to him so why is he behaving this way, “How could he do that”, and got super unhappy, started questioning my taste in friends.
Goenka explained that you are unhappy not because of the person or the situation, if you look at every situation just the way it is and not get affected by them, then that’s the key. Knowing that you can't control anyone else's actions or situations all you can do is taking them as it comes with equanimity and you shall be peaceful. You should have compassion for others because the first victim of negative emotions is oneself and suddenly it started making sense, my anger reduced a bit.
But this is again easier said than done, how can one become detached from the situation, and should I not stand up for myself were my thoughts. Goenka explained that these are deep-rooted behavior patterns that can be modified and he is not saying not to take action but take an action in a calm and composed way.
Taking the above example I started wondering, that the guy who lost his shit, might have an undiagnosed anger disorder, he would be in so much pain himself to act that way, since he also always been good to me otherwise and my anger reduced a bit.
I also discovered a new source of dopamine, so there were a lot of trees around and dried leaves fell on the footpath, I loved crushing those dried leaves with my foot, the sound that comes when you crush dried leaves was heavenly xD
On Day 4 we were finally taught Vipassana, Goenka explained that the way your brain works is,
You get input from your senses
The brain processes this information,
Then characterization of emotions takes place
Finally you react
For eg: if I look at an ice cream, My brain understands that this is an ice cream and then the emotion, tasty, unhealthy, etc and last part is the reaction phase.
Ohh I forgot to mention, we were 35 women in the course, and 5 Dhamma Sevikas (super kind women who were volunteering). They were the ones who helped us get up for the 4:30-6:30 meditation sessions; they would run around and make sure that we are being okay. They would also ring the bell continuously outside our door till the lights weren’t switched on. It felt like a non-dystopian version of the Handmaiden’s tale.
On day 3 something interesting happened with me - while meditating I could feel beautiful images forming around my face, it was like I was tripping lol, there was some pulsating on my nose, it felt as if a sparrow was pecking it and then flying and sitting on my head, my head is underwater and with breathe in and out the levels were adjusted, after that session, I felt this is nirvana, I have finally cracked the code, but when teacher said to not focus on images, they are my imagination, I was so so disappointed.
From Day 6 onwards, I started looking forward to meditation sessions. Could feel physical changes happening in my body, my entire body twitching, Goenka sir calls it the body's way of throwing away old behavior patterns.
Day 7 I cried during the meditation because I needed human touch again, someone to speak with, someone to hug, I couldn’t stay silent anymore. But braced myself and powered through. I started getting more refined at Meditation, could sit for longer hours. Towards the end, I had made personas of all 35 women, including age, profession, where they are from, couldn't wait to confirm with them.
Day 9, I was calculating the % and amount of time left in the center and that day I got to know that we would get the phones the next day. At that instant, I felt happy yet sad, that I will be back to the old life, away from myself, so much stimulus around and will miss all the beautiful peacocks (there were 50 of them!).
Day 10 was beautiful; one could sense the restlessness in everyone's body language. After the morning meditation at 10 am, we could finally retrieve our phones. I am not kidding; five people RAN to get their phones! I hadn't seen people this happy in a while. To my dismay, my phone was discharged, and I didn't have a charger, so I remained disconnected from the outside world for a bit longer. I spoke to different people there, trying to confirm my imaginary theories about each one's lives.
There were people from all walks of life -
A girl studying to be a lieutenant
Another girl who broke off her engagement, left her job as a nurse in Canada, and booked tickets to India (legit eat, pray, love!).
A woman who was a tarot card reader
A lady who was in the executive suite at Airtel group but is now working as a consultant to NGOs and a guest lecturer at colleges.
There was a 65+ old aunty who sat through all the sessions.
I just found one person from Bangalore in corporate/startup world and realized that the world is quite large, and I am in a bubble experientially.
Remember the job interview I spoke about? Before that, I would like to add another thing that struck a chord. Goenka sir said, people start having an ego that they are earning so much, others aren't, and they must be super smart while others are dumb. But that is not usually the case. Does anyone really feel that their jobs are so hard that no one else could do it? It's not usually the case. You are where you are in your life because of your older karma, and you should be grateful for that.
Regarding that job interview, I read that I didn't get in after 8-9 rounds. But to my surprise, I wasn't too sad. I think that was the best test of Vipassana. The old Muskan would have cried then and there. Saying that, Vipassana isn't something that changes you completely in a 10-day span, but you start noticing some differences. People who hurt you don't seem too bad anymore. If I am worried about something for 8 hours, I can reduce it to 3.
Do I recommend it?
I told a few friends that everyone should go there at least once to experience something different. The following were the responses:
"I can't stay without speaking for 10 days."
"I need dinner; I can't be without that."
"I don't have any problem; why should I go?"
I laughed at the last one, but yes, for the first, you need strength. Maybe, when the time is right, you may wish to go on your own.
But yes, for me, I'll try my best to continue the practice. Honestly, I haven't been too regular in the 1.5 weeks I have been back. But I really hope someone gets inspiration reading my experience here and tries to go to Vipassana. I'd be super happy since I'd be instrumental in spreading a bit more happiness in the world. Cheers! :D