Silence, Awareness and Sitting: My ten-day Vipassana Retreat

It has taken me almost a week and numerous false starts to begin to write about my experience on my Vipassana Meditation Retreat. For the first couple of days of the course I had a constant narration going on in my head, descriptions for my blog of what was taking place both around and within. By the afternoon of day two I realised that the tiny details I was including would be of inconsequential importance by the time day 11 rolled around and I was ‘free’. I was right, those first few days have become distant blurry memories and so now I sit with the monumental task of doing justice to an experience that was so completely liberating, beautiful and incomparably difficult.  

I felt very strange as I sat for the twenty minutes in the ferry which took us away from the civilisation of Singapore to the small island of St John’s where the retreat would be held. As soon as we arrived on the island we were briskly marched to the course area, I looked around with slight horror - the different parts of the island were divided by green tennis court fencing topped with heavy rolls of barbed wire. Barbed wire? At a meditation retreat?! After signing in, handing in my valuables and communication devices (phone, ipad, journal, pens, books) I took my linen from the pile and made my way down to my dormitory. The area was dotted with long white utilitarian buildings: former military buildings and holding areas for unwelcome immigrants into Singapore. It was all a bit too unappealing, although the beautiful old trees and green grass and the sea beyond softened the general atmosphere. I walked into the dormitory and my mother’s face popped into my head, “Oh my God Caitlin, what are you doing here?” I wasn’t sure myself! Before me were two straight rows of low metal beds, facing each other, old-boarding-school style. I sat down on my allocated bed and felt the wooden base a little too close for comfort. It wasn’t long before I had nicked another mattress from one of the empty beds. Two thin pathetic mattresses were better than one.

Home!

The course started that evening. Some of us had started talking before it began which kept us remotely connected in the nine days of silence which followed. Being silent was wonderful. It was the easiest part of the experience. I think most people who find themselves led towards doing something like this are usually ready to be silent. The difficult part is how the daily niceties must now fall by the wayside: you can’t look at a person as they walk past or beside you on the path, you don’t smile at them or thank them as they stand back for you, you can’t say sorry as you bump into them while brushing your teeth. It’s so weird! But it is a very, very important aspect of the journey. It is wonderful to have the company of other people, albeit silent company, but it is also so wonderful to be completely alone in your own personal process. If we had been able to communicate, I know we would have compared ourselves to one another, or allowed others’ thoughts to influence ours – in this way, it was 100% our own experience. Which is what we were all there for.

While I am writing this I am finding it increasingly difficult to do justice to my diverse experience. A lot can happen in ten days and eleven sleeps in the real world, and now think about living that time in one place, in one routine and in almost total solitude. We meditated for about ten hours a day. An absolutely horrifying prospect! But the day is broken up into small conquerable pieces, and the only way I got through was by taking each hour at a time. Telling myself how I could last today and then tomorrow but not any of the other six or five or four days after that. While there is a lot of meditation time scheduled there is also a lot of rest time, and depending on your own diligence and energy levels a lot of possibility to rest or retreat from the retreat at your own will. At the beginning I was so completely exhausted and so slept at every available opportunity. Who knew that sitting on your bum could be so exhausting! Sometimes I fell into bed completely finished in the evening, only to be wide awake and tossing on my ‘comfortable’ bed within a few minutes. This made the 4:30am to 6:30am meditation time almost impossible and I would spend many of those minutes bent over my crossed legs napping on my arms! Those sitting sleeps got me through and I'm grateful that our teachers were so gentle and allowed us all to do just what we could, without forcing us to do what we should.

The actual teaching aspect of the course is done through the audio and visual recordings of a man called S.N. Goenka. The meditation is taught in the meditation hall through the audio recordings, and in this way he slowly guides the students’ progress and adds a new focus every day or so. In the evenings there is an hour discourse in which we watch a recording of Goenka as he told stories, explained theory, offered encouragement and hinted at things to come. When I first saw one of these recordings a few years ago, I was unimpressed. Who was this chubby man who barely opens his eyes as he speaks? What has he got to teach us? By the end of the first day however, I pretty much adored him, the evening discourse became ‘movie-time’ for me and I would almost run to the discourse hall so I could sit in the front row and hear him start the discourse in his thick, sometimes comical, sometimes incomprehensible Indian accent, “you have now completed day 1, you have 9 more to go”. On the first day I wanted to punch him in his grave. But later, hearing, “you have just completed day 7, you have 3 more to go,” made me want to run around whooping. During the course his constant presence through the recordings was strict, serious, kind, compassionate, forceful, hilarious and frustrating. I would tear by hair out with his monotonous, out-of-tune chanting one minute and the next, feel completely held in it. His constantly repeated phrases became a bit of a joke for me (a joke I could, obviously, only share with myself) but there were some I began to look forward to. My favourite was the gentle, slowly pronounced “take rest, take rest” at 9pm at night which signalled the end of another day of hard internal work.

Goenka!

For the first three days of the course we learnt a technique called Anapana, which is basically just focusing on the triangular area around the nose as we observe the breath moving in and out. By the third day we were encouraged to become aware of any sensations we felt in this area and then observe them. Of course, during this entire time your head is buzzing with thoughts, this is inescapable. The point is not to get frazzled with these thoughts, but rather to just accept that they are there and then return your attention back to the area of focus and your breath. As you can imagine, your mind keeps you frightfully busy and so the process is not necessarily a boring one. The forth day was ‘Vipassana day’, which Goenka built up to such a degree that I became a slightly nervous, especially since the timetable changed on this day and we all went into the meditation hall at 3pm with strict instructions that we may not leave until 5pm. The doors were closed and the organisers sat like guards at the exit. I was a little scared!

The next two hours were torturous as we were introduced to the technique of Vipassana. I will attempt to explain my understanding and experience of Vipasssana, it is by no means exact or comprehensive. We experience the world through sensations in our bodies, as we have bodily reactions to everything that takes place in our life. These sensations we label as either good or bad and we develop either craving or aversion to these. Vipassana teaches you to sit quietly and to allow these bodily sensations to come up as you move your awareness to different parts of your body. They usually do, because if I tell you to sit still and feel your big toe, you probably can without actually having to touch it physically. So during these first two hours, we sat absolutely still and were guided to move through our bodies and become aware of the sensations that arose. After two hours my body was screaming and when it was over I felt like I had just had a hectic session at the gym. I might have been projecting, but it seemed that everyone was pretty shell-shocked by the experience. The point though, is to remain equanimous to whatever feelings arise. This means that you accept all sensations and try not to label them as either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ as they are impermanent and so will soon (or eventually!) pass.

Besides the seemingly omnipresent voice of Goenka, we had two teachers who were there to guide the men and women separately through their meditation processes. We could go to them for our individual questions and they would offer suggestions that allowed us to meditate and develop the technique at our own pace. After our initial two hour introduction we had three separate hours each day where we were guided to sit absolutely still and with absolute determination for the entire hour. This, however, is not easy and a severe pain in your leg can become so overwhelming that no matter how many times you remind yourself of its impermanence, it will not move until you actually move. The teacher reassured many of us that it was ok to move when we absolutely had to, as to sit with the pain can create a great deal more negativity as you are by no means being equanimous. This type of meditation helps to clear the old stored-up negative energy in the body, the energy which is known to create illness and negative patterns. This is also why the meditation can be painful at times, as you are releasing this negativity. It also helps you to look at the world in a different way, as ‘good’ things and ‘bad’ things will always happen in your life and so one of the things Vipassana can teach us is that these things are impermanent and that our reactions to them and how we label them is what really gives them the fuel to help or hurt us.

This retreat was very challenging. Every day I experienced both beautiful moments and difficult long ones. I wanted it to end daily, but at the same time I enjoyed it and was so grateful for the process of being there. I spent many minutes sipping my tea under the trees, watching the leaves and the sky or hoot-hooting to the two resident owls. I loved those owls, they truly did seem so wise and knowing. Many times the endless hours of meditation before me were completely daunting, and all I could do was collapse on my bed (which became my sanctuary) and sleep away my exhaustion, boredom and frustration. There were many moments when I enjoyed the meditation but it was difficult for me to accept that all I would be do during the day was eating (the food was AMAZING! I ate myself silly), sleeping and meditating. I wanted to run out into the world and LIVE! I have gained many things from the experience, but for me one of the most important things is that I now have a meditation tool – something which I wanted going into the course. An hour of meditation before me can feel so daunting at the outset; however, I am finding that it is becoming my refuge. I am learning to accept what I am experiencing in that time of meditation, regardless of what my mind judges it to be. Sometimes it is awfully chatty and loves to plan and daydream and worry and at other times it’s quieter and allows me more focus. I will have this tool forever and I feel so blessed to have been shown it. The entire course is run through donations and by volunteers who have experienced it themselves, and so one really feels so completely grateful to those who make it possible.

My usual owl-watching spot.

I think everyone would benefit from the silence of a retreat and we could all do with meditation. I don’t want to say everyone should do this, because I don’t believe it’s necessarily part of everyone’s path. But I do believe that everyone should know about it – just in case it sparks something within them. It took me three years to decide to do this course, and I would never have ‘enjoyed’ it or benefitted from it like I did if I had been pushed into going. So, if you are even slightly interested go have a look at the website, there are centres all over the world and you never know, maybe one day… www.dhamma.org !

At the end.

 Joyous freedom! On the ferry back to civilisation