Vipassana Meditation

We shortened our trip in Thailand to do something a bit unusual: a 10 days Vipassana meditation course, in Malaysia.

What is it?

It's a retreat in a meditation centre completely isolated, with no contact with the outside world, where you spend 90% of your time meditating by following instructions from the teacher. Accomodation and food is free of charge, and you have the opportunity to make a donation at the end of the 10 days (no obligation).

There are quite a lot of rules to follow. First, men and women are separated. Then, all forms of communication between meditators is prohibited (no talking, no eye-contact...), and also with the outside world (bye bye facebook, gmail and mobile phone). There's also a food restriction: "old" students have two (vegetarian) meals a day but nothing after noon; "new" students get an extra tea break with some fruits at 5pm. It's forbidden to kill any living being and no sexual pleasure is allowed (so no sex with dead animals! :D). All king of psycho-active products are also prohibited (that means cigarets, drugs, alcohol, some medecines...). On top of that, they make you wake up a 4am!

Isn't it some kind of prison???

Hehe, yeah, it really feels like it in the first few days! You grow accustomed to it though and the meditation helps.

As the fellow Irish man we met there said: "The most difficult days are the first 9 days!".

OK, and what do you have to do then?

Every day, the bell rings at 4am and we all gather in the meditation hall. We meditate there for two hours, then comes the breakfast at 6.30am and rest until 8am. At 8am, we all go back to meditate until 11am. Lunch break lasts from 11am to 1pm. Then, meditation again until 5pm. Here comes the infamous tea break: "new" students can enjoy some milk and fruits whereas "old" students can have a very tasty glass of lemon water... Finally, we go back to the meditation hall at 6pm. Between 7pm and 8.30pm, they show us a video of our guru (Mr. Goenka) that gives us the new instructions for the next day and we finish by a 30min meditation session. Ouch! Repeat for 10 days!

And... what is meditation? Pretending you're not sleeping?

Half true. :-) Vipassana meditation consists in concentrating on each and every part of your body and to observe whatever sensation there is (pain, heat, wind blowing...) with and equanimous mind (i.e. no reaction or emotion towards any sensation). The idea behind this is that sensations are, by nature, ephemeral and as a consequence they do not deserve too much attention.

Every sensation we fell thoughout our body can be pleasant or unpleasant. A pleasant sensation can then create a desire and cause a craving when the sensation is gone, leaving us miserable. You can even become addicted to a sensation! In the same way, an unpleasant sensation can create an aversion or a fear. That's why we should not react to our sensations according to Vipassana masters.

The first step of Vipassana meditation is to learn to recognize the reactions that our mind and our body learned along the years and to (maybe) manage to disrupt them.

The theory is quite easy to understand mentally, but you can actually need to experience it through mediation to be able to apply it in your life. You also need to practice every day as old habits die hard.

All this is a very personal process and completely introspective since you cannot talk with anyone!

Vipassana meditation even goes beyond that. It also helps to recognize our darkest attributes like narcissism, jealousy,etc... when observing the "my" and the "I" in ourselves. To be clearer, the image we build about ourself is the "I". Every time this image is attacked (by someone else with an insult for example), we can feel hatred or sadness. On the other hand, the "my" is whatever we cling on (a nice watch, a new car, a smartphone...) and, when it disappears, makes us sad or angry (craving sensation).

According to Vipassana masters, one can reach enlightenment when the mind is completely equanimous and that the ego has been reduced to zero. At this stage, one can only feel love and compassion for others (bla bla bla...).

You may have already guessed, this is a buddhist vision of life and this meditation is the quest to the key to Heaven (Nirvana). Anyway, we do not believe in all this but the technique in itself has nothing religious (except the throaty singing from Mr. Goenka) and it seems to work pretty well!

In just 10 days, we feel a little changed and in peace. We also learned a few things about ourself and to control our reactions a little bit better.

We detailed our personal experiences below to give you a more precise idea about Vipassana mediation.

Etienne's experience

During the first three days, we learn Anapana meditation (observation of the breath) to prepare ourself to Vipassana meditation. Anapana mediation helps to be conscious of the present moment. This technique is also used in Europe by the way, but not with that name afaik. At the end of the second day, I realise a few things that I do without thinking, and I now try to be conscious of them and to change them (like to stop walking fast head down, for example).

On the 4th and 5th day, we learn Vipassana mediation. I want to leave the centre... With my scientific and carthesian mind, I can't stand Mr. Goenka speeches about how Vipassana mediation works because it's explained in very blur terms coming from buddhist beliefs. It's pretty far from the psychology that we know... I keep on looking for Aurore with my eyes to check if she is in the mood to leave but she seems very concentrated.

On day 6, I think a lot and I try to accept what I'm being told (but still looking for a rational and scientific explanation). I start feeling sensations in nearly all parts on my body, and I (re-)discover the joy of feeling chills in my back. I can even get them when I want to. I think I spent about an hour just playing the "game of sensations", i.e. to take pleasure from a sensation.

During the day, I also realized that was addicted to quite a few sensations: I bit my finger nails, I smoke, I can stay hours in front of a computer screen without necessarily using my brain...

On day 7, I understood that we should not play the "game of sensations" but at the contrary, we should stay equanimous (to not react) to any sensation... Ok, I start working seriously again and I can feel all the parts in my boday. All of them? No... There's still a place that I don't listen to so often: my heart! Unbelievable... How could I ignore it for so long?

As soon as I started paying attention to it, I felt like I was flying... It was such a  long time since I paid attention to it, I never realised how strong it beats; and even stronger as I think of Aurore an how much I love her deep inside me. I haven't slept for the whole night thinking about my family and my friends that I miss.

It's not easy to write all this... but I tell myself it may help others, maybe.

On day 8, a little tired, I drowse during most of the meditation time! However, during the evening, I start focusing on my jaws that have closed tightly since the last four nights (I usually cringe at night). There's no reason to be stresse here, so why? Strangely enough, I start concentrating on my ears and what I hear until I feel my jaws relaxing and my ears opening free! I haven't even realized that I was clogging my ears by closing my jaws that tight. I can now observe that every sound of the night gives me chills down my back, like if I was scared of them. Anyway, after that mediation session, I went for a walk in the dark to face this stress situation. According to Aurore, I haven't cringed at night since then!

On day 9 and 10, I continue meditating calmly but I'm now dying to talk to Aurore and to tell how much I love her and what I realized about myself in the last 10 days.

Aurore's experience

Here we are, we took a bus from Kuala Lumpur to Kuantan, I feel my heart beating quickly, I'm stressed as if I was going to pass an exam or to a job interview... I feel excited and scared at the same time. We arrive at our destination but we still have 2.5km to walk to the centre with our big bags and a temperature of 40 degrees... Vipassana magic starts to work as a Malaysian man stops his car beside us and gives us a lift to the centre. :)

Just after arriving at Dhamma Malaya centre, Etienne and I must already split up to register and to put our bags in our respective "cells". :) It really felt like a prison cell when I first stepped into my room...

I told myself: "All this to end up in a jail?! We're completely f*cked  up..."

Every starts well, I meet Marij, a Dutch woman travelling with her boyfriend too, a Singaporian lady and an Irish man from Mayo who has already been to such courses in the past.

At the moment I have to give all my valuables and all items that could distract us (books, pens, computers, phones), I realize that all my jewelry has disappeared... (mostly low value jewelry, I wonder how much they'll get out of it anyway...), but I'm pissed off!!! It's not their money value that makes me crazy but their sentimental value that makes me sad and makes me angry. Anyway, I try not to think about it anymore, the best I can... 

After diner, the silence must be observed for the rest of the 10 days. We're only allowed to talk to the teacher and his helper. A last kiss and "I love you" to Etienne and here we are! We all head to the meditation hall where we'll spend most of our time during those 10 days. We all have a pre-assigned cushion, I'm on D5, and I take a lot of extra cushions to feel as comfortable as possible (Etienne told me at the end that it looks like I was on a sofa with the numbers of cushions I used ;P).

We hear Goenka's singing for the first time... I tell myself:"This man is just moaning, it's going to be awful... I must close my eyes and start concentrating on my breath". First, I want to laugh each time  I hear the man, then I start looking around me and everybody seem concentrated, so I start to work seriously (at least, I try...).

It took me two days to really start feeling anything. The first thing I felt was sensations on my nose: ticklings, vibrations and heat... and a feeling of harmony, peace. It's pleasant, as if everything was perfect! The new exercise, that is meditate without moving at all for a full hour, brings me even more well-being!

The first five days have been very pleasant for me, maybe I played the game of sensations a little bit too much because on the 6th day, I felt very sad, depressed, and unable to feel that sweet sensation...

According to the teacher, it often happens due to this sensation of well-being we cling on to. You got it all wrong dear Aurore!!!

It's during the lunch break that my room neighbour packed her bag and left. Her misfortune made my happyness, I felt the motivation and the spirit back in me to continue till the end. I must admit that I did not have an exemplary behaviour during those 10 days... I recall of the second day when I overslept until 7am, I nearly missed the breakfast!!! I arrived the last one in the canteen with a big pillow mark on my left cheek... I also did small naps as soon as I lied down on my bed (that's when I understood that the bed and meditation do not go together...).

There were some giggling moments that I had to hide, I recall of the day a girl had her skirt stuck in her underwear and as we couldn't talk I let her be ridiculous...

Thanks to Goenka's discourses, I could calm down my anger towards the theft of my jewelry and it wasn't that hard. I told myself that birthdays, Christmas and other occasions will give my friends and family the opportunity to offer me some new ones... hahahaha nooooo, I'm only messing!!! ;P As we saw earlier, the "I" and "my" are not so important since everything is constantly changing, and we are changing. We were given the example that made me understand what it means: a river is never the same since the water is constantly flowing. It's the same with us, we're made out of atoms which are changing all the time, therefore we're never the same. Aurore from one minute ago is not the same as Aurore now, got it??? Anyway, it seems really stupid but it feels good to finally understand it fully!

This is what I kept on repeating to myself during our stay: "Everything is simple. I don't understand how I could ignore my sensations during the last 28 years?!"

The words that keep on coming back to my mind since this experience are "neutrality" and "this doesn't last, everything is changing". Everytime I feel angry or euphoric, I say to myself "STOP, stay NEUTRAL, this is EPHEMERAL". We had to put in practice these lessons when we arrived on Perhentian islands but that's a story for another post :) Patience... Kisses to my family and friends, I love you very much <3