The Pleasures of Vipassana (days 6-11)

The Dhamma Setu Pagoda

Day 6

The Vipassana technique was taking shape, we were using our newly focused minds to observe sensation at the atomic level all over our bodies. We had become acutely (and painfully!) aware of sensation within our bodies to a point where we had begun to feel the vibrations of the very atoms of which we are made as they constantly shift and change. It was at times blissful and I will be bold enough to admit that, yes, it was especially pleasant on certain parts of the body! I even laughed my head off and cried with joy when eventually the laxatives kicked in!! Mr Goenka, however, was ensuring that we were at all times equanamous and that no craving or aversion should arise for any type of sensation because all sensations be they painful or pleasant have "the same characteristics of arising and then falling away" ..."nothing is permanent" ..."this is the simple law of nature ...Anicca ...Anicca ...Anicca (Pali). I found myself treating my butterflies to renditions in my head of the gentle morning chants between sittings. Occasionally though, vivid, obscure and often forgotten scenes representing things like me being unforgiving, my letting myself down, my being unwilling, my doing less than I could and me being angry were projected onto the wings of resting butterflies. My life's miseries. MY misery, MY VERY OWN SELF MADE MISERY. Mr Goenka was right!


Day 7

Draw a line in water and it disappears immediately. Draw a line in sand and it disappears some time later. Draw a line in rock and it takes much much longer to disappear. As is the way with the things that scar our subconscious which I had begun to witness in the visions. It was these mental scars of varying depth ("Sankaras" in Pali) which the technique had begun to free from where they had been subconsciously residing in our bodies. Sometimes Sankaras manifest as significant pain (ie as psychosomatic illnesses), sometimes as the little niggles that we all have but which don't really effect us, sometimes as something in between. Most of the time, even when we understand their existence, we don't even know that they're there apart from the odd weird dream where they might surface briefly. We were working towards freeing ourselves of these deep rooted scars and I was entirely bought in to the teaching by now. And why not? After all I had seen so many of my own deeply personal Sankaras being shaken out of position and had become quite miraculously pain free. In every session I worked "diligently" as Mr Goenka asked us to with textbook "equanimity" sat like a statue without even using the back of the chair. By the evening sitting I tried my first free flow ...oh yeah baby that tested my equanimity!


Day 8

The Female Cell Block

From the moments where I was unable to be 100% equanimous I can safely report that free flow Vipassana meditation, is exquisitely beautiful at a sensual level but I must be clear I don't mean that in a sexual sense despite there being some orgasmic comparisons to be made! In every sitting I was preparing for and carrying out about 6-8 free flows lasting 2-4 minutes each. In essence I had gained such control over my mind that once I had observed (but I like to think of it as awoken) all of the sensations that bind me together, I could push my awareness as a field of energy through my entire body in any direction with the energy basically surfing the atomic vibrations as it went. A sign went up allocating us "new students" to a cell in the pagoda. We were treated to two sittings in the pagoda, where I resumed my practise on the floor. The pagoda is beautiful and full of individual chambers which allow meditators to access the "Tibetan monk in a cave" principle the isolation ...the free flows were intense in there to the point of being exhausting.

Day 9

Back in the meditation hall, free flows were set off in new planes, left to right, front to back it was like being your very own MRI scanner. If there was a blind area or any arising pain (Sankaras were really being riddled out by now) which blocked the flow, then I just had to focus on that spot for a while after the flow and mentally massage them out ...they didn't just scuttle off, I am still working on some now, but they get looser and looser and eventually disappear with a cleansing free flow. I worked hard to remain in a meditative state between sittings, walking with one foot in the sun, one in the shade feeling the hot and the cool, remaining equanimous to all sensations I was observing as they arose and drifted away. And so the day passed, in sublime, deep and focused meditation. I equanimously accepted that we did not get to go back in the pagoda (...or maybe I was a little bit gutted). When I eventually crawled under my mosquito net, my body was an iron statue on a magnet bed and I needed ten minutes to muster the strength to get off and under my sheet.

"Noble Chatting"

Day 10

I was showered by 4.20am and in the hall early, eager to maximise my practise whilst still in Silence. At 10am the silence was lifted and a day of what the lovely and wonderful Mr Goenkaji termed "noble chatting" ensued. We still had group sittings though including a great session of loving kindness meditation to share our new found peace, love and compassion with the living world. We watched a film showing the other gorgeous centres Mr Goenka has established for meditation study and practise around the world before watching his formal address at a UN Spiritual Leaders convention on why it is was more important to help everyone in the world to be happy than to convert them to sectarian religion - it was very well received by the leaders of those religions and all of us as we blissfully relaxed our spines and smiled at those with whom we had shared our journeys and who were fast becoming new found friends. The old Tamil ladies and I held hands and smiled so deeply that it brought tears to our eyes, we knew we still couldn't speak to each other but we had shared so much. The Indians and westerners just let rip on the conversation front, there was so much laughter and a good few fondly sarcastic comments about chanting, working "diligently" and Anicca ...Anicca ..Aniccaaaaaaaaa"

Day 11

Having stayed up talking far too late 4am should have been a tough start but it wasn't and we all made the hall on time for our last couple of hours of Vipassana and loving Kindness practise. After breakfast everyone began to pack and head off in different directions a few of us to Pondicherry...

Postscript

I am sat by the sea now on a balcony in Pondy and I have been practising with Linda from Sweden, a fellow vipassana "inmate" for at least 2 hours a day for the 3 days since we finished. I feel exactly like a freshly laundered me. I have not changed, gone mad or become half-dove. I do not feel the need to sprinkle petals or give offerings to statues but I have been moved spiritually and cleansed but only by nature and its very very good. It seems a grave understatement to say that a weight has been lifted because I couldn't have told anyone exactly what that weight was before this or have known what many presumed forgotten parts that weight consisted of. The technique is shatteringly scientific and needs no form of blind faith or doctrine so the only thing you can actually rebel against is yourself and that is well explained throughout the course even though it was incredibly hard to take their word for that until you realised it ...for yourself.

I can safely say that despite days 1-5, the worst thing about the whole experience was actually just the mosquitoes which revelled in the whole lack of killing that pervades the meditation centre!

...and the butterflies? ...Equanimity set those free days ago.

Me and some of my Dhamma Setu "Fellow Inmates"