Vipassana Guacamole — NLP, Nirvana, and 100+ hours of looking within!
Mind, meditation, and monkhood — Having savored these intellectual groping for long, I finally checked in at the Dhamma Bodhi Vipassana Meditation Centre for a 10-day course earlier last month. I had been reading about Vipassana for a long time but never got around sparing ten days in a row for actually doing it. The thought of staying disconnected from the world and look-within was part interesting and part challenging. And, when I heard Yuval Noah Harari at the India Today, Conclave 2018 speak about this technique, I was genuinely motivated to sign up for it. I intend to cover my understanding of the technique and my experiences at the Dhamma Bodhi meditation center.
The Vipassana Blueprint
The teachings of Vipassana are theoretically underpinned by the fundamental Buddhist doctrines of the Four Noble Truths and have been derived from the Buddhist text Satipatthana Sutta. The key message as propagated by this technique asserts that human existence is invariably characterized by suffering caused ONLY by attachment (craving) and aversion to things — both of which inherently are impermanent. The method sets out to find an experiential insight into the true nature of reality through observance of Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path. The path has three facets — morality (Shila), concentration (samadhi), and wisdom (Pragya). The 10-day Vipassana course is designed to impart the nuances of the aforesaid three facets to help the attendees develop insight into the true nature of reality as understood by the Theravada tradition.
“Life is pain, anyone who says differently is selling something.” — William Goldman
The Guru
Under the supervision of a Vipassana teacher, the world over at 170 official and over 130 non-official Vipassana centers, the course is conducted using audio/video instructions by Mr. Satya Narayan Goenka (1924–2013).
Satya Narayan Goenka was an Indian teacher of Vipassanā meditation. Born in Burma to an Indian business family, he moved to India in 1969 and started teaching meditation. He became an influential teacher and played an essential role in establishing non-commercial Vipassana meditation centers globally. The Government of India awarded him the Padma Bhushan in 2012, (an award given for distinguished service of a high order).
In all his discourses offered as part of the course, Goenka underscores the importance of developing an understanding of the concepts stated above at an experiential and embodied level. He insists that a mere intellectual understanding of various concepts and processes does not produce “real wisdom” and therefore cannot liberate one from suffering. Great emphasis is put on investing more time in meditation than on reading about it.
My Experience
Day-0
I drove to the center on the afternoon prior to the commencement of the course — Day Zero that’s how they refer the day after which the 10-day period commences.
All attendees were made to submit all essential belongings like mobile phones, reading/writing material, etc., and were allotted a room with basic amenities. The attendees were gathered in the evening for the zeroeth day session. On the day, one must conscientiously undertake the following five percepts (part of Shila) for the duration of the course.
- to abstain from killing any being;
- to abstain from stealing;
- to abstain from all sexual activity;
- to abstain from telling lies;
- to abstain from all intoxicants.
The fourth percept meant keeping mum for ten days. A non-negotiable and, how Goenka later puts in the discourse, the most crucial percept. The course, throughout its length, followed a format wherein every evening, Goenka would teach a technique which was to be then followed over the length of the next day.
On the zeroeth day, the method of Anapana was introduced. Just after the Anapana discourse, I retired to my room. I realized it was just 2100 hrs, and since I have been a night owl most of my life, attempting sleep only after 0100 Hrs, it felt a little unusual. As I lay on the bed, my hands, almost in reflex, fumbled around the pillow for my phone. They ran into my electric torch instead— the most sophisticated gadget I would own for the next 10-days. Like a kid, I played with the torch for some time, taking time to see how the light projected through the mosquito net, how it grew red as I tried to test the opacity of my palms. I thought that Roentgen might have got the idea of X-Ray seeing his kid play with the torch like this. Thinking of Roentgen and how I was going to nail the screen-time scale over the next ten days, I slept off.
Day-01
I got up by the sound of a gong. Flouting the email instructions, I had forgotten to carry a watch to the center, and the gong was the only time-cue I had for the duration of the course. The gong, whenever it went, would go like a metronome multiple times. When the gong ran out, one of the Dhamma servers would come with a small bell and go on ringing around the accommodation — making sure the inept meditators are up for meditation. Dhamma servers are people who had earlier taken this course and volunteered for its conduct.
Life lately had been no bed of roses, and while I was in the washroom, my eyes got stuck on the LOVATO monogram on the sanitaryware therein. On cue, I had Demi Lovato go, “It’s OK not to be OK” in my head.
At 0425 Hrs, the gong went again; that was the cue to reach the Dhamma Hall — the designated place for all group meditations. The placard next to the hall read out the course schedule.
That’s more than 10+ hours of meditation, no dinner, and waking up at 0400 Hrs every day. I started with the prescribed Anapana technique which was to be practiced throughout the day-01. Anapana technique entailed observing one’s breath. No fancy visualizations, no counting, no recitals — observe your breath — just that.
As easy as that sounds, I realized how difficult it was to tame the monkey mind. I would see a breath come and go, would see the second one, then the third; suddenly I found myself chasing some thought train— dialogues in the hallway bashing people I despised, replaying the altered-to-my-taste highlights from my life, detesting why I cut so much slack for folks who were so undeserving, rehearsing in my head literary device laden things I would say when I next ran into them, etc.
Each meditation stretch lasted an hour, after which there was a 05-minute break. I would step out of the hall and go around the lush-green complex observing flora and fauna therein. All stimulus to the brain was cut, and having not spoken for more than a day till then; I was already feeling different. It was all cacophonic in my head. I had suddenly become more observant. The vices I had imbibed over the years had already started showing up. Since all sorts of interactions had ceased, I found myself inadvertently profiling other attendees in my head based on how they dressed, how they looked, and how they kept mum! I even used the type of water bottles people used as input for the sinister judging I was at. Amongst others, I could identify a body-builder (hefty build and typical ruined-by-pilates gait), a developer (a GAP T-shirt and stage-3 Norwood Scale balding), a politician’s offspring (Lungi and a Chevron moustache), a businessman (Tony Stark beard and Rolex over track pants), etc. I admonished myself for doing that.
Come evening, it was time for the discourse by Goenka. He was articulate and had excellent command over both Hindi and English languages. He had a baritone voice and sounded like Amitabh Bachchan, Morgan Freeman, and Atal Bihari Vajpayee rolled in one. The discourse gave out the idea behind the Anapana technique and made all sense. Far from Netflix and torrents, these discourses turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the session.
Other Days
Using the Mississippi-aid, I could make out that there was a 10-second gap between two dings of the gong. I was elated, predicting the next ding in my head. I was able to predict even the first-ding few times, and it felt like a superpower. The circadian rhythm had caught up well and as an afterthought, the clock seemed redundant.
The mind is a pathological addict. Having been on a high for years over raining mobile notifications, it was having a tough time here at the center. Devoid of any intellectual stimulations, it craved for inputs. I found myself reading cloth labels having washing instructions, labels on the shampoo bottle, etc.
I could see faces in the crumbled clothes I laid for drying over my mosquito net. I could see a Monalisa, a laughing Obama, a purring cat, and an angry Chinese instructor. The entire complex had this typical mops lying all around in the open. I saw superhero faces there. I later learned that the psychology of identifying faces in inanimate objects is called Face Pareidolia.
The Monk Menace
The first three days of the experience were kind of monotonous and grueling. I saw a handful of attendees opt-out of the course. What made things worse for me — I had a monk attend the same course, and as per the seating plan, he sat left of me. While trying to clock the meditation hours, I would get irritated at times and open my eyes and look around only to find him sitting like a rock; he won’t move. I felt like a tone-deaf guy taking music classes with Mozart as his classmate.
The fan in the hall was so placed that it casted a dramatic shadow right behind the meditating monk. As the fan rotated, I couldn’t help compare its shadow with the mill of life. And since the monk was so adept at this meditation gig, he rightly sat past it — both literally and metaphorically.
The Aha Moment
The actual Vipassana technique was taught on the evening of the third day. I later learned that when all inputs to the brain are cut, and one keeps trying to focus on breath, the brain’s ability increases manifold, and it can observe even the subtlest of the sensations. Practicing the Vipassana technique, I had this mind-bending experience on day 04. I could feel my body sensations like never before. At times it felt as if millions of ants were marching on my body, like my body was made of freshly pressed Coke, and it was all fizzy on the surface. It was amazing.
While that sensation felt great, the technique entailed observing all bodily sensations with equanimity. No aversion or craving. Practiced long enough, this tendency of not breeding craving for good and aversion for bad would seep to the subconscious level, thereby liberating one of all worldly sufferings — that’s what is claimed.
After the fifth day, a new concept of Adhistan is brought in. Adhistan means strong determination, and it manifests as an hour-long meditation session where one cannot move at all. No changing of posture, no turning of heads, just being a statue for one hour. The idea was to instill the concept wherein one starts observing pain with equanimity — something impermanent which comes and goes.
Back at the military academy, it is taught that one of the easiest ways to build confidence in doing a thing is doing it right the first time itself. I followed that and got Adhistan right in the very first sitting. As I got done with the first sitting, I felt the muscle in my shoulder and neck loosen up like never before; it appeared as if things that were long tied up were untied. As I began, I had pain, and it felt that everything was stiffening up, but by the time I finished my first session, following Aniccha — the Law of Impermanence, everything had subsided.
As I began focussing on my bodily sensations sitting entirely still, I could see pain emerge and eventually wane away on various parts of my body. While doing so, multiple thoughts kept coming in — memories, bitter relationships, failures, not-so-right decisions, etc. These thoughts, which used to trouble me before, had lost that effect. I could observe them with equanimity. I had learned about this reframing technique sometime back while I was dabbling with Neuro-Linguistic Programming and I saw it all coming back to me. I could observe Shailesh’s life from a distance and the events therein — their effect, if not diminished, was largely diluted.
Summing It Up
1. This was a one of its kind of experience, and for someone who had merely dabbled with 20+ minutes of Headspace meditation sessions, clocking a total 100+ hours felt like an achievement.
2. I have become more mindful of things happening around me, and I am using breathe more often as an ally in diverse situations I find myself in. However, I am far from the ideal level of this state. Meditating is like eating — needs to be done often. Apparently, lack of peace is not as pressing a problem as an empty stomach — discipline is what is required to ace this game.
3. I have realized that the truth of any moment is just me breathing and that everything else is just a story in my head. At least knowing this changes everything quite a bit for good for me. #NLP
4. The world is a brutal place and it can be unloving often. I have stopped seeking validation. Turns out, I was trying to fix myself all this while, not knowing I was looking into broken mirrors. The hopelessness emanating from not being able to figure out things is pretty manageable now.
5. Musk’s theory that we are indeed in a simulation is suddenly more takeable. Must not take life too seriously. How Einstein puts it, reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
6. For someone who firmly believed that the best way to resist temptation is to yield to it — I am more mindful, and chasing cravings truly feels futile.
7. I dreaded suffering and was driven mainly by emotions, this often landed me in perplexing situations. I am happy to be at the steering, and it is a nice change not to find myself floundering in situations where earlier I would go crazy. As Will Smith puts it, pain and sufferings are the universe’s way to poke one, where he is ignorant.
8. One can do everything “right” and it still goes wrong in terms of outcome and one can do everything wrong and it still goes “right” in the outcome. The outcome is not connected to the quality of your behavior.
It is still just a month, and while the ship is yet to test waters, for now all I can equanimously say is I love the placebo!
