I ended up at a 10-day Vipassana course mostly because the necessity to top up our budget kept me in Kolkata longer than expected. As I was enjoying thoroughly spectacular celebrations of two great religious festivals- Durga Puja and Kali Puja- I didn’t mind staying at one place for a longer while. However, once the festive period was over, I started growing restless again. The winter weather was perfect for travel and I knew I had to do something to avoid getting impatient, irritable and frustrated. I went for an easy solution: something I could do right there, that was bound to calm me down. A Vipassana meditation course. I knew there wouldn’t be a better opportunity to take such a long course in a while so without much hesitation, I signed up.
It just so happened that I participated in the same course, at the same venue during my first visit to India in 2011. Since then, I kept my Vipassana practice very much alive. To be honest, I was not prepared to devote 10-days of my life annually for self-improvement but I made an effort to attend a shorter, 3 day course in the UK every single year. I also meditated for 40-60 minutes every day, with the exception of periods I was travelling or was particularly busy.
Once I arrived at the Dhamma Ganga centre, I had to fill up a questionnaire: when did I do my first course, how many courses have I done since, do I practice regularly and… whether I have seen any changes in my behaviour or attitude since the last course. I had to answer with the whole honesty: my last course was 7.5 years ago, I haven’t attended a full course since and I haven’t seen that much positive change in me, really. That’s right. Despite almost 8 years of regular practice, I couldn’t experience all the scientifically proven benefits duly reported by the media. I was as negative, hot-tempered and self-centered as ever.
It wasn’t something I contemplated or got worried about on a daily basis. I just carried on with my routine, knowing well that the results come with time. What completely shook my confidence was a conversation I had with my friends around a year ago. They remarked on my habit of tinting every opinion or description of ‘reality’ with negativity. What for me was simply stating a fact, for them was being negative. My friend who just completed his first Vipassana retreat further remarked that perhaps I focused too much on the form, the technique itself, without paying enough attention to the message, the essence of the meditation. Those words remained at the back of my head ever since.
I’m normally sceptical about Vipassana teachers who don’t actually give any teachings. Their role is just to play the recordings of the late director of the worldwide network of Vipassana centres- S.N. Goenka- and answer the questions, usually by repeating his words and saying the same thing over and over again. However, this time I promised myself to ask a female teacher, who gave the impression of being both intelligent and compassionate, what could I do to make my meditation more useful in my life.
Meditating properly during a meditation retreat isn’t much of a problem: the entire atmosphere is conductive to staying focused and eliminating any distractions. It actually turned out to be very noisy 10-days due to ongoing, regional religious celebrations with daily processions, music, dancing, drumming and fireworks. That didn’t bother me in the least, though. Initially, I was also afraid that hunger would be a big distracting factor. The old students had to stay without any food for almost 20 hours a day: from lunch at 11am all the way till breakfast on the following day at 6.30am. As it turned out, this wasn’t an issue either. After one or two days of rumbling stomach my organism totally got used to a new regime and I even decreased the portions in order not to feel heavy during early afternoon meditation sessions.
I also remembered that during the first Vipassana, I felt constant and very piercing pain at one particular spot during every single sitting. This time the pain came and went and it wasn’t as intense which meant it was easier for me to remain ‘equanimous’ about my sensations. I also felt I didn’t particularly cling to the on-and-off periods without any discomfort. If the teachings were to be believed and the pain was just a manifestation of the mental impurities coming up to the surface, the amount of the impurities since the first course must have decreased. Of course, the pain reduction could have been explained also by my stretching every day for an hour at the privacy of my room and the fact that I became much more used to sitting motionless for long periods of time. It must be said though that the pain experienced during Vipassana wasn’t an ordinary pain: it came only once I sat down and went away immediately after the session finished. One might think that a persistent pain in one particular part of the body would continue at least for some time after the meditation course. This was never the case for me- the first one hour sitting at home wouldn’t even have a trace of the intense sensations experienced at the centre. That sort of pain clearly must be a psycho-somatic reaction.
Over 10 days, I kept on working seriously and listening to the evening discourses, leaving my questions to the teacher till the last day. A 10- minute long interview with the teacher along with the Goenka’s discourses made me understand three mistakes I made. Firstly, I let my mind wander off during meditation too much, not giving enough importance to the sensations. Of course it’s natural for the mind to wander off but the meditator’s task is to be attentive enough to bring it back immediately, not to indulge in fantasising. Secondly, I really should have attended one 10-day course every year. A 10-day course is a much deeper experience than a short course – I could feel the difference. Lastly, and most importantly, I rested satisfied with my ritual of daily meditation, hoping it would magically change my behaviour in the daily life. This is simply impossible. My task, and much greater challenge than just finding determination and discipline to meditate regularly should be awareness of my breath and sensations whenever life challenges appeared. Encountering any situation or person likely to make me feel angry, I should immediately remember about the practice of observing the sensations on the body – the sensations accompanying anger: heat, heart palpitations,etc. – and focus on the sensations themselves instead of the object or subject of anger.
I came back from Vipassana radiating with the inner peace. I was listening to others attentively, not getting provoked or affected by anyone’s negativity. That wasn’t anything new, though. I would always come back from every ashram or meditation centre in a similar state of mind. Up till now, the post-ashram effect had never lasted longer than a few days. My in-laws were quite impressed to see the new me but my husband just laughed saying that this ‘drama’ wouldn’t last long. Every single time I was back from a spiritual practice I would promise myself to change once and for all. And then forget all about it within a week from taking the silent vow. With a new clarity of what I was doing wrong and how I could change it, I’m optimistic that the change is possible. The time will tell.