The sounds of silence

It used to be, long ago, that I thought meditation was something that I, personally, just couldn't get into. It didn't help that all the people I knew who meditated seemed like people who were rather mean to begin with (till someone put things in perspective for me saying they may have been even worse if it wasn't for stuff like this). And then, over the years, everywhere you looked, people were touting the benefits of meditation. It seemed to be the panacea for all ills - physical, mental, emotional and spiritual (though the spiritual aspect I didn't really care for at the time). And the more I read about it over the years, the more I knew that this was probably most helpful thing that one could do for oneself. So, one day, in the midst of what seemed to be a period that was the nadir of my life (even though I thought I had experienced that many times before - it seemed that every successive low point seemed to be further and further below the previous one - though this one seemed to have something special about it - like I had finally hit rock bottom - and I felt that if I made it out of here, nothing would be able to shove me back in again) I decided to just sit. Making sure I had the ambiance all right - with new age music playing in the background and the scent of organic lavender wafting about), I just sat for about half an hour, listening to the music - but not intently, and not really paying attention to anything. Sure enough, as I went on with the rest of my day, I felt like I had just a little more energy and wasn't as tense as I normally was. That feeling was enough to keep me at it for the next few months. Sometimes I'd hate to have to get up, and just wanted to sit there forever. I'm sure my choice of music (Temple in the Forest - David Naegele) had something (if not everything) to do with it. And slowly but surely, over the weeks and months that followed, I felt all kinds of changes. For one, I could just not cry anymore. Nor feel down or sad. That had always been my state of being, so this was a new experience. I even deliberately tried to, just to see if I had been willing myself into that state all these years - but it just wouldn't come. Great! But then I started thinking that perhaps this was the manic side of bipolar disorder, and that that's what I'd had all my life (except that the manic side had never reared its head before) :-). But it wasn't really manic - it was just calm and peace and really a feling of everything being okay and that it would never be wrong again - so I was probably off with the diagnosis. Thus began my first real foray into meditation and things spiritual - and after that things just started happening.

Fast forward to two or three years later, back down there again. Not as far down, so at least the thought I'd had before, long ago, had been right, but still far enough down that it was keeping me from reaching my full potential (as they say). (Then the sneaky suspicion - maybe all this was deliberate, if only at a subconscious level - if I didn't feel this way, then maybe I would get to my full potential - and then feel even more down in the dumps - realizing that it wasn't really very much). Or who knows, sometimes some angst seems necessary to be able to achieve anything. But the long and the short of it was, that now that I had experienced the upside, this was not very attractive. So, in search of 'finding' myself (or 'losing' myself?) again (I had lost both the desire and the tools (my David Naegele CD was scratched to death) to meditate and only one of those things could be easily fixed) - I signed up for a 10-day Vipassana session. And since more than a couple of people wanted to know what it was like - here's the lowdown on it:

Day 0: Got there much ahead of the deadline. Turned in cellphone, passport, writing instruments etc. etc. etc. and went to rest in the room allotted. Thank you God, a room to myself. Wandered around after a bit (and strayed onto pathways meant for the other sex - but no one was around to notice, so no one to come running after me to tell me so). Then orientation and a snack and that was pretty much it for the day. Discovered that most people were here for the nth time and I was one of the newbies. A very disparate crowd - folks from villages, cities and towns. At least this wasn't one of those things that only the elite seemed to get into. Went to the room and tried to sit and meditate in preparation.

Day 1: Managed to get up when alarm went off at 4 am. Got ready and found my way to the pagoda where the group meditation was to happen. Spent the rest of the day breathing in and breathing out. Realized that the breath in the nostrils (not in throat, chest or anywhere else) is barely perceptible when one is breathing normally. Worked hard the whole day trying to feel its presence there. SN Goenkaji's charisma came through in his voice over the speakers. Other than the fact that my mind was really agitated thanks to a little conversation I'd had with someone who usually rubbed me up the wrong way (just by their being, even if they didn't do or say anything wrong), I managed to make it through the day - 10.5 hours of meditation with little breaks in between. By the time the evening lecture rolled around (on DVD), was ready to lap up whatever was said, thanks to a day of doing nothing.

Day 2: Even though I thought I'd go crazy the previous night with thoughts of my little tiff buzzing in and out of my head, I resolved to work on letting today be different and told myself I'd really get into the watching of my breath. Managed to do it all morning long. Eventually, I got good at being able to feel the breath inside my nostrils. It was a much better day.

Day 3. Halfway through the day - intent on my breath, I suddenly felt as if I was light and dissociated from my body - as if I'd dissolved actually. I thought I must be hallucinating, didn't one have to go through at least 10 days to feel like that? But it lasted for at least a few seconds, 10 or so. It was very real. I was excited - though one's not supposed to be - since the whole idea behind Vipassana of being equanimous through pleasure and pain is then defeated. But hey, I'm human and this was a big experience.

Day 4: This day (or perhaps the previous one, I don't recall), we had to sit still for hour long sessions, not moving in the least bit. Though I managed to do this - I realized exactly how many seconds went into making an hour. I realized that it's fine to sit in one position with absolutely no movement for 30 minutes and even maybe 45. But beyond that, the pain that accompanied the sitting was so excruciating that people needed to be handed medals just for achieving this little feat. After that, day in and day out, there were at least three sessions during the day when one was asked to sit still like that.

Day 5: Up until this day (methinks, memory has made a hash of all these days) - only the old students had been assigned cells in a neighboring pagoda - where one could sit in isolation during non-group-meditation hours. This was less distracting (since there were people in the main pagoda who were constantly burping loudly or sniffling and sneezing) and allowed one to focus better. It also provided lots of sensations (mostly sweat trickling down everywhere - since the cells were super hot) to concentrate on - that being the heart and soul of vipassana - working with the sensations on the body and remaining equanimous throughout. Only some of the new ones got assigned these cells - perhaps those of us who seemed serious (as determined by a monitor sitting amongst us or by the two teachers who sat up front watching us, I suppose), I speculate. I liked going into the cell and determined to do it everytime we were free to do so. One could lean against the wall - big plus - because in the first few days one really got to intimately know every inch of one's back - not in a good way. But things were beginning to get unpleasant. With my mind as agitated as it was - about my feelings about myself in general - brought on by recent spat with friend, I felt like my thoughts were screaming vehicles careening around in my brain. And there was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide - no distractions - no lighting up anything to take one's mind away etc. etc. This was not a good thing. Agitation - as mentioned in one of the evening lectures - was one of the chief enemies of the Vipassana practitioner (and here I thought I was trying to calm my mind down).

Day 6: Same old, same old.. - am able to remain equanimous (well I have been actually since the first day), through pain and more pain (and then some)... - but I have never doubted my ability to do that - just knew I didn't put it into practice.

Day 7: H'mm - finally, at 5 in the morning in my individual cell, felt something like static electricity repeatedly wash over my body. So these were the pleasant sensations they'd been talking about - talking about not getting too attached to etc. etc.. Well, they weren't that great, so I didn't see any problem here. But it was nice to finally experience something other than pain (and also find that one had the ability to remain equanimous through those as well). This technique of watching sensations over one's body intensely was really at war with the other agitation thing going on though. The days began to take on the quality of a battleground. Agitation vs. intense concentration. And the agitation seemed to be winning. I was sure I'd have to be carried out of here a blubbering mess - having turned totally insane. I really should not have come when I knew that my chief insecurity had been brought to the surface just a couple of days before the session and knowing myself should have known I would obsess about it throughout the 10 days. But I had thought it would be a test for the Vipassana - I didn't know that agitation could ruin this practice, rather than the practice help the agitation. My other way of meditation - listening to the music while pretending I was floating cross-legged alone in the middle of the Universe with a gigantic, ethereal image of the God Siva or some other God (not that I believed in any such thing - but just as the representation of a concept) floating along at a safe distance away from me was much more soothing - and actually always allayed these crazy little people in my head. This technique, I determined, was not really good for me.

Day 8-10: The evening lectures had been really nice. Entertaining (even though that was not the purpose they served apparently). After 10.5 gruelling hours of meditaiton, a little bit of walking for exercise and three light meals a day - they seemed to fill some giant void that desperately needed filling. Being locked up with only one's own mind for company which under any other circumstances I would have looked forward to was the one thing that was probably the unhealthiest for me at this time. Some of these days I just fled the cell or the hall at the end of the one or two hour sessions with tears streaming down my face (and desperately trying to hide them pretending like I had a cold or something). On many occasions I thought I was going quite mad. But I seemed to be making all the progress that they talked about - feeling this and feeling that - I felt everything at the expected times on the expected days - though they also said that that was not the measure of progress. I knew I was paying attention and concentrating (one-pointed concentration being what the Buddha advocated) to death - except that I seemed to be doing one better - two-pointed concentration. I was concentrating on my agitation and my sensations, both just as intensely - this was not a good thing. I decided that all this had happened for a reason. To show me that Vipassana was not my true path - though everyone said I was meditating like a pro (ha!) - they said that I was one of just a handful of people who sat absolutely still and never opened my eyes - what do they know about what goes on inside people's heads! Besides, if you want to practice Vipassana you're advised to give up Reiki (which does magical things for me and which I would never want to give up) - else you're not allowed to attend any more of these meditation sessions - they say it's for your safety - because people have gone insane doing both. And maybe that's what this was doing to me. Reiki I find gentler - this practice seemed to be putting me through some wringer and then leaving me worse off in the end (in this lifetime that is, regardless of what it was doing for my eternal well being). The tenth day provided some relief, when we could start talking to people - though I personally prefer to be quiet and not have dozens of people chattering away at me, it was nice to connect with a couple of people.

Day 11: A relief to leave. On reflection, it hadn't been too bad, and had I been in a calm state of mind going in, I may have felt very differently about it. But given the way it had really been, I decided this was not the thing for me (at least not for now) - I'm trying to calm myself down here, not work myself up to a tizzy and go nuts.