Vipassana

You know, it’s been just over a full year since I did my first Vipassana and in 53 weeks, I managed to do 4 of these suckers and I’ve written almost nothing about what it is.  It’s had such a drastically profound impact on my life and it’s something I never expected would yield the results that it has.  Seriously… I’m perpetually blown away by what living in silence and sitting for 10 ½ hours a day, not to mention the continued daily practice, just observing the sensations in your body, can do for your mental and emotional state.  So I want to give ya’ll, whomever is interested, a little lesson in what a S.N. Goenka 10-day Vipassana course is all about and what you do.  Even with reading about it you’ll have NO IDEA what it REALLY is until you do one yourself.  I read an entire book, written by one of his students in partnership with Goenka, on what it was before I ever went and I was still completely unprepared for what I was getting myself into… not in a bad way, just in a “oh my holy good god, wtf is THIS?!” kinda way. J  I have NO idea how long this will be so bear with me ;)

My Own Transformations

I guess these are why I feel it’s important to actually put this info out there for whomever may want to read it.  I actually believe to my core, that it’s possible Buddha existed and that many buddhas have existed in the past an in the present and will in the future and it’s because I, myself, have already witnessed such immense changes in myself.  Take what yoga did to me over the course of a few years and increase the benefit exponentially and in a drastically reduced time and THAT is what Vipassana has done for me.  Had I known THIS is what meditation was capable of doing, I could have saved myself thousands of dollars in therapy and tons of heartache and dissatisfaction with life.  I guess I wasn’t ready for it earlier though and I’m thankful it HAS come into my existence.  So here are some ways I’ve changed:

• I’m more patient and easy going.  I don’t freak out if things don’t go my way anymore. 
• I’m way less of a control freak
• Increased desire to listen and not just talk
• Less desire to spout my opinion about things and what others are doing 
• Ask more mindful and thoughtful questions to try to understand where someone else is at and help them understand themselves
• More accepting and understanding of others and myself.  Even when I don’t understand, I’m more prone to accept
• Way more compassionate
• I realized there is NO such thing as multi-tasking, only fraction-tasking and it's way less fulfilling than single tasking.  I also don't see "multi-tasking" as a good thing anymore.
• More flexible and understanding with shifts in my life and the people in it
• I enjoy each and every single bite of food I eat, well... almost... gettin there anyway
• More genuine, unconditional love for myself and others
• Greatly enhanced awareness.  I’m still a total pain in the ass at times but I recognize it almost immediately and either rectify or smooth things over as soon as I’m a douche or even stop myself before I’m a total bitch. J  My mom is grateful for this! Haha
• Present moment awareness is way more present in my life
• Happy for no damn good reason
• More of a selfless giver
• More appreciative of the time I have and what I do with it but I don't feel the need to always be DOING something.  I'm totally content staring at the clouds and immersing myself experience in that and that alone.
• My ability to let go of certain things has greatly improved… certain things…
• When I’m in a funk, I’m better at observing how I’m feeling and letting the sensations pass, instead of feeding my misery.  Same goes for my moments of elation… I enjoy them but watch them pass and I’m not bummed when I’m back to my normal.
• I sincerely want to change the world… new desire I have and I’ve let go of any desired outcome ;)

God… SO MANY MORE!!  Another big thing that happens when you meditate is something I started to experience on my 2^nd and each subsequent Vipassana course… I felt my intellect, things I have KNOWN for YEARS, go from the mind of intellect and drop into the heart of wisdom.  This experience is so indescribable and so fucking brilliant!  AAAHHH!!!  It can be as subtle as just having a realization and going “oh, duh, I get it” to a massive explosion where I felt like I got hit by a speeding train of light and that something actually viscerally dropped from my head into my heart!  I’ve had both experiences and everything in between.  These realizations kind of creep up whenever they feel like it and you can’t control what you realize.  Sometimes I’ve had a realization when I’m just observing my sensations and something just dons on me.  Other times the teacher says something to someone else and as it hits my ears while I’m meditating, the light bulb explodes into brightness… they just come!!  The big things that have moved from intellect to wisdom are: 

• EVERYTHING GOES AWAY (so what’s the point of attachment??)
• Self love
• Love and relationships
• Opening oneself to the possibility of change, you can't force yourself to change
• Importance of total self awareness
• Uselessness of comparisons in life
• You can only work through your struggles and others can only work through theirs

Those are the doozies I’ve had.  I wish I could explain more clearly what it’s like to experience a realization but they are so awesome, I can’t.  I truly understood though how it’s nice to have a massive intellectual knowledge base but that it’s really pointless and you can’t do much with it until it’s in the heart of wisdom.  We could experience these on a daily basis if we were just more present and aware but alas, we aren’t.  The universe also seems to deliver the messages that you NEED to have, whether you knew you needed to have it or not.

You know how in books you read on enlightened beings and how they say, “The more you come to know, the more you realize you don’t know anything”… I get that now.  I feel like I know nothing!! *laughs*

Biggest moment for me thus far was this last course.  I’ve had a locked down metal heart for a long time, call it due to my father abandoning us and my fear to leave myself vulnerable to myself… It’s slowly been getting chipped away but this last course, in the final moments of silence on day 10, in our last serious meditation, I felt my chest rip open, a beam of blinding light shine from my heart center and it felt like it was breathing its own oxygen from the atmosphere, which no need for the lungs.  Tears started to come out of eyes and it.was.AMAZING!  Later that day, I realized, in a subsequent meditation, that I had forgiven my father... and with that, everyone else in my life who I feel may have harmed me; although, it was always me harming myself.  The harm of a parent seems to just go deeper and it was during my first 12 years of life so how was I to know any better?  Not to say my heart is like a wide open beacon of awesomeness from this point forward but it definitely showed me how it can and SHOULD be!  It was beyond brilliance! 

I’ve probably had so many more transformations that are so subtle I may not even be aware of them and others I'm just not thinking of off hand.  Basically, I’m a love bubble now.

How I Came to Vipassana

I started practicing yoga (mainly asana or the physical practice) in 2007 and I just wanted to stretch out my rower muscles.  Around 2009 I started to practice more consistently and upon resigning/getting laid off from the VzW my practice went from 4-5 times a week to almost 2 times a day.  I gained flexibility, I was able to do some crazy arm balances, my strength was changing but I also noticed something more profound, I was A LOT calmer, a lot more patient, slightly more present and I had no idea why.  I wasn’t exposed to the Hindu or Yoga philosophy at all and these changes just manifested on their own after a few years of yoga.  When I left my job I wanted to learn as much as I could about this thing that had seemed to change so much in me in such a short period of time so I went to India to do a Teacher Training to learn more about Yoga Philosophy, the Sutras and all other aspects of the 8 limbs of yoga, besides the 3^rd limb, which is asana. 

At my TTC, plans had been made with my friend Jade to head north to Dharamsala to study Iyengar and as I was browsing wikitravel I saw a few retreat centers for meditation in the area and voiced that maybe I should give one a try.  Within a fraction of a second, Jade and my friend Dominic (both who are like the light on any dark day) both excitedly yelled, “OMG, DO VIPASSANA!!! It’s the hardest, most intense meditation retreat you can do!!”  I looked, it was there and being someone who has lived in the extremes thought, “why the hell not?!”  So I signed up, not knowing really anything about meditation, so this would be my first experience.  I told my friend Ashish and he laughed and said, “omg, you’re voluntarily going into PRISON!?”  Yes, that is what S.N. Goekna Vipassana is known as and funny enough, there is a whole wing of Tihar (biggest prison in Delhi) that is dedicated to Vipassana Meditation for the inmates.  So… prison… here I come!!

Caveats

• I have only done a Vipassana course with S.N. Goekna so I can’t speak for other methods.  That being said, there ARE other methods of Vipassana and obviously of meditation but a majority (98%) of my practice is rooted in this method.  I have loved (and let’s be honest, hated) it so much and I’ve seen such crazy changes that I didn’t find it necessary to “shop around” any further.  That may change but for right now, I’m satisfied with what I’ve got.  There are walking vipassana courses in Thailand that are “same-same but different” and there are tons of other Buddhist type Vipassana methods, which I haven’t done so I can’t say anything about them.  There are also tons of Hindu meditation methods but I have very little practice in those and always managed to fall asleep in the first 2 minutes of any Yoga Nidra (guided meditation).
• There is no short course for 1^st time students of S.N. Goenka and once you do your first, you totally understand why there is no fast forward method.  You can’t read a book or watch a video to just start practicing on your own… there is no quick way to get to a higher level of consciousness… sorry ya’ll! ;)  You can read up on the first method I’ll talk about, Calm Abiding, but that just calms the mind, it doesn’t purify the mind.

Teaching 

The method of practice is supposedly the original teachings of Gotama the Buddha.  I want to be clear, this is NOT Buddhism, filled with various rights and rituals and different dogmas.  I don’t have to do prostrations every day, chant mantras, do the lovely mudras or anything like that.  It’s all straight up practice and I LOVE it for that reason.  Whatever devotion you have for the practice you hold in your heart once you have experienced the changes yourself.  People from ALLLLLL walks of life and all religious backgrounds practice this.  I’ve personally done courses with Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Agnostics, Atheists, Jews, Buddhists of all varieties, monks, nuns, Americans, Indians, Thai, Europeans, South Americans, Middle Easterners… you name it, it’s for EVERYONE!  Tenzin Palmo, while she is a Tibetan Buddhist nun and has a slightly different practice, has spent considerable time wanting to info share with Christians during her travels and when she gets there, all they want to do is learn to meditate so they can be better at controlling their own mind.  Funny how I have a video made by conservative Christians that say meditation and yoga are the work of the devil… that’s just pure and gross ignorance and fear of what they don’t know.  Plus, if it’s the Devil that’s making me a much better person, SIGN ME UP!!! ;)  Goenka makes it completely and totally non-secular and it’s very important to him that it stays that way and he says, “it’s not dhamma unless it is universal” and it can’t be universal unless you take dogma out of it.  No one should be offended by the practice, unless you are a person who is of blind faith and thinks just believing in Jesus or Muhammad, or anyone else will save you from your suffering even if you continue to be a raging asshole and treat yourself and others like shit.  Goenka does poke fun of those peeps a bit… no actual PRACTICE is condemned… whether it be another meditation method or a religious practice but he does ask you totally suspend ALL other practices while in the course and give it a full try.  Once you leave, you can of course do as you please.

It’s also been made easily accessible to all people, not just nuns and monks.  That being said, can this practice and this practice alone get you to enlightenment or would you need to get some super secret tips from a recluse?  I have not the damnedest idea but I’m not trying to reach enlightenment, I just want to be less of an asshole and a more awesome person for myself and others but who knows where or how far it will take me.  I don’t think I’ll ever know how far along the scale of change I’ll be anyway.  This process is like being plopped down to run an ultra marathon where you’re given a map on where to go but you can’t tell how far it is but you’ll know you’re done once you get to the little tiny road marker on the road that says “finish line.”  Alright… let’s get down into the 3 parts of the practice! J


Moral Code of Conduct

But but… this is part of religion!  No no no… just listen, although; the moral code and the 5 precepts you take ARE those of Buddhism but then again, we’re following the direct teaching of the Buddha.  They are really simple and abide by the thought that people should abstain from harmful words/actions and do pious actions.  Here are the 5 precepts you must take for the course and those you should try to live by as much as possible in daily life.  I’ll explain those that need explaining…

1. Abstain from killing – this means purposely ending the life of any being, whether a person, a dog or a bug.  Plants are not included and if you accidentally step on an ant while walking down the street, you won’t go to hell.  In fact, there is no hell and some might say that if you are living a life of self-inflicted suffering, you’re already in hell!  I have a REALLY hard time w/ mosquitos!  I will say, after my year of practice, aside from mosquitos, I don’t kill anything anymore and I accidentally killed a spider about a month ago and I felt genuine sadness in my heart for what I had just done.  I thought it would fall to the ground and survive, I swear!!!  I guess spiders as big as my palm can’t survive falls =( Intent also plays part in this… my intent was to shoo the spider off my balcony but what actually happened wasn’t that.  Like if you’re giving CPR to someone and your intent is to save them but let’s say they had a broken rib and when you pressed it punctured their lung, killing them… you did not purposely do harm, you were trying to do good and accidentally harm happened.  Abortion was not really covered but I know it’s not exactly a celebrated practice… I’m not getting into that debate here either
2. Abstain from lying – pretty self explanatory and this also includes exaggerations
3. Abstain from stealing – also pretty self explanatory
4. Abstain from Sexual Misconduct – this one needs explaining!  Which of these scenarios do you think would be considered “sexual misconduct”? 

a.       Hypothetical Scenario 1– let’s say I take my girlfriend (we’re REALLY GAY) home and upon getting inside my room, I throw her on the bed, lock her up in chains, flog the crap out of her and then proceed to fuck her up the ass until she screams in pleasure? (sorry for the detail… trying to make a point… wait for it… wait for it…)

b.      Scenario 2 – a guy is feeling horny as hell and just wants a piece o ass.  He knows his friend, who is a girl, really likes him, even though he’s not really into it, but he pursues the opportunity anyway because he wants some.  He says he’s not into anything serious and he knows she’s agreeing with the stipulation he has set only because she likes him SOOOOO much.  Knowing he’s going to hurt her, he has an intimate relationship with her anyway and screws her in the missionary position (yawn).  A few weeks later, he ends things and hurts the poor girl, which he knew was going to happen but he did it anyway because he was horny.

Ok… so which do you think is considered harmful??  A??  EEEEEEEERRR!!!  My sex isn’t harming ANYONE, especially YOU!  My girlfriend likes it rough, we’re both consensual adults and love each other and this is what we like.  Our intent is to love and satisfy each other.  Now scenario B is another story… the guy is only out for his own self benefit and isn’t taking into account the other person at all, even purposely emotionally harming her, as it were, so he can get some ass.  It doesn’t matter what kind of sex you have or whom you have it with, as long as both parties are consenting and harm isn’t anywhere in there.  Obviously, rape, molestation and those are considered harmful but I was rather pleased to know I’m not considered “harmful” if I love my girlfriend and like a little excitement… as it should be.  Thank you Gotama the Buddha. Oh and in Vipassana, there is NO touching in Noble Silence so celibacy is needed for the 10 days.

5.  Abstain from the use of intoxicants – People struggle with this one so let me explain the reason behind it.  It’s not because liquor or drugs are in themselves a “sin” it’s because the use of them inhibit your awareness and your ability to make proper decisions.  The use of intoxicants puts you at greater risk of breaking the aforementioned precepts.  This is totally abstaining from their use, it doesn’t say “abstain from getting shit faced.”  In Vipassana we can’t drink or smoke or anything but outside, we are our own masters and we do as we please.  If want to drink, we can drink, but it will hinder our ability to stick to the above, but that’s a choice we’re making.  I actually saw my own awareness suffer GREATLY while I was visiting home in October this past year as I was delivered interesting news… booze helped everything go into a downward spiral of crap.  After so much practice, I really don’t crave a drink at all anymore, or maybe that’s because wine and whiskey in India are AWFUL!  I did thoroughly enjoy some Malbec whilst in Australia and intend to do so again when I have a chance but considering what sort of boozer I was before, there has been a steep decline in my desire to ever go back to that.

These precepts aren’t commandments, they are, “you know, we know we’re all flawed but there should be a concerted effort to follow these BUT, you are your own master.”  If you break them, you do so with the awareness and knowledge that you’re ability to purify your mind may be halted temporarily, until you’ve straightened things out, or not progress as quickly, but that’s a choice you make, which you are free to do…. You know… make choices.

10-day course

Welcome!!  You’ve arrived!  You’re all registered, you have been assigned your room or dorm and things are about to get started.  You take a vow of 10 days of silence (really isn’t more like 9 ¼), NOBLE SILENCE!  That means no talking, no gestures, no eye contact.  Goenka mentions some reasons behind these but he doesn’t mention the biggest one (to me anyway), which I think allows people to think it’s not *that* serious.  When you’re in a Vipassana course, you are going so deep inside yourself, you’re basically leaving yourself open as an emotional gaping wound and you’re reaching inside to fix it.  In a completely isolated state it’s easier to do this, to really be in your own bubble of energy.  If you speak to anyone and ESPECIALLY touch or make eye contact with anyone, there is energy exchanged and you’re no longer on your own, you’ve come out of your bubble and you are now having an experience with someone else… this breaks things up a bit and lessens the intensity.  It’s not devastating but it’s really more powerful to stay to yourself.  I remember dating someone and just looking in her eyes and becoming a puddle… or just when we graze arms… that contact is really intense and it’s best to avoid that because this is a SELF practice, not a group practice, even if you are surrounded by people… you are… ALONE in this journey to your own depths.

You CAN talk to the management if there is anything you need to help make your stay more comfortable and you CAN talk to the teacher about the technique if you have questions.  Just don’t talk to other mediators.

There is also a course boundary, which you cannot pass and the sexes are separated.  I think that’s to keep distractions down but they certainly didn’t take the homos into account with this.  I’ve taken to wearing a scarf covering my face for a majority of my courses… sometimes it’s quite necessary, especially if there is a ridiculously gorgeous woman from Spain sitting right behind you! ;) 

There is a set schedule that involves waking at 4am to start meditating at 4:30 (I’m AWFUL at that bit) and then you go until 9pm at night, you eat what’s made for you, you can’t exercise but generally there are walking paths you can use, which aren’t expansive but are nice to have.  I’ll let the website fill in any blanks… on to the practice!!  www.dhamma.org for complete details and ALL the things you must know before registering.

Part 2 – Samadhi

So Buddha and the Yogi’s use the word Samadhi a bit differently.  In yoga, the goal is Samadhi, which is realization of the true nature of all things, the Buddha uses Samadhi as “single pointed concentration,” which in Ashtanga Yoga (the philosophy, not pattabhi jois Ashtanga) is the 6^th limb, which I’m forgetting the name of right now… Dharna?  The first 3 ½ days of a 10 day vipassana course you do a practice called Anapana, or Shamata or Calm Abiding.  It’s the practice where you sit there and focus on the breath coming in and out of the nostrils… that’s it!  Seriously.  3 ½ days of that.  Now each day the area in which you focus gets smaller and smaller and the reason for that is that your mind is not able to get to more subtle places until you start observing smaller areas.  You start from observing your full nasal passage and the triangle from the bridge of your nose to the upper lip and by the last moments of Anapana, you’re only focusing on the space above the upper lip and below the nostrils.

People always tells me when I say I meditate, “OMG, I am so bad at meditating.  I can’t focus.”  Ya’ll say that like you’re the only person on this planet that feels like they are a schizophrenic ADHD person when you actually sit still and try to focus on ONE THING… the present.  We ALL SUCK at meditation… we all suck at anything unless we practice, right? J  My first course and sometimes still, I can focus on my breath for one, maybe two breaths and then POOF… my head is off somewhere else and I have to bring it back.  The point is to not get frustrated with yourself, to accept that the current nature of your mind is to wander, because that’s what it’s done for SOOOOOO long, and then just bring it back when you actually realize it’s wandered off to making business plans or what you’re going to eat for dinner.  I’m at a point now where I can focus on it, sometimes, for minutes at a time w/o my head wandering… it’s taken a year to get there.  This stuff takes work!

Anapana is the process of calming the mind, controlling the mind, living in the present.  When you observe just your breath you come to realize a lot about the nature of your mind, usually, that it’s crazy and all over the place and REALLY hard to control.  You start to realize how we’ve been a slave to our minds for so long and how we are always either in 1 of 2 places, stuck in the past or dreaming/freaking out about an unknown future.  You start to understand you very rarely live in the present moment.  All this from just trying to observe the breath... we're never supposed to observe the thoughts.  Those are just supposed to pass without us attaching ourselves and identifying with them.  The reason the breath is used is because it’s real, it’s in us, it happens ALL THE TIME and you can’t focus on the last breath, or the next breath, you can only focus on THIS breath.  You just let the air flow as it naturally does and observe it… you don’t control the breath through pranayama (yoga breathing) you just let yourself breath.  You don’t count, you don’t visualize… you just observe.  It took me quite a while to figure out how exactly to do that w/o thinking “in/out/in/out” or actually visualizing my nasal cavity.  You get it w/ practice. 

This practice and its effects are very similar to all other forms of concentration, whether on a flame, on a visualization your yoga teacher gives you… etc.  BUT there is a very distinct difference in that the aim is NOT to just calm and quiet the mind, which it does, it’s to make the mind sharper and take it to a more subtle place.  This sounds really vague and abstract while typing this but really, when you experience it, you’ll know exactly what I mean.  The sharper and sharper it gets, the more apt you’ll be to practicing Vipassana.  Calming the mind is VERY important and it HAS to be done before you can begin the purification process.  If someone just calms their mind though, they aren’t going deeper to the root of all our ish and purifying all the impurities.  Tenzin Palmo said in her book and I’m going to loosely quote, “there are yogi’s who can meditate for days at a time, focusing on the object they’ve decided but if someone comes and interrupts them, they’ll still get rattled and angry… you have to go to the depth of the mind to purify it.”  Segue…

Part 3 - Vipassana

That bring us to Vipassana, that which purifies the mind.  Another word is Insight and its goal is to observe things as they really are, to observe the true nature of something and for “that something” it is US. J  When we observe things through any of our 6 senses (sight, touch, taste, smell, hearing, mind), we don’t see the full truth, we just see our own perception of the truth, based on a history we have with something through our senses.  The only way to fully observe our true nature and complete truth is through the framework of our own body because we eliminate perception.  With our eyes closed, we sit, some more, and observe whatever sensations we may be feeling.  Sometimes our mind is still too gross that we only feel gross sensations, like the breeze on our skin, or the shirt covering our arm but as you get more and more subtle, you start to feel… other things.  It’s not a feeling that you get from touching something, it’s a feeling that is deeper than that.  It’s hard to explain, but after 3 ½ days of anapana, most start to feel these subtle sensations and that last day of anapana is focusing on just those, above the upper lip.  You may feel a pain, tickle, prickle, itch, cold, heat, sweat, throbbing (shit… I’m starting to sound like him). Basically, there are almost infinite types of sensations you may feel but you just observe them, again, with no commentary, no judgment and no visualization.  The first time I felt these sensations I opened my eyes, looked at the girl to my left (no no… no looky!), who is now a dear friend, and we both gave each other the “HOLY FUCK WTF WAS THAT?!?!” look.

You start from the top of your head and then work your way down through every part of your body to your toes and you just observe whatever sensations are there.  THE POINT IS NOT THE SENSATIONS, the point is to remain balanced and “equanimous” through whatever sensation you are feeling, whether it be “pleasant” or “unpleasant.”  The reason we should remain balanced is because the sensations are impermanent, even if you are sitting during one of the hour group meditations and it feels like you have a knife being run up and down your IT band, you’re not supposed to feel angry, frustrated or deflated that you’re sitting in pain, you just remain balanced because, while it feels it may last forever, it goes away… EVERYTHING GOES AWAY.  You don’t get super elated at the pleasant sensations because they go away, you can be happy they are there but don’t be sad when they leave.  This is REALLY hard to do, especially during the painful moments.  I have gotten to a point where I’m happy with the pleasant because they are just that AND I’m happy with the agonizing pain because that means I’m working on getting rid of old shit.

You can feel what sort of misery we put ourselves through though.  If you’re sitting there in pain and agonizing over it, it feels like absolute torture, those minutes feel like HOURS!  The more you are equanimous the easier it is… such a metaphor for life!!  It’s funny, on day 6 you look around and the contraptions people have made of their meditation mats with pillows, cushions and backrests is comedy and I giggle, now.  You see how much people try to change their surroundings to deal with the pain they feel inside and they try to run from it, I certainly did in my first course.  I thought I was living in a self-inflicted hell and I had SO much going on around my meditation spot.  At some point, I realized, “pain, is unavoidable, it’s inevitable, it’s GOING TO HAPPEN.  Even if I lift my knee a few inches, the pain will just be referred to my back, or somewhere else on my body.  I can’t run from it… I MUST GO THROUGH IT!”  Now, I sit with just my main cushion and standard butt lift but I do have one extra cushion I use under my right knee because my pelvis is twisted to the right, causing extra pressure so I try to alleviate that a bit… I’m apparently not ready to give that one up yet. ;)  The more you practice the more you feel the pain dissolve and the more you even focus on the pain, observing it in it’s finest detail, the quicker it goes away too.  There was a point when I realized the pain is ALWAYS there, just the more balanced we are, the more subtle our mind gets and it goes UNDER the pain.  Sometimes, it’s just pain though.  I will say that during the 3, 1 hour group sittings, where we aren’t supposed to move AT ALL, except to straighten our spine if it’s fallen forward) have been some of the most excruciating pain I’ve ever experienced in my life and I’m well versed in the art of pain.  I was a cutter for about ½ a decade AND I’ve been a competitive rower and have pushed my body to such limits that my muscles have failed and I’ve blacked out.  Now that I’ve done this, I’m REALLY curious how my 2k pieces would go on that devil of a rowing machine, THE ERG.

Now, some people have injuries and things which really don’t allow them to sit on the ground and there are options for sitting in chairs, using a back rest, going against the wall, extra cushions and things but really, with S.N. Goenka Vipassana, pain is involved.  Some centers/teachers are really strict and you can’t use extra anything unless you are legitimately injured but I’ve only heard of that in Kathmandu.  You don’t have to sit in lotus either, some guy recently said that’s why he won’t do a course.  You sit however you want!  I will not try to sugar coat it BUT that being said, one girl in my course in Thailand felt no pain, which I found odd of her to say considering how much she moved behind me and usually people only move if they have pain.  *I* on the other hand have felt everything.  I have felt like a mass of bubbles floating in the air where I thought I could speak telepathically it was so unreal, to feeling like I was sitting on the eternal flame while sporks were being used to try to pry my patellas off my knees and my blood was going to ignite into flames while I poured sweat out of every pore and tears streamed down my face.  Through both of those moments, the goal is NOT the sensations but being balanced.  The more you’re balanced, the more the gross sensations dissolve.

The feelings you have can come from 1 of 3 places, the atmosphere around you, the way you’re sitting, or from your past habits and reactions, manifesting themselves in bodily sensations.  This practice cuts your habits at the root!  It doesn’t intellectualize it and you never really quite understand what it’s doing but it does it!  I have no idea how it works but it does!  Goenka compares it to laundry detergent… you don’t know the active ingredients and how they interact with each other and stains for them to get the dirt out, but you use it and know that it works and that’s all you care about.  That’s how we should view Vipassana… at least in the beginning… the intellectual part is not what’s important, it’s the practice and the experience!  He does say, “the theory should follow the practice” and I haven’t done a Sittipitana or any of the longer courses so I’m not sure how much more he feeds to the intellect. The gross and painful sensations are your past aversions, let’s say anger, jealously, hatred, etc., and your pleasant sensations are your cravings, like desire, passion, greed… while you remain balanced through them all, you slowly but surely start to eliminate your aversions and your cravings.  You come to understand that it’s not the alcohol you craved but the sensation you got while drinking it.  It’s not that you REALLY want the iPhone5, it’s the sensation you get when you first put it in your hand… both of those sensations incredibly fleeting and impermanent and then we try to find something else that will make us feel that sensation when it’s gone.

Fears

There are lots of fears but one I want to cover, because my now former lady friend was concerned w/ it and I was starting to be to is... "is this going to turn me into an emotionless vipassana zombie?  All the 'remain equanimous' sounds numbing."  The point is not to get rid of joy or happiness, it's to HAVE joy and happiness when things are good but to know that, inherently, that will change, because it always does and when it does to not lose the joy and happiness.  I've experienced nothing but extended happiness and joy since I've started practicing and while I thought I'd have less compassion for the pain of others, I have it, but I also know that it's their pain and not mine and they have to go through it and I'm more apt to help knowing that.  You don't become cold, you don't become heartless or unemotive... you show emotion, feel emotion but know all of it passes so you just roll gently through the waves of the ups and downs in life instead of fight to stay on top of a wave that is inevitably going to dip to a low.  The waves get smaller the more you practice and when it's flat, that doesn't mean you're a zombie, it means you're in a perpetual state of balanced happiness.  To experience the highs you must experience the lows... this is the practice of moving to non-duality.  There is no good or bad, no pain nor pleasure, there just is...  The last thing I feel like at this moment is a zombie.  I'd rather hug the entire world than try to eat it.

Wrap Up

God… those 12 pages went REALLY fast!  There is SO much to say about this experience, this course but really, go… just… GO!  You can't know it unless you experience it, no matter how many words or amazing metaphors I use.  I know in the US we have such limited vacation time but the 10 (really 12 and you should REALLY take a few days to decompress afterwards, so 14) days you spend to dig deep inside yourself will do more for your life than sitting on the beach sippin pina colada’s.  We run and run and run but from what… we only run from ourselves and once you realize that and that YOU are the only person on this planet making yourself miserable but that YOU are also the only person who can save you from that, it’s the most empowering realization you can have.   You don’t have to rely on a single soul but your own being to make you happy and take you out of a vicious cycle of yuck.

All this said, and Goenka says this as well, one course will not cure you of all that ails you… OR maybe it will, but the chances are slim.  This is a practice that needs consistency, it takes work, and time but if you do the work and spend the time to do the practice and PROPERLY, you’ll do nothing but reap the rewards.  Am I perfect now after doing 4 of these?  Not a chance?  Do I still get pissed?  Do I still make up crazy shit in my head that makes me sad or angry?  Do I still have unhealthy and ugly reactions?  Do I still have down days?  Can I still be mean?  Can I still be a judgmental turd? Absolutely, to all of that!  Do I do all of it with less intensity and less frequency,  more awareness and more immediate action to rectify my mess ups? You bet and THAT’s where you start to enjoy the changes in your life.  

When I went back to Seattle after my first course, I saw how easy it was to slip back into bad habits and unhealthy behavior and I’m SO THANKFUL I had such a beautiful, yet disastrous trip home because it made me realize how important this stuff is to me and how much I WANT IT IN MY LIFE and how easy it is to take it for granted to not follow.  I won’t let that happen again… my mental and emotional health is too important for me to let myself slip again.  This shit is magic… magic that takes A LOT of work that only *I* can do, and that’s the beauty of it all… *I* have the complete power to change my life around and make myself the best person I can!

If anyone has any questions, feel free to post and I’ll do my best.  I don’t consider myself an authority, by any stretch, but I have some experience to pull from.

Bhavatu Sabba Mangalam.  Aka: may all beings be happy, bitches! ;) 

Xxxo

Dirty

P.S.  If you are interested in a course, GO GO GO!!!  It’s worth it, and it’s donation based too… did I mention that? ;)  www.dhamma.org

Childlike

I’m reading Tenzin Palmo’s book Reflections on a Mountain Lake, which I HIGHLY recommend for everyone.  You don’t have to be Buddhist to appreciate this stuff… I certainly enjoy the teachings and I don’t prescribe to any religion.  She spoke in one chapter about having a “childlike mind” and not in the sense of being naïve or weak and fragile but in experiencing the wonder that is life, in each moment, like a small child does and that we seem to do less of as we age.  Someone asked her in the Q&A, “is that why life gets shorter as we get older?”  Her response:

“Yes, because we become more and more robotic.  When we are small children, everything is so fascinating that life seems to go on forever.  Every day is huge, because there are so many fascinating things happening and we are so interested.  So childhood seems like a very long period.  But as we become dulled, as our minds get less and less curious, as we go onto automatic pilot more and more in our relationships, in our social life, in our work, even in our intimate relationships, we become increasingly somnambulant.  Therefore life loses its vivacity and seems shorter… When I became a Buddhist at the age of 18, my life turned around.  My whole way of thinking was being reevaluated.  It was an intense period.  When I look back, it was an enormous period.  I think, oh yes, the time when I was a Theravadin, it lasted years and years and then eventually I came to Mahayana.  In fact, it was just a few months.  But because it was such an intense time and so many things were happening inwardly, the time stretched out.  But when nothing much is happening, it’s the same job, the same relationships, the same this, the same that, we become more and more conditioned in our responses, and time seems to get shorter and shorter.  That is very sad, isn’t it?  Because actually, it is the same time.  It seems to speed up.  This is an indication of how we are becoming more and more robotic in our responses.  In a way it is a warning sign for us to wake up and reestablish that original childlike curiosity and fresh quality of mind.”

There is something really wonderful about Instagram, well many wonderful somethings.  It provides an ability to share your artistic vision with like minded people, it’s a place to build community, it’s a place to find or create inspiration, it’s a place that allows you to see the world through the eyes of others, immediately.  What Instagram has really done for me though is allowed me to see my own world differently, to strip away my habits and reveal my “childlike mind.”  The reason I started using it was so I could have a way to do a quick photo journal, do something immediate, real time, for those of my friends, who cared to see, and for myself.  I wanted to be able to look a back and scroll through a reel that was my own life timeline in a bunch of pictures.  It’s done an incredible job of doing just that.

Since I started using it I’ve felt more compelled to make sure I take at least a few interesting pictures a day so I have something to post and in March/April when Instagram launched for Android, I was already 3 months deep into my time in Arambol.  I thought I had seen everything I wanted to see, done everything I wanted to do, talked to everyone I wanted to talk to but now, I had this new toy to play with and I wanted to use it but what the fuck was I going to do, take pictures of the things I’ve already taken pictures of just so I could post them?  I could’ve done that, but I didn’t.  What it jump started was a desire to walk the streets, back dirt roads and sketchy looking paths with fresh eyes, like I had never seen them.  I kept my ears open for all the sounds I heard, my eyes for all the sights, my nose for all the smells, sometimes comparing them to my past experiences but really trying to just be with whatever was there right then.  I wanted to find beauty where I had already found beauty but also where I hadn’t.  Instead of zooming down the street to get to the Rice Bowl for dinner, I walked slowly, stopped to look up, to the left, to the right, over ridges.  I smiled as I saw a rooster hoppin around checking out a garbage fire and then darting off between scooters and taxis, something I may have typically missed because I “just wanted to GET THERE!”

I have found that I’m completely fascinated with faces, daily life and the landscapes of India and while I was in Australia and Amsterdam, I loved the architecture (more so Amsterdam), the cars, the smaller details like door handles, entry doors (well actually, that’s my fascination EVERYWHERE except the US… hey carbon copy home depot mass produced BLAH!), train tracks, places I was standing, mail boxes and bicycles.  

The easiest place it’s been for me to take pictures like a crazy beast was in Kashmir because I was there for such a short time and EVERYTHING was new!  I was like a little kid who had just stepped in sand and rubbed the sun out of my eyes to see this vast ocean for the first time.  It was incredible!  I loved it!  Everytime I turned my head I just whispered quietly to myself “wooaaaah” and my senses seemed overwhelmed and I couldn’t ingest enough of my surroundings.   It was the same type of experience I had hiking to Triund for the first time.  Mark, my next door buddy, said, “oooh, that’s only like a 2-3hour hike, you’ll be back by early afternoon.”  Bullshit!! My mouth was on the ground the entire time looking around in awe, wondering when the fairies were going to fly from the trees and float around with me up the mountain… it was THAT beautiful!  I stopped for chai and talked to the owner of the shop for about half an hour.  I stopped to sit on big flat rocks on the cliff to nibble on the PBJ’s Lama had made for me before I left and I watched the fog roll in and out of the steep, massive boulder, tree filled mountain side.  I stopped when I saw a new kind of vegetation, just to observe it.  It took me 4 ½ hours to get to the top and I sat on a rock at the top for an hour and a half watching the fog roll around some more, trying to catch a glimpse of what lay beyond it.  I was all *SNAP SNAP SNAP* the entire time!  When I was done for the day, I practically ran down the hill, I couldn’t get home fast enough.  I didn’t see anything, I didn’t stop, I just WANTED TO GET THERE, I had seen all this just hours before.

I’ve taken a portion of that path a few times since and it’s always taken me half the time to get up, because “oh I’ve seen this… I just wanna GET THERE!”  It’s the same thing that happened with the walking path from Dharamkot to McLeod… instead of enjoying the walk I found myself timing how fast I could reach the bottom.  Why?  For what?  Is something no longer beautiful and worth slowing down to take in once we’ve already seen it?  It’s the “same ole same ole” so why enjoy it as much all subsequent times as I did the first? 

Once I get into a habit of doing something, or being somewhere, once I think all has been absorbed, I just go through the routine, the motions and the process is no longer as enjoyable, the destination is all that matters.  It’s not like that all the time but sometimes, to often times, it is.  Having this camera with me all the time, and the intention to capture what my life looks like, has forced me to slow down, stop and look around and I’m absolutely amazed at all the things I see, either for the first time or I see differently than I have in the past.  It used to take me only 11 minutes to get from my door to McLeod Ganj… now, I have no idea how long it takes but I usually have to send Mark a message that says, “got distracted, going to be a few minutes late.”  You know what, I’m not 30 minutes late, I’m maybe 5 or 10 minutes late but the joy I had walking down the hill, on the same path I’ve walked countless times, was really enjoyable.  I could actually feel the mist of the thick fog on my face, smell the fresh water coming from one of the leaking water pipes (not a poo pipe, THANK GOD), glimpse a monkey quietly chillin on a branch, munching on a banana and I don’t slip on any of the slippery parts!  I’m totally aware of everything going on around me, I’m immersed in it, not trying to shoot my body through it as quickly as possible.  It wasn’t just something I HAD to do to get to where I was going, it’s something I wanted to do and enjoyed it while I was doing it.  Using my camera as a catalyst for walking everywhere, doing everything, almost like I’ve never done it before, has been such a beautiful experience. 

Life isn’t about always picking a new destination, often times, we can’t, nor is it about always picking a different path, because those can be limited, it’s about experiencing the same path, the same destination, as if you’ve never experienced it before.  I want to go up to Triund again, when the rains have simmered a bit, and I don’t want to improve my time getting to the top, I want to take my sweet ass time and enjoy every step on that path I take!   Is all this easier said than done?  Probably, well, actually, yes… but that doesn’t mean I won’t keep trying…

Stop to smell the roses... again… ;)

Xxxox

Dirty

p.s. Instagram and a camera did it for me but I’m sure there are countless way anyone can think of help look at, what they think is their mundane life, with a new surge of curiosity… but if you want, you can steal my method J

Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo Day 2 - Enlightenment or BUST!

These are the notes I took from day 2 of her teachings at Tushita Meditation Center in Dharamsala, India

July 29, 2011

Morning session

Observing the Mind

• Even though thoughts are intangible, they rule our lives
• We dress our sense of “I” in memories and cloth it in labels based on what we think we know about ourselves but the Buddha says this is the biggest delusion and it’s all because of our mind
• We do not exist the way we think we exist, we are not who we think we are, we identify with all the wrong things
• The problem is we believe our mind so we then cling to our ideas and don’t question what we think, feel, believe
• It’s not about finding out who you are, it’s about finding out who you are not
• The essence of meditation practice is to observe the mind at all times and what is observing the mind is not the conceptual mind, eventually meditation will move from the non-conceptual mind to the heart.  Allow ideas, emotions and thoughts to come and then dissolve with no attachment or identification to them – Jetsunma lived with a yogi who suggested to really observe the happenings in the mind 3x every hour to become aware.

Empathetic Joy

• Joy in the happiness of others and is the total opposite of jealousy and envy
• We rejoice in others happiness, which then doubles the happiness felt!
• We should be happy when others do good things, are striving for happiness or receive happiness
• Rejoice in your heart with no concern for yourself
• So many people focus on the pain/suffering they or others are feeling/experiencing but they feel that if they open their heart to taking on anymore suffering, it will be too overwhelming.  Empathetic joy and focusing on what good is happening and rejoicing in others happiness will combat that feeling.  There is a lot of good and beauty in this world and it’s important to focus on this.
• 4 Right Efforts:
• Eradicate any negative things in our mind stream and uproot or transform them
• Prevent negative things from happening in the future
• Cultivate and recognize the good things we have in our mind stream
• Bring more of the good things in the future
• All our efforts are to bring us back to where we never left, to our true nature
• The negative feelings/qualities are fleeting and not inherent, we are all pure and perfect by nature
• 3 Kinds of Laziness:
• Gross
• “I can’t do it”
• We keep ourselves so busy with good things that we never step back to work on ourselves – a way to avoid dealing with ourselves
• Like with all other practices, must start with ourselves first.  Be happy and appreciative of all the good influences in your life and recognize and be happy about the goodness in you.

Afternoon Session

• 2 main obstacles keeping us from a balanced mind (where the subject and object are one)
• Agitation – we try to focus and mind has a different idea where it wants to go
• To alleviate agitation, keep sessions short and firm
• It’s scary to realize how little control over the thing that rules our life the most
• The main problem in this world is we are not the masters of our own mind
• If we had loud speakers attached to our minds, wouldn’t we all want to meditate to help calm the mind and regain control of it?
• We try to do too much
• If you do anything with a distracted mind, it won’t work
• Give something simple to start to focus with, like the breath
• If mind is agitated, look at a nice landscape, eat heavier foods, keep warm
• Sinking – This is the dangerous one.  We feel relaxed but our mind is unclear and not alert so people mistake it for deeper levels of meditation but it’s not
• Goal is a mind that is quiet, peaceful, relaxed, spacious, totally vivid and bright
• If you have a sinking mind, sit up straighter, keep yourself cooler

2 mental factors

1 – mindfulness – 1 pointedness

2 – introspection – spies on the mindfulness to see how it’s doing and makes sure meditation is balanced

Impartiality

• All beings should receive our love and kindness, not just certain beings.  Apart from attachment of those near and dear and apart from animosity for those not within our circle
• Feel neither strong like/dislike for those we love/hate
• Not indifference, it’s even mindedness
• Recognize that all beings want to be happy
• Know everything people do is to make them happy.  It doesn’t mean we need to let people get away with everything bcs that may not be compassionate bcs it may cause themselves or others harm.
• Compassion isn’t always sweet and sometimes it can be rawful, it’s the intention that counts

Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo Day 1 - Change the Mind, Change the World

Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, the first female, western ordained buddhist nun, is in Dharamkot doing a 2 day teaching and I put a pause on this weeks Iyengar course so I could attend each of the 4, 2 hour long teaching/meditations.  I told a few people I would take notes so here are the highlights that stuck with me as she was speaking.  Tushita will be posting the audio files online and I'll link to those as soon as they have them on the site.  Day 1 and I LOVED it and her!  She's quite the character and really lovely. Here is some more information on her, if you're curious.

Morning session

• Where we really live 24/7 is in our minds and we give so little attention to creating well-being where we truly reside and spend too much time focusing on the outside
• Who we are is in the mind not in the body
• We are slaves to our mind, we are not the masters, which is why we say and do what we don’t necessarily want
• The good news - the nature of our mind is completely pure, illumines and clear
• **Change the mind, change the world**
• There are 2 levels of meditation in Buddhism:
• 1^st – to remain calm and peaceful (single pointed)
• 2^nd- Vipasana – look into the deeper depths of oneself
• To gradually quiet the inner chatter, focus on the breath
• Issues that may arise are getting fascinated with the psychic events/feelings that occur and gets unfocused on everyone and just oneself
• 4 feels that are ok and positive to dwell and cultivate with others:
• Love and kindness
• Compassion
• Empathetic Joy
• Impartiality

Love and Kindness

• Love = Goodwill towards others, the wish others are happy and delight in their happiness
• The first object of wishing is oneself, not to be contradictory with always putting others as more important than oneself and always giving victory to others.  When that was originally talked of, it was not with the knowledge that people suffer inside and think negative thoughts and have low self esteem so we must be happy within ourselves first
• Give yourself love, compassion, rejoicing in the goodness of ourselves
• If we do not feel genuine love in our heart for ourselves we cannot give it to anyone else
• If you don’t believe in ourselves, who will?

Afternoon Session

• It is important to enjoy doing whatever it is you’re doing because you’ll do it well
• Dhamma should be fun and making our life light, not heavier
• Mostly, we just live on the surface of our minds and we have no idea what’s in the deeper depths of our mind
• Meditation = path of discovery
• The beauty of a journey is not in the destination but in the journey itself
• Do everything with no expectations.  The moment we try to super impose hopes and expectations, the doors close down because our ego takes over
• The thinking mind cannot meditate and cannot be present in the moment… there is no “now” because as soon as you look for the “now” it’s gone.
• Mindfulness is being present and aware of the present moment without comment
• Our breath is our gateway into the “now” because we cannot break in the past and we cannot breath in the future.
• Thoughts are not the enemy.  Our goal is not to be thoughtless, our identification with the thoughts is the problem

Compassion

• Understand the underlining dissatisfaction which is always prevalent as long as we are delusional
• As long as we remain in a state of unknowing we cannot go beyond dissatisfaction