My Vipassana story
From the 11th to the 21st of August, 2021, I was at a 10-day Vipassana Meditation course. On Wednesday, the 11th, at around 1:40 pm, George, my husband, drove me to Onalaska, WA where the course was held. Traffic was heavy at times but we got there at around 4:20 pm or so. I checked in, and, in line with the rules of the course, I turned in my cell phone and my wallet for safekeeping, which they put in a black bag which was numbered. At this time I was given my room number, 9B. Then George helped me bring my luggage over to the room with a handcart that was provided. After transporting my luggage I kissed George goodbye and he left since he was not enrolled in the course. My roommate was not there when I arrived and I didn’t know whether I would have a roommate or not.
I found my side of the room labeled B- it was a bed with a nightstand alongside on top of which was a lamp and a black digital alarm clock. It was separated from the other side, Room 9A, by a wooden divider with storage shelves built in. I was a bit upset that I wasn’t by the window but my consolation was that I was next to the bathroom. The bathroom was simple but clean with a sink and counter, mirror, toilet and shower, along with a storage space that held tissues, toilet paper, and cleaning supplies, including a broom and a mop.
I unpacked and then at 6 pm I attended the orientation which we had after eating dinner. After dinner, at around 7pm, we listened to the opening introduction by the teacher, S.N. Goenka, a man who has since died who was of Indian descent, a businessman by trade, who lived in Burma and was indoctrinated into Vipassana meditation by a teacher there. A recording of Goenkaji’s introduction to the course was played. The recording was from 1991.
The first teaching was in Ana Pana meditation, which is the kind of meditation with which I was already familiar, simply observing your breath as it goes in and out of your nostrils. And from this time forward we were called to observe certain precepts for training. For one, we were called to observe Noble Silence and were not able to talk or communicate via eye contact or gesture with our fellow meditators. If we needed to address a question or concern we could talk to the Assistant Teacher, a man who appeared to be in his 50’s or 60’s. He was bearded and bespectacled. His name was Leon Yogev. He had an Eastern European accent it seemed. He reminded me of my uncle Forrest, too. Or we could talk to our Course Manager. I think her name was Jennifer. She was a tall, thin young woman, possibly in her 30’s or 40’s I’m guessing. She had short blond hair. In addition to this, we were pledged to not kill any living being; to not lie; to not steal; and to not engage in sexual misconduct. Men and women were strictly segregated. Besides the instructors, I only saw the men from afar on the other side of the Meditation or Dhamma Hall or on the opposite side of the small campus.
After dinner I met my roommate, Mona. She was a sort of stout but not overweight, East Asian woman. Before Noble Silence commenced I introduced myself and asked her if there was anything we needed to discuss. I asked about when she usually showers. She said in the morning and I told her I did it usually in the morning, too. But she generously offered to take hers in the evening, since 4 am, our wakeup time, was quite early to take a shower in her opinion. I forgot to ask about the window. She had her ‘room’ by the window so was basically in control of it. I wanted to make sure it got opened at night and perhaps closed in the heat of the day since the first couple days had temperatures up in the 90’s. It was warm the first couple nights. We went to bed between 9:30 and 10 pm. That was early for me so it was hard to get to sleep the first night. We were awakened at 4 am by a gong/bell type structure that sounded nice, clear, and meditative. Then I forced myself out of bed and took my shower, trying to limit the amount of water I used since they didn’t want us to take showers longer than 5 minutes. At around 4:40 pm or so I started Ana Pana meditation. I was supposed to meditate until around 6:30 pm. I think I was usually able to do it until 5:40 am or so, later until 6am. At this time it started getting light outside. Then I did my morning exercises. I did my stretches earlier, after my shower. They didn’t want us to exercise other than walking, but I could not resist for the wellbeing of my body and since I was alone in my private quarters behind a curtain that enclosed the front of the ‘room’.
At 6:30 am we had breakfast in the Dining Hall with all the female meditators. We had to use hand sanitizer at various stations because of COVID. Breakfast usually consisted of oatmeal or cold cereal with different options for toast, all healthy ones, like Ezekial bread or gluten-free made with rice flour, although there was also the option of cinnamon raisin bread. There was tea and Pero and coffee available to drink as well as dairy milk or Almond or rice milk. I usually had oatmeal with a sort of prune or plum sauce that was provided with yogurt and sometimes granola on top with cut-up apples, bananas, and sometimes peaches on top. I also had a slice of toast with peanut or tahini butter with sliced banana on top. I would drink usually ginger tea with honey and maybe a dash of lemon juice or some Pero with some Almond milk.
After breakfast we had rest time and I would brush my teeth and then take a walk if the weather was nice or take a little nap on my bed. From 8-9 am we would have a group meditation sitting where everyone would sit and meditate for an hour. The meditators were all provided with a blue cushion on the floor or some people upon request, had a chair. I was given a chair and a cushion since in my application I had mentioned that I had scoliosis. Most everyone also made use of a plethora of other cushions and posture aids and many had shawls or blankets as well. I had brought a cushion with a back rest that I tried using sometimes but eventually found that it was usually best just to sit on my plain blue cushion. I used the chair when I tired of sitting on the floor or wanted a back rest. After the first hour of meditation we were granted a break. Then we would have some morning instruction with a recording from Goenkaji who chanted and gave the daily meditation instruction. Then sometimes the assistant teacher would talk to a few students at a time. The assistant teacher sat in a chair with a blanket- the women’s teacher on one side, the women’s side, and the men’s teacher on the left, where the men were seated. They would have some cushions set up in front of them and the students would sit or kneel on the cushions in front of the teacher and answer questions from the teacher and then meditate for a short period. Then they were usually permitted to continue meditating in the Group Hall or in their residences. I would usually go to my residence at this time so I could secretly do my yoga before lunch which came afterwards, at 11 am.
Lunch was the main meal of the day. They had rice pilaf or something of the sort often with a sauce and often tofu or cooked veggies. In addition, there were usually greens and salad. I enjoyed the healthy vegetarian fare. The meatless alternatives, probably tofu mostly, were well seasoned, and I never felt deprived of the meat. Sometimes they would have some ‘dessert’ like a muffin or one time what looked like a truffle and appeared to be made out of dates.
After lunch I usually flossed and brushed and then we had until 1 pm to rest. For most of the week the sun was out at this time and many people would walk the paths provided in the meadow and along the edge of the forest. At the beginning of the week it was a time of eager discovery to explore the pathways. I noticed a whole lot of ants in many places. There was one big ant hill as well. This meadow happened to have a plethora of Queen Anne’s Lace flowers as well and an abundance of bees and butterflies/moths worked at pollinating. I noticed how busily the bees and ants did their jobs. I thought about how diligently and apparently unquestioningly these insects fulfilled their purposes and means of livelihood, and of course they all did their jobs as required for the community. Insects are so single-minded in their work. They need no motivation other than survival. If only human beings could work so diligently in this way. It made me think about the purpose of human beings and what we are supposed to be here for. It is my belief that we are the highest intelligence on the planet and are most likely the offspring of God. Our purpose is to live on and manage the earth and engender or ensure that things are run in a way that profits all and keeps the inherent balance and harmony that surely is meant to exist. We are also here to experience the struggle for earthly survival and we are given intelligence and the capacity to make choices. We are not mere automatons who blindly follow instinct. I believe we are here to be tested in a way, to make choices, have experience in order to learn and some day reach the status of our Godly parents. But this freedom of choice of course leads to a multiplicity of conflicts and problems. So, it is much more difficult for people to work together in harmony to achieve common goals as the insects tend to do.
Another thing I realized with the Ana Pana meditation or the in and out breathing is that preeminence of opposites! In and out, good and evil, light and dark. I believe part of the journey or purpose is to overcome the binary system to come back to the union of One. In Buddhism it is described as Nirvana or in the Pali language of the Buddha, “Nibbana”. This is a cessation of the duality to become basically null or some state above the duality of experience. In Christianity I would see the goal as a union of all the faithful with Christ who is one with God and works through the medium of the Holy Spirit. It is a goal of oneness with the divine through reconciliation with God through an acceptance of the Atonement wrought by Christ and by us repenting or turning from sin or ungodly behavior to God or God-like behavior and become like God and one with God. That’s one speculation on the ultimate goal as I understand it.
Well, in our walks I definitely saw plenty of insects. I also saw birds: woodpeckers and small birds like chickadees, and sparrows swooping and diving in the air to catch the flying insects. I also saw some chipmunks and a few squirrels. After lunch we were able to meditate in our residences or in the Group Dhamma Hall. I usually chose to do it in my residence. Sometimes I ended up falling asleep a bit as apparently did my housemate whom I sometimes would hear snoring or sleep breathing. At 2:30 we would have another hour-long group meditation. From 3:30 on we had afternoon instructions and then could meditate in the hall or our residences. I would often spend at least some of my time in the Dhamma Hall at this time. At 5 pm we had a tea break. New students were allowed to have fruit with the tea. Most people seemed to have a hefty amount as this was our last meal of the day. We would stand quietly in line and take turns cutting up the fruit. Old students were expected to only have tea. On the last day of serious meditation, Friday, even the new students were not provided with fruit. I could see the dismay in many people’s faces. But we all survived our introduction to the life of “old students.” With this diet I felt that I must have been losing weight. I did feel my stomach was a bit less rotund.
After the tea break, at 6 pm, we had our final hour-long group meditation in the Dhamma Hall. Then we would have a break until 7:15 pm when we would watch a video recording from 1991 of Goenka’s discourses. There would be a discourse each night. Here he explained the technique and the philosophy behind it along with plenty of stories to provide illustrations and sometimes some humor, too. In the beginning we were asked to repeat our determination to “take refuge in Dhamma (or the Way), take refuge in the Buddha (the enlightened one or teacher) and take refuge in Sangha” (or the method of morality and concentration of the mind). When I repeated those phrases I added “take refuge in Jesus, too.” in my mental recitation. I had watched most of the discourses before on YouTube. So at least the first ones were familiar to me. I also had the written copy on my Kindle. He usually ended with some chanting in Pali, the language of the Buddha, and then we would rest for about 10 minutes. At this time we would usually go outside and most evenings we were delighted to see a visitor, a doe and her two still-spotted fawns, who were eating the apples or at least munching on them in the apple trees by the Dhamma Hall. They were fairly calm even with all the people around. But they were still quiet and walked in the careful, slow, measured steps of the deer. One fawn, who I surmise must have been a male, was more rambunctious and would sometimes stray away. I also saw him try to roughhouse with his sibling, who was usually peacefully eating. I observed how they admonished or played with each other by pawing at each other with their hooves. It was delightful to see these guests who tended to show up around the same time each evening. Although, near the end, they sometimes would show up in the morning or day time instead. It was nice to see how they felt safe in this peaceful setting in which killing or harming other beings was prohibited in line with the principle of ‘sila’ or morality as practiced by Buddhists and some Hindus.
After our break, at around 8:15, we had our last meditation session until 9 pm. Then time was provided for asking the Assistant Teachers questions. A cushion was put in front of the teacher for the student to sit or kneel on. At first this style or cultural practice of respect seemed strange and foreign to me but I decided that “In Rome do as the Romans do.” So, I complied with the custom when I asked the teacher a question, which I did a couple times during the Noon hour when we also had time to have ‘an interview’ with the Assistant Teacher. One time I asked if it was normal that when I concentrated on my ‘natural breath’ as instructed I often noticed that I would tense up and stop and then start my breathing again. It seems to be a habit I’ve developed when ‘observing’ my breath. But as we know, often upon observation our observed ‘natural’ phenomena gets modified in the process of observation. I believe this is termed “The Hawthorne Effect”.
I was instructed to just take a moment to relax and then continue and just observe what happened.
After the 9-9:30pm question period we went to our residences. By 10 pm at least we were supposed to have lights out. My roommate took a shower at 9 pm after the meditation. I waited until she was done to wash my face and use the toilet and then I would usually get to bed at around 9:40 pm, to sleep until woken up at 4 am by the gong for another day!
The first night was a bit hard as it was quite opposite from my usual schedule. But after a day or two I would often wake up even before the gong. And I often had vivid dreams, sometimes strange ones, like when I dreamt of the castration of a bull. But near the end of the week I think I got a bit more tired from the routine of only 6 hours of sleep at night and sometimes wasn’t so keen at getting up.
After the Ana Pana meditation we were moved onto observing the sensations in our nostril area and upper lip. This moved to concentration on just the upper lip, meant to sharpen the mind. On the fourth day we started to learn the Vipassana technique itself and on the first day or so of it we had our 2-hour meditation session to really challenge us. Vipassana consisted of starting at the top of the head and slowly moving down the body, part by part, observing, without reaction, any sensations we might come across. Then, once reaching the tip of the toes we were to scan back up, part by part, once again, to the top of the head and then back down in cycles, for an hour, at least. At first, of course, it was a challenge. But it did seem to get easier as time went on and at some point I started feeling pleasant sensations of heat or a sort of numbness, which Goenkaji described as subtle sensations like vibrations.
As the course progressed other developments were described as in when you have uniform, subtle sensations and not gross ones like aches and pains or tickles and itches. Upon having such sensations, the students were instructed to sweep and move through the body with a free flow, rather than part by part. In the final days we were introduced to other advanced stages such as piercing through the body, searching for sensations from the front of the body to the back and back to front. One of the final stages was supposed to be ‘bangha’ or a total lack of sensation inside and out, what was called a dissolving of the mind-body phenomenon. I never got to that point. The most I got was having more subtle sensations and a sort of warmth or numbness throughout my body. But I usually had somoe sort of ache or sensation somewhere, so I never got to the penetration stage.
On the 9th day, a Friday, we received instructions on doing some sort of ‘love’ meditation after Vipassana, called Metta. It basically just consisted of Goenka talking about having love and compassion emanating from your cells. He chanted about love and compassion and we sat still with our eyes closed. After that noble silence was ended as long as you were not in the Dhamma hall. There was an older lady (an Indian lady) whom I had noticed earlier, who meditated more steadfastly than most, who asked to speak to me before the silence had been officially ended. I told her after 9 am when we got the Metta instruction. After Metta, when a bunch of us went to our residences, I went in to do my yoga and I heard a whole lot of chattering outside now that people could talk again. On the way to lunch I saw the lady who had asked to talk to me. I approached her and she asked me how things had been. She simply expressed concern about whether I was comfortable since I had had a chair. I talked with her and realized that she was just a nice, caring person. When I saw her earlier I had kind of thought she was a bit crazy, but maybe she is only crazy in a good way. Don’t judge by appearances I’ve found. When we said ‘goodbye’ she said she loved me, which to me is strange since I wouldn’t usually say that to someone I hardly know at all. I just told her, “blessings to you and yours.”
On Saturday we had an announcement after lunch that was a surprise. They said on Day 2 a male student had had family members call saying they had COVID. They tested him and he tested positive so they sent him home. They tested his roommate and he tested negative. But then on that same day after lunch another guy had had symptoms and was texted positive for COVID. So, they decided instead of continuing the regular final portion of the program that they would abruptly end the course and send us all home a day early. So, we all did clean-up and packed and got our phones back. I called George and let him know that I needed to be picked up. I was relieved since I work the next day, on Sunday, and I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of going home on Sunday because I needed to do laundry and and had church and work on Sunday. So, I packed and cleaned up and said ‘goodbye’ to my roommate whom I still barely knew. I ended up talking to a tall, thin Chinese girl who was talking about how she was a wanderer and didn’t have a real home to settle down in. Apparently, she was from China but didn’t feel at home there. Her father had been a mean man and she basically was trying to get far away from that. She had a Buddhist mindset so was just trying to accept things the way that they are but she seemed to be searching for a home that she hadn’t found. I didn’t want to impose my beliefs on her, but maybe I should have suggested she at least explore Christianity. But I know it is far from her cultural upbringing.
Overall, the Vipassana experience was a good one for me, one not to be forgotten. It was nice having the chance to get away from all distractions and have real peace and quiet for an extended period. I also got to meet a few nice people at the end and learned how other people are searching for meaning and realization and that there are others who have a calm, loving spirit or at least strive towards it. But I don’t think I have become a serious meditator. I don’t quite believe in the ultimate end goal of Buddhism. I see things a bit differently than what I understand the Buddhist view seems to be. But I do see the benefits of meditation on occasions when I can fit it in.
Creative poems and musings 