A life change in perspective in 10 days of silent meditation

What is the most worthwhile experience you have ever had in your life?  What is the most challenging thing you have ever done in your life?

2 weeks ago I would have found it difficult to answer these questions definitively.  Well actually, that is not exactly true – marrying my wife was of course an important decision for me (relating to the former question above, not the latter, in case you were wondering  ).  But taking that out of the equation, though still difficult questions to answer, I can now see at least one experience that rises towards the top for both of those questions … and that is going through a 10-day vipassana silent meditation course which I just completed on 10/13 at a meditation center in Lamphun, a small town of around 15,000 in northern Thailand a few hours outside of Chiang Mai.  You can see a picture of the center I was at here.

Why so worthwhile?  It is the only time I have intensely studied a framework with the sole purpose of helping people be happier in life.  Not just at an intellectual level via lectures, but at an experiential level as well — that is actually doing the meditation and experiencing its benefit.  Imagine trying to teach someone to learn how to ride a bike through a book or videos versus having them jump on a bike with training wheels and try to ride themself and you can start to get what I mean by intellectual versus experiential learning.

Moreover, the technique I learned has benefits not just at a conscious level, but at a more fundamental subconscious as well.  I came out of the course feeling rejuvenated and totally enthusiastic and excited about life — not that I wasn’t before the course, but this was and has been to a new level.  I had so many ideas and thoughts and plans about things to do in the future to further improve my life.  And I came to peace with many deep-routed hardships and difficult or painful experiences from my past.

Why so challenging?  It is mentally difficult as you work with the subconscious mind, to understand your old thought patterns and replace them with a healthier way to view the human experience.

Next, it is an emotional roller-coaster.  You are completely locked up, so to speak, in your own mind.  For the duration of the 10-day course, with the exception of the last day, you are to observe “noble silence” in an attempt to achieve extreme focus and ultimately “mental silence.”  That is not just prohibiting speech, but in fact all forms of communication.  No writing, reading, music, gesturing, or acknowledging other people and course participants.  If you are walking down a hall, or into the bathroom, or meditation hall, or eating area and encounter others you are to look at the ground and avoid any eye contact.  The only exceptions are twice daily when you can ask brief questions on the technique to the teacher, and speaking to management regarding issues you may have with accommodations, heath, etc.  It was only after the course that I realized how strange it would look if you had visited us in the middle of the course to see all of us walking around looking at our shoes.  Talk about a bunch of socially awkward misfits :).

And the final challenge was physical, with wake up at 4am, lights out at 10pm, and, in between, 12 hours of silent, stationary meditation practice.  Sitting on a cushion in lotus position, feet tucked under you, back and neck straight, arms resting on against your thighs/knees, and eyes closed.  Trust me from experience, having your eyes closed is not an effective way to block out back pain from sitting for hours on end … not to mention the difficulty you may have keeping your attention on meditating when your body keeps telling you to go to sleep since your eyes are closed.  Such an intense experience, with only your own mind and thoughts to support you as you go through it.

As a fair warning … this is going to be a fairly long post relative to others, as I want to capture how I’m feeling now having just come out of the course for my own reference in the future, and also, more importantly, share the most important points of what I learned to the extent helpful to you in your own life and pursuit of happiness.  Don’t worry – although long, it is a highly condensed version of around 15 hours of lecturing, so at least you can feel good about not having to go through all that.

This post focuses on the content, philosophy and technique of what I learned.  Soon I will post a behind-the-scenes look at my experience in meditation … the highs, lows, funny experiences, sad and scary situations, and personal realizations from my past and looking forward.  And, my typical list of life lessons learned.

Background on meditation and Vipassana

Meditation is a practice in which an individual trains their mind to induce specific states of consciousness, for benefit or as an end in itself.  There is both secular meditation, as well as examples of meditation in religions as diverse as Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and many others.  There are many different types of meditation, which have a range of different benefits such as becoming more relaxed, coming out of depression, focusing more intently, and analyzing situations more carefully.  Its benefits have been medically documented as well – as one example of many, see the JAMA article Mindfulness in Medicine.

The specific type of meditation I learned, Vipassana, was developed as part of Buddhism, though the course I took was secular and focused on the meditation technique and supporting philosophy.  Vipassana, which literally means analytic meditation, intends to help people improve their ability to emotionally deal with life’s curveballs and ultimately live happier, more fulfilling lives.

 

Philosophy for living a happier life according to Vipassana theory

According to the philosophy behind Vipassana and by extension, Buddism (though please set the religious implications aside), people are unhappy either because they want an experience or something they can’t have (called craving) or have something or are experiencing something they want to avoid or get away from (called aversion).  Fundamentally, you can distill any unhappiness you have down to one of these two issues.  For instance, someone may crave wealth, a delicious McDonalds quarter-pound cheeseburger (or, Royale with cheese for those of you in Paris), or a date with that cute bartender.  On the other hand, someone may have aversion towards that jerk they met on the subway, their boring job, or a painful medical affliction.  In theory, if you could eliminate aversion and craving from your life, you could be a much happier and balanced person.  But where do these feelings of craving and aversion come from?

You have six types of consciousness — your five senses of touch, taste, sight, hearing, and smell, and also your conscious mind.  If you sense something from the external environment, say someone speaking to you, your subconscious will hear noise as sound waves hit your eardrum, which it will then interpret into recognizable words and evaluate based on words used, tone, context, etc.  This is still at the subconscious level though, so you’re not yet consciously feeling anything.  But subconsciously you generate sensations based on the evaluation of what you have heard.  Your heart rate may accelerate, breathing may become more shallow, or you might get goosebumps or other sensations on your skin.  At a conscious level, you then emotionally react to what you have heard.  Someone has just shouted at you, let’s say, and you feel animosity, or perhaps fear.  In a sense you are not emotionally responding to the sound waves that entered your ear drum, or its translation into words, or subconscious evaluation of these words, but rather the conscious sensations manifested throughout your body.  The emotions, then, if they contain elements of craving or aversion, will lead to unhappiness.  Finally, note that any thoughts you have internally (the so called “voices in your head”) would go through a similar process of interpretation, evaluation, physical sensation, and emotional reaction.

To sum up, we’ve got craving, and aversion as causes of unhappiness.  And then emotional reactions to the physical sensations we experience resulting from the subconscious evaluation of experiences happening in the external world.  Emotions of aversion and craving not good, but other emotions are ok.  Getting complicated yet?  Stick with me, we’re over the hurdle behind this philosophy and approaching the final stretch.

The final piece of the philosophy is that change is a fundamental law of nature (called impermanence, a derivative of the word impermanent).  The universe is in a constant state of flux.  You stub your toe and it hurts for a few minutes, but then the pain subsides.  It starts raining in the afternoon but stops in the evening.  Stars are formed and then ultimately die in an exploding supernova.  As the saying goes, all things must pass.  Linking this back to the first part of the philosophy above, if you really believe this law of nature, at its core, in your depth, there is no reason for craving or aversion.  Why?  Because any state of unpleasantness is temporary.   Your life is going well and then bam, you hit a wall or an issue and suddenly you’re unhappy.  Then later something good happens and you are happy again. One day you lose $20, and the next day you find a $20 in your pocket.    The girl craving a date with the guy meets a different guy, and forgets about the first guy.  The man wanting to buy a car saves up money and then realizes he really wants a motorcycle instead.  You stub your toe and a few minutes later the pain subsides.  So, as the theory goes, no reason to get upset over a fundamental law of nature that the universe is constantly in change.  Better to just accept that fact and so accept a major truth of life. People will be born … but people will eventually die.

Change is inevitable.

All things must pass.

There are some other details behind the philosophy (well, actually lots), but this is the core.

 

Vipassana meditation technique

Relative to the above, the Vipassana meditation technique is actually quite simple to explain.  We learned it in two stages.  For the first 3 days of the course, we were asked to observe our own respiration.  That is, sitting in lotus position, eyes closed, mouth closed, focus on the area of our nostrils where air enters and leaves the body, blocking out all other thoughts.  Observe as the air enters the body, and then as it leaves the body … importantly, without consciously making any efforts to change our own natural respiration dictated by our subconscious mind.  For example, not forcing yourself to breathe slowly or quickly.  So, there is a link here between consciousness and subconsciousness.  We can consciously view an output (our natural breathing) which is a result of processes happening at subconscious level.  Over the course of three days, 12 hours a day, you become more focused, alert and attentive.  You start to feel that air entering your body is slightly cooler than air exiting your body which has been warmed by your lungs.  Or that air sometimes may just enter your left or right nostril as you breathe in, rather than both simultaneously.

In the second stage you are asked to observe sensations on your body at the skin level.  After three days focused on your observing your own respiration, you can feel a lot.  But even without that background, I’m sure you can relate to feeling sensations on your body.  Like when you get an itch on your arm, or feel sweat dripping down your back, a cool breeze on your face, or a muscle twitching.  During meditation, you are told to simply observe, and, importantly, to neither react nor respond at all to what you are sensing, and also not to try to “will” yourself to feel a certain sensation.  That means if you feel a nice cool breeze, you should not respond positively.  And if your back is bothering you from 40 minutes of sitting and not shifting, you should not respond negatively.  The reason being that positive responses can lead to craving (I wish/hope there will be more of a breeze) or aversion (I hate this back pain).  Instead, objectively observe whatever the sensation is that you feel.  And eventually it will pass.  Yes, even your back pain, should you sit long enough, will eventually abate.

You are observing everything in the present moment.  The past is in the past … nothing you can do to change what you sensed a minute ago or an hour ago.  And the future is not in your control.

 

Why meditation works

Vipassana meditation is, at its core, a technique which makes use of your physical body as a model for how the universe works.  And through meditation, you have the opportunity to experientially (that is, via direct experience like the kid learning to ride a bike) not only understand how the universe works, but train your mind at a conscious and subconscious level to react in a more beneficial manner.

You may already see some parallels between the technique and the philosophy (and if not, I take full responsibility for not writing clearly, as it is a deep subject).

The physical sensations you feel on your body during meditation, generated by your subconscious mind and not under your conscious control, are like the sensations things you feel resulting from external stimuli.

A person shouting at you angrily is analogous to the pain in your back you feel as you meditate.  And during your meditation you are training yourself to not respond to your back pain because of change as a law of nature.  With the thought being that, when you experience someone yelling at you in the real world, rather than get angry back at them — that is, rather than respond in a way in which you are trying to avoid the reality of what is happening — you should instead observe what is happening.  You can then respond how you would like, but ultimately in an unemotional manner.  Even if you decide to shout back at that person, at your core, you should not be angry.

After all, the universe is in constant change of flux.  By tomorrow you may forget this incident even happened.

 

Compassion and love towards others as the glue that binds everything together

I would be remiss without addressing compassion as part of both the Vipassana meditation philosophy and technique, which we covered in the final days of the course.  Once you learn the Vipassana philosophy — not just intellectually through lectures, but experientially by actually practicing meditation — you realize that just as any unhappiness you have is the result of wanting what you don’t have or having what you don’t want, so it is for others as well.  And going into interactions with that mindset helps contextualize others actions and add a new perspective to those situations with others.

A person gets upset at you when you have good intentions … why does that happen?  Observing the situation objectively lets you approach situations in a more rational less emotional manner, increasing the likelihood that you’ll be able to empathize with them and see from their perspective, whether or not you agree with that perspective.  And even if you don’t understand exactly what their perspective is, you can recognize that there must be some craving, some aversion … ultimately, some unhappiness driving their actions.

The last meditation technique we learned consisted solely of recognizing that others have things that cause them to be unhappy and because of that, you should be compassionate towards all others – friend and foe alike.  The specific technique basically consists of focusing on happy thoughts and sending them towards those you know as well as the rest of the world.

 

Closing thoughts

So, am I planning to convert to Buddhism and become a monk?  Nope.

The course suggests that if you agree with the philosophy taught and want to integrate it into your life, you should meditate for 2 hours each day, once in the morning and once in the evening.  This, also, is not my plan.  At least not at this point in my life.  Perhaps meditation may become a small part of my life, a few hours a month or maybe even 10-15 minutes a few times a week, I have not yet decided.

The experience was amazing, and, surely, will offer me life changing perspective.  But it is only the first time I have had the chance to so intently study a methodology that you can actually do which is solely based on life happiness.  I think I owe it to myself to explore and see what else is out there … other frameworks, other tools outside of meditation.  Though ultimately I will hold myself accountable for taking steps to proactively incorporate happiness — real, core happiness, based on an internal state of mind rather than my external environment — even more deeply into my life than today.

That surely is the way to lead a happy and fulfilling life.

And finally, do I suggest that others go through this vipassana course?  If you don’t already have a life happiness and fulfillment framework that you understand at an experiential level (that is, one that you are living day-to-day which is actively contributing to your happiness), and, to be fair, have a sense of adventure and are open to trying something a bit different, then absolutely, without reservation.  It is not for everyone, and requires, above all else, a fierce sense of determination and openness to learning.  But if you decide it is something you want to do and complete the course (about 60% of new students who start complete), I promise it will have an extremely positive impact on your life.

The course is completely free including lodging and meals, being based on voluntary donations of people who finish the course.  For more details see http://www.dhamma.org/.  Locations are worldwide and include several centers in the USA.

So again, I ask you — What is the most worthwhile life experience you have ever had in your life?  What is the most challenging thing you have ever done in your life?  Any other thoughts or reactions to the above?