Vipassana meditation – the experience, and what I learned

Note:  I have been posting a bit out of order, as I want to get my thoughts out on the meditation, but I am also a bit behind on things from earlier in the trip.  So please bare with me.  Thanks!

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Vipassana meditation is, pardon my French, a total mind fuck.  You are asked to focus your attention on observing your respiration, or sensations on your body, but your mind doesn’t like to focus.

In fact, it REALLY doesn’t like to focus.

Yup, those voices in your head that may come out from time to time come out in full force, retaliating against your attempts to silence them.

Or your mind may totally shut itself down.  As in, going to sleep.  The human body is used to putting itself to sleep when you close your eyes, not working with intense focus.  I have a hard enough time going into a dark movie theater and staying awake, as those who know me can attest to.  Needless to say the first few days especially I got in a bit of shut eye during my meditative work.

Having your eyes closed for that long can be really disorientating as well.  There were a few times that I got severe vertigo and couldn’t tell which was up.  I’d be trying to tell myself that I was sitting on the floor with my back straight, but another part of my mind would think I was leaning over to the side at an angle, causing my head to spin.

So you are in a constant struggle to quiet the voices in your head without nodding off or falling over from vertigo.  Quite a mental effort.

And the thoughts that come into your head are all over the map — from childhood to adulthood, funny to depressing, mundane and boring to extremely insightful.  I would jump from my Dad’s stroke to my grandfather’s death at one moment, and then be thinking about funny stories from my days in marching band in high school.

I had an endless plethora of movies and music — all in my mind — to keep me busy as well.  I would see a scene from the movie Pulp Fiction, and then be listening to Aerosmith’s Janie’s Got a Gun or, increasingly as the course went on, Living on a Prayer by Bon Jovi (specifically “we’re halfway there, ooohh oh, livin on a praaaayer”) and Final Countdown by Europe in the last day.

In between all of its distractedness, my mind actually did get a lot done when I was able to focus, which got increasingly easier as the course went on.  It got to the point where while I was focusing on the exercise at hand — observing sensations on the body, for instance — I was able to simultaneously work out different things about my life.  I’m not sure if that was supposed to happen, but when you are able to focus your mind with meditation it becomes much sharper at problem solving.  In fact, I wrote close to 10 pages of ideas, thoughts, and feelings when I came finished up the course.  Some of the ideas that I had during meditation include:

• Connect with “life mentors” – I’ve sought out career mentors in the past.  But there is no reason why mentorship has to be limited to career.  I’d like to deconstruct other important elements of my life beyond my profession and find mentors for those other areas as well … people I look up to who can provide advice and guidance
• Explore other “life frameworks” – As I mentioned in my first post on the meditation course, I realize that Vipassana meditation is just one way, I’m sure, to experentially explore what life has to offer.  I’d like to check out some other techniques and frameworks as well to see what else is out there
• Make a list of what I think is most important in life – This seems basic but is not something I have ever done.  But if I go ahead and do this, it will give me valuable clarity not only in how I live day to day, but also in making decisions for the future.  The list will come in two flavors:  rules to live my life by, and my life-long goals for life
• Reconsider and “double down” on the role helping others has in my life – Having an impact in others lives, especially those less fortunate than me, has always been important to me.  This experience reiterated that theme, and I would like to continue to make this more of my life, whether inside or outside of my profession
• Get rid of stuff I don’t need – Not really a new idea for me, but something which I plan to actually pursue when I get home.  Ebay here I come!

I also came to peace with a lot of depressing, fearful, and guilty feelings from my past – people who have died or become ill, others who I have wronged, my fears of insects amongst others – all of this and more came up during my meditative state.  By seeing some of these thoughts in the framework of Vipassana–that is, that there is no need to have any feelings but rather just observe due to the impermanent nature of the world–I was able to put to bed and really move ahead from these issues.  I think sometimes we think we have gotten over something big when really we are just repressing it.  Vipassana meditation forces these issues to come up to the surface again so that you can deal with them properly.

When we were not in the meditation hall, we had meal time and breaks.  The breaks were great at first, but I soon saw them to be too long.  Take our lunch break for instance.  During the two hour break, lunch itself took about 15 minutes (given we weren’t allowed to speak to our neighbors), with another 5 minutes to clean our own dishes at some sinks near the dining hall.  That left me with an hour and 45 minutes to kill.  I started taking two showers everyday, one in the morning and one during lunch.  Although probably not necessary, I’d then hang my towel outside to air dry.  I’d do a little bit of yoga in my room to stretch out my sore back.  Then it was outside to walk the circumference of the building for some exercise.  And of course using my umbrella to bat lizards away from my door, and my umbrella to “sweep” my room (to sweep out the spiders, that is).

Eventually I got really good at using up time in inactive activities as well.  There was a colony of ants living outside our building that was amazing!  They were red weaver ants, on the larger side for ants.  They carried ant larva to their nest and would use it as “glue” to put their nest together.  When one ant was injured, they would carry it back to their nest and were actually able to treat the ant with medicine that they made themselves.  The coolest was when they came across a dead Moellenkampi beetle and were able to communicate with each other enought to organize and carry it to their nest, which involved moving the beetle vertically down a post.  It was awesome, but maybe you had to be there.

And one other random thought to close this post.  I thought it was pretty interesting that, despite not communicating with the other course attendees for 10 days, when we came out of noble silence and were able to speak, we were all very close with each other having shared this intense experience together.  So I guess to bond over a shared experience you don’t actually need to talk (or communicate in any other way, for that manner) with those with whom you share the experience.

Lessons Learned

• Plan your life.  If you don’t know where you’re headed you’ll never know if you are going the right way and when you get to the finish line.  No one else is going to do it for you
• Don’t assume just because you don’t actively think about something from your past that you have really dealt with it appropriately.  Issues not in your conscious mind can live on in the subconscious and pop to the surface when you least expect it
• Nature can be fascinating, but you need to look really closely to truly appreciate its wonders

What type of steps have you taken to actively plan your life?  What has worked or not worked?