LESSONS LEARNED FROM 10 DAYS OF NOBLE SILENCE AND MEDITATION
Earlier this year I reluctantly stepped into the unknown, and for reasons unrevealed to myself, I took the plunge and signed up for a 10-Day Vipassana Meditation Course. For those who don’t know, Vipassana is one of India’s most ancient meditation techniques, originally discovered more than 2500 years ago by Gotama Buddha. The word Vipassana means to “see things as they really are,” to fully awaken to reality exactly as it is. The course aims to change the world by eradicating suffering in individuals from the inside out, asking them to honestly confront themselves through personal observation and concentration of the mind.
It’s been months since I anxiously sat down on my meditation cushion in complete silence in a room full of unnamed strangers for 10 days from 4:00am to 9:30pm, and still I am struggling to articulate and fully understand the profound gift that I have given myself. This is likely because so much of what I learned was not intellectual, but rather experiential.
The concept of Vipassana is so beyond the realm of something an ordinary person would sign up for that some speculate that it must be some sort of radical fundamentalist cult - but this is in no way a cult. Students are not coaxed into signing up. No one is knocking door to door proselytizing, and the only publicity they receive is by word of mouth from people like me. Students are also free to leave at any time they wish, no one is holding them hostage - physically or emotionally. The course is completely free and run by volunteers. It operates on a “pay it forward” system, meaning if a student feels the course left an indelible mark on their life, they have the option to donate with either their time volunteering, or any amount of money to help pay for someone else to have the same experience.
In the days leading up to the course, I received a welcome email from the centre including all of the important details, need to knows, and a strict code of discipline. Upon reading the email through completely, I seriously began to reconsider my commitment to the course, question my sanity and my possible dearth of strong decision making skills. I pushed forward, reminding myself of the saying “if it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it, it’s the hard that makes it great.”
According to the code of conduct, all students must conscientiously observe in full accordance the following precepts:
Noble Silence - All students must observe Noble Silence from the beginning of the course until the morning of the last full day. Noble Silence means silence of body, speech, and mind. Any form of communication with fellow students, whether by gestures, sign language, written notes, etc., is prohibited.
Physical Contact - It is important that throughout the course there be no physical contact whatsoever between persons of the same or opposite sex.
Outside Contacts - Students must remain within the course boundaries throughout the course. They may leave only with the specific consent of the teacher. No outside communications is allowed before the course ends. This includes letters, phone calls and visitors. Cell phones, pagers, and other electronic devices must be deposited with the management until the course ends.
Separation of Men and Women - Complete segregation of men and women is to be maintained. Couples, married or otherwise, should not contact each other in any way during the course. The same applies to friends, members of the same family, etc.
Music, Reading and Writing - The playing of musical instruments, radios, etc. is not permitted. No reading or writing materials should be brought to the course. Students should not distract themselves by taking notes. The restriction on reading and writing is to emphasize the strictly practical nature of this meditation.
Intoxicants and Drugs - No drugs, alcohol, or other intoxicants should be brought to the site; this also applies to tranquilizers, sleeping pills, and all other sedatives.
Clothing and Dress - should be simple, modest, and comfortable. Tight, transparent, revealing, or otherwise striking clothing (such as shorts, short skirts, tights and leggings, sleeveless or skimpy tops) should not be worn. Sunbathing and partial nudity are not permitted. This is important in order to minimize distraction to others.
Yoga and Physical Exercise - Although physical yoga and other exercises are compatible with Vipassana, they should be suspended during the course. Jogging is also not permitted. Students may exercise during rest periods by walking in the designated areas.
The schedule was extremely regimented and having grown up in North America with it’s highly individualized all about me and my freedom of choice culture, I wondered if I even had the mental or emotional capacity to completely surrender my ego for the full duration of the course.
The retreat center in Kellseyville, California.
The original Vipassana teacher S.N. Goenka.
The Course Timetable
The following timetable for the course has been designed to maintain the continuity of practice. For best results students are advised to follow it as closely as possible.
4:00 am Morning wake-up bell
4:30-6:30 am Meditate in the hall or in your room
6:30-8:00 am Breakfast break
8:00-9:00 am Group meditation in the hall
9:00-11:00 am Meditate in the hall or in your room according to the teacher’s instructions
11:00-12:00 noon Lunch break
12:00-1:00 pm Rest and interviews with the teacher
1:00-2:30 pm Meditate in the hall or in your room
2:30-3:30 pm Group meditation in the hall
3:30-5:00 pm Meditate in the hall or in your own room according to the teacher’s instructions
5:00-6:00 pm Tea break
6:00-7:00 pm Group meditation in the hall
7:00-8:15 pm Teacher’s Discourse in the hall
8:15-9:00 pm Group meditation in the hall
9:00-9:30 pm Question time in the hall
9:30 pm Retire to your own room– Lights out
On the morning of the retreat, I drove six hours north on the California coast to a small town I’d never been before called Kellseyville. I pointed my car across the famous Hwy 101, through the bustling streets of San Francisco, and around long and winding roads bordered by tall mountain ridge lines where I ended up at the large centres gates that were tucked quietly amidst a thick forest of mature pine and oak trees. I pulled off to the side of the road and sat in my car thinking, holding tightly to my last few minutes of freedom. I called my boyfriend who I was dating at the time to say goodbye, and thanked him for his much appreciated comic relief that he inserted into the conversation before turning my phone off for the next ten days. I had already announced to my family and friends that I was going, so there was no turning back. I have never prayed more desperately that my car engine would serendipitously erupt into flames so I would have a legitimate excuse to leave... but that’s exactly why I was there. I wanted to do the opposite of running away from things that are hard or scary.
I took a deep breath, drove my car through the gates, watched as they closed behind me, and made my way to my designated cabin, where I unpacked my sleeping bag and limited belongings on my single personal shelf. The room was simple with no decorations, but felt warm, cozy and clean. I was sharing a space with 2 other women of whose names I did not know, and whose voices I would not hear until the end of the course. I laid down on my bed with nothing to do but wait in complete silence for the gongs to ring - signalling that it was time to congregate in the meditation hall for our first group sit.
Make it stand out
The sensations were undeniably agonizing, and yet we were encouraged to greet and observe the discomfort with equanimity.
There were 80 students in total, and the hall was arranged in a traditional manner such that 40 men lined up row by row on cushions to the left and 40 women on the right, each in a designated seat that was theirs for the 10 days. There were 2 instructors at the front who sat in silent meditation with us while a brief recording of the original Vipassana teacher S.N. Goenka from 1991 played over the speakers, instructing us on our posture and breath. When the recording finished, it was time for us to begin. This was the only time in my life I had arrived at an event, waited in anticipation for it to start, and nothing happened. We merely sat there breathing, and the silence was deafening. On average Canadians consume ten hours of media per day, and I was about to spend ten hours a day in a metaphorical desert, utterly parched of any imaginable escapism. The contrast was stark, and the silence was...curious. The calm and tranquil posture of my physical body blatantly belied the disquietude and restlessness of my mind as my inner critic bolted from one tangential thought to the next, anchoring to nothing. A scant 25-30 minutes had passed when I began to notice a ring of heat emanating from my knees followed by a throbbing pain that demanded my attention. My feet felt heavy like concrete and began to prickle with sharp pins and needles. The sensations were undeniably agonizing, and yet we were encouraged to greet and observe the discomfort with equanimity. I nearly shed a tear of self pity, and wondered if I would ever survive the next 10 days.
The rest of the week went as follows:
Day 2: I was jolted awake at 4:00am by the distant sound of gongs outside my window paired with the jarring cry of 3 separate alarm clocks. We had each brought our own just in case, and because any form of communication was not permitted, this remained the wake-up drill for the remainder of our days. I perched myself up on my meditation cushion on the floor next to my bed and fought relentlessly for the next two hours to keep from nodding back to sleep.
Day 3: I had completed 30 hours of meditation by this point, and the pain was still very real. In a state of boredom I opened my eyes a sliver and glanced over at the men to my left. I nearly burst into hysterical laughter as it seemed there was a direct correlation between the number of hours meditated and the increasing fortress of cushions they had used to bolster themselves up on in search of some sense of comfort. Comfort was a fleeting phenomenon we each craved, and any efforts made were futile.
Day 4: Meal times were the most exciting part of the day and yet still, the seating and tables were positioned around the perimeter of the building, which meant students ate facing the walls directly in front of them. Breakfast and lunch were a simple but delicious vegan spread with plenty of extra for second helpings. Dinner was a selection of seasonal fruit and herbal tea. The sounds of clinking cutlery and clanging dishes echoed across the hall. The experience of smell, texture and taste was sensational. I was hyper alert of what was going into my body, and when I’d had enough. I wasn’t eating to satisfy any emotional needs. I was curious about where the food on my plate came from, and the hands that prepared it. I contemplated how often I had shovelled food down my throat while anxiously driving to a meeting or inattentively ate my lunch at my desk while firing off emails.
Day 5: I became utterly desperate for any form of entertainment and resorted to reading the labels on the backs of tea packets. To my dismay they had an average two ingredients: petals and buds of the rose. Caffeine Free. I moved on to shampoo bottles and toothpaste, and unsurprisingly, that didn’t last long because the ingredients read like a foreign language. I adore reading, and never in my life had I yearned so deeply for new information and ideas. I felt like my mind had covered every possible topic and I understood the saying “food for thought.” I will never again take my education for granted.
Day 6: As expected, lights out was the most relaxing part of the day, and I was exhausted. I fell asleep counting in my head how many hours of meditation I had remaining and was humoured by the fact that never in my life had 40 hours seemed negligible until now. Shortly after falling asleep I was awoken to the sound of my roommate softly weeping. Every cell in my being wanted to to comfort and console her and ask if she was okay. It felt terribly unnatural to lie there and listen, but all I could do was take some deep and compassionate breaths, and send them her way. I lay there awake and realized...this was the process of self isolation, who was I to assume she even wanted my pity. Perhaps processing whatever it was that was gushing up from the ocean floor of her being all alone was the most profound and rewarding gift she could have given herself. In a normal scenario, my reaction would be to take the pain away and toss her a life raft. I wondered if our rush as humans to “fix” the situation is often a selfish response to alleviate our own feelings of discomfort in not knowing how to be present and hold space for someone else’s suffering.
Day 7: Post meal time we were permitted to retreat to our room for a short rest or take an intentional forest walk. I chose the latter every day. The absence of stimulation from the outside world over the past week meant that the smells of the earth, the warmth of the sunshine, the crisp breeze on my skin, and the sound of the birds were the most invigorating and cleansing bath. My appreciation for the small things was magnified, and I felt thankful to be alive.
Day 8: It occurred to me that over the past 7 days I hadn’t craved a conversation with a single person...I wasn’t lonely. Oddly, not talking was the most effortless part of the process. However, half way through the eighth day I did resolve that an exchange of words with another human might be pleasant, after all.
Day 9: Looking back, the timing of the retreat couldn’t have been more perfect. It was a gift that I walked into the retreat while at a good place in life. I’d had more than my fair share of hurt and suffering in life, but I felt stable, and content. I had arrived at the retreat solely as a result of my curiosity. I wasn’t in the midst of a suspenseful “eat pray love” life transformation. This was 10 days of a longer journey. More had happened before, and more happened after. This meant that instead of processing pressing issues and heavy emotions in my immediate life like a divorce, a career shift, or the death of a loved one, I was able to experience the retreat from a subjective and neutral place. I welcomed whatever it was that I needed to learn from the experience. It wasn’t until the morning of day 9 that the honest and palpable work settled in for me. Feelings of resistance came sweeping through my body, and when I say resistance, I mean full on, ugly, adult temper tantrums. I made up my mind that I had been there long enough and got what I needed from the experience. I spent the day physically sitting, but mentally defying all of the instructed techniques allowing my mind to drift away with any enticing thought that lured its attention. The only way I can describe it is like the image of a house. In the moments of frustration and discomfort my mind walked curiously through each and every room of my being, probing into every nook and cranny, beneath the creaky floorboards, and in the unremembered attic, turning up a thick cloud of dust. It was time to do the housekeeping. Memories of people who came in and out of my life, some that I hadn’t seen in decades arose. I was watching it all from an objective, nonreactive perspective. I silently asked forgiveness, acknowledging when I had wronged people - both intentionally and unintentionally, and I forgave others who have hurt me along the way. I didn’t know it at the time but this feeling of resistance was exactly what I came there for. There was only so long that I could fight the discomfort of my own company before it became emotionally exhausting. I finally surrendered my control and found rest in the still waters of peace.
Day 10: Half way through day 10 the gongs rang signifying the noble silence had been lifted. I hesitated to speak. I felt that nothing I had to say was important enough to break the sacred silence. I wandered aimlessly to my room and showered, not quite ready to face the world. Remember, as humans we experience the world through a kaleidoscope of senses, and any normal day to day sensations I previously experienced were completely relinquished. My experience of reintegration could be likened to the moment you wake in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and the sudden flick of the light switch forces your eyes to squint shut, only it was as though I had been in the dark for 10 days and the light was more like a high intensity flood light burning directly into my eyeballs. I waited another hour before eventually easing into conversation. When my roommate finally opened her mouth to speak, her voice was so loud it sounded as though she was barking at me. She was in no way raising her voice, but my threshold for stimulus had been amplified to the point of overwhelm. It felt like the vibration of each word that fell from her mouth was repeatedly pelting my body, jolting me back to reality. I politely ended the conversation and took some more time alone with smaller bite sized conversations here and there until the effects of deprivation slowly wore off and the world around me became softer.
I finally surrendered my control and found rest in the still waters of peace.
The most raw experience in my Vipassana experience occurred that night. My roommates and I chatted amongst ourselves delighting in the chance to finally put a name and story to the faces we had shared close quarters with for the last 10 days. The roommate who had woken me up with her quiet tears just a few days earlier had shared so courageously about what brought her to her meditation cushion. She explained that she had been married for several years to a man whom she had a son with. For the entirety of their relationship she was unaware that he had been unfaithful to her. This was her first opportunity apart from her son to process the damage that was inflicted upon her. It’s difficult to articulate in words the level of compassion I felt. The anger coursing through my veins was visceral. Instantly my heart weighed hot and felt heavier than a bag of stones. That impossible-to-ignore lump welled up and lodged itself in my throat, and my eyes stung resisting tears. The compassion I was experiencing was beyond the intellectual level, it was on the physical, experiential level. Amazingly, while my heart and throat and fists tightened, closing off to the world, I was astonished by her ability to arrive at a place of forgiveness, and grace. I hadn’t cried during the retreat, but I fell asleep shedding hushed tears for a stranger I had only just met, and finally understood on a tangible level our true nature of interconnectedness as human-beings. Suffering is unavoidable in life, its part and parcel to our journey, but the sharing of the burden is an opportunity to access and step into our highest selves. Being stripped of all escapism for 10 days had opened my heart up to an ineffable love and selflessness. In our everyday routines we are busy, distracted, and utterly consumed with our own lives. As a consequence we build up walls and isolate ourselves from any authentic human connection. Our untamed egos and fixation with ourselves keeps us separate, and hinders our capacity to truly love and hold space for others, and the disconnect is an insidious manifestation of self harm.
The most valuable life lesson I took away from ten days of silent meditation came from the absence of absolutely everything I had previously busied my days with. As humans we cling to things outside of ourselves to form our identities; accumulating “value” with decorated resumes, impressive accomplishments, carefully following all the rules attaining a godly status, sophisticated degrees, fancy things and important people. There comes a time when we have to stop running, and ask ourselves, who are we when we’re stripped of all these things? For me, the death of this illusory-self came with the birth of a newfound self-love. Even in the midst of this nothingness, I was enough. I found a well of joy that bubbled up from inside me, a deep knowing that I was completely okay alone. Everything else - the career, the interests, my health, my relationships and love were just extra, a gift to be forevermore grateful.
I found a well of joy that bubbled up from inside me, a deep knowing that I was completely okay alone.
Everything else - the career, the interests, my health, my relationships and love were just extra, a gift to be forevermore grateful.
Here’s what’s true. Each individual goes into a Vipassana training with their own metaphorical backpack of baggage (let’s be honest, we all have it) and their own lenses on life. Each person whether they want to admit it or not is in the process of healing and unlearning behaviour patterns and unhealthy coping mechanisms they accumulated throughout life that are no longer serving them. No two people go home with the same truths from a Vipassana training, because the work is entirely internal, and personal. As human beings, it is our responsibility to embark on the journey of self observation, and if we don’t have the courage to step up to the challenge, we do ourselves and the world a grave disservice.
I’m not saying that a 10 Day Vipassana retreat is right for you, nor is it the only way to have a transformational experience. If this doesn’t seem like it would be meaningful for you, what would? What would strip you to your core, force you to your limits, expose you to yourself? It was curiosity that led me to the wild experience of Vipassana. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the experience of self isolation during those 10 days equipped me for the challenges of self isolation now, in our current global pandemic. The work was hard, but the lessons I learned have carried on. Like S. N. Goenka says, “you have to do the work; no-one else can do it for you.” If we don’t, we’re missing the point of life.
