My first distaste for meditation comes when I visuaize myself at a meditation centre as I am surrounded by well shaved, no bad habit, clean looking s/w and management pros who want to become still well managed in their lives by knowing "Art of living". When at unfortunate interactions happen with them discussions surrounds around s/w companies, onsite oppurtunities and some dumb technology. If I am feebly lucky some novice reader wants to know about chetan bhagat's next to be movie book. Then the weirdest part is, when A well grown beard person then tells me my life is all crap and etc etc, i feel like enlightening him in reverse about Stephen Dedalus in "Ulysses", Atticus of "To kill a Mockingbird", Kafka's "Gregory Samsa" or Dostoevsky's "Underground man". I keep off from that Clock work orange crowd in my normal life, I cannot spoil my vacation surrounded by those weird people. The idea of silence for 10 days in Vipassana stuck me when I heard about Vipassana through an acquaintance Around 11 years back . I ignored it later. Again during my college myself and another friend planned to do it in Hyderabad Vipassana centre which didn't worked. Later when I read "Keep off the Grass" by karan Bajaj it stuck me deeply when two young punks in the novel goes to Dharamshala for Vipassana. Finally I booked for this course from Nov1 to Nov12th 2009.
So What is Vipassana? Its a technique of meditation through which Budhha attained enlightenment. What is enlightenment? Budhha was moved by the misery on earth. Budhha found the reason for the misery and he made himself insulated from misery by not reacting to any situation through his equanimity. Equanimous state of mind is attained by buddha through observing his natural breath and sensation in his body equanimously. As he attained enlightened and equanimity he got liberated. My whole interest in this lied in staying calm and quiet for 10 days with no phones, reading, writing. It allured me a lot. I visualised myself contemplating undisturbed day and night. SN Goenka is the chief teacher of this technique across the world through his pre recorded voice and video. Its a 10 day course. We need to book it in advance. This course is absolutely free. You can donate if you wish to. Actually you need to plan 12 days for this course as 0 th day is for reporting and 11th day is actully you are allowed to go from there. Below is my rambling of how my 12 days went and rumination of Vipassana.
Day0:
After a long Humpty Dumpty journey in train of 2 days and 3 nights I reached Dharamkot, Himachal Pradesh from Bangalore enroute Delhi --> Chakkibank --> Dharamshala --> Mcleodganj --> Dharamkot. We need to report at 2PM in the vipassana centre. If we won't turn around, it'll be given to the wait listed candidates. I reached there at 12'O Clock. Just outside vipassana centre there is smal shop for snacks and cigarettes. Many of my smoking fraternity were regrettingly smoking their last parting fags for next 10 days. I followed the same. Many europeans are there. I suspected many potheads around. I had many last fags. One in the woods, one while sitting and relaxing. One while slurping hot noodles in the cold weather. After reporting there i was alloted a room and a small bag to keep clothes for laundry. We need to submit all our electronic items like mobiles and cameras, also books. We were told to assemble at 6'O clock in the kitchen. When we gathered in the kitchen we sat oppsite facing girls. My heart came out of my throat looking at the girls. All blondes in their 20's sitting cross legged on chairs with a smile turned in to some waves of romance around them. All looking like FTV models came for nirvana. I wondered if all they get liberated, earth will be barrened out of beauties in the next life of sinners like me. Then a male assistant teacher read instructions in english, followed by woman in hindi. One female assistant teacher looking like monglian descent wearing a headband and told us to throw away the tissues we sneezed in immediately as it may spread flu. She was looking more stunning to me among all. I thought, "if you ask so sweetly I can cut my heart and put infornt of you". After the instructions were given noble silence for the next 10 days resumed and curtain followed blinding us from the beauties came for liberation. I felt i am sexually less disturbed in my dull IT office than in this himalayan abode. Brief Meditation followed with a small welcome from SN goenka in Audio and we'll all retire to bed by 9PM. All my blankets already turned cold. I wore a jerkin topped by shawl, monkey cap socks and gloves, tucked myself under two thick blankets.
Day1:
Bell rang at 4 AM and we need to assemble for Group Meditation at 4.30AM for two hours. SN Goenks started singing in the weirdest voice I ever heard. As I held my smile turned to laugh, my stomach is getting inflated. I covered my face with my shawl and started cajoling myself to be serious. Later as I concentrated we are told just to observe our natural breath without any effort. This is the only thing we need to do for the whole day. This is basically to make you concentrate and stay in present. But the mind always dwells in past or future. I visualized as I am standing on a wheel and it goes forward or backward but can't stand still. Sometimes I lost myself for half an hour also later we realize that we need to concentrate on our breath. At 6.30AM breakfast is served and next meditaton session starts by 8AM. Again the same excercise of breath observation. Lunch is served at 11AM. We can take rest till 1 PM. This goes till 6.30PM in the evening with short breaks. At 7PM SN Goenka's video discourse starts by explaining us the reason for this excercise, its buddhist background and what we need to do for next day. Later a brief 30 minutes mediation goes as per goenka's audio instruction and day ends.
Day2 & 3:
Same breathing excercise continues and we can see our breath observation increases than Day1. Video discourses are really good and I was more looking for his discourses every day. Taking bath in the moring at 7AM was spine shivering, though geaser is there. Getting naked to take bath is the craziest thing in the freezing cold. During the breaks I loved peeping through the pine trees to see the himalayas much.
Day4 and 5:
Today actual vipassana meditation starts and we were told to observe the sensations on our skin around the area of nostrils and upperlip. All the day we are told to do this. You feel you got some sensation sometimes and no sensation some other time. The emphasis is to observe actual sensation and not to imagine anything. I was totally in a transe during the discourse session when I was hearing about Gotama the Budhha in SN Goenka's words. My blaspheministic mind is convincing at budhha's philosophy. I recollected karl Marx saying "Religion is the opium of Masses", Its certainly true. Actually we are told only about budhha, not about buddhism, no god and nothing. I recollected my reading of Sidhhartha by Herman Hesse and I thought of reading it again.
In SN Goenka's explanation There are three types of Sankaras. One is like you draw a line on water, which means you are hurted and it goes off in a moment. Another one is like a line drawn on the edge of a beach, It is erased by tide. These are ceratain hard emotions that goes off you mind over a period of time's healing. The third Sankara is like a line you draw on a hard rock which'll remain forever. We pile these third kind of Sankaras all our life and that burden we always want to get rid off. These deep sankaras are the reason for rebirth and misery as per budhha. With the piled up deep sankaras at the time of death, rebirth of a person is decided. So a Suicide death will have a more painful rebirth as the sankara at the time of death is going to be so hard. If there are no sankaras at the time of death then you are liberated from misery and you attain salvation . Thats the whole budhhism in a nutshell. Though I don't believe in rebirths and crap I visualised budhha after practising these and going to god on the conveyor belt of rebirths, shows himself insulated from sankaras. helpless god makes him liberated. The picture below was there in my mind all the time I was in the Vipassana centre and will stick to my life time with the thought of budhha. That was so cute visualisation and I Can't get rid off this deep and sweet sankara on me. Respiration and perspiration can't help my visualisation mind. You can gain this state of budhha's mind by practising three gems known as Sila(Morality), Samadhi(Medtation) and Panya (Wisdom). This Panya known as Wisdom has three kinds Shruthamaya panya, Chintamaya panya and Bhavanamaya Panya. The third Panya called Bhavana maya panya is where Vipassana Falls in. It makes you experience the Budhha's thought. As per budhha, he says not to believe unless you experince.
Day 6,7,8 and 9:
These four days we are told to observe our sensations all our over the body starting from head to toe and toe to head. This actually makes you feel you are heap of atomic change. All these changes known as sankharas will be changing every moment. This is called Impermenance by Budhha. So you a not you the moment before ;) We need to observe all these changes and not to react to any of them. Take all the sensations equanimously. This state of mind keeps makes you take all the situatons of life equanimously. From Day1 Goenka keeps in repeating the word Anichha, Anichha all the day which means Impermenance.
Day 10:
Today the silence is broken and we are allowed to speak with the fellow meditators without any physical contact. My first words I felt like coming from deep well. I got my camera and started taking pics of all I observed these 10 days silently. Slowly people started sharing with each other and I was more into listening end. Afternoon A movie called "Doing time. Doing Vipassana" was palyed for us. Vipassana was implemented in Tihar jail by Kiran bedi. People who changed after practising vipassana were interviwed. A person who murdered three brothers started practising vipassana after this course and realized his mistake and called wives of the persons he killed. He apologized them and started taking care of those families financial needs. Especially in In the evening A group of serious god abiding peoples discussion drawn more attention of me. They are comparing many religions and also some views and counterviews on Vipassana and goenka's words also flown in. I went curious at their views. A new cult I heard there is about gnosticism. Then everybody retired to sleep and I kept roaming in the woods at 12 midnight. A group 5 people sat down and chatting. When I went nearer I saw them taking pot and same deep discussion of god going on ;) I felt I am in some other planet of god men. In all my 30 years I haven't heard these many different views on god than this day. They felt I am harmless looking at my end to end grin. I joined the group and went on hearing all their discussion. This 10th day gave me a great oppurtunity to see people worth my calmness for the previous 10 days. This pot hitting group has my point of views on many things. An italian sporting the hair do of Indian sadhu is telling mayan astrology to all of US. Then he switched to discussion of god. He said "Above all what we need is empathy towards others. What a man you are if you cannot feel the pain of others." I am impressed. Then he continued "What a gothic character is Jesus. People nailed'im to cross and started whipping 'im. He was equanimous and requested god to forgive the people hitting him as they are innocents and unknown about thier acts". I am moved totally by that view of him on Jesus. Phew I am getting shocking views from people. I am all ears wide open this day. And he continued that what Jesus attanied or Buddha attained are parts of a whole thing and people who practice them show those parts as whole and bluff. I Liked this view as it gives and accepts space for all. When the parts are shown as whole, people start critcizing other religiions and views. So the discussion went on the movie shown to us in the afternoon and one australian pothead said inbetween his drags "what a great person is that reformed murderer.What is Buddha infront of him? Imagine the life journey this murderer has travelled and buddha has travelled". I am seeing many enlightened around me. Then i felt its all reason we need to satisfy ourselves beyond anything (My prophecy;) ). As per the mayan astrology I was told that I am a Monkey.
Day11:
We can leave after breakfast. One of the pothead I met previous night wished me to embrace the Monkey attitude. I moved to MC leodganj and started roaming around. I doubted whether I am a new leaf or not. I got some more deep sankaras which added new views towards life. I thought I am a heap of many books I read, Other peoples views I came across and large portion of visualisations and imaginations constantly changing instead of atomic particles. If you like solitude, quietness and small walks in the forest this is the best place for meditation. If you are a blabbering nut, you die there in silence. I enjoyed my silence. Pics of my trip are here.
