DAY 1
Revenge of angry hips
I woke up to a weird sound,
completely disorientated. My feet were frozen and it was
pitch black and very quiet around, except for that annoying sound. A gong. It
took me a few seconds to realise what was going on. 4 am. Time to get up. I
knew that the first session didn’t start until 4.30, so I decided to stay in
bed and just get up five minutes before the sitting, brush my teeth, put some
clothes on and comb my hair. Five minutes should be enough.
I closed my eyes and immediately fell back to sleep and got woken up by the second bell, the one
calling students for the first meditation. I put a jumper over my pajama top,
wrapped myself in a blanket I bought from Kathmandu market and rushed to the
bathroom to brush my teeth. Screw the hair, not enough time. Three minutes
later, I was in the meditation hall. We’d all been assigned our seats – little
pillows scattered around the room, which we'd keep until the end of the
course. From then on, I was known as G4. I wished mine was closer to the wall,
maybe I could lean back and nobody would notice. I sat down, put a scarf on my head
and wrapped myself tighter in my yak wool blanket. Right, respiration. Observe
the breath. Inhale, exhale. I tried hard, but my mind kept coming back to one
thought – why was I not in bed? And when could I go back there? ‘Two hours,
only two hours. Then I’ll have a break and I'll be able to have a nap,’ I repeated
in my head, waiting for the session to end.
There
were all sorts of noises around. Human noises. I could understand coughing and
sneezing, but burping and farting? Really?! And this horrible sound Indian men
do when they clear their throats… there was a guy in the room who did it every
few minutes! I couldn’t stand it. ‘Have these people got no manners? Are they
not aware of how distracting that is to others? Clearly somebody should have a
chat with them!’ I kept thinking to myself. ‘But hey, I’m supposed to be
focusing on me. Breath. Nostrils. In and out,’ I tried to concentrate. We
weren’t allowed to use any mantras, words or visualisations to help us focus
our minds. But how to do it without them? Breath, just observe the breath. Very
simple. Or at least it seems so. Try it now. Close your eyes and watch your
breath coming in and out. How long can you go without a thought appearing in
your head? Exactly.
I
was shocked by how little control I had over my mind. How disconnected I was
from myself. I thought all the yoga would make it all easy – after all, the
purpose is the same: ‘Yoga chitta vritti nirodha’. Yoga is the end of the
fluctuations of the mind. Well, it seemed like I had an awfully long way to go.
It looked like thinking was something that was happening to me rather than
something I was consciously doing. That’s what it is for most of us, I suppose.
It’s easy to get trapped in our own thoughts, to become so engrossed in them
and attached to them that we lose the ability to step back and see things as
they are, without the interference of our ego. We think we're always right. And it’s
always others that should change, not us. ‘If only my partner changed a little
bit… Everything would be better!’ It’s easy to see other people’s
faults. Easy to blame them for our problems, failures and unhappiness. Much
more difficult to leave your ego behind and notice that we are the ones who
create them. Our mind creates them. Our own thoughts and reactions to them.
I
was reminded of that a few minutes later, when I heard a gentle, faint snoring
sound and realised where it came from. My own mouth. I’ve dozed off! I laughed
at myself for getting annoyed with other meditators making noises. I guessed I
would have to get used to it and learn to ignore it. It’s not them, it’s me.
It’s all about the way I react to it. I guessed that was going to be my first
lesson.
When
the gong finally went off, all I felt was relief. I could have breakfast and go
back to bed for an hour. Sweet. And then eight more hours of that… can’t say I
was looking forward to it.
I
was woken up again at 8 am, this time feeling much more awake. The first
morning session was one hour, followed by a 5-minute break and then another two
hours. My mind reminded me of a wild bird let out of the cage, flying aimlessly
around the room, trying to find a way out. From time to time, it would find a
shelf to sit on for minute and then take off again, madly fluttering its wings
and not really getting anywhere. You’d think it would finally get tired and sit
still for a bit. Well, let me tell you, it didn’t look like that was going to
happen anytime soon.
It’s impossible
to remember all the thoughts that appeared in my head. Some were so ridiculous that
all I could do was just laugh. Others seemed super important and I wanted to
write them down straight away before I forgot. Brilliant ideas. Past experiences.
Future worries. I was completely overwhelmed by what my mind was doing. ‘I’m a
yoga teacher, for god’s sake! I should be peaceful and balanced. I should be in
control,’ I kept thinking. But I seemed very far from it. My body was aching
and I had to change positions often. I was saved from my own mind by the bell
signaling the end of the last morning session. Two hours break! TWO HOURS!
I
took a quick, freezing cold shower (only worked out around day six or seven
that hot water was usually available in the afternoons) and made my way to the
dining hall. Having heard some pretty horrible stories from people doing Vipassana at other
centres, I was pleasantly surprised by how good the food was – simple dal baht,
but very tasty. I’d happily pay for it if they served it to me in a restaurant.
You could eat as much as you wanted, but you were asked not to waste any food.
I knew this was my last proper meal of the day – after that we would only get
some fruit and tea in the afternoon, so I played with the idea of going for seconds,
but then decided I’d had enough. I spent the rest of my break doing some
stretches, laying on my blanket in the sun and admiring the view over the
mountains and Kathmandu valley. I wished the grounds were a bit bigger or that
they would let us go to the park - the female area was so small that ‘going for
a walk’ involved pacing around a tiny courtyard.
When
I heard the bell ring at 1 pm, I knew things were going to get harder. Four hours in
a row – one and a half hours, five minutes break, then one hour, and then another
hour and a half. As I sat down for the first session, my mind seemed to have
been even more agitated than in the morning. I didn’t really think that was
possible. My hips were literally falling apart. I’d had no idea how tight my
right hip was! It had always been stiffer than the left one but this… this was
just pure agony. During the whole last session, my hip was screaming. Was it
all those years playing basketball as a teenager? Or have I stored lots of
stuff in there? Whatever it was, I couldn’t stand the pain. I found it
impossible to disconnect from it and focus on anything else. I was aware of the
fact that whatever I was doing there on the floor had little to do with
meditation. But I couldn’t really do anything about it. Now I know that I could
have asked the teacher for some extra pillows or try sitting on a chair, but I didn’t
realize it at the time. I thought I just had to grit my teeth and push through
it. And so I did. When the gong went off and I tried to bring my legs together,
my face was flooded with tears. I couldn’t get up. I pulled the edge of the scarf I had
wrapped around my head down to cover my red eyes and cheeks. A few minutes
later, when I was finally able to move, I made my way back to my room and lay
down.
People
told me it was going to be tough. But I didn’t expect so much pain. Especially
not in the hips, I thought it would probably be back and neck. As the break
went on, the pain slowly subsided. I spent most of the time in bed, trying not
to move and relax all the muscles. Before the evening session, I managed to
calm myself down. It would all get better. It had to.
The
evening sitting was only one hour. After the break, it seemed manageable. The pain
was still there, but it was bearable. I was a bit more focused. The wild bird
of my mind kept madly fluttering its wings, but seemed too tired to fly away
too far. After the session, we were divided into different language groups and
went to watch the discourse. The founder of Vipassana in India, Mr. Goenka, a
former businessman born to Indian parents in Myanmar, spoke to us from the TV
screen. ‘The first day is over. You’ve got nine more to go,’ he started. Shit.
Nine more days of this. Breathe. Then he proceeded to explaining things that
had been happening that day, assuring us that everything going on in our heads
was absolutely normal, and gave us instructions for the next day.
In
the last sitting, which was only half an hour long, we were supposed to follow
the instructions for the next day – this time we were asked not only to observe
the respiration, but also to watch for any sensations appearing in the nostrils
and the area blow the nose and above the upper lip. We were asked not look for
any particular sensations, but to observe anything that came up – itching, throbbing, pulsations – anything. When
the session finished, we were allowed to go to bed, unless we had any questions
for the teachers. We’d been informed that the questions should be kept to a minimum
and should be related to current problems with the technique. I didn’t have any
questions. Well, I did, but I guessed that 'could I stay in bed for the first sitting and start at 8 am?' wouldn't be met with much enthusiasm.
As
I lay down in bed, all I could think of was that I had nine more days of that.
Nine days. It seemed like nine years. Would I be able to tame the wild bird of
my mind? Would my hips stop screaming? I was exhausted and overwhelmed, but
sill curious to see what would happen, where it would all take me. With that in
mind, I fell asleep.
DAY 2
I am clearly insane
When I heard the wakeup call, it seemed like
I’d only just fallen asleep. ‘Why are they doing this to us? I don’t think
anybody sane voluntarily gets up at 4 am! It was Saturday night (I really
wouldn’t consider 4 am a Sunday morning!) and most of my friends in Goa are just finishing the party at Silent Noise. And going to an after party. And I'm supposed to get up and start meditating. Why again did I sign up for this?’ I
kept thinking.
Again,
I spent the next half an hour dozing off, then rushed out of bed when the
second gong went off. These first two hours seemed like a complete waste of
time. Every now and then my chin would suddenly drop and I’d realize I’d
fallen asleep. The rest of the time I would spend either wishing I was in bed,
wondering why I was there, or waiting for the bell to signal the end of this
torture.
The
morning sittings were much easier. As I’d had a nap in the break, I was feeling
well-rested and ready to explore the depths of my mind. Cut it open. Examine
it. Understand it. Disconnect from it.
Observe the breath and sensations
– all right. Well, kind of. My mind still kept wandering away. I realized how
weird it was to be surrounded by so many people, but not to know anything about
them. Not even knowing their faces. I knew the girl sitting in front of me, G3,
had blond hair. And the one next to her was wrapped up in a red blanket. I had
no idea where the girl sleeping next to me was from or what she looked like. It
seemed like everybody was angry with each other, looking down whenever their
paths crossed. There was only one girl who was constantly looking for eye
contact. She appeared to be very agitated, I’d see her pacing up and down the
courtyard at the end of each session. I knew it must have been ten times harder
for her, she couldn’t sit still and it looked like she was fighting a really
tough battle. I felt lucky. Even though I was a bit disappointed with myself
for not being able to switch off, I knew that all those years of doing yoga
gave me a good starting point. In my head there was not a trace of doubt in the technique, the purpose of meditation in general or the overall result of
the experience – whatever it was, I knew it would be good for me.
I
was perfectly aware that my mind is not the real ‘me’. That it can create
illusions. It’s not always right. How often do you worry about things, spend
hours thinking about them, analayzing every little detail from every possible
angle just to discover later that there was absolutely no need for that? How
many times have you created scenarios in your head that had nothing to do with
reality? Yet you believe in everything your mind says and take it for the
truth. If you’re in a bad mood, you get tangled up in a train of negative
thoughts and allow them to bring you down. You let your mind take control. And
all you need to do, is recognize what your mind is doing and say ‘Whoa, I’m not
really going that way, thank you very much!’ All our feelings are reflections
of our thoughts. Everything starts in the mind. Sadness, anger, depression,
joy, happiness. You’re not sad because somebody insulted you, you only become
sad when you start thinking about it – ‘Why did they do that? How could they? I
certainly didn’t deserve that!’ And the more you dwell in it, the more sadness
and anger it creates. The event is already in the past, so it’s not causing you
any pain. Your thoughts are. And that’s what meditation is all about –
observing your mind and learning to disconnect from it, learning to say ‘no’
when it creates worries and insecurities. It doesn’t mean escaping from
problems and ignoring them, it’s about being capable of seeing things clearly
and dealing with them more efficiently, without unnecessary stress and
worrying.
This
is something I'd known and practiced for a while now. Whenever I feel
anxious, sad or angry, I straight away ask myself ‘Right, what was I thinking?
Why am I feeling like this?’ and then look back at my thoughts and realize
where it all came from. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the feeling will
disappear straight away. Sometimes it takes a bit of time. And it’s not about
trying to stop yourself from feeling that way – all you can do is accept it.
But once you know the patterns of your mind, things start changing. You realize
that worrying does not solve any problems, it can only blur your vision and
prevent you from seeing things as they are. Objective observation of your mind
allows you to disconnect from it, step back and see what it’s doing – and that’s
what makes the difference between being a master of your mind and being its
slave.
Knowing
all this made things easier for me. A lot of people who didn’t know much about
meditation and its purpose struggled to follow the strict rules and accept the
teachings as they doubted they could benefit from it all and didn’t understand
where it would take them. The battle in their minds was much harder. At least I
was aware of it all, which meant that I could focus on putting that knowledge
into practice, as that’s a whole different thing.
All the thoughts going through my
head – and there seemed to have been even more than the day before – made me
think I must have been crazy. Mental. I felt like I was going INSANE! I
had absolutely no control of whatever was going on in my head! The bird flew
wherever it wanted to, with no order or purpose, not really paying any
attention to its owner. But I was determined to tame it.
There was still pain in my hips, but
it was definitely better than the day before. The last session in the afternoon
was still the hardest, but there were no tears this time, just frustration with
myself and waiting for it all to end. I thought of it as progress as I lay
in bed that evening. ‘The second day is over. You’ve got eight more days to
go,’ said Goenka from the TV screen earlier that day. Eight more days. ‘I’ll
have a nice cup of coffee when I go out,’ I thought to myself. ‘And a massive
piece of chocolate cake!’
DAY 3
Like a leaf blown by
the wind
I’d thought getting up at 4 am would get
easier. It didn’t. I was still feeling grumpy when the bell rang and the thought
of staying in bed crossed my mind. I didn’t let it linger, got up, brushed my
teeth, threw a blanket over my shoulders and made my way to the meditation hall.
Day three. Apparently, it was a tough
one. Or so I’d heard. Lots of people leave. Some people had left already. I hadn’t
seen the young French girl who I’d met at the registration office for a bit.
Later that day, I checked and her bed was empty and all
her stuff was gone.
I started developing little routines
– folding things in a certain way, always putting my shoes in the same place on
the shoe rack, sitting in the same place in the dining hall – in the corner by
the wall, isolated from the rest of the people. Each movement, each step I took
seemed slower. Brushing my teeth would take around 10 minutes. I was usually
the last one to finish my food. I was becoming much more aware of
everything around, noticing things I hadn’t seen before. But there were no
profound realisations, no past experiences or events that I’d find to be
weighing me down. I heard people often got that. Unpleasant childhood memories,
resentment or anger towards certain people that you haven’t quite managed to
let go of, deaths of people you loved you haven’t dealt with… deeply rooted and
hidden things that suddenly come up to the surface. Why weren’t mine coming up?
There must be some there, right? So I started searching my mind. In my head, I
probably went through every relationship, every unpleasant childhood memory,
every sad event I could remember. Fortunately, by the afternoon, I realised
what I was doing. I was looking for things and trying to analyze them. I was
letting my mind take control again, letting it create illusions. That wasn’t
what it was all about. No craving, no expectations. It should all happen
naturally, only then can it be my own experience.
I’ve
always been weary of letting my mind create illusions. It’s easy. I’ve met a
lot of people talking about how open their chakras were and how close they were
to getting enlightened. And I knew they had no idea. They believed in things without really feeling them, accepted other people’s experiences as their own. I
remember one of the students on my first teacher training course who said to our teacher: ‘
I find it really hard to believe in all those chakras, nadis and prana.’ ‘Don’t
believe in it,’ the teacher replied. ‘Never believe. Feel it. Experience it.
And then you’ll know. There’s no need to believe.’ His words really resonated
with me. I promised myself to always experience things and never accept blind
beliefs. You can call me a sceptic. But at least I know that whatever I say and
whatever I teach, comes deep from my heart.
Although I was raised as a Catholic
and went to church every Sunday until I was about sixteen, I never felt
anything there. Church was a place to hang out with friends. To dress up to. I
went there because others did and because my parents expected me to go. I sat
through the masses, sang hymns, said prayers. And never felt anything, never
experienced anything that would prove that it was all real.
So I stopped going. But I didn’t
become an atheist. I always knew there was more than just mind and matter. I
just had no idea where to find it. All I knew was that I wouldn’t accept any
blind beliefs, I would have to feel it, touch it. When I first started getting
deeper into yoga philosophy and Buddhist ideas, I knew that was exactly what I
was looking for. Everything is inside you, everything comes from within. God
means truth and if you explore yourself, you’ll find it. Everything should
happen at the experiential level, in its own time, exactly when it’s meant to.
And it did. Concepts that were first impossible to understand, like
non-attachment, letting go of desires and expectations, disconnecting from your
mind, slowly started making sense. There was no effort required, no discussions
or persuasion. At some point it was just perfectly clear.
And that’s what I liked about the
technique we were being taught. Nobody was telling us what we should experience
and how we should feel. It was completely pure and universal and could be
practiced by a person of any religion. There were no dogmas, no rituals, no
requirement to convert or label yourself. All we were being taught were three
things – shila, samadhi and panna. Shila meant morality and we were asked to
observe pretty basic moral rules – like no stealing or killing. That was the
base for everything else. Could you imagine what would happen if every religion
focused on that rather than all its rituals? The world would be a better place,
that’s for sure. Samadhi meant concentration, mastery of the mind. Who wouldn’t
want to become a master of their mind, to see things clearly, without their
mind’s interference? And panna meant wisdom, insight that purifies the mind.
Removing deeply rooted patterns and habits of the mind. That was it. That was
all we were being taught. And the technique to achieve Samadhi and panna was
very simple – observing yourself and sensations in your body and realizing that
nothing in the world is permanent. Pain comes and goes, pleasant feelings come
and go. And all you can do is accept it.
So, having realized that I’m being
influenced by other people’s experiences, I vowed to lose all expectations of
what should happen. I would do exactly what I was told – we were asked to
narrow the area below the nose and the upper lip and observe the sensations
there. My mind still wandered away, but every time I caught myself thinking,
I’d let the thoughts drift away and come back to observing my breath. I was
definitely getting a tiny bit better at it. But then the pain hit me. It moved
from the hips to the neck and upper back. I couldn’t stand it and couldn’t feel
any other sensations.
In the last afternoon session we
were given Vipassana. Apparently, so far we had been practicing Anapana
meditation. We'd been sharpening our minds to notice sensations on a really
small area in order to now be able to see them on the whole body. As we were
given instructions on how to scan our bodies for sensations, the pain came back
to my right hip and became so sharp that I was flooded with tears again. How
am I supposed to observe my body if all I can feel is pain? Throbbing,
unbearable, intense, burning pain. I couldn’t disconnect from it. I felt
like I was missing out – we were finally
being taught the real technique and I was just sat there, crying and feeling
sorry for myself. When the gong went off, I buried my head in my knees and
waited for a few minutes until most people had left the room. I went outside
and lay down on a concrete bench, basking in the setting sun. It was warm and
soothing. Above my head I noticed an old, crinkled, brown leaf surrounded by
green buds. It looked like it was going to fall any second. I watched it for a
few minutes, waiting for it to fall. The wind blew it in all possible directions,
but somehow it just hang on there. I stayed there for about an hour, staring at
the leaf, expecting it to drift away with the wind, but it never did. I thought
I was a bit like that leaf – desperately trying to hang on. And I wasn’t
going to give up. ‘Pain is in your mind,’ I kept saying to myself. ‘It will go
down. Or I’ll learn to get disconnect from it. There’s no other way.’
I went to the next session more
determined than ever. As soon as I sat down on my pillow, I noticed something
wasn’t quite right. I realized it had been moved forward. G2 had disappeared. I noticed a few other people
weren’t there either and felt a bit like I was in the ‘Blair Witch Project’
movie. People kept going missing and I had no idea what had happened to them. I
supposed the wind must have blown their leaves of the tree.
I breathed slowly and focused on
sensations in my body. There was a little pain, but I could feel other things
as well this time. They were very faint and gentle, but they were definitely
there. ‘I’ll be fine. Nothing is permanent,’ I kept repeating to myself like a
mantra.
In the evening discourse, I did a
quick scan to see who was still there. I thought the lady in the pink fleece,
the one who said she was there to reach enlightenment, would have left by the
end of day one or two, but to my surprise, she was still there. She couldn’t
really sit still for more than a few minutes and kept wandering to the back of
the room all the time. At some point, I saw her laying down on the stairs. The
teacher didn’t notice. I wondered how much longer she’d last.
Having wrapped myself tightly in a
duvet that evening, I felt a little sense of achievement. I was still there. I
didn’t give up. I won this battle. But I knew the war wasn’t over yet.
To be continued