This meditation retreat was truly a delightful, inspiring and insightful experience. Accompanied by my significant other, Pénélope, we had the immense opportunity to meet other practitioners, including Henrik Norberg, another fellow meditation teacher who trainer under the late Culadasa. Henrik currently manages the Dharma Treasure meditation retreat center, and has been for a few years.

Our stay blew our mind for several reasons that go beyond the meditation practice. The beauty of the desert environment, the diversity and warmth of the community – including a monk, Ajahn Buddhisaro, who lives there -, the innumerable natural caves we could explore and sleep in, an unforgettable full moon hike and a welcoming communal cooking and working experience. We only stayed for two weeks, but left with a thirst for more, wishing we could dive in more meaningfully into the richness of this stunning place.

This brings me to my main point. We are coming back to Dharma Treasure, this time for a much longer stay, this Fall! From October 20th 2024 to January 20th 2025, we will not only be living at Dharma Treasure, but managing the center, and helping out with all things necessary to run the place and hold a space for all visitors to practice fruitfully. I can hardly express the gratefulness I feel to be offered this opportunity. Creating and managing such an environment has been a dream of mine for a long time, and having the unexpected opportunity to bring this dream to life this Fall is truly a blessing. I had to rearrange some priorities and make a few sacrifices, including taking a sabbatical, but it was an easy decision given the nature of the opportunity.

Our goal with the stay is manifold. First, we want to make sure that all retreatants get the most out of their stay, whether they be beginner or advanced meditators, nature enthusiasts, or simply people looking for some time off from conventional daily life. Notably:

• We will improve the current greeting process for newcomers, so that people can join the communal life and participate in the activities and tasks that surround it as soon as they arrive. This includes improved and clearer briefing processes with regards to the rules, expectations and the schedule of the center, as well as a better mapping of the outdoor activities, hikes and caves.
• We will create an inventory of all things owned by Dharma Treasure. This will facilitate keeping track of objects owned, and streamline the process of lending, borrowing and acquiring possessions. Examples that come to mind are outdoor gear like tents, sleeping bags and rock climbing equipment ; or gardening and constructions tools and supplies.
• We will incorporate mindfulness into every feasible aspect of the food process. We believe that sourcing food ethically, eliminating food wastage and creating a warm atmosphere in which food is cooked, shared and enjoyed communally. This is challenging in the context of living together, especially when people of varied backgrounds and with diverse dietary preferences and restrictions come and go, but we will face that challenge head on, and will keep iterating improvements until we are satisfied with the approach.
• Help foster an atmosphere of transparent, lucid and non-violent communication, and encourage all participants to follow “Right speech” ethos. An idea that came about when staying at Dharma Treasure last winter was to have periods when speech is restricted through certain rules. One such rule could be “only discuss what’s occurring in the present, rather than the past or future”. We actually tried for 24 hours and failed quite miserably, but we would love to try again!
• On the meditation front, I will be leading daily guided meditations, which I will record and publish on Insight Timer. Together with Henrik, I will also a lead a TMI-inspired meditation retreat in January. Our ambition is to have practitioners follow the Elephant path with alternative meditation techniques (not the breath!). I will also be serving as the fallback resident yogi during that period, meaning that I’ll be holding the meditation space whenever no invited teacher is present. .

How to attend

The retreat center is located in Arizona, 90 minutes from the Tucson Airport, 45 minutes from Benson and Willcox, and 20 minutes from the small village of Sunsites. While remote, the retreat center is part of a close-knit rural community.

Compared to a lot of other retreat centers, Dharma Treasure is definitely on the affordable side, and it is also possible for attendees to significantly reduce costs by volunteering. I For more details on booking, lodging, and retreat guidelines, you can visit their official site at https://dharmatreasure.org/ or contact them directly via email at retreats@dharmatreasure.org.

Future plans

Our stay at Dharma Treasure supports our long-term vision of creating a unique environment where people can come and stay. While we don’t aim to establish a full-scale meditation center, we aspire to build a self-sufficient space that places nature at the heart of our lives. This space will welcome people from all walks of life, offering them the freedom to pursue meaningful interests, projects, and ambitions—whether spiritual, artistic, or intellectual—while simultaneously upholding the values that are dear to our hearts. I believe our experience at Dharma Treasure will inspire us to create such a place and clarify the specifics of our ambition.

I truly hope to see you there!

Why I decided to go meditate at Pa-Auk Tawya

I heard about Pa Auk by doing a web research. Exploring the fascinating world of concentration practices appealed to me. In my previous 10-day Goenka Vipassana retreats, we only did 3 days of concentration practices and then proceeded to insight meditation. I always wondered what the results would be if I pushed my concentration further, so I decided to go meditate at Pa Auk for 40 days.

I e-mailed the monastery and they agreed to send me a sponsorship letter. This letter made it possible to get a special meditation visa. This visa allowed me to stay for as long as a year in Burma (Myanmar) as opposed to the 28 days normally allowed for tourists. I got the visa at the Burmese embassy in Vientiane, Laos. The process only took a day.

Pa-Auk Tawya’s meditation hall as seen from a nearby mountain.

Getting at Pa-Auk Tawya Monastery

I flew to Burma from Bangkok, took a bus the next day from Yangon to Mudon, and asked the driver to drop me off at Pa-Auk Tawya Monastery, which was on the way. It took a couple of crappy drawings to get my point across, but eventually, he understood!

I got there at about 3am, walked around and in fact, kind of got lost in this vast monastery! This allowed me to explore this beautiful place while the sun was rising. At Pa-Auk Tawya, the wake-up bell is struck at 3:30am every morning so the monastery was already very lively. I didn’t see any lay people though, there only seemed to be monks.

Eventually, I found the foreigner’s registration office, where a monk – who spoke accent-heavy and hardly understandable English – asked me a few questions on my reason for coming to Pa-Auk Tawya and my earlier meditation experiences. He and two other monks also kindly gave me some of their alms food so I could eat. Seemingly satisfied with my answers, he then handed me a copy of the Pa-Auk Tawya Monastery’s rules as well as the daily schedule:

He then proceeded to recite the 8 Buddhist precepts in Pali, which I had to repeat after him, as is the tradition. Thumbs up to him for not laughing at my terrible Pali accent!

Another monk then led me to my assigned room, which I shared with another guy. As the 8th Buddhist precept dictates, the bed was low and “not luxurious”. It was an elevated wooden plank, with no mattress. It did, however, have a small pillow.

From then on, I started following the regular schedule. At 9am, I met my appointed teacher. The teacher interviews happened in a group setting, my group consisting of about 30 monks and 2 other lay people. Turn by turn, we went up front, answered the teacher’s questions, asked our own and received instructions. I really liked this “case-by-case”, personalized approach! It was fascinating to hear about other meditators’ experiences, especially since some of them seemed very advanced in their practice.

My first impression of the teacher was good. He spoke fluent English and explained in a very clear and concise way. He definitely seemed to speak from experience.

Like I expected, I was instructed to start by focusing on the breath at the region below the nostrils, above the upper lip. My teacher specified not to focus on the sensations that made up the breath but on the breath itself, seeing it as a continuous entity. In pure concentration practices, individual sensations are not the object of meditation since they can’t lead to absorption states (Jhanas) because of their impermanent nature (they’re always changing). At Pa-Auk Tawya, meditators typically wait to master pure concentration practices before proceeding to insight meditation (in which sensations are observed). He also taught me the Burmese meditation position, which is the meditation posture I use the most nowadays.

After meeting with my teacher, it was lunch time. Unlike in the Goenka Vipassana retreats I had attended before, I had to go for almsround, like the monks. This was made possible by the local people who supported the monastery by providing meals for us twice daily. We therefore stood in line with our bowls, which was generously filled with vegetarian food. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality and diversity of food we were given. I was even given some energy drink powder and a wet towel!

Going for alms is a very humbling experience ; you basically depend on the generosity and goodwill of other people to eat. It provided extra motivation: alms are given to us so that we can dedicate ourselves fully to our meditative practice. After lunch, I went for a nap and then proceeded to the meditation hall.

With temperatures often exceeding 40°C, Burma is hot as hell.  Drenched in sweat, I could hardly maintain awareness of my breath.

After an afternoon of meditation, I went to the monastery’s library and talked with an Indian monk who recommended me the book “A Map of the Journey” by U. Jotika, which was indeed a very good read, detailing the stages of meditative practice and addressing some practical concerns meditators may encounter. I then went to the evening meditation, which went better than the afternoon one (it was a bit cooler, so that definitely helped) and then went to bed. As is usual, especially when I do a lot of meditation, I had sleep paralysis and some cool lucid dreams. This allowed me to somehow maintain my practice while sleeping.

First week – Getting the mind into it

The next day, I woke up at 3:15am, 15 minutes before the wake-up bell. Even though I slept on a hard wooden plank, I actually felt mentally refreshed, even though my body was a bit sore. I did some stretching and a little physical exercise and then took a shower to chase the sluggishness away. I then went to meditate, I was clearheaded and it went well.

The wake-up “bell”

The breakfast was simple but good, consisting of noodles with tea. I also chatted a bit with my roommate, a 30-year-old Iranian guy, and went back meditating. The morning session went well, I got some early “lights”, which typically are a sign that concentration is improving, although these lights weren’t stable at all. I kept my attention on the breath, and for some brief moments, it actually was quite pleasant and effortless. One of the first checkpoints in concentration practice is when your meditation object appears as a bright light in your “mind’s eye”. This “mind object” is called a Nimitta. The more solid and stable the Nimitta gets, the better one’s concentration is.

Carrying on with the daily schedule, the afternoon session was uncomfortable, the discomfort caused by the heat made it very hard for me to concentrate and maintain peace of mind. I thus decided to ask the monk in charge for permission to meditate in my room, which he granted without hesitation.

In the evening, I started coughing and sneezing pretty badly. I woke up the next morning feeling sicker, so I slept in to attempt to speed up my recovery. It’s ridiculous how I always seem to get sick when I go on a meditation retreat. That day, I had no success in solidifying the Nimitta. My ceaseless cough didn’t help me concentrate.

The next day, I still felt quite a bit sick but the worst of it was behind me. In the morning, a monk gave me a bag of potato chips, a peanut bar and a carton of soy milk. Monks aren’t allowed to store food overnight, and therefore often gave me stuff they couldn’t keep for themselves.

I also began to really see the value in taking formal resolutions before meditating. These resolutions mostly consisted of stating exactly what I was doing, for how long I was doing it and why doing it was a good idea. It made it easier to stay focused and committed to my meditative practice. Here’s my resolution for mindfulness-of-breathing meditation:

For the next hour, I will train the mind to stay aware of the breath. This will improve my relationship with the present moment, generate peace and happiness and sharpen the mind for insight meditation. I will not let a single breath go by unnoticed.

I felt the mind becoming increasingly malleable and less resistant. However, I still didn’t get as deeply concentrated as I wanted. About halfway in a session, I realized that even though my gross thoughts were sparse and weak, there was still an underlying layer of very frequent “micro-thoughts” that impaired me from becoming fully absorbed. These micro-thoughts lasted only for a blink of an eye after which I went back to the breath. These thoughts could be anything, from awareness of a surrounding sound to a subtle opinion or judgement about my practice.

The mind always wanted to grasp on to something, ANYTHING! The mind is so damn wild.

The following morning, everyone had to go to a hall and take the 8 precepts again by repeating them after a monk. I’m not a huge fan of  “taking precepts”, I find it dogmatic and somewhat useless but hey, they were hosting me so the least I could do was respect their tradition.

The hall where we took our precepts every week

That day, the perception of my “meditative progress” really shifted. Although on the one hand, I saw that concentration was improving fast, I began to see how much of a beginner I still was, even after a few years of regular meditation practice. It was getting clearer that the impression of having good concentration abilities was only caused by the grossness of my mind. Isn’t it ironic that the better my concentration got, the weaker I felt it was? Great lesson of humility!

I also began to include a fair amount of walking meditation in my routine. Practicing walking meditation helps to develop the habit to meditate in everyday circumstances. It gives the body some exercise and chases tiredness and drowsiness away. In the context of a meditation retreat, it helped me keep up my practice throughout the day, and not only in formal meditation periods. In my experience, it also makes sitting meditation much easier! I find it unfortunate that walking meditation is not encouraged in Goenka Vipassana 10-day courses. When my mind was very agitated or I simply wanted a “break”, I just did walking meditation. It gave me all the benefits of a standard “break” without me losing the inertia of my meditative practice.

Following the breath was slowly becoming my mind’s “default activity”. Of course, the mind would wander once in a while, but these gaps in my practice were getting sparser and shorter. I really began making use of every opportunity and free time to practice. Even upon waking up at night, the pleasure of going back to sleep was weaker than my desire to meditate, therefore I sometimes meditated for a good part of the night. Obviously, the fact that I was sleeping on a wooden plank didn’t help me want to indulge in excessive sleep!

Again, my concentration was improving, my meditation sessions were peaceful, but I was still not getting a clear Nimitta. Was I doing this right?

On a side note, one day I was given some ice cream for lunch! Definitely didn’t expect that in Burma. And it was good!

Second week – Am I doing this right?

I began to wonder if I was practicing correctly. I remembered the teacher telling me I had to focus my attention on the “conceptual breath”. Was I putting too much emphasis on the individual sensations themselves? Perhaps the impermanent nature of the sensations made it impossible for concentration to become very stable, making my attention waver in a subtle way.

After the last meditation of the 8th day, a sense of frustration emerged in me. I felt puzzled and clueless. Interestingly, I felt like the “conceptual breath” was easier to nail down and focus on when doing walking meditation than when sitting, perhaps because the act of walking made me not “try too hard”, which is common in sitting practice.

Nevertheless, the mind was definitely getting more and more inclined to watch the breath – or the breath sensations – to the point where it would take strong conscious effort not to be aware of it.

The next day, I read the section of Mastering the Core Teaching of the Buddha discussing concentration practices (the book was available at the monastery’s library). This passage helped me:

Try not paying too much attention to the individual sensations themselves, but conceptualize the breath as a coherent and continuous entity, with many different types of sensations all being thought of as a single breath

In the morning session that came right after breakfast, it felt like I kind of “nailed it” for a few instants. I got a pretty clear, bright and round Nimitta for what felt like a few seconds. Obviously though, I couldn’t help but get excited so it quickly faded away. I think that the key thing in “nailing” the conceptual breath was to seek and find the only constant and unchanging part of the breath, which is the mental conceptualization of it. Note that this concept is not “ultimately real”, it’s just an idea, an agglomerate of diverse sensations that we identify as the breath.

The Road Leading to the Meditation Hall

I went to my teacher to describe my experience, and he told me that I got the “light”, as he called it, very quickly. He proceeded to tell me that this was likely because I had practiced this technique in a recent past life. I’m skeptical about that claim. He told me to keep practicing and that if sensations arose, not to fight them but to keep the attention on the conceptual breath. There’s no point in seeing sensations as enemies. In this concentration practice, they are seen as an indicator that the breath is present. They shouldn’t be the primary focus of attention.

The afternoon meditation sessions went well. The Nimitta appeared once in a while, correlating with the intensity of my concentration. The appearance of the light was really helpful in letting me know that I was on the right track. On the other side, in some later meditations, I felt like my breath wanted to progressively stop, and that I was gasping for air. According to theory, this is normal, but I still couldn’t “break through”. Once in a while, I had to take deep conscious breath, since I felt like my breathing had stopped. My concentration was always “blocked” by this.

In the evening, it didn’t go so well, I was quite tense and my eyes were flickering. Perhaps was I trying too hard? I definitely needed to relax and realize that only an attitude of positive openness and acceptance was likely to produce any results.

The next day, I was still experiencing the shortness of breath, and I felt like this was really stopping my concentration from getting deeper. I also started to feel some sort of tension in my solar plexus and overall, I felt agitated, sort of as if there was something stressful going on. Nothing external seemed to have triggered this, so maybe it was just some subconscious thing coming up. It happened regardless of my posture, I tried sitting, lying, walking, and nothing seemed to make a difference. My heartbeat was constant at 60-65bpm, so nothing abnormal. I resolved to simply keep practicing and see how this evolved. At that point, although it had already been 10 days, like in my previous retreats, I still felt like a lot more stuff had to be done. I didn’t feel like I’d want to re-enter the “real world” anytime soon.

During the day, these sensations faded away and my concentration improved. I saw the Nimitta on many occasions, but it was hard for me to keep focusing solely on the breath when it appeared.

Randomly, in the late afternoon, a monk came up to me and gave me money (about 5$ in Kyats). Someone probably gave it to him but since he wasn’t allowed to keep or use it, he decided to give it to the first non-monk guy he saw (and I was one of the only ones at Pa-Auk Tawya). Didn’t expect that!

The next day, the early morning meditation didn’t go so well. I was lost in thoughts and had trouble finding and staying with the breath. A defilement I could clearly notice is the tendency for the mind to try to “plan” the future. It uses this as an escape from the present moment. Somehow, the mind doesn’t like to surrender to the NOW. This tendency felt like a boulder tied to my ankle, and I couldn’t seem to let it go.

Concentration improved in the session before lunch. I had hints of blissful bodily feelings, which also are an indicator that concentration is getting deeper. In the evening session though, my eyes began flickering again, this always seemed to happen during the end of the day.

The following morning, I went to my teacher and asked him about my flickering eyes. He told me it was likely because I was trying to “see” my meditation object with my physical eyes. He said it was a natural tendency, and that I should strive to ignore my physical eyes and to just perceive the breath with my awareness/mind.

Again, I felt that although my concentration had its ups and downs, overall it was improving. I had (and still have) the common and bad habit of trying to “seek” specific states as opposed to simply resting in simple awareness of the breath in the present moment, and I should definitely make efforts not to indulge in that tendency. When meditating, one must let go of expectations and be fully mindful of what is occurring NOW.

That night, I had an interesting dream.

I was coming back home, so I went through the day of taking the plane and eventually arriving back home, in Canada. I was having lunch with my family and discussing my trip. Strangely, I found that I was left unchanged. Basically, I felt like I had wasted the opportunity and I felt disappointed. After lunch, I went outside and reflected on my meditation retreat experience at Pa-Auk Tawya.

Thinking about it and wondering “what went wrong”, I realized I couldn’t remember anything past the 13th day. What had happened? I wondered how I would blog about my retreat, not remembering a thing. It then occurred to me, my meditation retreat wasn’t over yet!

The dream thus turned into a semi-lucid dream. I was still puzzled and although I knew I was dreaming, it was very hard to recall waking life and be aware of the experience. I figured I had to “go back” to the monastery, so I teleported back to Yangon’s airport and then jumped really high and landed in the dining hall (it’s a lucid dream so hey, might as well do fun things). People looked at me with smiles, welcoming me back: “You’re here just in time!” they kindly said. A woman approached me and told me in a gentle yet serious way: “Watch out showing off these powers, there are newcomers here!”.

I then woke up to the 14th day, motivated and determined to practice persistently. I was happy the retreat wasn’t yet over.

Third week – Shifting the practice

It was the full moon, which is sacred in Buddhism. I was astounded by the quantity and variety of food and stuff we received during the almsround. It included flowers, pieces of cloth, cough medicine, skin balm and even DVDs of conferences by the main teacher of the monastery, Pa-Auk Sayadaw!

Although my body was getting adapted more accustomed to long periods of sitting meditation, it got very hard to concentrate. I was swarmed by thoughts, especially thoughts about the future. My teacher told me not to fuel these thoughts, and that it was typical for the mind to try to “escape” the meditation practice by grasping to thoughts and creating stories.

Despite knowing that, my mind felt incredibly agitated. More than 2 weeks of trying to tame it, and I still couldn’t?! Was I just perceiving subtler levels of agitation or was I regressing?

I saw that I was dealing with some thoughts/sensations in a problematic way. I was reacting to thoughts way too much. I was either letting myself “participate” in some of them, drawn by the entertainment they seemed to promise, or simply tried to overcome them by force, which obviously led to more and more agitation.

I took the resolution not to indulge in this habit. I did my best to try to simply acknowledge them without participating and when they were attempting to get me off track, I immediately put my full attention on the breath. Almost instantly, I felt a shift in my state of mind. I stopped seeing thoughts as “enemies”, and this definitely helped me maintain mindfulness, peace of mind and concentration.

It’s so easy to “try too hard” and to develop expectations of oneself in meditative practice.

The next day, concentration went up and my overall level of agitation went WAY down. Meditation felt really good.

The Nimitta also improved and became more stable, and for one of the first times, I started getting strong waves of bliss and peace. Practice became effortless and the days went by quickly.

I still definitely wasn’t getting into full absorption (Jhana) though. To be considered proficient in absorption at Pa Auk Tawya Monastery, a meditator has to be able to enter the first four Jhanas at will and stay in them for a few hours, being so absorbed that he can’t even notice if someone screams at him. Without getting into too much detail, the Jhanas are characterized by their respective factors, which get subtler and subtler as you progress through the Jhanas.

Different schools have different classifications for Jhanas. By some standards, I was already decently proficient in at least the first Jhana since all its factors were present to some degree. However, my teacher told me to keep focusing on the breath until the Nimitta and breath “merged” and pulled me into the first Jhana.

I got discouraged by the whole thing. Yes, my concentration was getting good, and yes, I was noticing improvements. Yet, as I kept learning more about the Jhanas taught at Pa Auk Tawya, I felt like I wasn’t even going to achieve the first one before leaving. In the group interviews, I repeatedly heard of monks that couldn’t even reach it yet. Was I wasting my time?

My confidence in the path taught at Pa-Auk Tawya went down, and even accessing blissful states seemed pointless. What were they good for? Like everything else, they would come and go, but leave me unchanged. I didn’t feel ready to return to the real world at all. How was this practice making me a better person?

After 20 days of focusing solely on the breath, I decided it was enough. I was strongly determined to use this retreat to grow as much as possible as a human being, and didn’t feel like pure concentration practices were an efficient use of my time. I turned my attention to the always-changing and fascinating reality. I switched to insight meditation.

And that’s when shit got real.

Fourth week – Sickness strikes again

Now, for those of you not familiar with insight practice, my object of meditation now became the sensations, thoughts, emotions and states of mind that made up my reality, from moment to moment. This is the technique taught in the Satipatthana Sutta, which is one of the most influential discourses of Buddha, and upon which Vipassana meditation is based.

The technique consists in mindfully observing reality as it is being experienced to gain understanding and wisdom.

Upon changing to insight meditation, reality immediately started “breaking down”. It was incredible to witness, sensations deconstructed into tiny vibrations by the mere act of observance.

Unlike in Goenka Vipassana retreats, where meditators are instructed to only pay attention to the body sensations (at least in 10-day courses), I also turned my attention to thoughts, emotions and states of mind, which are subtler.

From that point, I embarked on a roller-coaster that took me back and forth from extremely blissful states to severely depressed ones. And it was mind-blowing.

While reading, keep in mind that it’s very hard for me to put into words some of these insights and experiences, but I’ll do my best to make this understandable to you readers.

On the 22nd day, in the late afternoon, while meditating, I began experiencing my sensations and thoughts as very distant. They seemed to be “out there”, and my sense of self, which I guess we could call “the observer”, was “over here”.

And trust me, this was not merely a small mental game I was playing with myself. Physically, my five sensory inputs were experienced with so much distance that it didn’t even feel like it was actually happening to me. My sense of sight was strongly affected. I couldn’t even see properly! I could only “see” reality from far away, with my two eyes acting as two round separate windows. The best way I can describe is that it felt like I was “watching” a movie that included all 5 senses and thought. Everything was experienced, yet none of it felt close to me.

This experience lasted between the sitting meditation sessions, and it was so intense that doing anything besides meditating seemed pointless. While meditating, the notion of time was hard to keep, as if it was suspended and somewhat irrelevant.

At that point, although most of “my” experience of reality seemed very clear, a gigantic problem was still left unsolved.

Who was I?

As soon as that question arose, I felt very strong vibrations and palpitations throughout my body. Nothing made any sense. Nothing was me. Who the hell was experiencing all of this? Who was looking? Who was “The Observer”?

It didn’t make sense that experiences were “out there” and that the observer was “over here”. On some visceral level, it became obvious that this created a fundamental tension that was inevitably tainting all experiences of reality, regardless of them being pleasant or unpleasant. The subject-object duality was profoundly flawed.

After a few hours of meditating – that seemed like half an hour at most – I went back to my room and drifted into sleep.

The next morning, upon waking up, I instantly began to meditate, it was effortless. However, I felt really weird, physically and mentally. I was still experiencing reality in a very spacious and distant way, so it was hard to put these sensations into proper perspective. My condition worsened as the day progressed ; in the afternoon, my body was hurting terribly and I had strong fever (to give you an idea, the outside temperature was above 40°C and I asked for a blanket because I was cold). The only thing I found relief in was meditating, not because it “removed” any symptoms, but because it made them seem so distant that they didn’t bother me at all, it was as if they were happening to someone else. Equanimity  – the ability to see reality without desire or aversion – was maintained effortlessly.

Although it wasn’t making me “suffer”, I still can say that the pain was extremely strong, it felt like every muscle and organ of my body was twisting in the wrong direction. In fact, I didn’t know that experiencing such strong pain was humanly possible. At times I truly felt helpless, and my only comfort was found in meditation. I had no appetite, and barely ate for the next several days.

The rest of the week basically consisted of almost non-stop meditating, since it was the best way to deal with my physical discomfort. My meditative insights pretty much remained the same, “I” still couldn’t figure out who was “watching” all of this, and it clearly felt like something was wrong.

On the 28th day, to my relief, I was feeling better. To this day, I’m still unsure what this sickness was. The symptoms sound somewhat close to Dengue Fever, but since it happened in such a unique context, it’s very hard for me to properly identify it.

Fifth week – Is Consciousness me?

It was a huge relief to finally feel better.

Continuing to meditate, the nature of phenomena kept getting clearer. I still experienced sensations, thoughts and mind states in a very spacious and distant way, and the big “who’s seeing all of this” question was puzzling me on a visceral level.

It also got increasingly obvious that nothing “out there” would ever bring deep and lasting satisfaction. Maintaining the illusion that things were “solid” was downright impossible. Everything was always changing. Everything was moving in a subtle but undeniable way. Somehow, this gave me a strong sense that everything was profoundly connected. The most predominant mind state was peace, but even peace was experienced with distance and detachment. This brought the overall experience to a whole new level of peacefulness… which disappeared as soon as “I” clung to the peacefulness.

The Pa Auk meditation hall

On several occasions, even thoughts were very hard to form. It’s complicated to describe how I experienced them, but they just seemed like tiny abstract ripples. Observing them in their “abstract” form was in fact a “sober psychedelic experience” in itself. Thoughts were so much more comfortable in their “abstract” form that it was hard to understand how I could ever go back to normal “formed” thoughts. Even “intentions” were seen in “3rd person”, which was somewhat weird, since intentions were strongly associated with my sense of identity. Like everything else, they were just arising and passing away, and were definitely not “me”.

What was unchanging in all of this? What was left of “me”?

Sensations?
Thoughts?
Emotions?
Mind states?
Intentions?

No. None of this was stable. None of it was me.

The only thing that seemed stable was the consciousness that was noticing and “knowing” all that was happening.

But was consciousness me?

I used to think so.

Upon meditating, around day 30, there was a shift in the way “I” experienced reality.

It occurred to me that I wasn’t conscious of sensations. They were conscious of themselves.

It might not make sense to you. You might wonder why this would be relevant. But it made all the difference in the world. “Consciousnesses” were arising with their respective sensations. It all came as a “package deal”. There wasn’t “anyone” watching. The process was just watching itself. Consciousness was permeating phenomena, just like yellow is imbued in a lemon.

Nothing was happening to anyone. It was just happening. And it was fine! How could it not be fine anyway? How could fineness be defined without a subject? All of this wasn’t even happening to anybody! It was just happening.

It’s very hard to describe how this made “me” feel. Questions like how “I” felt can’t be asked. They are fundamentally flawed.

What does a camera see when you turn it off?

Last week – Preparing to leave

After this insight, I felt relieved. While going through it though, all of this wasn’t as clear as it is now.

As I was going back home the next week, I started thinking a lot more about “real life” and about what I was going to do next. Somewhat “satisfied” with my insights and experiences so far, I relaxed my meditative practice, and mostly meditated for enjoyment as opposed to insights. I also read The Way of the Superior Man, which brought back in me strong motivation and enthusiasm to go back to the world and merge my spiritual insights with “real life”. It’s quite a shock to return to normal life after a retreat, especially a long one. I figured it was a good idea to relax on the “heavy-duty” meditation a bit.

A few days before I left, a monk also offered to teach me yoga in a wooden cabin he had built himself on top of a nearby mountain. This was my first yoga experience, and I absolutely loved it. Yoga does an amazing job at integrating the body and meditative practice, something I had neglected in the past, as I saw “mental” practices as superior. I now include yoga in my daily routine, along with meditation. I feel like they both reinforce each other in very positive ways.

Then, it was time to return home. I feel like 40 days was the right amount of time, as a shorter period might not have been as insightful. A longer time would probably have been a little too much for me, as I felt eagerness to return to “real life” at the end of the retreat. I packed my things, said goodbye to my roommate, and took the bus to Yangon. I left Pa-Auk Tawya behind, but preciously kept the wisdom it had helped me cultivate.

Conclusion

Although at some point I felt like they were leading nowhere, concentration practices helped me reach some very interesting territories. It’s hard to describe into words what has changed since then, but some strong shift has definitely occurred, especially in my perception of “who I am” and in the way “I” experience reality.

Everything is always all right.

Special thanks to Klaus, a German monk, for the stunning photos in this post.

I found my first experience to be highly beneficial on many levels, that I decided to go back to go deeper into my practice­. I also viewed the retreat as a personal challenge.

Although most people assume that the second meditation retreat should be easier than the first one, it isn’t so. Of course, some aspects of the practice, such as finding an appropriate meditation position and feeling sensations throughout the body, do get easier with time. This is simply due to the fact that by the time of their second retreat, most students have practiced regularly and are now much more familiar with the technique. However, as you progress on this path, new challenges continuously arise and keep pushing you out of your comfort zone.

As an old student, additional rules applied to me. The major one was not being allowed to eat after noon, which is a rule all Buddhist monks apply in their daily lives. On the first day, I found this rule to be a bit hard to follow since I’m used to eating relatively large dinners but my body quickly adapted and soon enough, I had no desire to eat after lunch. I also saw for myself that it was much easier to meditate with an empty stomach than with a full stomach. On my first retreat, I too often ate large quantities of food at meal times and as a result, it was much harder to stay awake and focused during meditation hours.

Also, as old students, we were given some specific set of instructions to guide our meditation. In fact, we were allowed much more freedom than on the first retreat, since we already had a reasonable amount of experience with the technique. We weren’t held back by the “step-by-step” approach taught to new students. The daily discourse, however, is the same for old students as it is for new ones. Although this may seem redundant, the discourses are very dense and fairly long (about 80 to 90 minutes each) and I understood a great deal more this time that in my first retreat. I have no doubt the same will happen on my third attempt. You definitely can’t fully retain the massive amount of information in one 10-day retreat!

During the meditations themselves, I got a fair deal of interesting experiences, both “pleasant” and “unpleasant”, although this distinction is rather meaningless in Vipassana meditation, as you must be equanimous and non-judgmental. I had experiences where I felt like my body dissolved completely, feelings of intense peace and presence and feelings of incredible sensitivity and connectedness to everything that surrounded me. On the flip-side, at times I experienced a considerable amount of physical pain as well as feelings of anxiety and agitation (especially in the first few days of the retreat). I also, on multiple occasions, I “heard voices” when I was meditating deeply. I feel like this was caused by the fact that I was getting in touch with subtler and subtler experiences as my mind was getting sharpened by the practice. I also have had these experiences after the meditation retreat, when meditating on my own.

I also lucid dreamed like never before. Some of these dreams were truly mind-blowing by their clarity and “time-dilation”. Upon waking, I truly felt as if hours, if not days, had passed, even though it had only been 20 minutes. In fact, at some point I was quite disorientated by the repeated false-awakening and sleep paralysis experiences I got. One of my sleep paralysis episodes was actually quite scary, which happens pretty rarely to me nowadays. Here’s how it went :

Upon falling asleep, I briefly lost awareness but was brought back to consciousness by a feeling and atmosphere I associate with sleep paralysis. I opened my eyes and saw, right next to my bed, a weird looking and obscure shadow crawling on the floor. Obviously, since I was in a sleep paralysis, I couldn’t move anything but my eyes so I couldn’t really take a closer look. The weird entity slowly crawled up the side of my bed, looking at me and touching me in a very unpleasant and violent way. I identified the shadow as a girl/woman and she proceeded to whisper some incomprehensible yet threatening words very close to my ear. I usually have an easy time just closing my eyes and ignoring whatever happens during a sleep paralysis episode but this was really overwhelming. The “thing” then began to violently shake me while shouting at me and I felt like I was getting thrown on the walls. I felt absolutely powerless. What I then did was quite interesting, I started meditating and did a meditation called “metta” which focuses on compassion. I aimed the compassion at the “creature” and woke up pretty much instantly. I was left pretty shaken up by this episode and it took me a while to fall back asleep. Nevertheless, I find it quite interesting that the sleep paralysis ended right when I started meditating.

The after-effects of this meditation retreat were deeper than in my previous retreat. I feel like I’ve understood and experienced a great deal more, which changed the way I see the world in a significant way. I am much more “in the moment”, which is a feeling well described by Eckhart Tolle in his books “The Power of Now” and “A New Earth“. Most of the time, I quickly notice when I am getting into negative or irrelevant thought processes and come out of them easily. I feel like “presence” is slowly becoming my default state of being as opposed to ceaseless thinking. My mind is also much calmer and I’m more aware of everything as it happens, including sensations in my body.

I am also more confident about life, I feel like whatever happens on the outside, everything’s going to be fine. I know that what truly matters is my state of mind, not external circumstances. As a result, I react to events in a more detached way and can maintain peace of mind in most situations. This enables me to be much less reactive and to live in a much more authentic and uninfluenced way. This also causes me to be way less attached to material things. I truly feel like anything I own can break or get stolen without it mattering a whole lot to me.

Next, although I’ve been, in the past year, finding less and less value in intellectual pursuit, this retreat enabled me to fully see that it truly doesn’t represent anything to me anymore. Although I may still enjoy it as a pleasurable activity, I have stopped believing that accumulation of intellectual knowledge is anything more than a “game”. This strongly contrasts with how I used to think a few years back. As of now, I just feel like it creates excessive thinking, which makes it impossible for me to stay fully present and experience reality as it is. I feel like it’s not worth it as gets in the way of the strong feeling of peace I get when I stop thinking, labeling and judging. Although “not thinking” is not a practical possibility to live in the world, I now see thinking more as a “tool” than as an “end”. I try not to identify so much with it and to use it only when necessary, and then go back to “presence” as soon as possible. As a consequence, I am not interested in discussions about “people” or how about “doing this was right” and how “this person was wrong”, etc. I now see all of this as meaningless and a waste of time.

Finally, I find it easier to motivate myself to meditate regularly, as I see the benefits and results of my practice almost immediately. I can’t imagine going back to my old states of mind and thought patterns!

If you want to read a thorough testimonial of my first Vipassana experience, you can read it here : my first Vipassana meditation retreat.

And it’s one of the best decisions I ever made­.

How I heard about Vipassana meditation retreats

I heard about Vipassana meditation retreats on a forum. People shared reviews of their Vipassana experiences and reported getting incredible results from the 10-day retreats offered by Vipassana centers around the world. I looked into it, fond a center close to my home in Eastern Canada and subscribed for a 10-day meditation retreat. I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into. I read it was considered one of the most challenging meditation retreats available to westerners. I saw it as a great personal challenge and an incredible opportunity to fully focus on meditation. Besides, the retreats were free of charge; they’re solely financed by voluntary donations, so I really had nothing to lose except 10 days.

Photo credit : hckyso from flickr

In Vipassana retreats, all forms of communication with other students are forbidden (including eye contact). Practitioners are only allowed to bring necessities, this means nothing to read, watch, listen to or write with. Cellphones and other electronic devices are also prohibited. The rules are strict, but they are helpful and force you to fully concentrate on your meditation practice without distracting yourself when things get tough, because they will get tough, trust me.

Day 0 – Arriving at Vipassana

Upon arriving at the Vipassana center in the afternoon, I was pleasantly welcome by a friendly and warm atmosphere. Since the meditation retreat only officially began in the evening, we were allowed to talk. There were participants of all ages (not under 18 though, since they aren’t allowed) and from various backgrounds. About half of them were new students and the other half were returning students. One man was even at his twelfth 10-day retreat!

I was assigned a bed in a shared bedroom and had a chat with my two roommates. Both of them in their early twenties like me. One was a chemistry student while the other was homeless. We got along well but couldn’t talk for long, and had a light dinner at 6pm. We were then reminded of the retreat rules and proceeded to the meditation hall. This is when the rules officially started to apply.

We got into the meditation hall and were each assigned a place on the floor. A great variety of cushions were available so that everyone could sit as comfortably as possible. The instructions were given by audiotapes recorded by the leading teacher of this Vipassana movement, S. N. Goenka. An assistant teacher was also present to answer questions and to give further instructions.

We were given a set of simple meditation instructions: mindfully following the breath. When awareness wandered away, we brought it back to breathing, firmly but without anger or disappointment. We were told that the purpose of this first exercise was to sharpen our mind to become more sensitive to subtler realities. We weren’t given specific instructions on meditation positions, but were told to keep our backs straight.

The instructions were simple, but the practice itself was another story…

Day 1 to 3 – The meditation retreat begins

The following morning, we woke up to a gong at 4 am. The first meditation was scheduled at 4:30am and lasted two hours. I got into the meditation hall early, sat down and began meditating. I could barely manage to focus my attention for even a few consecutive breaths.  My mind was looking for a pretext not to obey: irrelevant memories and potential future projects kept coming up. Everything was a good reason to wander off. At some point, I wondered how much time was left before the end of the meditation. I had actually brought my watch, which was a terrible idea. After what I thought had been at LEAST an hour, I looked at it: 4:38am. Oh shit…

I was discouraged, but eventually I surrendered to the idea of sitting there for a LONG while. From then on, meditating wasn’t as challenging. At 6:30, the gong rang, we headed to the dining room and had breakfast. The food was vegetarian but still, I was impressed by the variety and quality of the food offered, especially considering the center is only financed by donations. We had some free time until the next meditation and I went for an outside  walk since there was a small wooden area to walk in.

Here is the Vipassana retreat schedule:

4:00 a.m.                          Morning wake-up bell
4:30 – 6:30 a.m.               Meditate in the hall or in your room
6:30 – 8:00 a.m.               Breakfast break
8:00 – 9:00 a.m.               Group meditation in the hall
9:00 – 11:00 a.m.              Meditate in the hall or in your room
11:00 – 12 noon                Lunch break
12:00 – 1:00 p.m.              Rest, and interviews with the teacher
1:00 – 2:30 p.m.                Meditate in the hall or in your room
2:30 – 3:30 p.m.                Group meditation in the hall
3:30 – 5:00 p.m.                Meditate in the hall or in your room
5:00 – 6:00 p.m.                Tea break
6:00 – 7:00 p.m.                Group meditation in the hall
7:00 – 8:15 p.m.                Teacher’s discourse in the hall
8:15 – 9:00 p.m.                Group meditation in the hall
9:00 – 9:30 p.m.                Question time in the hall
9:30 p.m.                           Retire to your room; lights out

As you can see, we often had the option to meditate in our rooms. Still, I still mostly meditated in the hall. I felt more comfortable and most importantly, less distracted there.

When we meditated in the hall, instructions were often reiterated as not to leave anyone behind or in doubt. We were told to focus on our breathing for the rest of the day, which, frankly, I found boring. At 7pm, we watched a videotaped discourse by S.N Goenka explaining more theoretical aspects of our practice, answering frequently asked questions and informing us of the next day’s practice. These discourses strongly motivated my practice, and I couldn’t wait to go back on the cushion and meditate. I also found that the evening was the period when my meditation was the most focused. Since I don’t sleep much, I usually practiced in bed after the last scheduled meditation.

The next morning, we started our next practice, a simple extension of the previous one. It consisted of being aware of the sensations produced by our breathing. We focused on the triangular nose area and gradually reduced the region. The main idea is that by concentrating on a smaller area, we notice subtler sensations and sharpen our awareness. My meditation was interesting ; I felt stuff I didn’t even know I could feel, including slight vibrations, subtle temperature fluctuations and feelings of heaviness and lightness. Although my mind was still often wandering off, I usually noticed it quickly and came back to my practice within a minute or so. We were also told not to look for particular sensations but to simply acknowledge them objectively. This is so hard when you have an irritating itch!

On the third day, we reduced the region of concentration even more and focused on the small area below the nostrils (mustache area). Again, very subtle sensations I had never noticed before emerged. My concentration was strengthening! I also resolved not to bring my watch in the meditation hall as it only made meditation seem longer and harder. I felt like I had practiced well on these first three days. Admittedly though, I was a little bored and wondered where these simple exercises were leading us. At that point, we had watched our breath for about 35 hours! However, I was definitely not considering leaving. I wanted to experience everything Vipassana had to offer.

The evening discourse told us that until now, our practice was only a preliminary step and that tomorrow was “Vipassana day”. The real practice was going to begin. Finally, was I going to focus on something else than my breath? I was eager to learn what the Vipassana technique was all about!

Day 4 to 5 – Learning Vipassana

Waking up on the fourth day, I was eager to learn the Vipassana meditation technique. In the morning meditations though, we were given the same instructions as in the previous days: we kept watching the sensations produced by our breathing. A billboard note informed us that Vipassana meditation would be taught in the afternoon, in the meditation hall.

The Vipassana technique was surprisingly simple. At first, we moved our awareness from the mustache area to the top of the head. The top of my head initially seemed to be a “blind region”, but I gradually felt subtle sensations popping up. Eventually, we progressively move our awareness from head to feet and watching the sensations in every part of our body. We were instructed to look at those sensations objectively, without labeling them as good or bad. The key was to observe reality without developing desire or aversion.

A new practice was also introduced: “meditation of strong determination”. Oh boy, this is a tough one! For three hours, each day (three times one hour), we had to stay absolutely still while meditating. We couldn’t move an inch of our body or even open our eyes. What a challenge! We were strongly encouraged to stay still for the whole hour, we weren’t actually punished if we didn’t succeed. At first, I could barely manage to stay still for half an hour; my legs and back were killing me.

I was eager to watch the evening discourse to learn the idea behind this practice. How was this simple exercise going to allow me to get the incredible results reported by other Vipassana students? And why were we torturing ourselves with the “meditations of strong determination”?

In the discourse, we were first told that nothing justifies losing our peace of mind. Goenka also told us that practicing Vipassana meditation would help us reach true peace; happiness. As I understood it, the theory behind the practice is that every situation can be broken down into four steps:

1. We perceive something with one of our six senses (the five sensory inputs + cognition).
2. We identify and judge that “something”.
3. We get a physical sensation according to our judgement of that “something”.
4. We label that physical sensation as positive or negative and develop craving or aversion towards it.

Let’s take a look at two typical situations and break them down using the above-mentioned steps. Keep in mind that these steps happen very quickly and most of the time, subconsciously.

Seeing someone you hate:

1. Your eyes perceive photons and send signals to your brain, which processes them.
2. You label this perception as “someone you dislike”. You remember why you hate him and why he is such a “*%?/!!”.
3. Physical sensations arise from these thoughts. You perhaps feel a tension in the upper chest or a general feeling of uneasiness.
4. You label these feelings as negative and develop aversion towards them. You also associate this aversion with the person; you therefore reinforce your hate and loop the cycle again and again.

Remembering a pleasant souvenir:

1. You think about a past event. (We could also say that you perceive it with your cognition).
2. You recognize the souvenir and label the event. You remember how much you enjoyed it.
3. You get a physical sensation that accompanies these thoughts, maybe a feeling of lightness or a slight flux of vibrations across you skin.
4. You develop craving for these sensations that you identify as positive. You associate this desire with the souvenir. Again, you loop the cycle again and again.

Craving and aversion are two sides of the same coin. When you’re averse to something, you’re also craving its absence. In my opinion, the most important point is that we don’t desire things in themselves, but only the sensations we associate them with. A heroin addict isn’t addicted to heroin, but to the sensations produced by heroin.

We were told that this process resulted in perpetual dissatisfaction; suffering. By practicing Vipassana meditation, we train the mind to be more aware of subtle sensations (acknowledging the 3^rd step) and learn to see them with equanimity (without judgement). This way, we can transcend the 4^th step and thus break the loop of craving and aversion; suffering ends. At first, I found this counter-intuitive. We naturally tend to focus on the object of our sensations (first or second step) and not on the sensations themselves (third step).

Perhaps you can already see why the meditations of strong determination are so useful. By remaining still for a whole hour, a ton of unpleasant physical sensations are produced, and this forces us to practice equanimity. If you can keep your peace of mind while your whole body is tortured by horrible sensations, daily frustrations will become easy to deal with!

The evening discourse motivated me to practice Vipassana persistently. Although the last meditation wasn’t one of the “meditations of strong meditation”, I stayed absolutely still for about 30 minutes and then kept meditating in my room. I felt a warm flux of vibrations across my skin and felt like unpleasant sensations were “dissolving” into subtle and pleasant ones.

The next day, we began moving our awareness from head to feet and then, from feet to head. If we wanted, we could also move our awareness continuously, as opposed to part-by-part, on the surface of our skin. Since I easily felt subtle vibrations, I found this easy, and the rest of the day went fairly well. I often had thoughts about the external world but I tried my best to ignore them and I kept practicing. After the evening discourse (5^th day), my meditation was fantastic! I experienced profound peace and happiness. When I went to bed, I was feeling too ecstatic to even sleep! I had fun sitting in various uncomfortable ways and just looking at the “unpleasant” feelings with objectivity. I felt like I was in the Matrix, I could handle anything!

This was put to the test the next day …

Day 6 to 9 – Equanimity and determination put to the test

On the 6^th day, I woke up sick. My throat hurt, my head throbbed painfully and my nose was clogged. I had a cold and couldn’t distract myself from it. I had to meditate through it.

The meditations were very hard and paying to my sensations made them seem a worse. I had no trouble feeling sensations every part of my body, but I couldn’t maintain equanimity. My cold bothered me, especially when coughing during the group meditations. I barely managed to stay still for more than about 15 minutes during the “meditations of strong determination”.

I slowly made it through the day, but my condition wasn’t improving. I made it clear to myself that I wasn’t leaving the Vipassana course. Unpleasant sensations were not going to win!

On day 7, I was feeling even worse. Despite this, I was strangely enthusiastic at the idea of meditating through my bad feelings and saw the cold more as a challenge and opportunity than an enemy.

Meditating was challenging and I still failed miserably the “meditations of strong determination”. However, my shift in mindset helped me look at sensations without labeling them as “undesirable”. We were also instructed to try sweeping awareness “inside” our body parts, as opposed to on the surface. After a few meditations, I could feel sensations inside most of my body parts. In fact, the cold made it easier to feel subtle stuff as I was experiencing hyperaesthesia. As the day progressed, I felt my equanimity gradually getting better and for brief periods of time, I was able to fully experience my “unpleasant” sensations with full acceptance. They just seemed as they objectively were: information sent to my brain. This didn’t last long though, either because I got excited or because a particular sensation became overwhelming. Here’s what my thought processes looked like:

• “Okay, I know I have a cold and stuff, but if I’m able to meditate through it without judging it, I’ll be able to go through a lot of other things, so I have to do it!”
• “These are only sensations, these are only sensations…”
• *Watches sensations, start perceiving them in an objective way*
• “YEAH! I’m doing it, %?/* YOU, COLD!”
• *Loses peace of mind, sensations become overwhelming*
• “Ah, crap. Back to square one!”
• *Repeat*

I really enjoyed the 7th day’s discourse. It discussed about daily life applications of the technique and how it was going to help in the “real world”. I went to the last evening meditation strongly determined to maintain perfect equanimity. While meditating, I gradually felt a vibration taking over my whole body. Every gross sensation dissolved ones until there was nothing left but a flux of tiny vibrations. At 9pm, it was bed time but I went for a walk in the woods. While walking, I felt vibrations pleasantly moving through my whole body. An incredible sense of peace and joy emerged, nothing like I had ever experienced before. I’m getting shivers just thinking about it!

I was feeling way too good to sleep. I meditated for what was probably a few hours, playing with vibrations and enjoying immense peace and joy. This is a bit hard to explain but I still felt my negative symptoms as clearly as before. However, the way I mentally perceived them was radically different. There was no sense of me being sick, or of me suffering because these feelings.

When I woke up the next morning, there was absolutely no trace of my cold.

In the next two days of meditation (day 8 and 9), I didn’t experience anything close to what I felt the previous night. The general sense of peace and happiness was still there though, albeit less intensely.

As suggested by one of the evening discourses, I also strove to remain fully aware of what I was doing at all times, even when not meditating. While walking, I tried to be aware of the sensations produced by walking and to be conscious of what I was doing (e.g. “I’m walking in the woods”). This is way harder than it may seem! When I could remain aware and concentrated, I instantly felt a subtle peace emerging from within. This is what Eckhart Tolle teaches in A New Earth.

As the 9th day came to an end, I felt a great sense of accomplishment. The Vipassana retreat was coming to an end and technically, the “heavy duty” meditations were over since only a few hours of meditation were scheduled for day 10. Moreover, on the 10^th day, after the morning meditation, the prohibition to talk would be waived. I couldn’t wait to discuss with other students!

I was upset about one thing though: I had not yet been able to sit still for a full hour in the “meditations of strong determination”, and there was only one meditation left on the 10^th morning.

Day 10 – The end of the Vipassana retreat

Day 10 was my last chance at completing a “meditation of strong determination”. To succeed, I had to stay still for a full hour. My cold was gone and I had come up with a comfortable arrangement of cushions in the meditation hall. Moreover, my concentration had greatly improved and I easily felt subtle sensations almost everywhere in my body.

In the previous meditations of strong determination, I usually failed around the 30 to 40 minutes mark. Interestingly enough, it wasn’t physical pain that became unbearable, it was mental distress. At some point, my mind became so agitated that I couldn’t bear not to move. It was intolerable and felt like every nerve in my brain was tightening itself painfully. The best comparison I can come up with is being highly anxious. I went into the meditation hall determined to break through these negative feelings and succeed.

The beginning of the meditation went well. About 45 minutes into the meditation though, I started getting those weird anxious feelings again. I did my best to continue practicing, trying to acknowledge the feelings without being “disturbed” by them. It felt like every cell of my body was trying to throw me off track.

As I kept meditating, there was a point where these feelings stopped overpowering me. When the recorded chanting began, I knew there was only 5 minutes left I definitely wasn’t moving. I had succeeded! After the meditation, the prohibition to talk was waived. Even though I hadn’t said a word in ten days, I still felt a sense of friendship with other meditators. Human connections can form without words. I found it fascinating to share experiences with other students.

Of the about 40 men who participated in the retreat, only 4 or 5 had left. I was pleasantly surprised, considering how hard this is.

We enjoyed a great meal and spent the rest of our day chatting. There were two other mandatory meditations, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. The afternoon one went fine, but I did notice my mind being more agitated because of the chatter. The evening meditation was a different story.

After the afternoon meditation, I talked to one of the guys who had been sitting next to me in the meditation hall. We shared our experience and he mentioned that while meditating, he was constantly distracted by the sound of our “swallowing”, as it was noisy (likely caused by the cold). For most of the retreat, he told me that he thought of us as the “toad brothers”. The mind can indeed get very creative when trying to distract you from meditating. I found his story hilarious.

I also spoke to a guy who had been, for the last 10 days, trying his best not to laugh during the group meditations. He was sitting close to me in the meditation hall, and I previously noticed him trying to hold himself from laughing out loud. He told me he couldn’t control it, and that he found the retreat’s strict rule on silence incredibly challenging.

Beginning the last evening meditation, I soon heard my “toad brother” being noisy. I figured it would be funny to out-noise him in a “toad contest”. Stupid idea.

I expected him to laugh, but he didn’t flinch and remained still. I found the whole scenario so ridiculous that I couldn’t help but feel laughter come to my cheeks and tongue. I managed to hold it back for a while, but at some point I couldn’t help. I burst out laughing. Chaos followed.

As soon as I began laughing, the guy who had held his laughter for the whole retreat burst out laughing hysterically. Right then, another guy started laughing too. I didn’t want to bother more serious practitioners, so I left the room, and the two other guys joined quickly. Our laughter was unstoppable!

I went for a walk in the woods alone and eventually, my laughter did diminish. To stop laughing, I tried to “force myself to laugh”, which ironically made it stop. After about 10 minutes, I went back in the meditation hall and resumed meditating. 20 minutes later, one of the guys came back meditating but the one who had been holding his laughter never came back. When we got outside, he was lying in the grass, still laughing his head off!

We spent the rest of the evening discussing life purpose, meditation and relationships. I met fantastic people. I went to bed at about 11pm and next morning, we watched a discourse about how to continue our Vipassana practice in daily life. We were strongly encouraged to meditate at least two hours a day. This sounded like a lot.

We then had breakfast and then were allowed to leave the center. It felt strange to finally be allowed to go back into the real world; a part of me didn’t feel ready. We could make a voluntary donation, and I decided to donate 200$, which amounts to 20$/day. I volunteered for cleaning, so I left a bit later, at about noon.

It felt weird to re-enter the “real world”. I felt detached from the events surrounding me. I couldn’t process seeing people getting angry at the bus being a few minutes late or at traffic being jammed. Complaining was totally outside of my reality.

Looking back at my Vipassana experience

Reading the review, you must have noticed that my retreat wasn’t easy. Regardless, going there is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. My Vipassana experience was tremendously positive.

It’s been a while since I came back but nevertheless, I still notice major improvements in my overall well-being. I’m definitely a happier person than I was before the retreat. I’m increasingly drawn to the positive, hold less judgments and have an easier time letting go of concerns about the past or the future. Most importantly, I am absolutely certain that I will be able to deal with whatever life brings my way. I still meditate almost every day, although generally not for two hours.

Edit: I went to another 10-day Goenka Vipassana retreat a year later: Second Time at a Vipassana Meditation Retreat