The Sound of Silence

During my travels, I met several travellers who mentioned an interesting type of meditation. Some of them had already experienced it - for others it was an urban myth. They told me what they knew - that the course was held completely in silence, and lasted a minimum of 10 days. The idea of spending 10 days in absolute silence really intrigued me. I didn't know much about meditation, so I decided to explore the idea of joining a course. Eventually I got the spelling of "vipassana" correct, and did some research.

Vipassana is the true and original form of meditation - as taught by the Buddha some 2,500 years ago. It became so popular that at one point in time, the majority of people in India were practicing Vipassana. Over time, this true teaching became diluted by other teachers, promoting different faiths, and other techniques to meditate. The form that the Buddha taught was kept alive by a group of Buddhist monks in Burma. The Buddha knew that one day, someone would learn Vipassana from these monks, and bring it back to show the world again.

In 1955, S. N. Goenka attended a 10 day course, where he studied and eventually became proficient at meditation. He travelled to India, to teach his parents, and gave them the greatest gift any child can give to their parents - the path to liberation, peace and happiness.

 On 29th September 2013, S.N. Goenka passed away, aged 90, at his home in India. He left a legacy behind - throughout his lifetime, Goenka-ji has helped hundreds of thousands of people study and benefit through Vipassana, either directly, or through the use of videos at his courses - and pioneered the idea of a centre where anyone was welcome to attend, whether they had money to pay for it or not. As long as they lived by the rules of the centre for the duration of the stay, they were welcome, in exchange for nothing. His idea was to create a system where you could donate to the running of the centre to pay in advance for the next student. This was only possible once you'd finished a ten day retreat. From a single orignial centre in India, this 'pay it forward' method eventually opened 227 centres worldwide. To promote the same experience for students worldwide, Goenka has produced a series of discourses, shown on video every evening. Here he tells stories, explains the practice, and is generally very interesting and amusing for an hour.

I was fortunate enough to attend a course in Bali, in April of this year.

Although I won't describe the technique or practice in the hope that you'll go yourself to find out about it, I will explain how following this method has made me feel - immediately after the course, and now, 6 months after finishing it.

Do you remember how you felt as a child? So free, full of energy and without worry. If you've ever spent any time with young kids, you know how much energy they have - they can run harder, jump higher and laugh louder than you - easily for twice the amount of time you can, before they get tired. After some of the meditation sessions I finished at the centre I felt a degree closer to re-achieving this feeling. Lighter, with less weight on my shoulders pushing me into the ground. Having said that, some of the sessions were physically painful and intensely difficult: when your limbs go numb - at the end of one such session I literally could not get up to go to lunch because I had such bad pins and needles.

I don't know if everyone has the same feeling, but without a doubt practicing Vipassana has made me calmer and more peaceful. I'm more aware of my emotions, and I'm working at having better control over them. Although Vipassana was not an enjoyable experience, I hope I have an opportunity to attend a second course sometime in the future.

A great aspect of the evening discourse (easily the best part of the day) was that Goenka does not expect nor want blind devotion. In fact, he asks you to challenge every belief he puts before you. He wants you to test the theory, check the idea is sound and consistent with your life and experiences before you accept it. If you do not find any evidence to support the idea you should not accept it. This is something I agree with so acutely - in my mind, blind following without questioning is one of the most dangerous things we actively encourage in our society.

There is a strict timetable:

One of the individual rooms at the centre

4am: wake up bell
4.30-6.30am: Meditate
6.30-8.00am: Breakfast break                         
8.00-9.00am: Group meditation
9.00-11.00am: Meditate
11.00-12.00am: Lunch break
12.00-1.00pm: Rest and interview with teacher
1.00-2.30pm: Meditate 
2.30-3.30pm: Group mediation
2.30-5.00pm: Meditate
5.00-6.00pm: Tea break
6.00-7.00pm: Group meditation
7.00-8.15pm: Teachers discourse
8.15-9.00pm: Group mediation
9.00-9.30pm: Question time in hall
9.30pm: bed

It was fairly exhausting, until you got into the swing of it. When I finished the course I found that the practice had stuck fairly quickly - although I wasn't waking up at 4am without a bell, I was conscious and alert by 7am, which is very unusual behaviour for me. I must admit I'm glad my sleeping practices have gone back to normal since then...

Students also have to observe noble silence - which means not attempting any sort of communication with other students. Although I didn't expect it to be, this was really challenging - how can you ignore a fellow student that is crying or obviously has a problem? I never thought I would struggle with this aspect: I didn't have any desire to talk or gossip, but not being able to comfort someone was difficult.

When you arrive at the centre you're asked to hand over a long list of personal items you might have: any books, other reading material, writing material, cameras, laptops, phones, cigarettes, non-prescription drugs...pretty much the contents of your average traveller's entire backpack. In fact, some of them did just that, after taking out the clothes they would need for their stay.

I paid too much attention to the list of "what not to bring" and not enough to the list of 'suggested items' - it was easy enough to hand over a pack of paracetamol I'd forgotten I had in my bag, but not so easy to acquire a torch, once stranded on the side of a mountain, miles of winding roads from the nearest town (a shop could have been next door, but it wouldn't have mattered as we weren't allowed to leave the premises anyway).



View over the valley from the centre.

The other thing they ask is that you don't kill any living beings during your stay (and also abstain from sexual conduct and taking intoxicating substances to help the mind become clear).This might seem easy enough, but unfortunately, mosquitos count as living beings. And while we're at it, the use of bug deterrents (and any deodorant with a smell) is also banned. So if you're unfortunate enough to get a blood sucker inside your mosquito net, you're doomed. Unless you're very good at meditating!

And when you're finished? 10 days of silence and introspection will affect a person, whether or not they learnt anything from the meditation. On day 9, the students are allowed to speak again. It was interesting to see the reactions of the group - although no physical contact was allowed, the students generally responded by laughing and joking with each other and chatting away happily about their experiences. Strangely, I didn't feel like this. I'm not really sure how to describe my emotions, but I wasn't ready to be released into the wild. If there had been an option to stay longer, I would have. Maybe it was just my quick adjustment to the strict disciplinarian life - like a convict finishing their sentence and struggling to adapt to life on the outside when they are finally released.

I went to give my thanks to the teacher on the last day. As soon as I met with her, I burst into tears. This is very unlike me. I still don't know why it happened. I was grateful for the experience, happy that I'd done it, and yet I was sobbing my eyes out in front of this woman who had given me so much. Perhaps it was a build up of emotions needing to escape. I think it's hard to look into the eyes of any experienced vipassana meditator without feeling the pure love they are sending you.

I can't stress this enough: for me, the meditation was really, really, really hard. There are so many reasons to not do it; lack of food/sleep/freedom, too many bugs, boredom and distractions. Even with all these reasons, nothing would make me happier than to hear someone else has given it a chance. If you want to do something really good for yourself - take 10 days from work and book yourself onto the next vipassana course. It might not be immediately obvious when you're tired and hungry after sleeping through lunch on the first day (like I did), but the benefits will become clear. You probably don't even realize how much mental chatter you have going on, how disturbed your mind is, all the time.

And what's 10 days to stop your future suffering, for all eternity?

You might not become a meditation guru in that time (ok, you probably won't) but you'll notice a change in yourself for the the better.

Have a look for a vipassana course.

With my unconditional love.