I had heard about Vipassana meditation through my friend April. She shared with me her amazing experience, and I later learned just bits and pieces of her amazing experience. I really wanted to partake in such an experience myself. Had she told me every piece I probably would not have gone. I signed up for the November course back in August, at that time I was not quite sure how I was going to get 10 days off but wanted to save my place just in case. In the interim I had some of the most difficult times of my life. I lost my great-grandpa in August; in September I found out my Grandpa Bill had lung cancer; a week later I received the most painful phone call of my life and learned that my brother Chase had suddenly passed away. Soon afterwards I lost my job. I felt stripped raw, raw to the world, skinless in a sand storm that would not quit blowing at me. I have lost important people in my life before, my Nanny. My great-grandma Edris Breaux was one of my heart lines and I did not grieve her death because I was trying to be strong for other people. Losing my Grandpa Harvey wasn't easy either, but I had comfort in knowing he was old and had lived a good life. I had peace there. Losing my brother who was the same age as me, the closest sibling I had, so suddenly and tragically brought a new type of grief I had never experienced. I thought I was going crazy and maybe I was. There wasn't anything anyone could say to comfort me. Heaven didn't comfort me, a better place didn't comfort me, I didn't know what to believe. Every door in my life opened for an opportunity to complete the 10-day Vipassana course I was signed up to take. I definitely had the time, I was miserable in life no matter what, so I could be miserable at a meditation retreat. There was nothing that could hurt more then where I was, and I believe synchronicity and everything was lining up for me to go. So I did.
Here is what I knew I was getting myself into…
- 10 days of complete silence. All students must observe Noble Silence from the beginning of the course until the morning of the last full day. Noble Silence means silence of body, speech, and mind. Any form of communication with fellow student, whether by gestures, sign language, written notes, etc., is prohibited.
- All who attend a Vipassana course must conscientiously undertake the following five precepts for the duration of the course:
- to abstain from killing any being
- to abstain from stealing
- to abstain from all sexual activity
- to abstain from telling lies
- to abstain from all intoxicants
- The playing of musical instruments, radios, etc. is not permitted. No reading or writing materials should be brought to the course. Students should not distract themselves by taking notes. The restriction on reading and writing is to emphasize the strictly practical nature of this meditation
- The word Vipassana means seeing things as they really are. It is the process of self- purification by self-observation. One begins by observing the natural breath to concentrate the mind. With a sharpened awareness one proceeds to observe the changing nature of body and mind and experiences the universal truths of impermanence, suffering and egolessness. This truth-realization by direct experience is the process of purification.
- I really needed to stay and commit to the entire ten days. Vipassana has been called an Indian brain surgery and you can't just leave in the middle of brain surgery.
Going into this I already knew I was getting myself into some heavy shit. First and foremost spending time alone with just me and my mind and nothing to fill it was going to be intense. When Vipassana stated that I would learn to take control over my mind, I laughed. My friend Stephon used to joke that my mind was like the ghetto at night, a place where you can go but can't prepare what to expect, crazy genius and then also just plain crazy, like prison survival crazy. And here I was about to spend 10-days of alone time in this place. Second realization I had before going was that I would for sure have to process some intense stuff from my past that I have specifically filled my time to never think about again. Life is hard for everyone, mine is no different. There are things in my life, hurts, deep pain that would not be fun to consciously recognize and deal with….and I knew I was going to have to deal with it.
The location of the retreat was a little over an hour from my house. The drive was filled with nerves and excitement. I knew that the music I was listening to would be the last I would hear for a while. When I pulled up to the retreat it was beautiful. I took out my cell phone and made my last calls to my mom and my friend Katie. Registered, unpacked, and locked my cell phone away in my car. We were able to talk that evening while we ate dinner and before our first meditation when we would take a vow of silence. Scanning the very quiet dining hall I knew I had to get all of the talking in I could before I couldn't anymore. So I sat myself strategically next to the coolest person I could find in the room, the one talking a bit, the person I was sure was going to be my silent bff because she had awesome pink hair and people like us should be friends. Naturally we did hit it off. Her name was Patch. Later that night I had my first experience in the meditation hall listened to the first of many audio instructions and off key chanting by S.N.Goenka, watched the first discourse video by Goenka, took the vow of silence, and later went back to my room. The first thing I noticed in the meditation hall was the dry erase board with the day on it, today it read "Day Zero" this would become my countdown board. I would later yearn till the day it would read "Day 10". I had a roommate who I shared my room with but our room was divided by a curtain and we each had our own space.
The next day the real stuff began. Here was the meditation schedule:
| 4:00 am | Morning wake-up bell | |
| 4:30-6:30 am | Meditate in the hall or in your room | |
| 6:30-8:00 am | Breakfast break | |
| 8:00-9:00 am | Group meditation in the hall | |
| 9:00-11:00 am | Meditate in the hall or in your room according to the teacher's instructions | |
| 11:00-12:00 noon | Lunch break | |
| 12noon-1:00 pm | Rest and interviews with the teacher | |
| 1:00-2:30 pm | Meditate in the hall or in your room | |
| 2:30-3:30 pm | Group meditation in the hall | |
| 3:30-5:00 pm | Meditate in the hall or in your own room according to the teacher's instructions | |
| 5:00-6:00 pm | Tea break | |
| 6:00-7:00 pm | Group meditation in the hall | |
| 7:00-8:15 pm | Teacher's Discourse in the hall | |
| 8:15-9:00 pm | Group meditation in the hall | |
| 9:00-9:30 pm | Question time in the hall | |
| 9:30 pm | Retire to your own room--Lights out |
I'm not even gonna lie, after my first 4:30 meditation I fell asleep meditating and almost slept all the way through breakfast. The first 3 days the 10 hours of meditation a day were spent trying to just focus on your breath. Observing the breath coming in and out of your nostrils, which nostril the breath is coming in out of, how your breathing changes, how it feels in and around your nose, and remaining neutral about your observation. Just watching your breath. About 2 minuets trying to do that my mind began going..."Seriously you want me to sit her and watch my breath?? THIS is what I am going to be doing for 10 days? Why does everyone look so damn calm are they really just chillin focusing on their breath. One hour down only 99 more hours of meditation to go. Dear God what did I get myself into."
The first 3-4 days were quite rough. I began to go through a detox. A mental detox manifesting physically. I was sweating, purging from every part of my body, waking up in the middle of the night soaking wet. I noticed that the flu like symptoms were oddly related to the meditation. Anytime I would sit down to meditate and focus on my breath the shitty hot/cold/sweating feeling would begin to come up. I approached the teachers about it, with a kind smile they comforted me, said it was a good sign, and asked if there was anything they could do to make me feel comfortable. I didn't like the feeling but I knew it wouldn't last forever and I at least wanted to make it half way so I decided to stick it out.
Before I even heard of Vipassana I knew that the body physically stores trauma. Its not a hippie dippie idea, it is statistically proven. This is one of the many things you learn about trauma when you are a trauma therapist. I knew of techniques to physically release some trauma, biofeedback stuff, our bodies and our mind and our trauma and our pleasures are all related. So I accepted the shitty feeling I was going through as me dealing with mental stuff on the physical level and I used that to help me move on and continue.
After I got over my flu like symptoms my mind decided to create its own daily routine. I would wake up in the morning feeling quite great, happy to be at Vipassana and I knew that I was growing and learning. The first few meditations weren't easy but they were manageable. After lunch my mind would begin to think of stupid stupid things that I couldn't believe I was thinking about in the midst of also processing heavy stuff. Around noon each day three people would pop up in my mind. Two that had recently hurt me together and one who really didn't do anything she just got on my nerves like no other. My 2 o'clock meditation was more challenging because I was trying to focus my mind which wanted to continue to dwell on the pain I was feeling. Come 5 o'clock tea time I was in a really dark place. I processed the real things in my life that were heavy hurts: losing Chase, family issues, past trauma, current trauma, everything and anything I wanted to forget ever happened to me. I should also add another thing that was on my mind and was intensified after losing Chase, was my belief in God. Creation, why we are here, what happens after death, etc. I think that is another thing that added to my struggle with grief, I didn't know what I believed. I found no peace in anything anyone told me about a higher power or their beliefs. I don't want to say I had been "questioning" my faith for the past few years, I think it is more accurate that I started my journey of discovery. A journey to find my own truth, not a truth I was taught to believe but a truth I experienced and made sense to me. All of this flooded my brain at night. The several days this happened were hard, I wanted to run. I thought about leaving so many times and approached the teachers about it a few times but I fought through it and stuck it out. I laughed at myself later about all of the plotting I was doing in the evenings to sneak out. I felt like a kid planning on sneaking out of the house. I think it was about day five while walking around the walking paths (which I had already walked a few hundred times since that was about all I could do in my spare time) that I started laughing as I thought of a scene from the movie Liar, Liar that best explained what I was doing at Vipassana…
One especially difficult time, I was really struggling with life, death, existence and figuring it all out. I was frustrated but it was a question that no one could answer for me. I had heard the popular answers many times, and valued them but still I had questions and it didn't quite make sense to me. I had an artificial comfort in the truth of others. I wanted to know where my brother was. I wanted to know where my Nan was. I wanted to know where I will go when I die, where I came from, what the hell I am doing here. Not in a a tidy understandable order or clearly but little by very little I began to experience and discover the answers to my questions. So with all of the struggles and difficult times that I had for the 10 days, there were a few amazing life changing truths which made the entire painful experience worth it.
I had a lot to process and chew on directly after Vipassana, I had so much I wanted to share with everyone but I couldn't come up with or organize my ideas enough to be able to communicate my experience to anyone else who had not also participated in such an experience. Here are some of the realizations I had that helped me find my peace…
I thought a lot about what I was made of, my physical make up. Thinking back to awful high school biology and chemistry classes and learning about atoms: the basic unit of matter. Through Vipassana I learned to become in-tune to the sensations that were constantly happening and changing in every little piece of my body. Cells are constantly growing, multiplying, dividing and dying. Atoms constantly moving faster then we can even begin to comprehend. I became so in tune with myself and my body, but not just myself, everything that was made up of the same things that I was made of. I felt closer to the people in my life physically and people who were far away, I felt closer to every aspect of nature, the little drop of water on the grass blade which transferred to the furry coat of the caterpillar as it crawled slowly, I felt so connected. I slowly gained more insight into this connection I was experiencing. I realized the power that absolutely everything when reduced to is smallest unit, is all made up of the same thing. Atoms. Atoms can not be created or destroyed. Atoms have always been and will always be. With that realization, in that moment, I began to feel closer to my brother because he really was still around. His makeup wasn't destroyed it just dispersed and spread. I began to feel him as a part of me, see him in the beauty of the sun shining, feel him close to me in the life that was around me. Suddenly for me, heaven wasn't far away, it was in me and all around me. I thought of my Nan, I saw all the ways she was still living with me. I feel her absolutely every time I hug my mom, she is my mom. She is with me every time I eat a delicious oatmeal raisin cookie, she is that delicious cookie. I get to see her beauty every time I lay my eyes on some violets. I felt connected. I saw and felt that everything is connected, and at its most basic unit everything is made up of the same thing, and to me all the sum of all those particles is "God" or Goddess, as I like better, because its totally a femme energy to me.
Another epiphany that hit me over my 10 days was about my personal love. I haven't been in a relationship in quite a while. I have had feelings, though, and lots of tears and heartbreak since my last "official" relationship. Like an ordinary human, I want a partner and sometimes get bummed I'm single especially around this time of year. However I also have been thinking lately when it comes to what I want my life to look like, how I want my family to develop later in life, who I want to raise kids with…its not a romantic pattern, its my best friend. Not my "my husband/wife is my best friend" stuff, my literal best friend. The person who I supported through her breakups, tears and joys and who supported me through mine. After grad school and learning absolutely way too much about myself, my family dynamics, and family dynamics period…I decided that it would be so much healthier to raise kids with a friend instead of a partner. So much less triangulation and displaced shit that won't end up on the kids. Plus when the kids leave, I think it would be so badass to be able to continue to cause a ruckus with your friend! Growing old seems so much more enjoyable to me that way. What I am trying to say is I became so thankful for my friendship love. I feel like our society pushes that the most important and fulfilling love is a romantic love. But when I reflect, the most intimate and fulfilling love (besides my mom) has been in friendships. True, raw communication happens in friendships. Less ego more willingness to compromise for common happiness. I have loved my friends deeper, it's been more raw. Friends see realness simply because we aren't trying to impress them with an illusion of who we really are.
On day 8 I was crying in my cheerios because of my heartbreaks, from recent to ones long in the past. Literally crying. I sat outside in the afternoon and watched the sky. A storm was coming and going. Every aspect of the sky was different; the texture, color, action that was happening, everywhere I looked it was different. It was beautiful. I had never stopped to see the world that way, I can't explain it but all I saw seemed to become 3D. I wanted to reach out and touch the world. As I looked at the sky I thought of my friend Katie. I cried. My heartbreak for a time began to lighten up. I thought about the people who had hurt my heart and were no longer in my life and when I really thought about it, I wasn't missing anything without them. Why would I be bummed over those people when I have a person like Katie in my life? I cried over Katie and the love she has showed me and taught me. I watched as the sun set into the purple and pink clouds and saw my friends' beauty in the sky. I cried because I thought about my Nan and how much Katie loves like her. I thought about my mom and how Katie is the only person that comes close to snuggling and hugging me like her. I thought about the absolute horrible things that happen in the world, how hard life is at times, pain and then I realized that I'd take all the hard times in life and bad things that happen to be able to have a person that shows such goodness like Katie. My love for my friend and her love for me filled my heart. I realized I am not missing out on anyone loving me, I got a Katie.
Now for a little secret time. I did break some of the rules at Vipassana. As I told you earlier evening times were hard. I missed my Mom really bad in the evenings. Anyone who knows me knows my love, relationship, and connection with my Mom is beyond close. The hardest part of not having my phone was not having a way to communicate with my Mom. I am not lying when I say my Mom and I have NEVER gone 10 days without talking. We haven't even gone a day without some form of communication. Needless to say I was dying to talk to her. I almost left one night for the sole purpose to just talk to my mom. I most definitely asked the teachers to use the phone to call her..several times. So when day 9 came and nobel silence was going to end the next day, I turned into 007, snuck out in the dark and rain, ran to my car, grabbed my phone, hid it in my coat, ran back to my room, closed my curtain, turned my phone on, and called my mom. I didn't get to talk to her but hearing her voice on her message made me so happy. I thought about my mom so much. It is the most difficult for me to even begin to express how thankful I am for her.
Making the decision to go to Thailand was easy at first. Then there were a few things that made it a bit more challenging down the road after I started thinking about the commitment. I knew I was going to miss my mom and my dog Sebastian like crazy, so much so that I doubted my ability to go. My time thinking of how much I love my Mom and how much I missed her also gave me time to realize how my whole life she has been building me up for adventures. She put the strength in me to be able to go on this Peace Corps adventure. My mom told me I was going to do great things and I believed her. Its because of her that I was crazy enough to believe I could graduate college and just so happened to do it at the age of 20. It was because of her that I believed I could actually get my Masters degree and just so happened to do it at 22. And like all the other crazy dreams she built me to believe I can achieve, its because of my Mom that I have the strength and bravery to go on my next adventure, Peace Corps. As much as I am going to miss her, this is what I was made for and she knows it. She made me.
I am thankful I was able to go to Vipassana before Thailand. I learned some skills that I know will benefit me on this adventure. I am also crazy grateful and excited to be going to Thailand where Vipassana is more well known and practiced than it is here in America. I would love to have the opportunity to sit another course in Thailand. It helped reset my mindset for this experience. I need to remember to live in the moment. Accept and handle what ever happens in the moment. Don't create expectations and cravings, everything is impermanent and constantly changing. Don't create expectations and aversions, everything is impermanent and constantly changing. When all else fails, focus on the breath. The breath is always the reality of the moment.
