I lived like a monk for 10 days.
I woke up at four in the morning, meditated for 15 hours a day, ate two simple meals, fasting 19 hours a day, and slept at 9:30 in the evening. The entire time I had absolutely no contact with anyone in the outside world. I had no phone, no books, no letters. I was in what is called “Noble Silence”. It involves no speaking, no reading, no gesturing or any kind of communication in any form with the outside.
It was a journey within. I was at a Vipassana retreat - a meditation practice taught by SN Goenka, my second time there. My first was when I was only 20, and now as I entered my 40th year, this retreat was my gift to myself.
Why did I do this?
It started with a simple question…”How do I be kind to myself?”
Covid has been hard. As a mental health therapist, I work with others supporting them through their challenges. Family, marital, parenting, and personal journeys are what I listen to and provide support to my clients to help them through the turbulence of these relationships. If I was an athlete, I would need to make sure I have strong muscles to help me do my job - play my sport, score my goals. The athlete needs his muscles in top condition so that they can carry out their day to day tasks and perform in their chosen field. Similarly, as a mental health professional, I need the emotional and mental capacity to carry out my job as well as support myself in my own personal relationships. I went to Vipassana with the aim of improving this capacity, because I had begun to feel the strain of Covid.
The cloistered spaces, the increasing quantum of work, the personal challenges of my own life in the last few years… all brought me to the question - “how do I be kind to myself?”
At first, I looked at the seemingly obvious answers - I took luxury vacations, I shopped, I ate well and spent time with my family, pruned my friends and held onto relationships that matter letting go of those that felt less fulfilling… Yet, there seemed to be something missing. Having experienced Vipassana 20 years ago, I began to wonder if it was time to revisit that experience, so just like that, over a drink I decided I would spend my new year giving it another go.
Sitting in a therapist chair, I am witness to a lot of the struggles that people go through in their lives. My training has taught me how to stay as an outsider while I am sitting in that chair because my clients have come to me for that precise reason- they need me to be objective. However, in my personal space, this is an entirely different practice. I often find myself doing exactly the opposite of the advice I am giving my clients all day long. This realization made me wonder… How authentic is my work? Am I being a hypocrite? Why is it that I am unable to practice what I preach?
Even though I could see the benefit of my own advice in the lives of so many people around me, I was unable to bring it into my own home. Clearly, at my level of intellect, I am cognizant of the right way to respond, but for some reason I was not able to control that response.
Meditation is like… Learning to do the plank.
I have a poor back. I am sure a lot of the readers here have or know someone with similar L4 and L5 (spinal cord positions) challenges like me. Anyone who’s ever had a back problem has been told - a poor back means you need to strengthen your core. Having suffered with this back pain for 15 years, I can tell you in my sleep the exact words my physio therapist tells me every time I find myself bedridden or having a painful spasm. I know exactly which exercises I need to do to keep my back in working condition. Yet, I stop doing them soon after I start doing them. My trainer has now helped me build my stamina and trained me to be able to hold a plank for 5 whole minutes. That's all I really need. I need to consistently keep doing the plank for 5 minutes everyday and my back will be able to handle anything (well almost).
Vipassana is like a boot camp where you learn to do the “plank” for your being. The 10 days of silence is to teach you the technique. It helps you perfect your ‘existential plank’. The muscles this plank will build can help you through anything!
Now imagine you go to a boot camp and come back with 6 pack abs. Do you think these abs will be there for life? Does working hard to get something mean once you have it you can't lose it? Or does it mean that you have it now, you know how to get it, but if you want it to stay that way, you have to keep up with the workout? Just like your muscles will go into atrophy and those rock hard abs will turn into flab without consistent effort, the knowledge of Vipassana is of no use without daily practice.
During the first three days at Vipassana, you learn ‘Anna Panna’ - it is the process of watching your breath and noticing it moving in and out of the body. All your focus is on one triangular area - the area over the lips and below the nostrils. You learn to develop concentration by bringing all your attention into that space and start noticing very subtle shifts and changes in your own body. For example, did you know that we only breathe through one nostril most of the time? Do you know which one you breathe from and at which time? This is such a simple thing to be aware of, yet we never pay enough attention to notice it.
Once the mind has been brought into this state of focus and attention, you move onto the practice of Vipassana. Here, you learn to scan your body from head to toe and toe to head to notice sensations. In essence, you learn to be an observer or witness - called ‘Sakshi Bhao’ in sanskrit. We are usually trapped in being the doers. We think - this is happening to me, this was done to me, I did this. But as a witness, the position changes to - this happened, this was done. It's about changing the mindset so that life is happening for you not to you. There’s a huge distance in shifting your perspective from the doer to the witness.
How does silence feel?
Our mind is usually so full of noise, I don’t think I missed any conversations! I closed my eyes but instead of focusing on whatever part of the body I was supposed to, I kept finding myself smack in the middle of a memory that was 20 years old, 10 years old, even 30 years old… and I’d be wondering what could have happened if I had responded differently. I would be experiencing it over and over again from my ever changing perspectives. The moment a thought would end, another would start and then another and then another. It’s a cacophony of noise that’s always going on in our heads and even after 10 days of silence I hadn’t run out of topics to ponder! The silence is honestly the easiest part!
What was the hardest part for me? Definitely, it was using an Indian toilet! I have never used one before… I mean other than random pit stops here and there while on a road trip. For it to be my primary toilet for 10 whole days… that was hard! Waking up at 4 AM is not difficult, but sitting and meditating 15 hours a day is difficult. Yes, you get breaks and yes you move around, yes it feels monotonous but it is all just like the plank that feels monotonous too. However, because I want to fit into that dress or because I want to be able to go for a hike without a back ache, I power through my planks. Similarly, Vipassana isn't fun or exciting. It takes time to get into the athlete’s “joy of a workout” and it takes time to get lost in the art of meditation and the transcendence of time.
I feel privileged to have been able to take this time off. It allowed me to experience things that I have wanted to for a long time. It has given me the guidebook that will help me be gracious as I navigate my complicated life and relationships.
Modern living is not easy, we are running a non-stop marathon, day in and day out. We need systems of support and tools of introspection because we’ve all taken on a lot on our plate. We are doing more than anyone else has in any generation before us. All this is because of the time and space compression created by the internet. Our access to data and communication has sped up everything. Even with Covid the world has not stopped, it's still spinning faster and faster. Working from home, studying from home… there are no boundaries left. We have to learn to create them, we have to learn to insulate ourselves. Vipassana has given me the tools I need to help me create these boundaries. My advice to you all is to make this your mission for 2022. Just like some like to swim, some like yoga and some like to run to maintain their fitness, we all need to find a spiritual practice that we can start to keep our mental and emotional muscles in top shape - for ourselves and those around us.