10 Insights From My 10 Days In Silent Meditation
It started out with 100 hours of insanity followed by a morsel of peace — here are the highlights from my Vipassana “retreat”
Imagine a world where there is…
No talking. No phones. No exercising. No stretching. No music. No art. No writing. No drugs. No alcohol. No smoking. No masturbating. No sex. No touch. No eye-contact…
Even moving isn’t recommended.
Luckily, they don’t take away food or water but that’s about it.
I mean, who signs up for that shit?
Well, me. And weirdly lots of other people too.
In the beginning.
My ten days of silence began with a slow spiral into insanity before a glimmer of hope called peace inspired me to continue. From there, it was a rather beautiful journey but in the beginning, the noise in my head was so loud that it was hard to focus.
“When you can bare your own silence, you are free” — Mooji
Every evening, Goenka — the meditation teacher — gave a Dhamma talk.
It was one of the few times that my body could relax and a more gentle atmosphere could be experienced.
Not to be dramatic but those Dhamma talks saved my ass. Because, at times, I wanted to quit. On the more challenging of days, I dreamt of running into the parking lot and burning the whole centre to the ground.
But listening to Goenka’s wisdom, hearing him tell jokes, and feeling his compassion made me realise there are fruits to be enjoyed if one follows this technique.
So, I sat my bum back down, closed my eyes, and started observing my sensations (again).
The small list of quotes I’ve gathered below are a few of my favourites from that time. And, in keeping with the Vipassana tradition, it all starts on your next inhale.
1. “Breath is a tool with which to explore the truth about oneself”
The first three days of any Vipassana retreat require each person to sit and watch their respiration.
“As it comes in, as it goes out” As the great man says.
Even though I’m a breathwork instructor and teach every day, this was a lot.
But there is a good reason behind this and he explained it in his first Dhamma talk:
“As soon as any impurity, any defilement arises in the mind, the breath becomes abnormal; one starts breathing a little rapidly, a little heavily. When the defilement passes away, the breath again becomes soft. Thus, breath can help to explore the reality not only of the body but also of the mind.” — S.N.Goenka
2. “To learn the art of living harmoniously, first one must find the cause of disharmony”
This resides within, of course, and there’s nothing more alarming than sitting dead still but feeling so agitated. There’s also something very revealing about being asked to watch the breath flow in and out but seeing how the mind gets distracted after just three or four.
The mind is a crazy thing like that, often throwing our awareness from the past to the future. It’ll do anything to avoid being in the present moment.
The cause lies within, as Goenka said. But it’s not as easy as that.
Here are a few words that inspired me to continue:
“The cause always lies within, and for this reason, you have to explore the reality of yourself. This technique helps you to do so, to examine your own mental and physical structure, towards which there is so much attachment, resulting only in tensions, in misery.
At the experiential level one must understand one’s own nature, mental and physical; only then can one experience whatever there might be beyond mind and matter. This is therefore a technique of truth-realization, self-realization, investigating the reality of what one calls, ‘oneself’. It might also be called a technique of God-realization, since after all God is nothing but truth, but love, but purity.” — Goenka
3. “When one experiences truth, the madness of finding fault with others disappears.”
I don’t know about you, but my mind loves to judge.
What was painful about my 10 days in silence was that I realised that the person my mind judges the most is me.
Upon seeing this, I decided I needed a little more compassion for myself in life. And in finding more compassion for myself, I now have more compassion for others.
4. “If there is no peace in the minds of individuals, how can there be peace in the world? Make peace in your own mind first.”
During my late teens and early twenties, I berated the world for the way it was and cursed the leaders for making it so. What I missed was that I was carrying around anxiety, judgement, and anger so I was adding to the world I wanted to change.
This often made me feel powerless.
It was only when I turned inside and began the long journey toward liberation did my own mental health improve, along with long-standing difficult relationships.
I’m nowhere near to being perfect, but I’m trying. And I’ve made peace with that.
“Discover real peace and harmony within yourself, and naturally this will overflow to benefit others.”
5. “Vipassana is the art of living. Not the art of escaping.”
Amazingly, by observing the sensations in the body, we are in touch with the present moment. Being in touch with the present moment is the art of living.
This was the Buddha’s gift to the world, however gruelling it might be to achieve.
“Anything that arises in the mind will manifest itself as a sensation on the body; if you observe this sensation you are observing both the mind as well as matter.” — Goenka
6. “For real happiness, for real lasting stable happiness, one has to make a journey deep within oneself and see that one gets rid of all the unhappiness and misery stored in the deeper levels of the mind.”
The bad news is that sometimes it can take lifetimes.
The good news is that there is no rush.
7. “Peace and negativity cannot coexist just as light and darkness cannot coexist.”
This reminds me of something Saint Francis of Assisi once said:
“All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.”
A moment of peace can be enough to withhold the darkness because there’s a renewed belief. There’s hope. But, more importantly, there’s wisdom.
8. “The only conversion involved in Vipassana is from misery to happiness, from bondage to liberation.”
One of the biggest reasons why I was drawn to Vipassana was that it was free of dogma. I didn’t have to chant 109 times in the morning, sleep facing the East, wear white robes, or bring my hands into prayer position.
I had done all of these so many times before and was still ridiculed with anxiety and judgement.
So, it was time for a change. And however difficult those 10 days were, I came to appreciate them more and more.
9. “It’s easy to stay equanimous when life goes by in a sweet song. But a man is worth his money if he smiles when everything goes dead wrong”
Almost every hour of those 10 days something went wrong. In the end, I learned to smile because there was no other way. And in smiling, everything became lighter.
This is how I learned to smile in discomfort.
10. “When you help others, simultaneously you help yourself; when you harm others, simultaneously you harm yourself. This is Dhamma — the universal law of nature”
Ever since my first course 8 years ago, this has stayed with me and has been a guiding light for how I want to live my life.
Closing thoughts
To close, I’d like to leave you with a few words of wisdom from an anonymous source. The anonymity somehow feels more fitting given the message it portrays.
I believe that some of our best work goes on behind closed doors. This quote sums it beautifully.
“Work hard in silence, let your success be your noise.”
Or if you think friends would enjoy reading it too, please feel free to share!