Over Meditated

 

It's been nine days since completing the Vipassana retreat in Poland, at Dhamma Pallava. The experience - which lasts 10 days - is a fairly unusual one, in many ways, but particularly in its isolation and intensive inwardness. First, it's worth noting that there is no official fee for the course. The facility grounds and infrastructure, the lodging and meals, meditation accessories such as blankets and mats and cushions, are all provided and made possible by the donation contributions from previous students. Students, during nearly the entire length of their stay, are not permitted to speak. Even eye-contact is discouraged, though it does happen accidentally from time to time. Meals are restricted to only a light breakfast and lunch. All food is vegetarian. New students are permitted a small snack in the latter portion of the afternoon, consisting of an apple or a banana. The schedule is quite rigorous, with little free time entrusted to the participants. Each day concludes with a video discourse from the teacher, S.N. Goenka, recorded in 1991. His lectures contain clever aphorisms and salient, relatable anecdotes to help students make sense of the trying journey they are on. Upward of ten hours each day are dedicated to meditation. More time is allocated for meditating than for sleeping, which ultimately places people in a position where they are underfed, under-slept and over-meditated. As a first-time participant, everything seemed considerably well-oiled and meticulously conceived, though quite demanding. 

A Pali word which roughly translates to "clear-seeing," Vipassana is an ancient Buddhist meditation technique designed by The Buddha and intended to bring one's attention to the ephemeral nature of all things and, in doing so, in attuning oneself to the true nature of reality, one can gain deep and lasting insight. Therefore, Vipassana is considered an insight meditation. Special emphasis is placed on respiration, at least for the first four days, to help calm the mind. Students are instructed to notice and observe the breath, not to try to adjust or change it. Gradually, increased focus and awareness are directed toward the nostrils and the small area between the upper lip and the base of the nose - the Hitler moustache. A kind of heightened perception is cultivated as subtle sensations - changes in temperature or moisture, for example - begin to surface. The mind clears itself marvelously of its everyday clutter since any distraction is absent the daily routine: no reading, no writing, no music, no television, no movies, no phones, no drawing, no speaking - nothing but meditating. 

In the middle of the fourth day, the actual Vipassana meditation begins. This meditation incorporates body-scanning into the regimen. Every inch of the body is to be observed, from head to toe. The body must remain entirely still during this process. Over the subsequent six days students wrestle with the absurd relentlessness of pain; physical and otherwise. Mysterious things begin to happen on this journey. Due to the cumulative nature of the discomfort, how it worsens as each day goes on, the second half of any given day typically requires more mettle than the first. Sore and aching limbs choked clean of oxygenated blood, throb, pulsate and tingle madly with uncomfortable numbness. Muscles in the back and neck scream and spasm not just from the degenerate bedding and the lumpy contemptible pillow provided by the facility, but from days of stationary suffering in silence. Yearning to cry out, the fibers of our fragile human anatomy vibrate and hum and jerk with snarling and borderline rabid electrical impulses signaling in Morse code the letters: S.O.S. As this happens we are instructed to endure with equanimity - to observe that pain and pleasure are merely sensations - and to realize that they are neither good nor bad.

The stated goal of this exercise, if it helps one to frame it in terms of a goal, is the liberation from misery - a humorous paradox. Once the realization is had - at the experiential level - that anguish and misery are the result of ignorantly reacting to neutral thoughts and sensations, then, at least ostensibly, one can attain freedom from this recurring cycle of suffering. Note that an important distinction is made between 'intellectual' knowledge and 'experiential' knowledge. It is with relative ease that we can muse fondly about the lovely pragmatism presented by these guidelines. Of course misery is created and multiplied by blind reactivity! Sensibly, this must be so. The argument is sound. What reasonable person could disagree? But this is no matter of reason. In fact, reason, one learns while pantomiming a statue for 10 days, is no salve for the almost unbearable agony which must be confronted constantly. The intellect cannot penetrate it and the pain remains invulnerable to the intellect's scrutiny. Only through experiencing the truly psychedelic nature of transience and emptiness can one find a passage through the torment. In school we are taught that on an atomic level, things are mostly empty space. Often imagery is invoked of a nucleus sitting like a ball in the center of an empty football field. We can acknowledge this intellectually. In school we are also taught that continuity, at least in terms of photons, is illusory - that the light from a lightbulb is actually flickering on and off at a frequency the human eye cannot detect to create a sort of misapprehension where the light source appears to be constant and steady. We can acknowledge this intellectually as well.

However, it is a completely different thing to be sitting in a chair with a storming sea of lactic acid sloshing in violent fits and waves over the musculature of your hamstrings, hips and buttocks - stinging, searing, all shrill and poisoned - while slowly dragging your awareness like a rake over hot coals only to discover that as attention arrives to those singed sit-bones, that somehow, inexplicably, the pain simply evaporates. Gone. Vanished! Replaced by empty space. The mind, mesmerized by the disappearance, as a child before a street magician, cannot fathom how the trick was achieved. The body understands instinctively and imparts a precious wisdom: all things are temporary; the true nature of the universe is a vast and empty spaciousness.

Decidedly, the experience among students will differ. Certainly some commonalities emerge: the struggling, the doubting, the hurting, the searching. We are unified in this special regard. Still, each individual must discover their own meaning and establish a reason for persisting over the 10 days. Some people flee without finishing; perhaps five or so out of the total 100 in attendance. In each of those who conclude this arduous spiritual campaign, something is manifested. Whether it be a change, a recognition, an unraveling or an evolution, presumably a metamorphosis of some kind occurs. The experience itself is so uniquely bizarre that it lends itself to alchemy as an outcome. Personally, I'm still processing; still digging for gold. 

So much I want for the experience to be instructive. I want to have learned something - to have gleaned some greater truth or timeless wisdom. Of course, expectations are pesky things, and wanting is just another word for craving; a verb we are reminded to be mindful of entertaining. In truth, I was surprised by how quickly all the clarity and supple spaciousness evacuated once the retreat ended. With the haste of a passing cloud, suddenly the calm stillness dissolved. In the early days of the course there were these glorious moments of blissful emptiness in the snowy forest footpaths lined by tall, thin pines and birch trees. Gentle wind would blow and rustle the tops of the trees, shaking loose fine flakes of powdery snow, sending them falling all around me. They'd shimmer like sugar suspended in shafts of sunlight. Following it down where it dusted the small patches of green confectionary moss, I saw the footprints of a stray cat who had traipsed through before my arrival. The wind tasted sweet and the sun was warm on my face. I breathed with the breeze. An animal instinct. My empty mind, free from even the slightest thought, had attained a rare unity with the environment around me in which I was a part, not apart from. Words fail to adequately convey the depth of the richness, or the repleteness of it, but it was remarkable. Wrinkles on the pines took on the texture and quality of human skin. The slender birch trees seemed wrapped delicately in white linen. Everything sparkled, expanded and contracted.

On the subject of clearing the mind, one thing that amazed me was how long I became able to focus my attention. Leading up to the retreat I was meditating for sessions lasting at least an hour, with some sessions exceeding the ninety-minute mark. During these meditations, my attention waxed and waned: a few seconds here, a few seconds there, a burst of 10 - 15 seconds followed by a minute lost in thought, perhaps followed by the occasional 30-seconds of continuous emptiness and, rarely, maybe something approaching a minute of vigilant voyeurism of the breath. At the Vipassana course, however, by the fourth day I was able hold my awareness, uninterrupted, for tens of minutes - something previously inconceivable to me. The notion of directing my undivided attention on an object for longer than a minute, an idea which seemed a distant and perhaps impossible prospect for my entire time as a meditator, was suddenly an actual realized accomplishment. Since returning from this very fertile and very encouraging setting though, it is increasingly difficult to command my attention and pin it to my breath for longer than a period of 60-seconds, at best; a thing that saddens me. The default world brings with it a host of distractions. We were advised to continue our meditation practice for 1-hour in the morning and 1-hour at night. For the first week I kept this program, but found it hard when traveling for Asia's cousin's husband's birthday in the Bavarian countryside 2-hours outside of Munich. On one of the days I missed both of the sessions. Since returning to Berlin I've resumed the recommended dosage. I want to give it a fair try, to see if I observe any lasting changes outside of the meditation center. This is something I will know after one month. Time will tell.

Not all things were rosy. Some moments I felt gripped by panic so piercing I legitimately thought I might die. A latent hypochondria had been awakened in me by a recent kidney stone episode which I still need to write about. It didn't help the matter that I had an active infection in my right testicle. On top of that, fears of catching Covid ran rampant through my mind as a chorus of coughs perforated the silence of the meditation hall. Tis the season for sickness. Right after the holidays is prime time. As if the threat of another stone, Covid, and a tender testicle weren't enough, I began to notice my mind weaving an elaborate tapestry of terror which sought to convince me that the repeated exposure to numbness I'd been subjecting my extremities to was surely contributing to the formation of a fatal blood clot that would travel to my heart and kill me. An unscrupulous mind wouldn't cite sources, but mine did. It even highlighted the possible comorbidities of Covid and deadly blood clots plus charted the risk of myocarditis and other vascular and cardiac complications. All of it impeccably scholastic. Later that day, while biting into an apple, fear sank its teeth into me and my entire body began to tremble uncontrollably. The shock of cold hysteria shook me and it took a few minutes of concentrated breathing to soothe my nerves. Meanwhile, throughout that day and the days on either side of it, stabbing pains ravaged my testicle in uneven intervals. Savage sparks of lighting skewered my scrotum as I tried to tell myself ‘sensation is just sensation’ without craving or aversion. I couldn't help but feel the universe was delivering exactly the sort of confrontation needed to facilitate spiritual growth. Health anxiety needed to be addressed sooner or later.

In a way, all meditation is a contemplation on death, isn't it? What better time to come to terms with your mortality than during ten days of silence and nonstop self-examination? What is required is surrender. One must accept pain, accept hardship, and observe them as temporary phenomena. To pass through this trial - and this life - gracefully, one must embrace impermanence: it is the contagion and the cure.

He who is in a state of rebellion cannot receive grace.

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There is still much to say but the hour is getting late. A mystery that has stuck in my side like a thorn:

If all sensations, whether pleasant or painful, are just sensations and are not to be clinged to or avoided, then why is the stated aim of this discipline to liberate oneself from suffering?