Vipassana is a 10 day silent meditation retreat (100+ hours of meditation). It is a really powerful technique of deep observation, a dive into our own body and unconscious to reprogra and heal ourself, to find the path the happiness, love and true liberation. This is available for ALL and for FREE. The technique is quite simple, but the process and the work is hardcore. I tried to expose the best I can the different dimension of this experience. If one of you is inspired to try it, i'm sure my goal is more than reached.
This has been the biggest trip of my life so far. It also kick started my Tantra pratique, and lucid dreaming, and changed completly my life.
Vipassana Experience
I take the night bus to Algarve, south Portugal. 10H bus.
I dream of donald trump jumping in a giant helicopter, carrying oil barrils in both hands. Someone has to sacrifice himself to kill him. Someone has to do it. Even if it's me. Arriving in Tavira. I start walking at sun rise. The town is super cute, with tide little white streets, oranges growing in the parcs. The town take a pink color at this hour of the day.
15km walk. There's Almonds tree, never harvested. I fill up my peruvian hat, sit down and brake them for an improvised breakfast
I found a super light-bamboo kind of stick for walking. I'm the Fool starting a huge journey.
I arrived at Monte Mariposa. The center is on the top of a little hill. It's huge, with a big building for meditation room, kitchens, etc. And a whole valley of bungalows and yourts, with a dry river on the bottom.
There's almonds, citrus, coarks, mimosas... and a row of San Pedros
I go to the registration and sign the “contract” with the 5 main precepts :
Do not kill
Do not lie
Do not steal
Do not have any sexual activity
Do not take any drugs or intoxicants
And of course: respect noble silence (no comunication of any kind with the others students). And you compromise to stay the 10 days inside the center whatever happen.
Man and women are completely separated – only the meditation room is shared.
I got a bed in a dorm.
We discover the videos of Goenka. I'm happily surprised – I had some apprehension about this “guru” figure”, but he is really funny with his indian accent, lot of humour and really intelligent guy.
He teach us Anapana : observation of the breath under the nostrals and above the upper lips.
Our body has many unconscious fonctions (digestion, heartbeat...) et some only conscious fonctions (mouvement of external limbs). The blinking of the eyes and the breath are hybrid fonctions, generally unconscious but they can be controled or observed by the conscious. Breathing is a bridge beetween conscious and unconscious. Make so much sens. (Do we should invent the blinking meditation???)
It is important to choose a really narrow area to observe our breath. So the mind become sharper and sharper to the details of the sensations.
B SHARP and you will C NATURAL.
The hardest part of the exercice is of course staying focus on it...
Sometimes thoughts come and take us away for more than 10 minutes. But no problem, just go back to the breath, with no guilt, without being defeated.
We do this for 3 days
Evryday is like this :
4am: wake up DONG
4:30 to 6:30 : Meditation
6:30: breakfast
8 to 11 : Meditation
11 : lunch
1pm – 5pm : Meditation
5 : snack (2 fruits)
6 to 7 : Meditation
7 to 8 : lecture by Goenka
8 to 9 : Meditation
Some meditation are in the collectiv room, some you can be in your own room.
Every meditation start with some instruction by Goenka, and some singings in Pali. It's a little bit painfull, he sings like a drunk frogs at 4am on the sidewalk. But his instruction are actually quite helpful reminder.
Day 1 :
Hard to keep constant focus. I realized how crazy is the mind, complete non-sens wandering and digressions with no goals, incapable of focus. But i'm getting better. And Harmala already teached me a lot about this...
It's hard to keep the posture with strait back thou.
In between the fog of the brain, I see the main topic appearing for this journey : Father (I became a father 1 year ago, and didn't really had a father myself) – Authority – Desires
OK.
Day 2 :
I found a nice trick. As we are 50 in the room, there's always distracting noises. Distracting for the mind that notice it. It's always the occasion to realized that i'm not focus, and to go back to the work.
I try a new position on my knees. Way better for my back, so much easier. But after ½h I hurt my feet... and now I walk limping, with the help of my stick. I'm the Hermit again ; an appropriate archetype (Father or absent father, archetype of wisdom found into his own experience, elaborated in the silence inside).
In the afternoon, some of the interrupting thoughts are about a paper, of the life insurance of my father. That trigger a chain reaction. This relate directly to the (future) death of my father, and to all the things we never been able to express between us. Sweet tears of release fall down my cheeks. Maybe I write him a letter before it's too late.
For more than 3 years I for a pain in my shoulder. Nothing can release it, no massage, no yoga, no dance. It get worst when i'm stressed. This pain is burning me , after so many hours of meditation. I want secretly to heal this stuff of course.
After this release, the pain disappear. Yay i”m Free!!! it starts pretty good !
In the night the dreams are vivid. In one of them I got to meet my wife at home, but the doors is guarded. I do like batman, I project my shadow on the walls he her room. And her shadow , projected by the bedside lamp, meet mine. Then I meet Maia twin sister (happened several times before, sounds like she has a cosmic sister in another dimension...)
Day 3:
Up and downs. I getting so much better with the technique, get sensible to subtle ticklings, to humidity, heat of the air through my nose.
In one of the breaks, I hear turtledoves – it send me back to my childhood and I cry of happiness. I'm on a highly sensitive state of mind, where evrything is demultiplied.
Evening, in the videos, Goenka explains a little bit more the theory. It does make quite some sens!
I summarize some key aspects here :
We don't perceive directly the outside world. Every external stimulus, entering through our senses, generate a bio-chemical reaction in our body. These bio-chemical reactions produce then a sensation (of heat, cold, humidity, pressure, tickling, stretching, pain, pulsation, vibration... ). At every instant, in all and every part of your body, these reactions happen. They are nearly all imperceptible, unconscious. But the “unconscious” is highly conscious of each of these reactions.
With focusing and training the mind, more and more of these sensations will be accessible to our “normal” consciousness.
These sensations are the bridge between the outside stimulation and the inner-reaction. If we take the simple example of addiction – any addiction, to a drug or anything : the addict thinks he is craving the substance or the object of the addiction. But in fact, he is craving the sensation that this substance or object produces. More generally, any situation creates sensations, following a certain PATTERN of the unconscious. These are the patterns we gonna reprogram.
So we first gonna make the mind sharper, to have access to sensations all over the body, any time. First on the surface of the skin, then inside the body. This will put in relation our conscious mind with our unconscious. We gonna consciously OBSERVE these sensation, with EQUANIMITY. Meaning, without creating any aversion, or any craving. In this way, we reprogram the mind consciously, to not create reactions (unconscious reactions) to certain sensations. We are neutralizing patterns.
The 3rd important Element : To understand that every sensation share one common property : ANITCHA (impermanence). This is a common caracteristic of everything in Nature; This is the Universal property of ALL, the truth of Nature. All is impermanence. We are Impermanence – as we die – but also every instant : we are made of subatomics particule vibrating at high rate, linking and unlinking, trillions of time every second/ Every sensation – produced by a bio-chemical reaction, is the expression of a change itself. The constancy of the “Self” is a gross illusion.
Day 4 :
This is the day Day we enter PANYA : The WISDOM
In the morning of this day, the Owl start singing next to our room.
All day we continue Anapana. I became really good. It is the foundation on which the Vipassana technique can be develop.
In the Afternoon, we learn the VIPASSANA Technique :
We have to scan the body, from the top of the heat to the tip of the toes, passing through everypart individually. To observe in each part, the sensations that happen, with equanimity (haha so easy said like that).
First difficulty : at the biginning you feel nothing (do you feel the left top part of your head ? The muscle of your lower arm? ). You need to focus,using your proprioception (the sens of the position of all the parts of you body) , on each zone, until a sensation appears. Even the most subtle.
Any sensation is enough (tickling, pain, vibration, or even the touch of your cloths)
As soon as the sensation happen, go to the next zone. At the beginning, you choose big zone, like “the lower arm”, then you can start being more precise.
With the practice, more and more sensations are available on every inch of skin. And one can learn not to use the mind (the mind tends to label everything, “this is you neck” , “you feel stretching, you feel this or that...”).
The first session was.... torture....
It's forbidden to move for 1h (it's call strong determination sitting) – not moving increase your sensibility. First it's not so easy to focus. But then after 1/2h, the pain on the back become unbearable, and moves your focus constantly. But if the focus move to the pain, it multiply it (you realize pain is multiplied by your mind). The exercise becomes, step by step, real torture. Up to unknown level of suffering. With extraordinary determination, I hold up to 1H.
But when the exercise stop, I got a violent counter-reaction; I start shaking compulsively, like after a traumatic shock; a little bit overwhelming strange feeling I have to say...
In the night, the Goenka Show is not so good. He speaks a lot about morality, reincarnation, and how much is the people of this world miserable, soooo miserable with their own pain. I see some dogmatic part in his teaching, and reject many parts of it.
Night
Dreams for many hours of rational philosophical debates; horrible.
Then I dream that I removing a virus from my computer. I click “desinstall all the program” ; wake up. Is is Vipassana the Virus? Or Vipassana is helping me removing a virus? Not too sure.
Then I dream I became impotent and Sarah is with another man to satisfy her sexual needs. Horrible.
Day 5 (Pan, or Funky Pope)
So from now to the end, we have 3 times a day a “force” meditation in group where we cannot move. But the assistants add a note at the door saying that this is NOT a torture exercise, we should do our best and do better ever time, not torture ourself. Great.
I lost the focus, I work really bad now. The session of Day 4 was too much for me, i'm demotivated (afterward I will understand, this is just my mind rejecting the process, it's quite natural). The singing of Goenka drive me crazy. I envision myself smashing the speakers, beating up the ipod with my stick. Fuck this drunk frog!
At midday, I put my name on the list to get a private interview with the teacher. But an assistant come and tell me there's too much people in line, it will be possible only tomorrow. Mean to be. I'm gonna find answers for myself.
I go on the grass, remove my shoes. The Manager come “you NEED to put your shoes” … “i didn't sign for this rule” ...” yeah but... blablabla”. Damn it, Authority! I cooperate.
But immediately after, I decide to leave the limits of the center and nap on the side of the hill – first act of desobedience.
I generally think in English when i'm in english context. But I start thinking in french again, and become way more poetic, singing in my head about the birds chasing love, the flowers blossoming to the power of the sun, the grass dancing in the wind. I sing and Ode to Nature, to the heartbeat of the world.
Dong Dong Dong. I decide to go to meditate by myself, I go down the river in the wild, under a tree (hey that's Buddha idea). They specificly ask to meditate indoor, as the wind and other stimulus prevents us from feeling the subtle sensations.
I have my hair in the wind, the sun heating my skin, birds and insect making a chaos concerto around.... Ok this is a rich and messy meditation ^^ Not really possible to focus on anything, I draw into a waterfall of stimulus ; but I feel so good, with all these wonders around me, and this feeling grow in me.
It came suddenly to me, I realized !!! I'm a “Fils Naturel” as we say in french, a “Natural Son”, meaning actually “illegal son”, from an “unofficial” love ; I”m the call of Nature to herself. I'm born out of the pulsion of Nature, not out of the law of the man. Born from a man and her mistress, from an “illegal” love. Wihout desobedience, I simply don't exist. This image punch me with joy and happiness, I cry in the sun, put myself naked (total desobedience haha), and stay there for a while.
But in parralel, I also realised that i'm afraid of Authority , afraid of the punition of the Man and their laws.
I hear a GONG in the far away. I pack my stuff and come back running like child, forgetting the pain in my foot, full of adrenaline, sneaking back into the center.
I'm shiny again, regenerated, satisfied.
I can now meditate fresh and motivated, and work seriously. After the 1 hour session of good work, we take a break. I got a wave of hilarity. So Strong! I end up falling on the ground laughing and laughing and laughing. Every body around is so closed in himself, so unreactiv and passiv, nearly dark : this add to the comic of the situation! When we go back into the room i'm still laughing, it's hard to stop.
Next break, I go for a little walk. Then the Acid Trip is kicking in! I become theatrical, playful, I eat wild plants like a chicken, I examine every rock and branches, the details start to appear, the light is sharper. Then the “face recognition” function is activated, every thing become alive, making face expression.
I found a little piece of furr... maybe from a squirrel?
Then next to it, a snake skin on a rock, from sloughing …
I'm on the right track. For sure!
As every afternoon, all the men watch the slow sunset together in silence. Today I connect directly to the energy of the Sun, this is GIGANTIC ; and it's not a sunset, but the earth tipping over the empty Space; I just get in tune with scale of these giants and their cosmic movement. Pure Extasy.
Tonight I make some theories, discuss in my head this philosophy and all the paradoxes I encounter (it's kind of entering the Tao, all is paradox in appearance). I make theory about Buddha too ; did he had a child? No?... so maybe Reincarnation is just and unconscious desire of continuity. Or maybe just a Motivational Believe (that's why when you got enlightment you don't reincarnate, you understand that was just a believe, an illusion...)
But I came for the Technique, not for their believes. I'm gonna spent 10 days with myself; if i'm being a source of conflicts, then Goenka is right : we are so miserable – we cannot even be happy with ourself. I worth better than this. The Technique seems to work anyway, so it's great. And theories are just attempt to explain something ultimately mysterious.
Day 6 (The Lover)
Back to peace. Focus is bettering, things getting interesting in the body; so much details to discover – come on, it's my body, 29 years with him, I never felt it in so much detail !!!
All th body become now accessible, so the scan become smoother, and little vibrations appears evrywhere. Also Goenka propose to scan symetrically and simultaniously (both arms at the same time for exemple). This seems to create a new focus in my brain, using both hemisphere somehow?!
After 1h meditation, I got a huge pain in the knee. OMG. I cannot stand up, I lie down, trying to moove is nearly impossible. The “Manager” come and say it's forbidden to lie down in the room. But I cannot moove! 3 assistant come standing around me to explain me how wrong i'm. Wow. I feel my heartbeat, the pressure of my blood, the tension : I witness the manifestation of Anger.
When i'm finally up, the manager says “go to speek with the teacher”. Omg I feel so humiliated, it's back to school, the longest trauma of my life!!!
The teacher just explain me their stupid dogmatic rules. I'm angry and frustrated.
(all of this is part of the psychomagic of the retreat, and my relation to Authority)
Day 7 / The charriot
Early morning I meditate on my bed. The scan is now getting deeper, entering inside the body ; I experience somehting similar to chakras (but it's not a good idea to asociate it to Chakra, that is another mind conception, and the mind will start making asociations etc etc, and take over the process. Better just feel).
It start to be an existential experience, kind of Ayahuasca feeling to it.
I can now “free flow” and surf on a subtle vibration field in my whole body. But don't get attached to this feeling, because some deeper pain soon come to the surface anyway. It's the cleaning process, things coming to the surface more and more!
Sometime my whole chest catch on fire, every point is heavy and tense; but at this point , the pain is just an information, it is “a pain”, not “my pain”. But it require a constant effort. It's hard work!
When i'm in the room, I enjoy lying down after a good session. I got spontaneous shaking
, shivers in the whole chest. At this point I understand it's the releasing of some traumas (like a Gazelle after she survives a chasing with a lion)
At night, it take HOURS to go to sleep. I'm so Hyper Conscious, the process never really ends! But no worries it's normal. The body can still rest, and the mind only needs some hours of sleep – he is not wasting energy in useless worries and wandering anymore.
Day 8 : Justice
I start before the GONG at 3:30... I cannot sleep anyway.
The focus is now 100%, I can feel every millimeter of my hand, all the details of my body. It's nearly a trance state (every breath I scan a new detail, retreive the sentation, observe it with equanimpity, move my focus to the next spot, etc).
After this really long session I lie down. Then suddenly :
All my memory come back !!! I got thousand of flash of memory from childhood; the toys I got for christmass, my friends playing in the mud with me, my 4 wheel bicycle and me playing with my father. I cry so much, it's so amazing. I didn't had nearly any memory of any of this at all !!! But it's all there, crystal clear!!! WOW.
I finally get up to go to breakfast, completely chocked. I cannot eat ; every tiny spoon of food taste x1000.
It's SO STRONG. I don't want to go to the group sitting anymore, I want to be alone. I don't have space for myself this is hard. But I decide to play the game and follow their stupid rules... I sign for it, and their give me all of this for free...
I speak to the teacher after a session. Wow, i'm 100% calm and relax. We got a really good conversation, he is really compasionate and nice
guy. I tell him about this Authority issue... he tell me he hesitated a lot to become a teacher, because of this projection of Authority on him. We understand each other perfectly, I feel a great compassion in him.
(I start to see my trauma with authority disolving)
(Remarque : All of these psychomagic with the managers, teachers, etc etc, are just expression of trauma in my unconscious. Other student found for exemple the manager to be really relax and easy going. For me he was sweating anxiety and bad vibes. And I start to see it's all in me...)
Day 9 : The Hermit.
Again in the quiet morning, I work the best.
Then again , I lie down, and I got a new Memory Recall experience. I see many of my travels from 10 years old to 18, I see myself teenager, then growing up...
Then, there is this one flash : Flores, Guatemala. The exact moment I saw Sarah for the first time.
BHANGA!!!! Instantly, my whole body vaporise in ultra high vibration, I dissolve. No more boundaries (DMT flash); then a ultra detail moovie of our first week together, our first love in semuc Chamey, then we went to Atitlan. I remember every restaurant we ate, every bus we took, the people we met, the first LSA ceremony ( LSA told her I was her husband, haha!!! ). I saw how we falled in love. Waterfall of tears of joy, condensed extasy, Ambrosia, nectar of the Gods!!!
At 8AM as everyday, it's the sunrise. I'm just blessed, still crying of joy, look at the whole sun appearing from behind the hill. Then i turn around : a complete Double Rainbow. Haha I start jumping in the air like a child on MDMA!
(Double rainbow is a special device, it's the squaring of the circle... )
The day is less interesting. In the afternoon I go for a nice walk instead of meditating. Go down in the wild again, climb a tree, meditate there, then start singing and dancing. I improvise song about Nature. Then tell the story of the universe, time and space are created, mateer manifest, condense and expand, fusion to create the Light, planets spin and sping, life emerge from everywhere, unfolding of the magic. I sing the Love and the Joy, I Sing the Love for Sarah
Then my throat gets tide :
Come this moment, when One will have to live without the Other, her without me or me without her
Life is a meeting of the Ephemeral, a sweet poison that is a gift
Even the Sun will have to die
Anitcha, Anitcha, all is impermanency
Last sitting of the day : I got to the complete flow state. But then re-emerge a deep pain, the one from my shoulder but deeper, maybe coming from my heart? I try to work on it for nearly the whole hour, trying to find the root. I enter a kind of 4D dimension (the 3D + the “Deepness” dimension)
I ask the teacher about all of this ; he says to be careful not to focus on it, but to continue the scanning, it could be a trap for the mind , that would loose equanimity.
I cannot sleep nearly all night, I just feel everything.
When I finally fall asleep, I dream of Maia (my daughter), and i'm soaked in pure Love.
Day 10 : It's the last day!!!
I try to meditate seriously but the others are not focus, they make a lot of noise, pack their stuffs with their flashlight... damn it guys!
I get to breakfast slightly frustrated. I'm also starting recentering myself in my own beleivs :
What universal Absolute Truth they speaking about? I don't like this idea
I don't like that everything seems Goal oriented (to be enlighted). My paradigm is more process oriented, and the central piece is The Mystery!
As a symbolic act of recentering in my own process and beleives, I decide to disobey and not come to the “force” sitting (so far I went to all of them!!!).
A 8am, DONG. I'm not gonna sit. But I go to see the Sunrise. I go to the toilet and walk in front of the room ; everybody is already in.
Then, suddenly, this message in my head: “The biggest act of disobedience is to disobey to myself”
I remove my shoes and go to sit. Mind Flip, the TRIP !!! then a chain-reaction of realization ; how much i'm controling myself, persecutor and slave at the same time of my unconscious states ; with a tyranic crazy mind and his Ego figure.
This was a huge mind switch.
Then I meditate, and I reach a new state of complete relaxation, all is SO peaceful, every breath is soft. When the scanning go over my painful spot on my shoulder : nearly nothing happen, it's gone !
And THEN I understand Equanimity ! Only by experience you can understand it. I understand that all this time, I wanted to heal this pain, but “wanting to heal” is NOT equanimity. I had to completely let go, let go of all control, and just observe the Big Game of the Universe. So simple, yet it took me to reach the last session to get it.
And for that, I had to disobey myself.
Welcome to the Tao
Last meditation , Goenka teach us : METTA
To connect with our subtle vibration and attach it to Love, Compasion, Harmony and Liberation fo All Being..
I didn't understood why he never speak about Love. Now I understand. You first have to work for yourself, purifying as much as you can, then love can emerge.
The 2 teachers (a man and a woman) present in front of us all the 10 days, were actually doing METTA for us all the time. It's beautiful.
We get out of the room , and we can now break the silence.
Nobody knows what to say.
So softly, theatracally I announce : “Welcome to Reality, to the Kingdom of Impermanency”
All laugh, and then we explode in a sharing session. So much fun !!! so much stories!!!
But many people get a really mild experience of these 10 days – depending of how much motivation they had. You need to work for it to be a success....
I felt the sacred plants prepared me for this quite good. There's a good synergy in the work.
We got served a feast. Then we can make donation
All of this offered freely to us... but now I know why! I want others to do the same too!!!!
Going back gome next morning... 10H bus is Fantastic. I can sit in meditation pose in the bus and enjoy Being. I will never have to wait in my life ^^
I continue practicing, At least 1h a day, 2h if I can. Not at all wasted, I need to sleep way less and i'm more productiv. Also Life is much better, if i keep consciousness of at least one sensation anytime in the day. Then i can observe your emotions when they arrive, before they overwhelm me. It's a feedback from the inconscious. I'm much more relax and way more patient
But all of this is just the tip of the iceberg!!! Much more is goin on than what I can write about!
I got a new mind clarity for sure. I can now start my permaculture project with full power and no fears.
And more important : in a thousand ways, it can make me a better Father (that's kind of the main topic hmmm. How could I be a good father if I don't believe in a form of gentle and kind Authority? Or at least, a frame for Maia? That was a huge job for me to work on all of this – I didn't had any model of what a good father could possibly be. )
PS : in some deep scanning at home, I got access to a kind of hologram realm, especially in the feet and hands. I can go in such detail, every part of one finger send electric signal to another part of the body, to the head, shoulder, stomach... The feet is so rich too, everypart is a reference for another part of the body! That's why you cannot just focus on a painful area, but have to scan the Whole. Maybe you need to unlock things on your toe to get rid of your pain in the neck... Some tradition (acupuncture, reflexology) use this... but my feeling, is that there's more connection in our body than the datas of Internet.
I “knew” all of this, but to experience it in first hand … ha !
I hesitate a little bit to share this with people that didn't went to vipassana.
I don't want to spoil the technique. And even more important, don't have ANY expectation. All experience is different. Most of the work is “invisible” too. My story is just the part that manifested in my mind. I share this as a curiosity and maybe an inspiration.
May all of you find Love and Harmony ;
May all of you be forgiven
May all of you forgive me
May you find Liberation and true happiness !!!