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Day 9.
7:10pm - 8:20pm: technique & theory teachings.
8:30pm - 9:00pm: meditate.
9:00pm - 9:30pm: prepare for sleep.
Every evening, we watched a 90min video of a man explaining the teachings of Vipassana: what we should be learning and experiencing, allegories of Buddha, and how meditation can be used in real life. The entire series of videos depicts the same man, sitting on a pillow, addressing an audience of students like us. The man is S. N. Goenke, an influential non-sectarian teacher of Vipassana. He is a quintessential spiritual leader: physically unintimidating, impeccably charming, and deceased.
His skill at speaking - his word choice, accent, pace, and quality of voice, aligning perfectly with his facial expressions, body language, and mannerisms - it shook me.
“Oh Goenke, you’re so funny. You’re so charming. You’re so right.”
This man had exceptional charisma. He could move people to devotion, independent of the quality of his teachings. But his teachings were good. They were (and are) targeted at intelligent/educated people who are unhappy or dissatisfied with life, and from his success stories, they seem to have big impacts on successful people with unquenchable desires for more. These people want and chase happiness, but it isn’t caught. When they dedicate themselves to Vipassana, they encounter happiness, and donate large portions of their wealth to the ‘movement’. Vipassana is, very successfully, entirely donations-based.
Today, he touches on flow.
“One of the most dangerous things that happens during this course is that people experience flow. They get this amazingly pleasureable sensation and they want more of it. This course becomes a game of sensation-seeking. This is not Vipassana! In fact, this goes in direct opposition to the teachings! They come back for more courses, for more pleasureable sensations and they tell me, ‘Why am I not happy? I am meditating like everyone else. Everyone else is happy. Why not me?’ I try to tell them, this is not Vipassana! They learn nothing.”
Damned Goenke! If only he’d said this earlier. It would have saved me from these last few days of suffering. Such is life. We begin our final half-hour of meditation. Within minutes, I find myself in that deep, universe-escaping flow.
Here’s a decent excerpt from one of Goenke’s daily speeches :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEY3QwaRezE?t=19:50
Day 10.
The last meditation session ends. We can talk now. We file out of the meditation hall like usual and collect our sandals. Can we talk now? Do we talk now? No one’s talking…
A younger guy approaches in a way that South Indian people do when they intend to be personable and inquisitive - approaching uncomfortably close from the side with obvious purpose. There’s a distinct lack of the subtle body language exchange that goes,
“Hello, I would like to say something to you.”
“Yes, I invite you to have a conversation with me.”
“Wonderful, we will have a conversation, then.”
Instead it’s,
“We’re having a conversation now.”
He starts,
“Where are you from?”
“Canada.”
“Very good, did you enjoy the course?”
“Yeah, it was great. I learned a lot.”
“This your first time?”
“Yeah, how ‘bout you?”
“It is my second. Do you think you will do another one?”
“I’m going to do some research about Vipassana, it’s criticisms, competitors, background…”
“Ah, if you’re going to find out more about Vipassana, you should read the books. The online stuff is not so good.”
That’s culty. The social interaction was distinctly uncomfortable. Spending ten days avoiding people clearly has an impact on social skills. I chat with a few guys, each time a few more will hover around to listen. Everyone I talk to is upper-middle class or upper class. I wonder if that’s because of choosiness by the course organizers or pre-selection. Most of them are software engineers, so we talk startups and web technologies. Still, I feel like I don’t fit in so much anymore. Before, I was the equal suffer who happened to be tall and white, but now I’m the foreigner. It’s odd seeing the faces of the torsos I’ve been avoiding for the last ten days.
Day 11.
 |
| Before it filled up. |
I’m on the bus to somewhere within rickshaw-driving-distance of my hotel. The streets are as dusty, filthy, and overwhelming as always. The bus is crammed and the person sitting behind me is having a coughing fit on the back of my head. One hour away from the course and I’m already being tested. I close my eyes.
These are unpleasant sensations. Just as they’ve come, they will come to pass. I choose to be happy in spite of them.
I’m in my hotel and I haven’t been online in 11 days. The emails to be read! The pictures to be uploaded! The statuses to be posted! The internet in the lobby works fine, but not in my room upstairs. I’ve figured out what the problem is: when a computer picks up signal from two routers with the same SSID, it can impede internet access. The computer will appear to connect, but with inexplicably intermittent internet connectivity if you’re far away enough from one of the routers that its signal fades in and out. I’m feeling very frustrated and I go down to complain negotiate a solution.
“The internet upstairs doesn’t work. Your router, it-“
“Internet here works fine. Let me see your computer.”
“Yes, it works down here, but-“
“Then it works upstairs.”
“Yes, but your router-“
“Router? I do not know.”
I go back upstairs and the internet works flawlessly for 30 seconds every 5 minutes. That means periodic 4.5 minutes of cursing that now isn’t one of those 30 seconds.
I acknowledge my feelings of frustration. I really want to use the internet. I have so much attachment to posting the ego-stroking depiction of my Vipassana experiences. Can I release that attachment? No, I’m not perfect. But I can relieve my current frustration by doing the internetless writing here and posting it online in the bustling lobby.
Forward two months
I’m not floating quite as high on life as I was when I finished the course. I’m not as attuned to the feelings and sensations my body experiences, but I’m certainly more aware than I used to be - especially of subtle cravings (reading news websites, candy). I try to meditate twice daily for 15-30 minutes. Meditating clears my mind, restores my willpower, and strengthens my self-discipline. It is very effective at helping me focus on things I actually want to do instead of mental junk food (Facebook, Reddit, email, news). I often forget to meditate, but when I know I have a stretch where I want to do work, I plan to meditate immediately before.
Also, I magically stopped biting my nails. What!? I’ve had bleeding stubs for as long as I’ve had teeth. Turns out nails are useless. I still want finger-pads on both sides.
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