It’s probably better I waited a fews day after I got back to
start writing this. I needed to let the real world materialize in my life again
before I could hit this with a bit of objectivity.
I recently returned from a ten-day meditation course. It’s
about an hour from where I live in the city, up in the mountains on the outskirts
of Taichung. I spent 10-12 hours a day meditating and learning the practice
of Vipassana.
It was a bizarre and significant experience.
Let me tell you about it.
The rules are as follows:
No
murder parties Don’t
kill anything. ( mosquitoes. ants. spiders. flies. no killing whatsoever)
No bullshit parties No lying.
No sexy parties
No sex. (including
solo sexy parties. you know what I mean.)
No gimme-gimme parties No stealing.
No
regular parties No
intoxicants. (coffee is allowed. But there was no coffee. so I had a few early
morning grumpy parties)
My drive there was a nightmare. I drove my beat up scooter
through a torrential downpour and quickly discovered my newly purchased “rain
jacket” was indeed not waterproof. I was soaked 10 minutes in my hour+ commute.
I kept thinking “I should really take my phone out of my pocket and put it some
place safe.” But I figured my newly purchased hiking pants were water proof as
well, so even though my legs were soaked, I thought it best to just keep on
keeping on. About 30 minutes later I stopped to check google maps and
discovered my phone was broken. I did the prudent thing of chastising myself
for being an idiot for a solid ten minutes, and then set forth strong
determination to continue on my journey. I will mediate. Damn it, I must
meditate!
After driving along cluelessly for another 20 minutes, I
realized that strong determination doesn’t mean dick if I got no clue where I’m
going.
“Figure it out, Jay. What’s the plan? Driving pointlessly is
not a plan.”
I often internally talk to myself as if I’m not a single
entity. Descartes would be pleased.
I stopped at a Family Mart. I instantly soaked the
surrounding area as I tried to make a deal with the clerk, using my
questionable Mandarin, to use her cellphone so I could find out where the hell
I was going. She quickly left and the manager came out and, in so many words,
hinted that she wanted me to continue on my way.
I drive around for a while and stopped at a 7/11. I had a new
plan of attack.
Offer the clerk money.
Everybody loves money!
The young girl clerking laughed nervously and continually
shot confused looks at the younger dude clerk beside her as I stuck out a
fistful of wet cash and asked to use her phone. She told me she didn't have
one.
Right.
I asked the boy if he
did.
He smiled and said nothing.
I sat and contemplated my options.
Turn around and give up?
Fuck that.
Try and find it from memory?
Not a chance.
Go home, look up the address and route, and try again?
I only have an hour before sign in time is over. No way I’ll
make it.
I must have looked pathetic. A lonely foreigner soaked to his
bones sitting with head in hands at an empty booth in a 7/11 in the boondocks
of Taiwan.
Turns out that was a pretty good plan itself. The young girl
took pity on me. She walked over, offering me a cellphone lying in the palms of
her outstretched hands. It was like being bestowed a mystical object with which
I could complete my quest. A tablet of runes, which I could present to the
ancient doors that barred my entrance.
Maybe I’m a nerd…
I found the address using Google maps on her phone and showed
her the place I wanted to go.
“Can you tell me how to get there? Which way do I turn on
128?”
She told me to 等一下 (wait a minute) and went and made a phone
call. When she came back in, she went directly behind the counter and
started attending to the line of impatient looking customers that had started
to accumulate.
I sat. Confused and cold.
Soon, a man walked in and barked out something indecipherable
(to me) in Mandarin. The girl pointed at me. The man motioned me to follow him.
I did.
We stood outside looking at his car in the downpour. The
girl had called me a cab. I still had my scooter.
What to do?
30 more minutes of following a cab on my scooter in the
freezing rain, (less agitated, but shivering and chattering) and I arrived at
the spot.
I quickly found my room, toweled off, changed, and completed the sign-in application and listened to a brief session on the rules.
In order to help the students avoid lying, a practice called
“Nobel Silence” is enforced.
No speaking.
More so, no communication of any kind is allowed. No hand
gestures. No mild grunts. You're not even allowed to make eye contact.
What on earth was I doing here?
A few small groups of men (sexes were immediately separated) had formed and I heard English and
Chinese being spoken. I thought it best not to get friendly or learn any names
before I started the course. Don’t need any more temptation to talk.
We were summoned into the main hall, given a brief talk (via stereo
system) and mediated for a few hours before we retired to bed at 9:00 PM.
9:00 PM seems a touch early.
Oh, we have to get up at 4:00 AM every morning.
9:00 PM seems a little late.
Bells tolled, signaling bedtime.
I developed a strange conditioning to those bells. (more on
that later.)
Halfway through the next day and I thought I was going to
loose my mind. Tired. Confused. Sore from sitting. Stuck in a room with a bunch
of strangers remaining silent for hours.
I can’t do this.
A strange wave of fear
and panic slowing started washing over me like the tide coming in. How could
sitting in a room meditating cause anxiety?
I don’t know, but it sure as hell did.
I went to bed, uncertain if I could complete what I
started.
Day 2 was worse. A giant piece of paper on the men’s side
bulletin board largely displayed the words “TODAY IS DAY 2”
8 more days. Fuck. I don’t know if I can do this.
The bell tolled. We walked like zombies to our rooms.
That bell. It was like John Donne’s proverbial bell, clanging
solemnly into the silence. No questions needed, John.
I knew exactly for whom it was tolling.
Halfway through day 3 and I was feeling ok. Difficult or not,
I’m sticking with this. How could I face my buddies with the knowledge that I
couldn’t hack a 10-day meditation course? Hell, Wolverine wouldn’t bail.
Wolverine kicks ass and meditates all damn day!
“Be like Wolverine,
Jay.”
That’s been a mantra of mine since I was 11.
The technique of the first 3 days was called Anapana. You
focus exclusively on your breathing. You don’t try to change or control it; you
just watch it as it enters and exits and you bring your mind back when it
wonders. Let me tell you guys, my mind wanders. A lot. Usually to negative
places.
Halfway through day 3, I can’t focus on my breath, so I
decide to nickname all the guys I’m with. Those names are a lot of useless
information to share. No point point in telling you.
Here are their nicknames.
Doc The
Blacksmith Tim
Tim
Dudley Moops Johnny
Nunchucks Tom Tom
Sinead Gramps Monk
Chipmunk Ninja Aladdin Mr.
Williamson
Sanjuro Douglas
Peterson Pappy
Day 4 we begin the actual practice of Vipassana.
You take the focus that you’ve gathered from the 3 days
previous and use that acute attention to feel sensation in your body. Start at
your head, go to your toes, make your way back up, and repeat for 10-12
hours.
Every night ended in a video discourse from the (now
deceased) original teacher. He ensured this had nothing to do with practicing
a religion and was solely a technique to eradicate suffering in day-to-day
life. (My attention was scattered holes from a shotgun blast. I tried my
best to listen.) By looking in you become aware of yourself. By sustaining that look, you can achieve understanding of yourself.
Using that understanding, you can learn to tame your mind. Doing so allows you
to operate free from detrimental thinking patterns and needless suffering. This
was Siddhartha Gautama’s original practice.
So they said.
Day 5. More of the same. Wake up, mediate 2 hours, eat,
mediate 3 hours, eat, meditate 5 hours, tea, meditate 1 hour, video discourse,
meditate 1 hour, sleep.
I’m a creature of habit. I was hitting my stride. I was
feeling better. I could definitely do this.
Day 6 we found out that three times a day we had to start
sitting for an hour without moving whatsoever.
I can’t do this.
Days 7. Turns out I can.
All it takes it a little extreme discomfort 3 times a day.
Not to worry though. Each session is proceeded by a message
from the O.G.
“Accept your state. Treat pleasure and pain as the same and
don’t prefer either. Establish EQUANIMITY." (a word repeated endlessly
during the course)
Oh, that’s all I have to do? Cool, Wait, this hurts like
fuck. What’s that? Be equanimous? Right. Sorry. I forgot. Hey, now my back is
really.. Huh? Right. Equanimous. Got it. Thanks.
[SIDEBAR: The conditions in the main meditation hall where a clear-cut
demonstration of the difference between men and women. 45 women on their side
of the room, and besides the occasional stifled cough, or shift to find comfort
(hey! be equanimous, you!), the woman’s side remained mostly quiet and
dignified.
Then there were the men. 15 salty dogs. Together blaring a chorus of
unmitigated bodily function. Burps, coughs, throat clearing, sighing, grunting,
it assaulted the room in a barrage of bold remorselessness. And the farting.
Good god, the farting. A cacophony of flatulence spattered the quiet.
These shameless men were singing a song of organic
inconsideration. I quickly joined the band.]
Back to the story.
Day 8 was the game changer. I sat, midday, in the hall, and a
warm sense of pink and blue washed over me and my whole body vibrated in
unison. For a few seconds, my mind went quiet. Complete silence. I opened my
eyes and the world materialized slowly and I felt still and wonderful. I wanted
this. Dear god, this was it. The teachers voice internally interrupted the
silence in my mind. “Don’t seek pleasure. Don’t crave comfort. Don’t avoid
suffering. Except it all with equanimity.”
I felt guilty for wanting it to continue and the
self-chastising began anew. I realized that this was the other end of the
spectrum. Don’t give hate or misery power either. Stay even. Consider Buddha’s
“middle-path.”
I went the rest of the day without any remarkable
happenings.
Day 9. Tomorrow was my last day. I
know this because the big sign declared TODAY IS DAY 9.
I felt ok. Fuck it, I felt great. When the bell rang, it was now like it was signaling recess. I didn't waste time stretching or meandering. I
made a beeline to the hall. Not with alacrity, but with a sense of duty. This
was the path I was now walking.
Day 10 arrived and we were allowed to speak. I asked the
nearest Westerner (ten days without using
Mandarin made me a little weary of trying to use it.) how he felt and we
quickly fell into a long discussion about what had happened and how we felt. I
had to say, I felt probably the best I ever had in my entire life. Not
full of joy and bursting with happiness. Just even and accepting. Everything
that was happening was what was currently happening. No other way it needed to
be. That’s the best I can describe it. I drank the cool-aid.
I finished my conversation with Doc and went to find Johnny
Nunchucks. He had been my roommate for 10 days of no communication, time to say
hi. Time to attempt mandarin. A brief stint into our conversation and Woodchuck
basically ran at me.
“你知道什麼功夫” ＊”What kung fu do you know?”
I laughed a little. He had apparently been impressed with my
daily stretch routine.
I wanted to say “YouTube-Fu”, but I figured the joke would be
lost. I told him Muay Thai.
I’ve only been practicing it once a week for four months, but
hey, not lying, right?
We all exchanged numbers and I was on my way.
On the drive home, the weather was close to perfect and the
sun shone as I drove down the mountain. Everything felt ok.
I found it an apropos metaphor for what I had just
experienced. Rain, anxiety, uncertainty on the way up. Sun, calm, equanimity on
the way down.
CHEEEEEEESSSSEEEEEE BAAALLLLLL
I drove back into Taichung with elation. Everybody had to
hear about this. Everybody needed to try this.
How could I explain it to my friends and family without
sounding like a brainwashed lunatic cult member?
I put together the following metaphor.
It’s the best I can do to sum it up.
Take it or leave it.
For as long as I can remember, my mind has been like a
broken record player. The counterweight malfunctioned long ago, and the same
track has been repeating and repeating. The name of that track is Useless
Negative Bullshit. It plays behind everything I think. I can turn the volume up and down with some help and effort, but I can never turn it off. With
what I had just experienced, what I had just learned, I was able to lift that
needle, if only for a few seconds or minutes, and experience complete silence for the first time.
Don’t get me wrong, when the needle drops again (and it always drops again) the
song continues playing. But those few instances proved to be invaluable, and a
possible indication of what may come if I continue this practice.
I’ve been back a few days, and although the initial honeymoon
is over and the daily grind is back in play, I still feel, well…different.
Better.
I’m not going to push this on anybody. I’ll just end this by
saying, if you suffer from anger, depression, anxiety, insomnia or things of
that nature (I certainly do), perhaps you ought to consider checking Vipassana
out.
It’s not a magic bullet. It’s not an instant elixir. It’s not
a cure-all.
It’s a way to navigate hardship, and hopefully, live a better
life.
At least that’s how I feel right now.
Here’s a link to check it out. There are centers all around
the world.
https://www.dhamma.org/en-US/index
See ya in the funny pages.
*We were able to talk a little bit to the volunteers (this
thing is completely donation based. They don’t expect lots of money. Give what
you can) and to the assistant teacher. He lead the sessions and answered
questions at specific times each day.
**I'm currently writing this with a headache and a shallow feeling of the blues. No prompt panacea, folks. Just a little more knowledge gathered that life is always changing. Do what you can. Accept what you have to. Nothing lasts forever.
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