I had been sitting on the floor for what felt like 2 hours without moving. My eyes were shut and I was not permitted to move my legs or my arms - the only movement I could make was to straighten my back and relax my back. Making any movement was painful - but I had a strong determination not to move. This was my fourth day of sitting - 10 hours a day.
I was attuned to what half an hour felt like on the body - the pain starts to settle in on the hips and lower back. By 45 minutes, it becomes physical and mental torture - every minute feels like an hour. My agitated mind was making the physical pain worse. Not for the first time, I question: Why am I here? Why am I voluntarily putting myself through this excruciation?
The Vipassana meditation technique looks at the Art of Living. Accepting that a natural part of life involves suffering, and suffering is the inordinate attachment that each of us has to our minds and our bodies. People cling strongly to their identity and when this is challenged, it can bring about suffering.
The technique delves into the functional architecture underlying the regulation of our emotions. Emotional responses can facilitate rapid action, decision making and create social connections; however, equally, our ability to control the nature of our emotional responses as circumstances change is just as important. For instance, we may attempt to change how we think about an emotionally evoking stimulus or shorten our focus of attention to diminish an undesired emotion. The Vipassana technique teaches a different way to process these emotions.
Sensory information is received through our 5 sensory organs. This generates certain sensations arising in the physical body - a signal that something is happening. However once a value has been attached to the incoming information, the sensation becomes pleasant or unpleasant, depending on the valuation given. If the sensation is pleasant, we seek to prolong or intensify the sensation whereas if the sensation is unpleasant, we will have aversion to it and attempt to push it away. The ability to respond emotionally to important cues in our environment is critical for adaptive human function. For instance, the emotion of fear is key to our survival, but we tend to latch onto these positive or negative feelings far longer than is evolutionary necessary and this is what causes our suffering.
The literal meaning of Vipassana is to ‘look’, however the metaphorical meaning is ‘to watch, or observe’ and this is what we are taught during the 10 day course. We are taught to observe, exclusively to the sensations in our body. Watching them as they rise, knowing that eventually all sensations pass, depending on how much attention you feed them. The aim is not to react to them, as our old habits would have. You learn, not from a merely intellectual level that all sensations arise and pass as part of their natural cycle, but from an experiential level through the meditation technique. This theory extends to everything in life. Everything is impermanent. Everything is changing at every moment and by observing the impermanence of our sensations, we learn to allow this natural process to occur without attempting to influence it’s natural state or process.
How this looks in reality is that on the course, we sit cross-legged for 10 hours a day. The first 3 days, we focus on the space below the nostrils and above the upper lip. We focus on the sensations we feel in this small area of the body. At first we notice only gross sensations - an itch, maybe heat, or cold but after 10 hours a day, my mind became focused and I begin to feel subtle sensations. Ah wonderful - some subtle tingling!
These first 3 days are challenging - physically because of the pain throughout the body but also mentally difficult. Having to sit with pain and not run away is arduous. Sitting for 2 hours sessions is boring and trying to control the monkey mind can be tricky. Not to mention the fact that no talking or gesturing to anyone is permitted throughout the 10 days. No books, no journals, no phone, no yoga(!) - no stimuli of any kind is permitted. It is an almost entirely internal process. Just me and my mind…and who knew what dark, disturbing issues from my past I had buried deep in the back of my mind.
After 3 days of focusing entirely on the small space below the nose and above the upper lip, my mind was sufficiently focused to be aware of the sensations elsewhere on my body. We are instructed to start observing the sensations we feel scanning the body from head to toe. This is challenging in many ways. We are taught to look for both subtle and gross sensations. We are encouraged to not move at all during each sitting and this is incredibly difficult. All I could feel was pain, throbbing, heaviness or numbness. But we observe without reacting, without moving, without distraction. Just observing the sensation as if detached from it.
For me, day 7 was when things shifted. My pain disappeared (mostly) and a pleasant sensation arises. This is a dangerous time when the pain gives rise to pleasure. It is tempting to indulge in this and crave more of the pleasant sensation. By craving, we start to form attachment to a particular sensation. When this sensation is no longer there, it causes disappointment and eventually leads to misery. Again, we are taught to observe with no judgement. Addictions come under this second category of craving. People become addicts, not because of the external object they crave but to the sensation that arises within. When the sensation passes (as is it’s natural cycle), one gets disappointed and seeks to generate the pleasant sensation again.
The course is set in strict conditions, so there are as few distractions as possible. Invariably personal struggles arise and there is no outlet to deal with them, except to observe the sensations that are created by the perception of these struggles. They call this process ‘weeding the garden’. Without external stimulus to probe a reaction, your memory will bring up thoughts which cause a reaction of sensations. Here is the test! Invariably, I failed and gave momentum to issues such as relaying conversations or negative events from my past. However, after several days, you learn that these sensations (good or bad) do pass and because you have not had the opportunity to externalise your reaction, there is no chain reaction that will lead to additional struggles or problematic outcomes for you. You are neither externalising the issue, nor suppressing it - you are observing it and letting it pass. As soon as you show aversion or craving to a particular sensation, you are giving it momentum to duplicate and thus you are attaching yourself to the sensation. This means the natural passing of it takes much longer. The more energy or momentum you give to an issue you have, the longer you suffer.
In the real world, using this technique is valuable - and necessarily (otherwise one questions what the point of the course was for). When you hear something, taste something, see something or remember something that you do not like, watch your sensations - observe and try not to react. You will likely still react but perhaps it will take you a little longer to react. Each time you do this, you are getting stronger at the technique. Eventually you become more in control of your own mind. Similarly for craving - if you want a piece of cake, then take some cake - enjoy it, take pleasure when eating it, but don't attach yourself to the sensation arising. If you feel like you want more, notice what sensations are arising with you. Watch them and allow them to pass.
The purpose of Vipassana is to change our behavioural habits to relieve ourselves from misery. By following this technique during the 10 day course, I came out the other side, more balanced of my emotions, more self aware and more emotionally intelligent.
It has been almost 2 weeks since I finished the course and I have noticed two things - firstly a massive shift in negative energy that I was carrying before I started the course and secondly, my reaction to situations has improved. I am watching the sensations that arise (both positive and negative) - it is a bit like a game I’m constantly playing with myself and in that respect, it is a game of self enquiry and self compassion. Vipassana has been a real game changer in my life and every course I have done has brought me deeper into understanding myself and the world I live in.