Vipassana – stairway to heaven or decent into the scariest depths of the soul?

We’re speeding down the motorway; me, a cute shaven haired pixie and a one armed man famous in Thailand for his juggling abilities. Thankfully, he isn’t driving. I am wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with a donut and a chocolate éclair. The donut exclaims ‘I’m searching for my inner self’ to which the Éclair replies ‘This could get sticky.’ It was my idea of a little joke but now, suddenly, it doesn’t seem so funny. What am I doing?

When I told people I was taking time off work to do a meditation retreat, they all cooed and said how lovely and relaxing it would be. They have no idea what I’m letting myself in for; I have no idea what I’m letting myself in for. Once again, I wonder, what am I doing?

I’m doing Vipassana, a 10 day mediation programme based on the ancient Indian technique through which Gotama the Buddha became enlightened, taught by a Burmese monk; the one and only S.N. Goenke. This will be no holiday. Amongst other things I have to renounce all contact with the outside world, handover my iPhone, my iPod, any writing and reading materials, take off all my jewellery and promise not to kill, steal, use intoxicants of any kind or engage in sensual pleasures, do yoga (no yoga!) and lastly there will be no talking. The course is conducted in pure, unadulterated silence, which forbids gesturing and eye contact too.

I had always been fond of lentils and aromatherapy oils, but I can’t help wondering if perhaps this is a bridge too far even for me. I love a challenge and am up for trying almost anything once. I have skied, scuba dived, and bungee-jumped my way through life, but this is a test of a different kind.
With no external distractions, this was going to be an opportunity of a lifetime to reveal what really was going on inside my head. Who could say what I’d find!

For me it’s usually all high heels, hair straighteners, adrenaline fuelled booze binges and deadlines, deadlines and more deadlines. Or at least it was, until my life took an unexpected turn in a more spiritual direction and everything directed me towards yoga.

I have never really meditated before, but my interest was sparked a few years ago when Vipassana seemed like an urban myth. A spiritual Kentucky fried mouse. Friends of friends had done it, but I never came face to face with anyone who had lived to tell the tale. I was intrigued by the idea of spending 10 whole days with nothing and no-one but your own mind for company. And the meditative experiences I was having through Yoga were proving to be a catalyst for my curiosity. Therefore, when I discovered I could do it in the UK and didn’t have to travel to the foothills of the Himalayas and live in a cave, I signed up without giving the agony and the (supposed) ecstasy a second thought.

Yoga and mediation are based on the same ancient philosophy. Each share the common goal of purifying the mind and body in order to deliver us to liberation and stamp out suffering through self-observation and the development of inner wisdom, peace and self knowledge. This too is the basis of Vipassana, which means to see things as they really are, not as you wish them to be.

We arrive. With knots in my stomach and trepidation in my heart I take a last breath of freedom and launch through the door, eager to meet my fellow mediators. We have the chance to talk over tea, and I’m relieved to discover there are people from all walks of life. I talk to an Eye Surgeon from London, a 74 year old Grandmother from Ireland and my roommate; the Yoga teacher (ironic) but, we’re rather subdued and it’s clear we’re all a little anxious about the coming 10 days.

The gong chimes, for what will be the first of many times, and we learn this sound will be ruling our daily schedule from the moment we rise at 4am to lights out at 9pm. Silence descends and we file through to the Dhamma hall and find our allocated seat on the floor. I have all but a thin piece of cushion for padding, that and the pound of fat the chocolate raisins added to my arse on the journey up.

I’m looking around expectantly, wondering what to do next as I try to settle into a position that is comfortable when the ‘chanting’ starts. Now, I’m used to the rhythmic song and soothing sounds of Sanskrit mantra’s but the wailing that was now assaulting my ears is usually only reserved for the drivel that escapes the lips of the very drunk. I’m busy trying to suppress my giggles, as is everyone else, when instructions are issued to observe the triangular area between your top lip and nostrils (only it’s pronounced Nooostrils) as we breathe.

For 10 hours a day, for the first 3 days this is all we do. We observe our breath, with the intention of calming the mind. Only it doesn’t quite work like that.
Day one – all I can do is sing Intergalactic by the Beastie Boys and wonder when lunch is. This is hardly conducive to meditation. I persevere and after a while begin to feel quite relaxed. However, concentrating on the breath for more than a couple of seconds before your mind wanders off on a bus mans holiday and begins contemplating the McDonalds menu or how one might go about growing runner beans (I live in a ground floor flat in North London, with no vegetable, animal or mineral growing facilities) is impossible.

Occasionally I feel like I’m nodding off or as though I’ve fallen through the trap door to semi-consciousness. But my mind won’t shut up, choosing to chatter constantly, and I wonder if I’m not starting to go a little crazy when the visions start. I see faces that are familiar to me, yet I cannot place them, followed by colours and patterns more psychedelic, fantastic and strange than those induced by a tab of acid (I presume) until finally my own face appears before me, just as I swiftly morph into a lioness and stalk off; ok then. If this is in my mind, I’ve seen enough!

Day two – someone farts (loudly) in the Dhamma hall, interrupting the noble silence and everyone’s concentration. But it provides a welcome break. The fact that we’re all almost reduced to tears like a gaggle of giggling school children is testimony to our current mental state.
Day two is hard. I want to run from the hall like a man on fire seeks water, as the reality of the situation kicks in – there is to be 8 more days of this. It’s a good thing Goenka is in Burma and not in the room with us, as each time we’re instructed ‘Start again, start again,’ I fantasise about physically harming the man (even though I have vowed to abstain from killing, perhaps I could make a small exception).

Somehow I get through it and collapse into bed exhausted.

Day three – I feel like we’re motoring again now and all the anxiety of yesterday has passed. After the pre-dawn meditation I take a walk in the woods and watch the most sensational sunrise. It’s incredibly quiet and I am acutely aware of the sound of the birds overhead, the rustling leaves in the trees and the breeze on my face.

Back in the Dhamma hall, it’s today that the pain really starts. I can’t get comfortable, no matter how I sit. An old injury in my lower back is causing me a lot of discomfort and my legs and hips are protesting from the long hours, sitting cross-legged on the floor. I shuffle around, trying to find some relief in the knowledge that before too long I won’t be allowed to move at all. After a break, I come up with an ingenious plan and fashion a support devise using a scarf, a hot water bottle and a number of blankets which I wrap and wedge around me. All that’s missing is the sticky back plastic.

I can hear people around me sobbing quietly and sniffing hard, trying to hold back the tears as they breakdown, overcome with emotion at whatever sensations and memories they are experiencing. The trouble is when you ask the mind to be still, it does the absolute direct opposite. With nowhere to run and nowhere to hide unhealed hurts, things we’ve said and done, situations that should or could have been different all come flooding to the surface demanding to be dealt with. You find that all too often we’re plagued and preoccupied with memories, all of which come with a hefty price tag of emotion; sometimes good and sometimes bad. Regardless, we become attached to this emotion which kick starts the vicious cycle of craving, aversion, craving, aversion and we become consumed in our own negativity, thus creating our own suffering. Over the coming days I’ll be trying to break this cycle.

We are told to simply observe these sensations and not react in the knowledge that they will pass, just as everything passes, because the nature of the universe is impermanence. Nevertheless, undertaking a 10 day Vipassana program is like having open heart surgery without the aesthetic. In the words of Goenke, it is as though we have scratched the scab off a great wound and all the infection and puss if rising to the surface, causing discomfort as it does so. The physical pain we’re feeling is the body letting go of all the knots we have ever tied ourselves in, as it releases us from our hang ups and digs up our deep rooted complexes.

Funny, I had been warned about the tantrums and was expecting a certain amount of emotional turmoil, but as it turns out I do not breakdown in tears and make the joyous discovery I am actually happier and more peaceful than I thought.
Day four – Today is Vipassana day – a poster proudly announces. I am excited. Finally, a change in the program! Up until today all we had been doing was concentrating on our breathing and the triangular area between the nostrils (nooostrils) and the upper lip. Watching. Waiting. As it comes in. As it goes out. The breath. The breath. Nothing, but the damn breath. This is the practice of Anapana, which is preparation for practising Vipassana itself. But, I’m beginning to feel that this is as useful as spending all day doing sit-ups when you’re training for a marathon.

The idea is that it slows down the mind and refines the senses. It’s true that I can now feel the breath on my top lip and tell which nostril I am breathing through (we only usually breathe through one at a time, and this swaps over every 2-4 hours. It’s during the change over that we turn into total scatterbrains and put the car keys in the fridge and the cat in the oven). Still, I’m not convinced that all this breath work will induce divine and blissful encounters.

I try to set aside my scepticism and doubt and focus on the new job in hand, employing the new technique of scanning the body for gross and subtle sensation. From head to toe I go, trying to take note of anything I feel. My mind is delighted at finally having something else to do and feels as though it has taken off on Safari across the great planes of my body. Smugly, it calls out as it spots sensations; heat, cold, throbbing, moisture, the touch of my t-shirt on my skin, tingling, stretching. But, then things take a sinister downturn as my body melts into a mass of pain. I feel it everywhere. Left shoulder; pain. Right butt cheek; unbelievable pain. Lower back; white hot, searing, stabbing, intolerable PAIN.

I cannot concentrate on anything but the pain. My breath has become heavier now and I am rasping and spitting my way through rounds and rounds and hours and hours of in and exhalations.
Just when I begin to think it can’t get any worse we are introduced to adhiµµhāna or sittings of strong determination. A.K.A. – sitting still for an entire hour, the whole 60 minutes, during which time we are encouraged to refrain from moving altogether. Eyes, arms and legs should all remain locked in our original positions. Got an itch? Tough, don’t scratch it. Pins and needles? Never mind. no-one ever died from pins and needles – stay where you are. Need the loo? Hold it! And so on.

I try to work seriously, diligently and calming, ignoring the signal from my brain that is putting my body on red alert. Let the scanning commence. My mind is starting to put up massive amounts of resistance and simply doesn’t want to do it.

Day 5 – The gong sounds at 4am and my roommate and I groan in unison. I was in so much physical discomfort yesterday it takes all of my will power and all of my courage to pull myself out of bed and force myself into the awkward cross-leg position on the floor in the hall.
I entertain myself with the thought that perhaps I have been abducted into some kind of masochistic cult, until I remember I am here voluntarily. I wasn’t expecting all of this physical pain and it’s beginning to spoil my otherwise serene mindset.

I negotiate with my mind and offer kind words of encouragement. ‘Come on , just try it. Scan the body. Just once… for me.’ With huge effort, I begin. Then stop, whilst my mind wanders off and initiates a debate with itself about whether this or learning to ski was the most traumatic and painful thing I have done to date. I reason, this is far worse on the basis that skiing is about 200% times more fun, and at the end of the day you can go and get plastered, smoke away your worries and make a total spectacle of yourself, in full ski clobber, on the dance floor.

Next, I try and play a ‘game’ and imagine that my untrained, monkey mind, is indeed an actual monkey that is inspecting the various body parts with curiosity. It picks up my arm, yanks it out of the shoulder socket, waves it around, shakes it upside down, then satisfied that there is no pain there, replaces it back to front. This isn’t going to work.

By breakfast, I am again exhausted. I choose to meditate in my room afterwards. I leave the door open and it is a welcome break to get out of the suffocating Dhamma hall. I find there are fewer distractions here. There’s no farting, burping, sneezing, wheezing or blubbing, besides my own. I drift into a dreamlike state, and suddenly I become hyper aware of all the sounds and sensations around me. I feel as though I am asleep, but I am too alert for that. I have something of an epiphany, which is difficult to describe, but I ‘wake up’ knowing that if I can just pass through the pain, tranquillity will await me on the other side.

With new resolve, I face the next determination sitting with gusto. I don’t know if it’s my state of mind or the fact that I am now concentrating extra hard, but as I examine my body bit my bit, inch by inch, trying to pin point the pain it completely dissolves. I can’t believe it, there is no actual physical pain. It seems that I was experiencing only the memory of pain, which readily retreats once challenged.

I am so happy, I am quite beside myself. I can’t help but wonder if this is what others have previously described as bliss. Overjoyed, I skip around the woods at lunchtime. Worryingly, I find that my thought patterns have become rather obscure and I am actually telling myself a children’s story about a Rabbit called Zeus and an Australian Racehorse called Bruce (seriously!). I make a mental note to seek professional help when I get out.

Day 6 – I woke up expecting to sail through today. Boy, how wrong I was. Despite my jubilation yesterday, scanning my body, I am once again confronted with pain everywhere. And it’s no longer dissolving, but intensifying. I want to cry. I want to stamp my feet and yell at the top of my lungs. I actually have to leave the Dhamma Hall mid-meditation and take myself off for an illegal, out of hours walk in the woods. I am practically running around in circles and am so furious with myself for regressing. The anger and frustration stick in my throat, so much so that I can barely swallow. I stop for a moment at the course parameter and scope out how far I’d have to walk to get back to civilisation. It’s an interesting idea and although we have depleted in numbers, as people who can’t handle it leave, I know this is out of the question for me. I won’t give up. Failure is just not an option.

I can’t face mediating again right now, so I go to bed clutching my chest because it feels like something nasty is pouring out of me, like I’ve sprung a toxic leak. I don’t know how long I sleep, but when I wake up I have another epiphany and I see myself as a mass of pulsating light and energy.
Back on the mediation mat, I decide to stop trying to label the sensations I’m experiencing and sorting them into good and bad, positive and negative. I accept them for what they are and try to remain detached. This helps and as I give no importance or prominence to the gross, solid sensations I start to detect an under current of energy flowing through every fibre of my body. It’s gentle and so, so delicate I’m not even sure if I’m feeling something or absolutely nothing.

Day 7 onwards – I can’t believe I actually made it through day 6 and am incredibly relieved that we’re now over half way through the course. In many respects the prospect of a further 4 days of this is rather disheartening, yet I also feel like there is something more to come. Each day I notice my mind becoming quieter, sharper. Each day, my equanimity is becoming stronger to the point where I am not reacting to pain at all. My entire lower body can be enveloped in numbness and my back may burn, but it doesn’t bother me. I have new found confidence in the knowledge that these feelings will pass.
I train my concentration on this elusive, mystifying energy and to begin with it’s so exhausting, every spare second I am not mediating I sleep, no matter what the time of day. Yet, slowly but surely time, space, mind and matter all begin to become compounded and dissolve into one fluid mass of energy. I am aware of my breathing, but not my organs and limbs. I am no longer the ‘I’ that I associate with my reflection in the mirror and scanning my body stops being necessary because I feel everything, everywhere, all at once. Besides, the concept of a body or the ego now seems arbitrary and really rather abstract anyway.

This is difficult to describe, but I begin to move in rhythm with the universe, feeling nothing but the expansion and contraction of the world both outside and inside of myself, with each and every breath. I realise everything is everywhere and that there are no boundaries between the physical and non-physical world, only perception and illusion.

This is how I pass the time for the next 3 days, until finally on day 10 I wake up feeling like a kid at Christmas, because not only do we learn the technique of Metta today, but we can talk! Metta is the practice of manifesting feelings of love, happiness, good will and compassion towards yourself and others. And after our morning meditation we’re all positively glowing. I am overwhelmed with love for everyone that has meditated along side me for the past 10 days and inspired by the bravely and courage that each and every one of these women has displayed.

It’s a tense moment when the noble silence is lifted. We all stare at each other for a moment, stunned that we’ve actually done it, then burst into conversation and frenzied hugging.

I very much doubt I have reached enlightenment or even come close, and I may not have had any explosive moments of self realisation, but I do somehow feel lighter and liberated from at least some of my worries and woes. I know too that whatever experiences life chooses to throw my way, I can handle it.

Life itself is a never ending cycle during which we are born, we grow, we decay and we die, by its very nature it is ever changing... impermanent. Yet, beneath all of this there is something in each of us that is greater than any sensation or experience we have or can create, that simply cannot be extinguished and remains ever alert, ever present. Some people call this the soul. Others call it God, the divine, the creator. But for me, it’s just me. The me that always has been and always will be.

For more information on Vipassana, visit the Dhamma website here: http://www.dhamma.org/