Vipassana – 95 hours of meditation in 10 days!

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Vipassana – 95 hours of meditation in 10 days!

March 19, 2009 by serenityquest

Two hours before dawn, the bell rings at 4 at the Vipassana Meditation Center in Kerala. By 4:05, the sluggish mind asks: “Another 10 ½ hours of meditation today. How many days are left to survive of this 10-day session?” Not much time to lie in bed, the 4:30 to 6:30 meditation session starts promptly.

While the two hour session is tough, the three sessions over five hours in the afternoon are the grueling ordeals. The temperature outside is 95 Fahrenheit or 35 Celsius but the fan less meditation hall packed with 60 bodies is a few degrees hotter. The faintest wind becomes a balm to not only the body but the mind and the soul as they all struggle mightily to sit, just sit and be still. Vipassana meditation is about focusing on the breath and through acute concentration on the breath, body and its sensations, the mind eventually becomes still and thought-less…supposedly. One of the three dreaded “Hour of Strong Determination,” during which the meditator is not supposed to move the arms,legs or eye lids, is from 2:30 to 3:30. It is grueling, daily sweat bath where a meditator can discover odd personal facts such as the number of uber productive sweat glands there are in the body beyond the familiar ones in the armpit and the neck. Fifteen minute break sprawled motionless on the bed underneath the ceiling fan in the overcrowded dorm room and then back into the hall for another 90 minutes. The five pm dinner bell alerts attendees that a steel tray with one banana or one plantain is ready. After dinner, two more meditation sessions sandwiching an hour video of a lecture by Shri S.N. Goenka, an ethnic Indian who popularized Vipassana, on the small TV. His jolly humor and insightful stories illustrating a mediation related point stimulate the exhausted mind. Lights out by 10 pm although most people are asleep by 9:30.

Nine days. Nine days which often passed by in agonizingly slow second by second, minute by minute procession inside the meditation hall. Outside, if people weren’t eating, washing sweat drenched clothes or taking a shower, they were usually sleeping or at least sprawled motionless on their beds. No reading or writing allowed. No outside food. Yoga or any type of exercise is discouraged due to lack of space. On at least two days, I couldn’t have walked more than a total of 300 yards a day. I carefully rationed and furtively ate my two secret palm size bags of cashews and raisins over the 10 days so my stomach growling at night wouldn’t keep myself or others up at night. One banana from an 11 am lunch to a 6:30 am dinner just is not enough fuel for the body. For the first nine days and until before lunch on the tenth day, the Vipassana meditator is only supposed to speak once daily with the teacher in whispered Q & A sessions at the front of the hall during the meditation sessions. Otherwise, requests or problems with the facilities are supposed to written in the dining hall’s notebook.

On the tenth day, the transition back into the real world begins with conversing with people who you had avoided any eye contact or any type of communication with for the preceding days. At lunch, though, the women only talk with the women and the men only talk with the men, as they have live segregated lives. Different sides of the aisles in the meditation hall, two dining halls, and eating areas separated by the meditation hall. By afternoon tea, the women have intermingled with the men in the men’s more spacious eating area. The next morning, everybody quickly disperses back to their working lives or returns to the backpacker life.

Exhausted both physically and mentally and fighting an oncoming cold, I took the 3 hour train back to Varkala to recover for five days. My body senses were heightened and even the simplest conversations tire me out. Even now, the desire for quiet, peace, and solitude trumps any desire to venture more into the chaotic, sensory overloaded, always alert status that a backpacker in India experiences just walking across the street. Trying to find some peace and quiet both externally and internally was one of the reasons why I attended this Vipassana session. The Vipassana meditation method, often called Insight meditation, was rediscovered by Buddha more than 2,500 years ago after he read ancient meditation texts. Buddha used this method to achieve enlightenment and strongly encouraged his followers to use this method. According to proponents of Vipassana, “this technique is a simple, logical way to achieve real peace of mind and to lead a happy, useful life…its goal is to purify the mind, to eliminate the tensions and negativities that make us miserable.”

Thousands of people around the world have participated in one or more Vipassana sessions at the 60 Vipassana centers in India or 150 centers world wide since 1969. Most people consider the 10-day Vipassana experience as a life changing event. While I didn’t experience any major shifts, I consider my survival to be one of the biggest accomplishments in my life. I had not only fulfilled a 7 year old personal vow to “do Vipassana” but I proved to myself and my body that I could actually sit with only small movements for hours at a time. Now, I’m just another person who survived the experience but, like the thousands before me, I now face the challenge of incorporating Vipassana meditation methods into my life. The recommended two hours a day (one in the morning and one in the evening) is quickly tossed out my window of options. Yet, the very simplicity of the method is a powerful draw. I will keep trying to practice this method…but just not at 4:30 am nor for 10 hours a day! At least, it makes other ashram’s one hour or 30 minute meditation sessions seem like child’s play where before even 20 minutes of sitting still was a true endurance test. I can’t say that I’m that much better at concentrating for for more than a minute at a time but at least I can now look immobile while trying!

Logistical note: To learn more about Vipassana, where classes are held around the world and/or to register for one, please look at the www.dhamma.org website. There is actually a Vipassana center located between Seattle and Portland in Ethel, Washington. The fee is donation only and the money goes toward paying for future attendees. Almost all the staff are volunteers and are previous Vipassana attendees.