Read time: 11 minutes
TLDR:
- My first vipassana experience was rough – I cried a lot…and it was also the best experience of my life.
Background:
Dear Readers,
Hello from Ipoh, Malaysia! While I’d love to share a bit about the last month of adventures in Vietnam, I’ll save that for the next post as I figured it would be a great time to share the experience of my first vipassana retreat because guess what? It’s been a little over 1 year since I started practicing vipassana!
If you poke around my blog a bit, you’ll find that I’m a big vipassana fan. Why? Because after many years of mental health challenges, I was able to finally learn a practice that makes me more of the person I always strived to be – someone genuinely caring, thoughtful and more compassionate.
Related:
- My Mental Health Background: Blog Post #10: My Mental Health Past and Vipassana Meditation…My ticket out of negative habits
Barcelona, Spain + Arrival at Dhamma Neru:
My first retreat took place in Barcelona, Spain and to be honest, I didn’t know much about the practice or what it entailed. I just knew it was my next step. A flight ticket, a week of respite and train/car ride later, I arrived at Dhamma Neru.
(Photos 1 and 2 taken from Dhamma Neru Website)
The Schedule:
I’ll take a moment to share the schedule of the courses.
- Day 0: Arrival at the Centre + course starts
- give up all your valuables/distractions – phone, wallet, computers, books, smart watches, non-prescription medication etc.
- Day 1-9:
- 4-4:30am: Wake up
- 4:30-630am: Meditation
- 6:30-8am: Breakfast + Rest time (i.e rest, laundry, shower)
- 8-11am: Meditation
- 11-1pm: Lunch + Rest/Questions with Teacher
- 1-5pm: Meditation
- 5-6pm: Tea Time (Yes…no dinner, but fruits and milk for new students)
- 6-7pm: Meditation
- 7-8:15pm: Discourse (i.e Detailed explanation of what we’re doing and why)
- 8:15-9pm: Meditation
- 9-9:30pm: Questions with teacher + prep for bed
- 9:30pm: Sleep
- Days 1~4: Anapana Meditation (Concentration of the mind using breath meditation)
- Days 4-9: Vipassana Meditation (Feeling sensations on the body)
- Day 10: Metta Day (Loving-Kindness Meditation + Yay! We can talk again)
- Day 11: Back to reality
The Course:
Day 0: Arrival:
“I only need my phone for using white noise while I sleep. This way I’ll sleep soundly and can properly meditate and learn the instructions. The teacher will definitely understand if I tell her I won’t use it for any other purposes. It’s logical and if I don’t sleep enough, it affects my mental health. She’ll let me have my phone”
Teacher: “If you need your phone, you cannot attend the course”
What could I say? She was so calm and serene that I had no arguments in my mind. Also, this course took me 1.5 months to get into and there was such a waiting list.
I walked out of the interview space and proceeded to cry heavily. Like sobbing. (Queue cry/sobbing #1)
Strangely though, I remember having thoughts that something was very right about how this was going…
Day 1: Meditation Begins
Everyone will say they have control of their own mind – myself included, but ask it to concentrate on breath for 10 hours a day? Forget 10 hours…What about 1 minute…urrr…30 seconds? It’s like standing on a beach ball! Hardly 2 breaths and zoom. Bye bye. It’s gone. It’s off flying with the birds above the clouds.
Thankfully before the silence began, another old student mentioned that everyone has a monkey mind. Great! This is what it’s like for everyone and I should be fine. I generally pick things up fast, I’m quite efficient, sharp-minded etc. I have also meditated for 5 years prior. This meditation? No sweat!
One breath and my mind wandered.
Queue frustration. Queue Cry/Sobbing event #2.
Days 2-5:
I’m Sick and Feel Sicker:
I actually started feeling ill 2 days prior to the retreat, but I’d specifically come to Barcelona for this retreat so I went anyway. It was only some aches and pains plus some fatigue in the beginning so I thought it would go away.
Nope. It got worse.
I developed chills and bad body aches. I was wearing my down jacket, several layers of clothing and 3 blankets to bed and yet I was still cold. Luckily, I carried a little pharmacy with me and had some ibuprofen with me. This helped with the body aches/chills for 2 days…but then I ran out.
“No problem! I’ll just ask the teacher and she’ll give me some medication for the pain/chills and then I can concentrate properly and learn this meditation!”
Chatting with the Teacher:
Her response? We’ll take your temperature and we’ll decide then.
*Takes temperature* – no fever
No Fever = no medication
…Continue with meditation.
“Do I Have Pneumonia?”
I started developing a colourful runny nose and a cough that went into my chest. I went to the teacher. I had a plan.
Me: “I’m a pharmacist and that fevers are based on averages. Some people don’t mount a fever that will give a temperature. I’m worried that this will turn into pneumonia. Please give me some medication so I can continue learning this meditation”
Kind Teacher: “If you need to see a doctor, you’ll need to leave the course”
Me: “I’ll stay”
Queue Crying/Sobbing #3.
(I clearly hadn’t understood what “observe and accept reality as it is” meant. Hahaha…)
No Chair for you:
This centre had a lot of different pillows I could prop yourself up on so one could feel comfortable. I was a student who had quite the pillow throne. Then, I saw other students get back rests and chairs and my brain had the thought of “yo…why not me too?”.
Me: “Can I have a chair?”
Teacher: “If you keep trying to rely on external supports, you will never develop your own internal strength”
Queue Cry/Sobbing #5. (Deep down I knew she was right – thank you so much Victoria.)
~Day 5: “What if I Kick the Teacher?”
What was I to do? I was already on day 5 and everything was going just as the Teacher described would happen. Teacher said I’d get sensations above my upper lip, I got sensations there. Teacher said I’d start getting different emotions coming up and pain, I got it. Teacher said it would go away. It went away. Teacher said I’d feel happier and lighter. It happened.
I’d heard that some people get psychosomatic illnesses while meditating, but obviously mine was a physical problem. Regardless, I wasn’t about to quit then. I’d already passed through 5 days and there was only a few more to go!
Skip forward to the group meditation later that day and I remember being so angry. Thought began bubbling up. “What if I kicked the teacher? How would they respond?” …”If I get sick and end up in hospital, it is YOUR fault”. But alas, I couldn’t do anything because we were in adhiṭṭhāna – sitting of strong determination. No changing my posture for 1 hour.
I was infuriated, but I was determined to stay. That was when something happened.
“I’m staying until the end. If I end up in hospital because of this illness, then so be it.”
Immediately after that thought, it’s like someone poured water over my head. A cooling sensation went from the top of my head, down my arms and legs. The chills broke. The images of wanting to kick the teacher and the anger disappeared and all that came to mind was a distinct image from my childhood.
It was of my family. We were out in the green grassy yard on a summers’ day. My brother was 4 and I was 2 being held in my dad’s arms. We were blackberry picking in the backyard and were so happy. It was a sunny day of blue skies and sparse clouds. The grass was so lush and it was summer.
It was at that moment that I knew I had overcome something.
Queue Cry/Sobbing #6
(Also, my illness started to clear up. Psychosomatic stuff is no joke. Cough went away and nose stopped being a colourful faucet)
Days 6-10:
After those two incidents with the illness and chair requests, the meditation retreat started to become easier. I was actually sleeping soundly through the night (ironically I was so exhausted the first day I didn’t even hear the morning bell and only woke up at breakfast), I was beginning to understand how to observe the that things arise to pass away and my pillow throne had reduced to that of only that which gently propped me up.
I was oscillating through different moments – anger, frustration, happiness, joy, calm…
I felt lighter. I felt like I did when I was a child at Christmas feeling the magic in the air and I could see colours in the flowers I hadn’t noticed before.
Immediately After the Course:
Once the course ended, I knew I had found the practice I had been looking for. Here was something that was free, taught me a simple path and made me a better person. Best part? It made sense. It was logical. I only needed to do the difficult task of observing and accepting the changing nature of life.
The Next Year:
My relationship with my family drastically improved after that first course and the subsequent courses that were to follow. I’m so happy to see them as the people they are now and I’m even happier to see the change in myself. I could and actually wanted to spend time with them.
I knew from my past mental health studies that brain habits are so hard to change and yet, here was a practice that took me leaps and bounds farther than other therapies/meditation had. While I was giddy after the first course, I knew that if I went home then, I’d fall into the same habit patterns so I spent the next year away practicing this technique.
Related:
- Life at home 1 year after vipassana: Blog Post #25: The Transition Back to Reality After 1.5 Years Away – Effects of Vipassana
Conclusion:
And that’s a wrap! I hope you enjoyed the story. If you want to learn more about vipassana, you can check out the vipassana page here: https://worldofwanderingminds.com/vipassana-meditation/
Or if you’re an old student, here’s some resources I discovered through word of mouth along the way: Vipassana Resources for (Newer) Old Students
Wishing you all so much love and happiness.
Tracy
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