Goenka Vipassana 10-Day Silent Meditation Retreat
September, 2018
Fishkill, NY
Below are the notes I wrote out on the way home from my first 10-day silent meditation retreat in September 2018:
Day 0
I arrived at the Beacon train station. Hector (an old student - that means he took the course before) drove me, and we talked about what the meaning of equanimity is. Hector said this is his second course, and he’s still trying to figure it out.
Handed over my phone, ipad and wallet. Felt good giving them up, but spent the rest of the day fighting the urge to reach for my phone every time I wanted information about a random thought or something I encountered.
Introduction to the course, met a bunch of people. I was assigned a top bunk, which was not exactly thrilling.
Learned the timetable:
4am: wake up
4:30-6:30: meditation
6:30-8: breakfast and rest
8-9: group sit
9-11: meditation
11-1: lunch and rest
1-2:30: meditation
2:30-3:30: group sit
3:30-5: meditation
5-6: tea and rest (fruit if new student, but I didn’t plan to partake - I figured this would be a way to maintain intermittent fasting)
6-7: group sit
7-8:30: discourse
8:30-9: group sit
9:30: lights out
Thought that I was all set with my awesome Amazon meditation cushion and told the course manager I didn’t need the cushion or mat they provided. He convinced me to at least keep the mat.
Sat for my first group sit. Was nervous about the course but also excited. Learned Anapana meditation - basically mindfulness breathing. I focused on my breath going in and out of my nostrils. The teacher Goenka has this slow and repetitive way of speaking that is hypnotic (I’m guessing purposefully). Enjoyable to listen to. The chanting was very guttural, but seemed to resonate with something inside of me.
The discourses from the very first one on were uniformly engaging and interesting. Goenka is an amazing teacher! He was very clear from the beginning that this is not a religious teaching. It is teaching Dhamma as the Buddha taught it, but the Buddha did not teach a religion. People made it a religion later. The Buddha taught a clear and comprehensible set of techniques for achieving liberation. And we were going to eventually learn Vipassana meditation, the most important of those techniques, and the secret to true liberation.
Left the discourse with my mind racing and a ton of questions. Dropped my flashlight in the dark on the way to the cabin and it shut off when it hit the ground. Couldn’t find it in the pitch black and couldn’t really ask for help since noble silence had started. Some people realized and helped anyway with their lights, but no luck. I had another identical flashlight, but was worried about running out of batteries and was far too attached to these lights I hadn’t used in 10 years (from when I went camping with Yiting before we were even married.)
Tough night on the top bunk. Worried about making noise for the dude below me every time I turned (who I didn’t know, since we hadn’t met before noble silence fell). Realized I hadn’t packed very well - needed more layers - but tried to be equanimous about it.
Day 1
Up at 4am for my first sit at 4:30. Felt surprisingly clear-headed and ready for the sit.
Searched unsuccessfully in the rain after first light multiple times for my flashlight - no luck. Figured the flashlight was destroyed but thought maybe I could save the batteries.
Noticed that there were empty bunks in the cabin, so moved myself to a nearby bottom bunk. So happy I did!
Continued focusing on the breath going in and out of my nostrils. All. Day. Long. Goenka said it was necessary to sharpen our focus and concentration in order to learn Vipassana. I wasn’t convinced I was sharpening much other than my sense of boredom.
Bored a lot of the day, but was pretty diligent and focused on my breath.
Couldn’t get comfortable in the meditation hall, no matter how I sat. Every 15 minutes I’d need to move. Wishing so strongly that I hadn’t given up that extra cushion, but so grateful the course manager had convinced me to keep my mat. Initially used it to give me height for kneeling, but it wasn’t quite enough. Later figured out I could use it as a prop for my knee if I sat in half lotus.
Took naps after breakfast and lunch. This became a daily routine so that I could be well rested even though otherwise only getting 6.5 hours of sleep per night. Quickly learned to get myself to the dining hall 20 minutes before the meal and meditate in a chair there so that I could get in line as soon as the time ended and eat as fast as possible. That gave me more time to sleep.
Noticed heightened awareness. Everything was sharper and more in focus. When I went for a walk in the woods I heard faint sounds that I never would have picked up before, and my attention kept getting drawn to minute features I would have previously overlooked. Maybe Goenka was right after all about the effects of Anapana. Spent a lot of time looking at the dew glistening on a spiderweb, at ants and insects in the woods, at the water striders moving around in the lake off the dock and at the small fish swimming around that would flee at my shadow. The water striders were incredible! They stayed on top of the water no matter what and moved around in these zigging and zagging patterns that were so fast and could turn on a dime. So amazing! I wondered about their method of propulsion. They often seemed to be alternately playing with each other or attacking each other; I never could quite tell. I planned to meditate for a while in the sun while sitting on the dock, but just as I was about to close my eyes, a huge spider crawled out from between the slat of the dock right by where I was sitting. No meditation on the dock for me!
Day 2
Continued looking for my flashlight with no luck. Gave up looking (ostensibly, but still felt attached).
More anapana. The instructions moved from focusing on my breathing to focusing on the feeling of the air moving in and out of my nostrils. Initially, I could sense the air going in, but couldn’t feel the air going out unless I was breathing really hard. But by the end of the day, I could sense both so well that I was amazed I had ever had a problem, it seemed so natural.
Still horribly bored. My mind would move away ever few seconds - occasionally I could hold for a minute or so, but rarely. Nevertheless, I didn’t get frustrated and remained generally equanimous about the situation (somehow).
Still having a ton of trouble sitting for long periods, constantly changing position with discomfort and would occasionally sit in a chair at the back of the hall or in the dining hall. But with a chair, I would quickly get drowsy.
Spent more time down at the lake watching the water striders and fish. Saw a groundhog wandering around, but when another student came near it, it ran off into its burrow. At about that point I started to head back, and sort of had an idea where the groundhog’s burrow was, so I sat down on a rock and peered inside another rock, and with the heightened awareness was able to make out a little face down in the dark. I sat back and waited about 5 minutes, and slowly a little face started to poke out of the hole and stare back at me. We had a staring contest for a few minutes. It was pretty magical, both of us just hanging out examining the other, but then he stuck his head back in the hole, and I had to head back anyway for the third group meditation, which I was dreading (boredom, pain, etc.)
Day 3
I continued to half-heartedly scan the ground for my flashlight, but it was more of a game at this point, since I still couldn’t believe it had disappeared.
More anapana. The instructions had me spend the day focusing on the sensations in the triangular area below my nostrils and above my upper lip. I’d focus on the feeling of my breath until a sensation popped up in that area - an itch, a tingle, the atmosphere on my skin, heat, could be anything. Any time a sensation would pop up there, I’d focus on it until it went away, not attaching myself to the emotion, but viewing it dispassionately with equanimity.
So bored!!! The only sensation I could really feel was an itch, which was hard to view with equanimity, since I wasn’t supposed to scratch!
Group sittings were increasingly difficult, since I was still dealing with a ton of boredom and pain from the sittings.
I was starting to get nervous about the strong determination sittings (when I could not change my position at all or open my eyes for an hour), which I thought were starting on Day 4. I still couldn’t get comfortable and had to shift multiple times every hour. Wasn’t sure how I was ever going to make it through the strong determination sessions, and I was really missing that cushion I gave away, since I thought that kneeling might be the way I would handle it, but couldn’t get high enough. Tried folding my mat and putting it on top of my cushion, but the tops of my feet would hurt too much on the floor (even though there was a light mat on the floor). Others were also suffering. I watched a number of the guys around me slowly build up meditation nests over the course of several days, piling on the cushions and strategically rearranging them as they desperately searched for comfort. Just as I was about to sink into despair, providence smiled on me, and someone who had either left the course or moved to a chair had left their meditation cushion outside the hall. I snatched it and used it as a prop. I kept one mat on the ground and the second folded on top of my cushion, and was able to do a large portion of a group sit while kneeling, although I did shift around a few times a bit and my knees were sore afterwards. But it seemed possible that I might make it through strong determination sittings after all.
Day 4
Vipassana day! Was excited for something new. If I ever hear Goenka say to focus on the triangular area below my nostrils and above my upper lip again, I’m going to go insane! So bored with this!!!
Sat down for my first group sitting excited to learn the technique. But after the opening chant, I heard Goenka say to focus on the triangular area below my nostrils and above my upper lip. No!!!!!!!!!!
Left the interminable group sit and saw that a new timetable had been posted. The afternoon sit was moved to 2-3, and we’d learn Vipassana from 3-5.
Another interminable group sit. Was NOT equanimous about having to focus on the triangular area below my nostrils and above my upper lip! Finally it ended!
We took a brief break and then went back to the hall to learn the technique of Vipassana. I sat in a half lotus and figured I’d shift around after a few minutes. The instruction took 1.5 hours and was intense. Goenka instructed us to work methodically through very small areas of our body (2-3cm patches of skin) starting with the crown of our head and working down, and just sense a sensation there, any sensation at all. It could be heat or cold or pressure or pain or throbbing or vibrating or itchiness or tension - anything. The sensation should just be noted with equanimity, and then you move on to the next patch. If you don’t feel any sensation, stay there for a minute and see if anything pops up, and if not, move on. When you get to the feet, you start over at the head. The technique seemed simple and kind of pointless, but I gave it a go as the instruction continued and he methodically led us through our body the first time. But unlike with anapana, my attention stayed focused the entire time. And it was a shocking revelation. Somehow this technique, which at first glance seemed like a simple body scan, was so much more. As I worked my way through my body, I inevitably hit the usual areas of tension and pain - those places that had dogged me for so many years and the intractibility of which Soken (the Buddhist monk Rolfer that had spent so much time over the last two years trying unsuccessfully to heal me) had marveled at - and they started to dissolve! I had a rush of endorphins, and this strange feeling in the back of my throat - almost like a metallic taste, but not really. And I knew instantly, without any doubt, that something major had happened. This was not like any prior times these muscles had sort of released. Every time prior that I had thought there had been release the tension had really just shifted a little. This. This! This was release.
I wandered out of the hall when the instruction ended in a daze, falling into a chair in the dining hall and just started convulsing in silent laughter for about 10 minutes. Vipassana was so much more than I had ever thought. I had come to the retreat to heal my mind and find some small measure of equanimity, and suddenly I had received this incredible unexpected gift! I was truly free of pain in certain areas of my body for the first time in ten years. The pain had become so engrained, such a part of me, that I didn’t even realize just how much I had been struggling with for so many years until it started to go away. To really go away. I just laughed with joy, the feeling bubbling out of me uncontrollably. As I was getting up, it occurred to me that I had just sat in half lotus for 1.5 hours without moving and quite literally hadn’t even noticed.
There were still tons of areas in my body that needed a lot of work and attention, but I now had a purpose for the course beyond the sort of nebulous hope for mental fortitude and contentment I had had coming in. As I worked on Vipassana and benefited from its mental effects, I would work diligently throughout my body, mentally touching each place of locked-in pain and tension, and calmly watching it dissolve.
The evening session was a new experience of release, a new revelation. and once again, when something important would open up in my body, I felt that same taste/sensation in the back of my throat, and I would just know, with absolute certainty, that I had been healed. Throughout, I managed to almost effortlessly maintain perfect equanimity (the goal of Vipassana after all).
That evening for the discourse, I sat in half lotus for 30 minutes without shifting with a straight back the whole time. And I felt great! I couldn’t wait for the next day so I could get back to work!!
Day 5
I spent the morning meditation doing more work on my body, with another set of releases. This technique continued to amaze me with how effectively and throughly it cleansed my body. I still wasn’t sure whether it was doing anything to my mind, but at the moment, I didn’t care given what it was doing for my body. The underlying theory we were being taught was basically that our unconscious mind was directly linked to our body, rather than to our normal senses, and that every time we sensed something, there would be a reaction in our body, in the form of sensations, and we would experience either craving or aversion to those sensations. By practicing Vipassana, we were directly connecting our conscious mind to our unconscious mind, creating a bridge through which we could allow issues in the unconscious to bubble from the surface and ultimately dissolve from the body. It was more complicated than that, and I didn’t entirely understand it, but I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.
First sitting of strong determination! I was nervous going in, but it wasn’t hard!! Whatever changes the Vipassana had done to my body yesterday had made it pretty effortless to sit in half lotus with a straight back for long periods of time. I was working so hard on fixing my body that I didn’t notice the hour fly by. Suddenly, there was chanting signaling the last five minutes, and I had barely made it through my torso once, and hadn’t even started on my legs. But again, so much progress and so much release. In many areas of the body, I started feeling subtle vibrations as I worked - sensations that seemed to originate from my body itself, rather than from any external source. I discovered that large areas of muscle tension - what Goenka called solid gross sensations (gross as in the opposite of subtle, not disgusting) - when they dissolved, turned into these subtle vibrations. It was fascinating. I worked on legs during my meditation time, then same for my second group sitting. (I know I was supposed to start at the crown, but I had to get to the legs at some point!)
The second group sitting was trickier. I wasn’t careful when I sat down, and instead of sitting in the comfortable half lotus, I sat cross-legged, with only one knee supported. By the end of the session, I thought my ankle was going to explode! I had just made the firm decision to give up and move my position - had literally sent the command to my muscles to start moving - when the chanting started. Blessed relief! With the knowledge that this would be over in less than 5 minutes, I was able to struggle through. However, I felt very low afterwards for losing my equanimity with respect to the end of the session, but nevertheless tried to retain my equanimity about the experience overall, and view it as a lesson learned.
The evening group sit was more like the morning, with progress being made throughout my body and no pain in my legs.
Goenka spoke that evening about the subtle vibrations, and how I was literally feeling the vibration of the atoms in my body. (Not sure I bought this - I’m guessing it’s probably some background waveform nerve signal, but you never know.). He warned that you had to be wary of them, since they felt good, and that could lead to its own attachment and craving. I was delighted to be validated in my own internal investigations, but was surprised that the vibrations could be dangerous, since although I found them enjoyable, I didn’t feel any attachment to them, no craving to feel them again.
Day 6
Today, Goenka instructed us to not just go crown to feet, crown to feet, but to go crown to feet, feet to head. It seemed like a simple change, but made a substantial difference. Mentally moving in the other direction somehow opened up new ways of sensing my body and approaching the more intractable gross sensations.
For my evening group sit, I got cocky and decided to try kneeling. Huge mistake! The sitting wasn’t too bad, although I was very ready for it to be over and was getting somewhat desperate for the chant, but the bigger problem was that I couldn’t get up when the sit was over. Literally could not get up. My right knee would explode in pain every time I tried to shift out of my position. It took me more than 5 minutes to slowly and carefully lever my body into a position where I could shift the knee without pain. Never again! When I finally levered myself into the necessary position to move, I breathed a huge sigh of relief and looked up. The guy next to me was silently laughing hysterically at my plight. In another context, some dude laughing at my pain probably would have made me angry and assume the worst about him, but the friendliness and kindness coming off of him in waves made it clear he was just sympathizing. Instead of making me angry, it turned into a much-needed balm.
Day 7
Today’s instruction involved working through symmetrical areas simultaneously. This was interesting and made it much easier to feel the differences in flow between different sides of the body. I could feel my attention run slower on a particular side of the body if it had more gross sensations. It was also something new to do, and helped to relieve boredom that was encroaching as more and more of the gross sensations in my body dissolved, and the work of pain relief that I had hoped for for 10 years approached completion.
As seemed to be the case repeatedly in this course, good sittings were followed by bad ones. The second group sit went normally at first, but I found myself getting unexpectedly agitated towards the end feeling desperate for the sitting to be over. I suddenly wanted out, and I wanted out now. There didn’t seem to be a particular reason - I wasn’t in pain from sitting — but I had become a little bored and incredibly agitated. I made it through, but came out of the hall profoundly dejected that I had lost my equanimity. And I was starting to understand from the discourses some of the underlying theory and how my loss of equanimity in this context was not just a loss of a positive opportunity, but was actively negative for my mental wellbeing. Of course, that concern further unbalanced my mind. I was sitting dejectedly in the dining hall feeling sorry for myself and thinking about the fact that there seemed to be no apparent reason for my sudden total loss of equilibrium. As I sat there, I remembered a conversation I had had with Nate repeatedly in the past, when his sister had done something to him that had upset him. He would often lash out at her in anger, and I’d ask him why he thought Ellie had done what she did. He’d immediately angrily say “for no reason!” I’d point out that there is always a reason. He’d sulkily agree, and would inevitably be unable to contain himself, and would still shoot her an angry look with a particular scrunched up face that I always found hilarious (but thankfully never laughed in front of him when seeing it.) Remembering this, I started laughing uncontrollably. Still being in noble silence, I managed to keep it as silent chuckles, but I couldn’t stop myself, nearly doubled over for about 5 minutes. When the laughter subsided, it was like a balm had been placed on my mental wounds, and I felt a beginning of the return of my equilibrium. 15 minutes later, I realized I was getting a fever. I had found my reason!
I went back to bed, meditated for 15 minutes in bed, then took 2 Advil and slept for 2.5 hours through the next meditation period. By the evening group sit, the fever was gone, I was feeling less fragile, and the sit went really well. I started realizing that all the work I had done so far had been on the surface of my body. I could also use my attention as a kind of mental scraper, getting under the surface of the skin, muscles, tendons and ligaments to really pull the fascia apart from the bone. I know it sounds insane to think that mentally you can actually manipulate these physical structures, but something was clearly working. The releases were even more profound this time than previously, that same strange metallic taste/sensation in the back of my throat, and the same incontrovertible knowledge that the work I was doing was not temporary or surface changes to my body. I was permanently fixing myself.
Day 8
The morning sit was once again good — despite the early hour, I always had incredibly productive morning sits. The hall was quiet, since many people hadn’t wandered in yet, and the people who were there were dedicated, and so were still and silent. I got a lot done on my body and my mind during those sessions, often opening my eyes when I felt like it was time to stop and realizing that I had been sitting without moving for well over an hour. To think I used to be scared of the group sittings of strong determination! My only nemesis in those sessions was not pain, but my increasing fight against boredom. While there was work to be done on my body, that boredom wasn’t there. But my morning sessions were often so productive that the group sessions were correspondingly more difficult — there was just less to do.
Today’s instruction involved the idea of flow. As the gross sensations dissolved into subtle vibrations, the attention became able to flow more easily through the body. I had noticed this the previous day when comparing the way my attention flowed through each limb when scanning symmetrically. But the timing of the instruction was perfect. Just as I was finally reaching a point where the gross sensations were disappearing from my body and being replaced with subtle vibrations, the instructions told me what to do with them. Once I reached a point where there were no more gross sensations on the surface and everything was subtle vibrations, I could just kind of scan down through the body very easily — instead of taking an hour, I could go head to toe in about five minutes, with the pleasant tingling of the vibrations enhancing everywhere my attention focused.
The evening’s discourse further aided me in this — Goenka related the story of metallurgist who used the metaphor of a ring of pure metal, that draws out impurities like a lodestone when impure metals are brought through it. I tried this idea, imagining my attention like a ring that I slowly brought down my body, pulling all of the gross sensations apart on my body everywhere it passed. It certainly enhanced the subtlety and intensity of the vibrations, and the ease with which I could bring my attention down through my body with speed. Without the metaphor, I found it hard at first to hold all of those different areas of the body in my mind at once. I knew it was a crutch and eventually would have to be discarded, but the ring metaphor made it easy to think of the areas my attention was touching in a more planar fashion.
I also suddenly realized that my physical problems aren’t just from holding tension in certain muscles. The awareness popped into my head without warning that my shoulders were both tilted and rotated. My right shoulder was held lower than the left, causing my spine to curve slightly to the right, and the right shoulder was also rotated forward, pulling the left shoulder back slightly, and keeping the muscles in the front of my right shoulder and the back of my left shoulder constantly tense, while causing the muscles in the front of my left shoulder and back of my right shoulder and upper back to be permanently stretched and strained. It seemed so obvious once discovered, and I was able to very subtly shift my posture to what I knew without opening my eyes was correct. And I had a great opportunity — more than 2 full days of sitting with a part of my attention diverted to holding correct posture, retraining my muscles to hold my body correctly, rather than slipping into bad posture habits unconsciously again, eventually recreating the pain I had worked so hard to get rid of.
Of course, the day had lots of highs and lows — good meditation sessions and bad ones. Every day was the same that way. But the 8th day overall was a good one, and I learned a lot about my body and the causes of my pain. I definitely think there was a psychic component to my pain, where I dumped my stress into the patterns that had been caused by my injury. But what helped to keep me locked in were these unconscious postural issues that arose from the injury, and I again knew with absolute certainty that my posture could be corrected merely through these subtle tweaks that seemed so obvious and so easy.
Day 9
Another day of highs and lows, the lows today coming from my old nemesis boredom, although not for the reason I would have thought. I had fixed my pain over the previous few days, dissolving all of the gross sensations, and each morning’s session was an experience in laboriously working through the accumulated discomforts from the day before, along with the sankharas (reaction patterns) that were coming to the surface from the prior day’s practice, cleansing my mind and my body. I had also fixed my posture yesterday, limiting the amount of discomforts that were redeveloping in the usual places. Now, the sankharas were the primary source of new gross sensations, rather than long-settled pain and tensions. I found gross sensations from sankharas in surprising places — behind my ears, between my toes, in the palm of my left hand, in my throat, on my breastbone. Each dissolved away, and I quickly spent most of the day working with pure vibration — or at least what I thought was pure vibration.
Then the morning’s instruction took everything to a whole new level. Goenka spoke about how we had been working on the surface so far. But there was more. I had intuited this already, with the mental scraping along my bones, but he made me think of it on in a new way. Why be limited by bones? Why not pierce through the body more directly, reaching inside and working not only with gross sensations on the outside, but also on the inside — on and in bones and organs and fascia and viscera. It was really interesting, and I immediately set to work trying it out. I imagined my attention more directly as a plane of force — for some reason I always visualized my attention as a green light — and started drawing the plane through the body, not with the thin edge cutting through, but with the plane itself perpendicular to the direction of movement, having the light suffuse a large patch as I drew it through my body. Sometimes the plane moved easily, but sometimes I would hit surprising areas of gross sensations that would feel like I ran into molasses or worse, a brick wall. In the latter case, it felt like I had to grab onto the sides of the plane and pull with all of my might, dragging the plane through the obstruction as the plane bent against the solidity of what I was pulling through. It was incredible how these didn’t feel like abstractions — it wasn’t my mind making things up. I couldn’t have passed my attention through the obstruction no matter how much I wanted to. It really felt that solid. I attacked those obstructions from different angles, and slowly was able to work my way through them. There weren’t many of these, but as they started to dissolve, the vibrations that I had felt strongly before increased dramatically, becoming almost like electric shocks. Goenka then suggested something that kicked it up even higher — he said that once all the gross sensations in and on my body seemed to be dissolved into suble vibrations, I should run my attention down through the center of my spine. He didn’t say what would happen, but he didn’t need to. As soon as I did this, it was like my entire body dissolved. I didn’t discorporate — I still felt like myself, not spread out over a larger area — but I was a mass of nothing but vibrations. I could move my attention through my body with lightning speed — with each breath in, my attention would flow from head to toe; with each breath out, my attention would flow back up. My entire body buzzed with electricity and I could feel large chunks of my mind — stuff that had been held down for years, accumulated detritus at some of the deepest levels — floating up the surface, floating up to consciousness. Some of my deepest aversions and cravings were just dissolving. Old habits, things that would historically always have a characteristic mental response (and I now realized, a characteristic sensation in my body) didn’t prompt any feelings at all when brought into my mind. It was like the link between the object and the response had been completely severed.
And this is where I started to get into trouble. After 10 minutes of doing this, I had probably gone up and down my body 400 times. And like I mentioned before, and unlike many people as Goenka had warned, I didn’t seem to get attached to the pleasant vibrations. They were nice, but never something I craved. So I got bored. My attention started to wander, the intensity of the sensations died down, but I still was entirely free from gross sensations. How was I going to finish what felt like another half hour of the group sit?
Once again dejection — not for failing to remain still for the whole strong determination group sit (that still wasn’t a problem), but for losing my equanimity and wanting it to end. I wonder if I’m holding myself to too high a standard, but I wish I could just appreciate the meditation experience itself more, view it as something to be enjoyed, rather than as akin to brushing my teeth. But brushing teeth really is the right metaphor. Whether I want to or not, no matter how tired I am, no matter how late in the evening or early in the morning, I have to brush my teeth in order to maintain my dental hygiene. The same holds true for meditation — I need to maintain my mental hygiene, and need to make time for this in my life every day once I return. Of course, planning for the future now occupied my attention when I became too bored with meditation, which wasn’t really a terrible thing - better than agitation! - but wasn’t really using the time correctly, since I was supposed to be meditating.
Day 10
Morning meditation was peaceful as always. Breakfast was followed by my usual nap and then a group sitting. Immediately after the group sitting, we all stayed in the meditation hall and learned metta (loving kindness) meditation. This was a simpler version than the kind I’ve heard in the past. We wished peace, love, harmony, equanimity, etc. upon ourselves for a few moments, then sent that same peace, love, harmony and equanimity out to all beings. It was lovely at first, but went on for a bit longer than I would have liked.
Afterwards, noble silence ended, and noble chattering began! I spent all of the time until the next group sitting speaking with the other students. Everyone had a different story about their experience. Uniformly positive, but different highs and lows throughout. It seemed that my story of miraculous pain relief was the most extraordinary, but everyone went through a profound journey during their retreat, describing powerful experiences, strange dreams, and surprising coincidences.
One guy (I think his name was Chris) who was on his third retreat told stories about the strange experiences he had after his first two retreats, both of which tested his equanimity. The first time he came back from a retreat, he was walking down the street in Brooklyn and some guy was holding a woman by the throat and yelling at her while choking her right on the street. Chris walked over and calmly asked the guy to stop. The guy of course got up in his face, and Chris just stayed calm and equanimous, and quietly with love and compassion told the guy that he must be feeling pretty miserable about himself if he was willing to choke a woman in broad daylight on a public street. The guy told him off but then just walked away! The girl, surprisingly, wasn’t at all thankful to Chris. She was mad at him for not attacking the dude. Go figure. The second time, Chris came back from the retreat to discover that one of his roommates had stolen thousands of dollars in cash and his $4k saxophone (he was a professional musician at the time). Needless to say, this was a challenge to his equanimity, but he maneuvered through it with aplomb and ultimately was able to recover his sax from the pawn broker that the roommate sold it to after the roommate skipped town.
Another guy I spoke with who had a curious English / New Zealand accent had attended 16 prior courses, two of which were 20 day courses. I was blown away. When queried as to why, he went on to describe how even from childhood he had naturally and instinctively meditated, and how each course had always given him something new.
I also spent a fair amount of time in the afternoon reading through the opportunities for volunteering with dhamma house, the meditation center in NYC, and looking into the opportunities for being a server in a future course. Everyone involved with the course is a volunteer, including the people who cook the food. Only old students (students who had completed one course) could participate, but it seemed like an ideal way for me to take a course without boredom, since servers only had the three group sittings in which to meditate. Plus, I would have the joyful experience of providing service during the rest of my time to people who were experiencing what I had just been through. It seemed like a winning choice all around. I resolved that for my next 10-day course, I would aim to serve.
Going to bed that evening was difficult, as we all were enjoying staying up and talking; but the course had a strict lights out policy at 10pm. Even so, I couldn’t get to sleep for a long time, since my mind was racing as it processed my experience and the experiences of others I had spoken with.
Day 11
Day 11 began with some quick packing, a morning meditation session, and then the course ended.
As much as I wanted to see my family as soon as possible, I felt it was important to give back and help with the cleaning. Of all of the activities, the household group (cleaning cabins and bathhouses) was the one that they had the hardest time getting volunteers for, so I signed up for that. I had a nice time talking with people and cleaning as we worked our way through the various structures.
Serendipity! As I was cleaning one of the deserted cabins, I noticed someone had left some plastic thing on a shelf. I went over to grab it and throw it in the trash when I discovered to my surprise and delight that it was my missing flashlight - still fully functional! You really do find things when you stop looking!!
After spending an hour folding mosquito nets, I realized that I needed to leave to catch my train. I said my goodbyes and went into the dining hall looking for a ride. I ran into Hector, the same guy who had picked me up from the train station when I first arrived. He offered to give me a ride, and I hopped in his car. I realized that I was sitting in the exact same place as I had 11 days earlier, but felt like a totally different person. It was amazing how much one’s life and outlook could change in such a short span of time. I had arrived in pain, both physically and mentally, and was leaving a healed man, fully at peace with my body and myself.