Vipassana - The Art of Living

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I'd like to start this Blog entry off by thanking one Mr. Ryan Lee. A co-worker of mine at Aecon suggested many months back to try out a Vipassana course. At the time, I didn't really know what it was, other then it had something to do with meditation and buddhism. I found a 10 day course running from Dec 2 to 13 in India, which fit my travel schedule perfectly so I registered my name....not sure whether or not I would actually do it. Well, I did actually take the course and am happy I did.

If you generally don't believe in religion, or spirituality, give this blog a chance. I, by no means
am religious, or a spiritual person, but I found Vipassana to be suprisingly scientific base....with
a few leaps of faith.

Another thing - this is a long read. I tried to keep it short, but if you aren't interested in particular
sections just skip over to whatever interests you.

What it is

Vipassana is a 2500 year old meditation technique developed and preserved through Buddhism.
The Buddha named Gotama, discovered the technique when he became enlightened while meditating for many years in India - hence the birth place of Vipassana. The technique spread throughout India for 500 years and to neighbouring countries in South East Asia. After 500 years the technique was lost to most countries except a small group of Burmese people, who generation after generation passed the technique on and kept it in it's pure (non-secular) form.

Vipassana teaches how to liberate your mind from impurities that cause unhappiness. The technique
can be used by people who are suffering from deep depression, short tempers, addictions..
or by people who just want to change there life in some way for the better. At the surface level
most people appear happy, but everyone, EVERYONE, has some sort of negative mental complexes
stored deep in the unconcious mind - it's human nature. Other benefits enclude a more focused
mind, more tolerance and compassion for others and a more calm mind in difficult situations. Increased capacity to perform work as well as higher energy levels and better sleep are also supposed to benefits of Vipassana.

Stay with me here, I learnt a lot in 10 days, and I'll do my best to explain it all in simple terms...
hopefully it all makes sense at the end of this.

*Important side note on Buddhism

- a popular western misconception is that Buddha is the "God" of the
buddhist people. ANYBODY can become a Buddha. Anyperson who becomes enlightened is a Buddah. And enlightenment isn't some sort of supernatural miracle. Enlightment is training your mind
to look deep inside your self mentally and physically to experience the ultimate truth which is the law of nature - everything is changing, nothing is permament.(Also known as Dhamma).

What it is not

Vipassana is NOT a secular based meditaiton technique. Anybody can practice this type of meditation.
Whether your Christian, Jewish, Buddist, Hindu, Islamic, Male, Female, Young or old, Vipassana is
universal because it teaches a universal truth - the law of nature,

The science and pychology behind it - as simple as I can make it.

Vipassana teaches that during our life we have two sources of negativity that gets stored deep in our unconcious mind and negaitive complexes. Craving, and Aversion (or hatred). When we crave for things, and we do not get them we have negative experiences. Similarily, when we crave for things and get them, we are satisfied temporarily until another similar craving arises which continues to fuel the cycle of negativity. Avotion occurs when we experience something we dislike.

If you remember from Gr 11 science,modern science has determined that the universe is really just a big sea of tiny sub-atomic particles that are vibrating and oscilating and floating around - there is now such thing as solidity. 2500 years ago Buddha preditcted this by experiencing this vibrations in his body, long before science made these theories.

Any time you feel an itch, or heat, or cold, or pain or ANY sensation, ANYWHERE on the body,
this is the result of bio-chemical reactions going on in your body. At the most basic level, it
is really just tiny particles vibrating or oscilating. The unconcious mind works with these sensations.
When we crave something, let's say chocolate. We don't crave chocolate physically, we crave the sensation that it gives us when we taste it. So, for example, when we crave chocolate and do not get it, a negative experience is had, which the unconcious mind stores as a negative mental complex (its a simple example).

Vipassana teaches how to change the thought pattern of the mind at the unconcious level to not store negative mental complexes. This is the Key.

By training out minds to feel the most subtle of sensations throughout the body, we can work at the
same level as our unconcious mind and literally reprogram our unconcious though processes.

How it actually works:

Okay so with all of that information in mind that I just through at you, (maybe go back and read it once more) the theory of Vipassana is quiet simple. Train your mind to feel sensations everywhere on the body (awareness) and then train your mind to not react to these sensations (equinamous). As you survey your body from head to toe, and toe to head, you have to work with just two concepts: Awarness and Equinamous. These two concepts with an understanding of the law of nature - nothing is permanent, everything changes.

Some sensations are obvious such as pain. As you survey your body for sensations and you come across pain you must keep your mind balanced and neutral. You cannot create anger or hatred for the pain as we all do naturally. Rather, you have to think to your self this is impermanent, eventually this will change - which, as a mentioned earlier is the law of nature. Everything changes.
When you come across pleasent sensations such as your entire arm tingling with millions of little subtle vibrations, again you must train your brain to react equinamously - this will change. If you start to crave these pleasent sensations then the old thought pattern remains the same.

And thats it. You continue to survey your entire body for sensations, and with every experience you have, you must remain equinamous. This is training your brain to not create negative mental complexes when life throws you all types of experiences. With enough practice and focus you can make your entire body feel subtle, vibrating senstations all at once. With even more practice you can start to peirce inside the body until you have disolved the entire physical structure until a sea of vibrations and osciliations - which I imagine feels amazing.

The Leap of Faith

So here's the part that is a bit of a stretch. Vipassana teaches that if you react equinamously to all pleasent sensations, then deep rooted mental complexes related to cravings will surface form the unconcious mind. If you react equinamously to unpleasent sensations then deep rooted mental complexes related to avotion will also surface. This is the process
of purification of the mind. Uprooting all of your past negative mental complexes and liberating yourself from them - coming our of your suffering and expereince peace, love and harmony (as I heard a million times).

Enlightment occurs when you have both removed all of your old mental complexes, and stopped producing new ones - which can take a long time to acheive - years...even decades.

The only way you will ever believe it is if you experience it yourself.

My Experience at the Dhamma Sota Center

The Dhamma Sota center is located about an hour south of Delhi in rural India. The center is large and can accomadate about 100 students. The accomdations are basic, private and include a bathroom which was nice. There is a dining hall were traditional Indian vegetarian meals are prepared for you daily by volunteers. The land is well landscaped with many tree's and gardens,
lining the walking paths. The females and males are completely segregrated, but share the meditation hall as well as the Pagoda. The Pagoda is a circular building with hundreds of individual cells meant for private and silent meditation.

These 10 days were hard. A lot of people might have had the impression that I was going to a meditation "retreat" which would be restfull and relaxing. I wanted to quit about 40 times...and a quarter of the class did.

Look at this scheudle that occured every day for 10 days straight:

4:00 Morning Wake up Bells
4:30 Group Meditation in Dhamma Hall
6:30 Breakfast
7:00 Bath/Rest
8:00 Group Meditation
5 min break
9:00 Group Meditation or in Private Cell
11:00 lunch
1:00 Group meditation or in private cell
5 minute break
2:30 Group meditation in Dhamma Hall
5 minute break
3:30 Group meditation or in private cell
5:00 Light Snack (no dinner)
6:00 Group Meditation in Dhamma Hall
5 minute break
7:00 Teachers Discourse
5 minute break
8:30 Group Meditation in Dhamma Hall
9:00 Lights Out

I had to take a vow which included 5 precepts:

1. Don't Kill
2. Don't Steal
3. Don't Lie
4. Maintain Noble Silence (couldn't talk)
5. No Sexual Misconduct

The rules were also that I could not have any reading or writing material or contact to the outside world.

Not talking, I was fine with. Only eating two, vegetarian meals a day I got used to. Not killing was suprisingly hard when you realize how many insects are around to be stepped on. I think I caught 4 mosquito's with a ziploc bag so I could release them from my room and finally get to sleep.

Sitting with crossed legs and a straight back for 12 hours a day was originally what was the hardest part. Agonizing at times. By the third day we had to not change our posture for 1 hour, three times a day which almost killed me I think.

In the long run, the hardest part was remaining equinamous (read: how it works). Imagine focusing with all of your attention for hours, and hours on your body to gain awareness of subtle sensations. After days of focusing on various areas for 1-2 minutes at a time, you finally feel a flicker, or something subtle. It's hard not to be excited when this happens. Or, to feel a throbbing pain in you leg from sitting for so long and when you come to this pain to not feel angry about it.
But, remaining equinamous is the key to Vipassana, and eventually it became easier. In fact, it came to the point that when I felt a deep pain in my legs, I would observe it, think to myself "it's okay, this is impermanent, it's just vibrations" and the pain would wash away.

The next hardest thing I had to deal with, near the end of the course was just staying focused. It came to the point where my next adventures kept cropping into my mind. I mean I am going to freaking Mt Everest in a few days with the first familiar face I have seen in a month and a half.

Challenges aside, the experience at Dhamma Sota was extremely positive. I wouldn't say life changing...yet. For Vipassana to become life chaning you need to adpot it as a way of life. Practice 1 hour meditation, twice a day, and after some time the benefits will come. If you stick with it, the final goal of liberation and enlightment is attainable. A 10 day course is an introduction. In 10 days you learn the technique, and the theories. You are given the ability to become
your own master, and if you chose continue to practice Vipassana to reap it's benefits. Many people go on to take 20, 40 and even 60 day courses with the same schedule to master the technique.

That said though, I did experience some things during the course that made me a believer. There were a couple of times, after a particularily focused meditation session, that I came out of the meditation hall feeling "lighter". Just happier. If the theories are true, I was able to remain equinamous during certain sensations and as a result I released some of my deep rooted negative complexes. Other benefits such as calmness during dificult situations, I will have to wait and see.

On the evening of Day 6 an old student (a women who had already at least completed a 10 day course) broke into tears during meditation. It started as a slight wimper and grew over about 30 seconds into a terrifying cry that must have come from unrooting some tragedy in her past.

Still don't buy it?

The only way to ever truly believe in Vipassana is to try it for ourself. But, as a last attempt at the sale, think about this.
Everyone works really hard for the money. Nobody likes to give away there money. And almost nothing in life is free.

Vipassana is utterly, and blissfully free. I spent 10 days in a private room, was provided with 2.5 meals a day (eat until satisfied),
2 full time instructors and and many volunteer assitant teachers were there to teach. There was a staff of at least 4 landscapers
working the land every day that I was there. All of this for free. There are centers like this one all over the world...and they are
all free.

ALL of the funding for Dhamma centers comes from donations from past students, to allow future students the same opportunity to
learn the technique that has benefitted them.

SO, if it is so hard to get people to give there money away, then how could such a large operation possibly exist for 50 years
unless thousands of people felt passionatley enough about Vipassana's validity to donate their hard earned cash...


Regardless of whether or not Vipassana is for real, and whether or not I truly gained any benefit form the hard work
I put into the last 10 days, this will certainly go down as an experience that I won't forget anytime soon - but, with full
equinamity, eventually that will change too.


The end of a Decade.

When you solo travel and you spend 10 days in silence, you can get a lot of thinking done. Today, a little burnt out from meditating for 10 days straight my mind wandered into the thought of the end of the 2000's. Or the "O"'s, what are we calling this decade anyway? I miss the 90's.

Anyway, looking back, a lot has happened in 10 years.

To me personally, it's been a great decade. Graduation from all three levels of schooling (elementary, secondary and post-secondary)and multiple sporting championships. It was a decade of first's: my first car, my first relatoinship, my first part time and real job. I met thousands of amazing people (notably my Uni buds), and I joined slo-pitch team that is really good.......at drinking all the beers. Ending this decade with a trip around the world, and starting the next
with the prospects of more travelling, soaking up life in Australia for a while and a wedding that I am already getting excited for.

To the world, as my Time magazine explained to me, this was a terrible decade. Unprecedanted climate change, 9/11 and the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hurricane Katrina, the Sunami, the housing market colapse and the subequent recession. Let's hope that if Vipassana is right about one thing, it's that everything changes. Perhaps the "teens" will bring unprecedentated global climate change action, world peace and prosperity for all.

On a more immediate note, just wanted to send one final Merry Christmas to everyone, especially my family (not just my immediate family).As lucky as I am to be enjoying this trip, nothing beats being home for Christmas, so enjoy!


Thanks for reading, next time I check in will be somtime in 2010! Off to EVEREST!

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Photos

Me and the Monks
Buddist Monks who I meditated a long side for 10 days.

Pagoda
hundreds of individual meditation cells for serious, private meditation

Dhamma Hall
I spent 120 hours sitting on one of these blue cushions....numbness

Course is done!
Me and Rakesh from Toronto - nice guy

Poor Dog
This dog got zero attention from anybody for 10 days...she looked so sad all the time.

Accomodation
Simple, but clean, private, quiet and included a bath...probably the best i've had since I left Canada

Comments

[Tatiana]

Ben! I am seriously impressed and jealous of your travels! Good for you for sticking out the meditation, it sounded really tough, but really good on you for even doing it. Keep on updating, have fun! :) Tat

[Adam]

Meditation
Are you sure you couldn't get the same experience from lighting up a doobie? Just kidding buddy, I figured I had to give you a hard time, as I am still super jealous of your sweet trip. I think I just broke the craving rule.