#5-May All Beings Be Happy

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8/3/11-8/14/11
Southeast Vipassana Meditation Center
http://www.patapa.dhamma.org/

I have written this blog a million times in my head. I didn't feel it was complete until I wrote it in my heart.

For the last 11 days, I have been participating in a Vipassana meditation retreat in Jesup, Georgia. I first learned about Vipassana meditation four years ago when I was returning from my trip to Myanmar and Europe. My travels made me curious about mediation, and as fate would have it, I sat next to a woman on the airplane who had just completed a Vipassana meditation course. I jotted it down in my travel journal. The following week, I heard two more mentions about Vipassana meditation and knew I was supposed to complete the 10+ day course.

All I knew about the course when I signed up for it was that it was 10 days of meditation, participants were not allowed to speak, write, read or make eye-contact, it was non-sectarian and it was free of charge. I should probably mention I had never meditated before in my life; not even 10 minutes, much less 10 days.

I drove in from Atlanta, having stayed the night at a girlfriend’s house to lessen the drive from Memphis. (Memphis to Atlanta: 393 miles, Atlanta to Jesup: 264 miles). The drive was quite peaceful, with lakes, pastures, farms and rows of closely-laid, tall green trees lining the highway. At one point, while driving through the Appalachian backwoods, the guidance on my navigator discontinued and thoughts from the movie Deliverance sent shivers through my skull (bow na now now now now now now now). But I made it in time for the 5 pm orientation on 8/3/11.

I met my roommates… I felt like it was the cast of Jonny Quest, a cartoon from my youth. Nineteen-year-old Austin was Jonny, 21-year-old Vignesh was Hadji, the hairy little guy in the annex next door was Abu. I couldn’t figure out who 19-year-old Brendan was, but I painfully realized that in this cartoon, I was the dad, Dr. Quest. My last words to Jonny before beginning our noble silence was, “I think it’s only fair to tell you, I’ve spent some time in prison.”

There were a total of 30 men and 30 women enrolled in this course. We were separated throughout the 10-days. I would say about half of the people there were Indian (DNF) or originally from that region of the world. The other half was a mix of ages and backgrounds.

We woke up every day at 4 am, and were in bed by 9:30 pm. We meditated 12 hours each day, with 1 to 2 hour meal and rest breaks. There was a breakfast, a lunch and a tea time, all self-serve/buffet style. The meals were delicious and meatless.

Every evening, we had a 1-hour discourse, which was a DVD message from S.N. Goenka, the man who reintroduced the Vispassana technique to the world after it had kind of been forgotten, except via word of mouth in Burma. In these discourses, Goenkaji would explain the daily meditation process and give instructions for the next day’s meditation practice. There was an assistant teacher on hand to check on our progress and answer brief questions about the practice (these one-on-one questions were not considered a breech of the noble silence).

At the beginning of the retreat, we took a vow to abstain from five things: killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, wrong speech, and use of intoxicants. Can you guess which one was the most difficult for me? If you answered killing, you are correct. I’m pretty sure my daily fish pills broke this rule. Also, the mosquitoes and gnats in this area of Georgia, especially along our nature trail, were ridiculous. But our vow was to let all beings be happy… even those annoying little bloodsuckers. It was quite difficult to just merely shoo them away from sucking on your skin, but I did. Namaste mosquito, may all beings be happy. I found it best to stick close to one of the guys on the trip who had a lot of bites on him, as they seemed to like the way he tasted the best. Namaste tasty man, may all beings be happy.

I did accidentally catch myself speaking three times over the course of the 11 day retreat. On a very dark morning of the second day, I accidentally stepped on a frog. I caught myself apologizing to Mr. Froggy and encouraging him to be more careful. Namaste, Mr. Froggy, May all beings be happy.

I also caught myself speaking on the walking trail. I liked checking out the banana spiders in their webs, but everytime I stopped to look at them, the mosquitoes would swarm and bite. My solution was to bat the mosquitoes into the spider’s web. “Namaste, Mr. Spider,” I said. “May all beings be happy.”

The third time I spoke was the funniest. Some of our meditations began with a recorded audio message from Goenkaji. He spoke in an accent, with a long, drawn out purr (or growl, depending on my mood,) and often repeated himself. He reminded me of Bela Lugosi or Emperor Palpatine. One day, when I was sitting by myself in the room trying to meditate, but very mentally distracted, I thought I would try to impersonate Goenkaji. “Start again,” I said in my best Goenkaji voice. “Start again, with a clear and calm mind…” Then I started laughing out loud and couldn’t stop. Suddenly, the sound of thunder ripped through the sky and I ran to the window to look outside. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jonny Quest pop out from under his covers. He had been in the room the whole time! He turned to me and flashed me a quick, but nervous smile. I didn’t know which was worse, if he thought I thought he was there or if he thought I thought he wasn’t. Worse yet was the noble silence that prohibited me from talking about it with him. Awkward, but funny.

So what exactly is Vipassana meditation? The word Vipassana means “to see things as they really are.” It allows us to experience inner-peace and mental purification. Aspects of the process were revealed each day during the daily discourses, but more importantly they were experienced. I will say this experience was the hardest thing I have ever done.

The first three days involved focusing on the natural breath that comes from the nose during breath. All attention went to the nose area. This process cleared my mind from clutter. The fourth day, I was to focus on the sensations that appear between the bottom of the nostrils and the upper lip. Whether the sensations be heat, cold, the feel of breath, pain, an itch, a tickle… whatever, I was instructed to just observe the sensation objectively and without reaction. On the fifth day, once I was able to do this effectively, I began the practice of Vipassana meditation. Starting with the top of my head, and ending with the tip of my toes, I was to focus on the sensations that appeared on all parts of my body. Once again, I was to observe these sensations objectively and without reaction. Later, I would be able to feel multiple parts at the same time and scan the entire body in a way that caused a current of sorts to flow through me.

So what was the point? The concept of Vipassana meditation is that all our misery and suffering is caused by how we react to our cravings and our aversions. These reactions snowball throughout our life and pollute our behaviors and thought processes, both conscious and subconscious, often escalating to more extreme impure thoughts and behaviors. Vipassana meditation reprograms these reactions by not reacting to cravings and aversions as they happen in the moment. I will tell you that I was not only amazed by how this truth was revealed to me experientially, but how it led to the beginning of important changes in my life.

Sitting in a lotus position for an hour or two is pretty painful. My knees, back, neck… everything hurt. I also learned that many of these pains were psychosomatic and stopped the moment I stopped meditating. It was difficult to not respond to this pain; to just observe it objectively, sit still and move on to observing another body part. Initially I resisted this until I was able to make connections to how my reactions during those meditative moments mirrored how I react to aversions in other areas of my life. I was also able to see familial patterns that mirrored my life history of reactions. This has resulted in disease, negativity and limitation. It is difficult to explain, but crystal clear when experiencing it.

On the other hand, when scanning the body during Vipassana meditation, the charge that flowed through my body felt amazing. Sometimes it was warm and electric, other times it was like a full body orgasm. I liked it and wanted more. When I couldn’t recreate it, I had difficulty meditating and struggled with the process. It then dawned on me that I wasn’t observing these sensations objectively and was responding the same way I respond in my life to cravings. This has led to a snowball of bad habits, addictions and personal compromises. Once again, I was also able to see related family patterns.

Experiencing how I react to cravings and aversions has helped me undo years of automatic pilot reactions. I believe continuing the meditation in my daily life will continue this learning and reprogramming process to lead me to a life of moral choices and a pure mind—freedom from misery.

One example of how I saw immediate results in my life had to do with my judgments on people based on attributes other than the content of their character. I mentioned before that I had written this blog a million times in my head. Most of the prewrites were filled with descriptions, nicknames and judgments about the other people doing the retreat. There was Stinky, Peg-leg Patel, Sloth, T-Rett, Witchy-poo, etc. etc. All funny and titillating; all negative and superficial. I couldn’t wait to generate laughs with my tales and scathing observations. Gradually, I began to feel a conviction about this behavior. One day, one of the cast of characters came to meditation with a purple shirt that said “hope” on the front and “Survivor” on the back. He was a cancer survivor. It dawned on me that everyone at the retreat…everyone in the world… is a survivor of sorts. There is so much more of a benefit to see the survivor in everyone rather than as projections of my own ugliness.

This was just one of my many, many revelations and breakthroughs. I could write ten more pages.

There was one very personal result that came from this meditation retreat… One I was not expecting, but am pleased and amazed to share with anyone who cares to listen.
I have not told many people this, but for the last five years, I have been unable to remember my mom without seeing her as I found her on that horrid Thanksgiving morning in 2006. I have tried to replay the videos in my head of memories with her and I have been unable to see her face as it was then. I can’t express how painful this has been to have every memory polluted with death and decay. Every night at the retreat, I had very vivid dreams, and one of them was just a series of clips of memories of my mom through different times of my life. Her face was as it was then. In the morning, I woke up excited and replayed the dream in my head. In doing so, I realized that I am now able to see my mom’s face as it was from when the memory was created… no signs of death, but visions of her alive. I can’t tell you why this has occurred, but I would have given 100 days of meditation for those results.

I will continue this type of meditation in my day-to-day life. I believe it is what I was looking for and will continue to produce positive results in my life, character and way of being. You will know a tree by its fruit, and I hope the fruits I bear will be love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. My hope is that this will be evident to others as well, and encourage people I love to maybe try Vipassana themselves. There are even three centers in California…
So Namaste, friends, May all beings be happy…you…me…all beings.
xoxoxo

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Photos

Two of my roomies
Austin and Vignesh
(My own episode of Johnny Quest)

The Men's Dining Hall
Where we ate the best vegan and vegetarian meals in silence

Where I slept
Bottom bunk... the most uncomfortable bed in the world

Taking the road
Less traveled

The Walking path...
Where my camera captured some sort of spiritual presence ???

Comments

[Thien]

Wonderful and Inspiring
Hi Jason, I love reading your travel blogs, this one in particular because I can totally relate to it. I'm really impressed that you made it through nearly two weeks of meditation and noble silence! This blog reminded me of the numerous times I had to go to Buddhist meditation camps as a child. Everything you said I could relate to, especially the part where you said it was the hardest thing you've ever done. This is so true, and I had to do this as a 7 year old girl who just wanted to play. I really enjoyed your mention of not being able to kill anything, and how that was the hardest thing to abstain from. I know exactly how you feel. Those mosquitoes and bugs are so pesky sometimes! Especially in the woods! I always admired monks and nuns at these camps; they were never fazed by pesky insects! The ending was very moving and insightful. I loved reading about everything you learned and took away from this experience. Judging people by their character and not by their attributes is something that I will take away from this blog and try to apply to my own life. It is wonderful that you can now think back and have peaceful memories of your mother! May all your dreams be filled with joy and happiness. It's very inspiring to know that you're using this as a pivotal point in the enlightened path of life. Namaste Jason, may all beings be happy! Thien