Meditation in Merritt

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After our indulgent Rockies expedition, we spent the next 10 days leading a very simple, soulful and silent life, at the Vipassana Meditation Centre in Merritt. Liam has done this meditation course quite a few times and practices regularly, but for me, this was a first. It was a very unusual experience and one I welcomed with an open mind.

I wont go through each day as they have somewhat blurred into one with the rigorous routine and I doubt that your stamina will permit a detailed account (no, no really, I understand). I have melded my experiences into one with its curious observations, frustrations and learnings.

Getting there - Pat, a friend of Liam's, very kindly drove us to the Meditation centre. Before we drove through the boundary gates, Liam asked Pat to stop the car, got out and insisted we all hugged. (Ok, so this is one of those North American “bonding moment”, Ok, I'm cool with this). This was to be our last physical contact of any kind for the next 10 days. Once inside the compound, as Liam has already said, there is absolutely no touching, not even to pat someone on the back or comfort someone in distress - absolutely nothing. We went into the dining hall in which the men and women were separated by a curtain. The kitchen attendants came and went through different doors either side of the curtain. But until meditation started the following day, the curtain was drawn and we were free to chat amongst ourselves. I shared a dorm with 3 other girls. We acquainted ourselves with one another and unanimously agreed to leave the door and window wide open for airing when we were all in the mediation hall (I did not then know, that it was this very decision that would save my sanity during the forthcoming days). We were called for our evening meal and then to mediation from which time, we were to be silent until the last day of the meditation course. We were allowed only to speak to the "manager" if we had a specific problem, or the teachers. Non verbal communication was totally disallowed and it was recommended that we avoid eye contact at all times. These rules were frustrating in the beginning and very annoying; no gesturing someone to go before you, no eye contact or a smile to say thank you, no hand gestures or facial expressions to say "it's ok". But in time, they were a blessing, a breather, and a lesson in awareness.

Day Zero - Meditation after the evening meal. We silently, gathered blankets cushions and pillows from the correctly labeled shelf (they cannot be mixed with sleeping pillows and blankets) and filed into the mediation room to our labeled blue square mat on the floor. I shuffled about a bit to get comfortable and flicked a sneaky glance to see where Liam was sitting. Men were on the left of the room and women the right. He was right at the front, sitting in lotus position meditating already. Guiltily I nestled myself down and closed my eyes. A good 5mins of shuffle from all corners of the room ensued. You would be surprised at how much noise 50 silent people armed with cushions and blankets can actually make. It is impressive. Directly in front of me was a girl I had noted before, I didn’t know her name. Her name became ponytail. Others adopted somewhat simple names during the course of the meditation. Ponytail was a cool young, pretty girl. A man and a woman entered the room from a different door and sat on a hard white dais, facing us, the woman on the women's side and the man on the men's side. We sat quietly, eyes closed, half expecting them to speak, not really know what was going to happen. Then, a very strange tape-recorded voice chanting in a different language punctured the silence. It was so odd that Ponytail started giggling. I was relieved she did as I was finding it difficult to restrain my own laughter. Looking around quickly I realized everyone else was extremely serious. I managed to compose myself and relax my face but ponytail was beside herself, stifling a snorting laugh into her blanket. The chanting was followed by heavily accented instructions on how to use the forthcoming Meditation hour. I was to feel the inhaled and exhaled air in my ‘nose-trails’ (as it was pronounced, which amused me) without changing the rhythm of my breathing. It was impossible not to think about my family, my friends, our forthcoming trip, past experiences during this time. Pre-recorded chanting indicated the end of the mediation hour and an hour long video ‘discourse’ was played. I was waiting for the teachers to speak. They never spoke more than a handful of words. Painting by numbers….belief by recording. Talk about an ethereal image! I was somewhat perturbed but was also committed to be open to the course and the practice so, brushed my teeth silently, along with the other 30 women and snuggled down into bed.

Rise at 4am - I was very pleased to rise. No sooner had the lights been switched off the night before (around 9pm), one of the three other room mates decided it was time to relieve herself from her gastric bloating. Silent warfare! This is NOT fair. We aren’t allowed to speak! Why did you wait till we were all in bed? We can’t escape. And how dare you sigh with relief when we cannot breathe at all? So, needless to say, all but one rose that morning and escaped to the mediation hall where it was quiet and better aired.

Sitting down is pretty tiring and after 20mins or so, the urge to move is like thirst after a long run. Numbness and pins weary the physical being to the point of intolerance. Hour after hour, we watch the experienced meditators (Liam being one of them) in growing admiration for their ability to sit, and sit, and sit without changing position while we shuffle and fidget and break for the bathroom just for some movement and blood flow.

6am Breakfast - a feast of fruit, cereal, yogurt, stewed fruit, porridge, toast, tea. We eat in silence and I listen for the sound of Liam’s slippers as I know he scuffs his step. I think I hear him and sit close to the curtain separating men from women, wishing the next 10 days over. We have an hour break before mediation starts again. I and three others in my room crawl back into bed.

8am Meditation - the same routine with different instruction this time. Concentrating on sensation of the air entering and exiting the ‘nose-trails’ in each inhalation and exhalation and noting the sensation as neither pleasant nor unpleasant. Note it as a physical sensation. After instruction, it is quite in the hall and a few sneezes puncture the silence indicating awareness of sensation in the nose! The key is just to observe that sensation and not relate it to anything - like a sneeze thereby encouraging one. My meditation is coloured by trips to the bathroom, neck stretches and turns (to have a look about the room!) and nest rearranging.

12pm Lunch time - knowing we will not be eating much for our evening meal, we have seconds and thirds. The food is vegetarian and really good. After lunch we there is 30mins where the majority of us spill outdoors to the cordoned off area amongst trees. Little trails through the trees are well worn and women pace, meander, dawdle, sleep, stretch and ponder on every available stump or rock. The space is small and we look like rats, enclosed. I can tell the yoga fanatics - they’re stretching, the walkers- they are pacing, the joggers- they are pacing and kicking their bottoms with their heels in warm up tempo (we are forbidden to do any structured exercise other than walk and stretch). I feel frustrated at the lack of space.Trapped. I want to go for a run and get some fresh air into my lungs. The following day and those remaining, I took a cup of tea and a sleeping bag out to a sunny patch of ground beside a log, to sit and ponder through the rest of my free time.

1.30pm Meditation time - again. We sit, we breathe, we drift, we stew, we dream, we nod off only to be awakened by a neighbour coughing or, at worst, passing wind. I think of everything and everyone in my life - then I think of my breath as I am supposed to. I think of Liam and shoot a sneaky look once again. He is still sitting. I breathe. As the days pass I am able to drift less and concentrate more on the sensations of breath. I appreciate it as a sensation. But why do I need to? What good is it doing me. So I know there is a tiny little cramping sensation in my left nostril over my right when I breath in….so what? As the days pass we learn a different type of mediation which observes bit by bit and piece by piece, all parts of the body and in time, all the sensations in thos parts. I trace through each piece of my body and observe a tickle, a pain, an itch, an ache, a buzz, numbness and try desperately NOT to respond to it, as is instructed by the tape-recorded voice. I escape to the small “run” within the trees and pace thinking “why should I not respond to these sensations? I am human after all. I am a buzzing bundle of cells. I am living. I am functional and biologically, I DO respond to create homeostasis within my body. That is what any living object does. Why should I therefore NOT respond to physical sensations as I observe them? It makes no sense. I pace around the paths and am frustrated. I generate questions for the teachers to ask during the 5min appointed time the following day. I am as any other animal who reacts to external stimuli - it is in my nature, I am nature - why NOT respond?

5.00pm Supper-time - day one we eat 3, 4, 5 pieces of fruit, greedily, hungrily and sup tea. As the days pass and I sit more and do less, I am less hungry as suppertime and observe the experienced meditators with just their lemon water. By day 3, I too only take lemon water.

6.00pm Meditation - I am frustrated when I enter the hall but tired too. Tired of my frustrations and physically tired. I follow the instructions and decide that I will respond to the sensations as I need to. I find that I need to respond to them less and less as the days go by. Perhaps I am getting better at sitting still for extended periods of time. Perhaps I am becoming more understanding of the sensations and their need to be responded to. Perhaps I am becoming more tolerant.

8.00pm Discourse - the heavy accented voice once again becomes a 2-dimensional image on the TV and I am relieved to see him and pleased to hear his chatter for it is playful and humorous. It is also educated and thoughtful. He has not always been a man who meditates and teaches meditation. Before this, he was a successful business man who, after exhausting all methods of relieving his persistent migraines, took advice to take a course in meditation to ‘calm his nerves’ and effectively observe the sensation and not respond to it. This is an interesting story and one that is welcome given the arguments I have generated during the day. We ARE animals and as animals we naturally respond to external stimuli, however, we are unlike animals in such that we are able to observe the sensation and chose NOT to respond to it. My combative reaction rises up to question ‘but why would we NOT want to respond?’ when he answers it for me…… our responses are learned and some are for our protection physically. Understandable. Some reactions, however, are learned from those around us who are protecting themselves. So why do WE react to a stimulus in the same way when we do not understand from whence the original reaction came? This challenges our very being as we are products of our families. But it is a good challenge as it unearths reactions I have, and therefore feelings I experience, when I have no cause to react that way at all. I do not like the feelings I experience when I react a certain way. I want to change it. This method of meditation, by sweeping through the body and observing piece by piece all the sensations within the body and not responding to them, trains the mind to become clear again and question what it is about something that you don’t like or do like and what you like / dislike about it. It is refreshing and empowering to realize those feelings that can completely overwhelm you, can be dissipated.

But then….I wonder….does one become this person who responds to everything equally, humour, fear, happiness. It is possible with much training. But I don’t want to be that person. Flacid and floppy - they seem so, so....bloody annoying. I enjoy the fact that I do respond to things and to people. But I know there are, however, feelings that I don’t like having and I know that I can use this technique to observe these feelings and decide how and if I want to react to them.

As the days go by, I sit for a solid hour without moving and manage to pull a muscle in my bum. So, that was my body reacting, not my mind. I am in extreme pain and have to wrap a hot water bottle around my hips. I am pleased I did an hour though but am unable to sit that length of time cross legged again. I do not push myself again and accept that the technique is best observed and learned in a semi comfortable position.

Days pass and I analyse that the angst that I have felt has been more angst that I have been unable to discuss with anyone, my thoughts and observations, to converse on the matter. I don’t want to just accept, I want to debate and query. I realize this too is a reaction I have developed or learned. A reaction to what? Reacting to the need to be intellectually stimulated. I arrange to speak with teachers to ask questions….a 5 min slot. It is not enough and I am once again dissatisfied with the answers and feel frustrated that they couldn’t answer them. They have been silent too long. They don’t debate and analyze anymore. They are too contented. It's so annoying! Stop being so...so peaceful and calm - it is so unreal and non-human. But I resolve that I will not torture myself any longer. I realize this very reaction is one that I need to observe and analyze. Is there really a need to debate and discuss this when it is only me that can answer my own questions to my reasons for reacting? I sit and listen to my reactions. I turn the lights out in my head and just let it go. It is relieving. I don’t challenge myself anymore. I don’t feel frustrated. I am not angry. It is only then that I realize I am capable of changing my state of mind.

I think of all the times when I have fueled a state of mind and feel embarrassed and also sorry for those I have negatively affected by my lack of awareness. It is upsetting but somehow purging too. I am happy to realize it and sad to have done it at all.

The mediation course comes to an end and I am afraid to start talking. I have been glad of the peace in the close proximity of so many people. I have been glad of the silence. I have been glad of not having to smile, chit chat, comfort others, listen to what others have think. I don’t want to discuss it. It is private to you and to me. Let me be…. But I do talk and know (through observation over each day) that everyone at some stage has broken down, cried, sobbed in some instances. Perhaps it was the unreal situation in which we had put ourselves, social beings in an unsocial environment, devoid of touch, acknowledgement or seemingly emotion - or perhaps it was just us realizing that we can do better by ourselves and others and why, therefore, have we not. Or maybe we are just hungry!

It is over and I am glad. I am pleased to see and speak to Liam. I have missed him and have felt distant from him. Now, both he and I feel in some way more connected than before.

It was a wonderfully peaceful and calming and enlightening experience……and now, as I walk, rose petals fall out of the sky and caress my cheeks which are gently lit with sunbeams of a setting sun…..

No honestly. It was ……it was …let’s just say I am pleased to have done it.
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For those who are interested or inspired: the first 3 days were spent practicing Anapana (pali word meaning observation of breath) to quieted our minds.

Then we learnt Vipassana (pali for observation of reality) to develop our wisdom and eliminate our ignorance.

Check out www.dhamm.org for more info.

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Comments

[Brenda]

Sharing vipassana
Thank you so much for sharing your experience of vipassana Kat. you were very brave. One day I hope to have the chance of doing it myself. Meanwhile my move to france is very near. I shall be quite near Thich Nat Than's Plum village and also the Longzhen foundation -lots to look forward to. love Brenda