???? 10 Days of Noble Silence ??

I recently took part in my first 10-day Vipassana Meditation ?? residential course during which I learned the basics of the method and believe practiced sufficiently to experience its beneficial results. Below I write out a bit of my experience and the three main points I wanted to highlight to you all.

Please reach out if you want to learn more or if you plan on attending, so I can give you some more recommendations to better prepare.

A bit about the course

It was 10 Days in a forest, within the Greater Poland Voivodeship, 35min car drive to the nearest city.

The first 3 days were focused on the Anapana meditation (being with breath), 6 days of Vipassana Meditation (body scanning, to see things as they really are, not as we want them to be) and 1 day of Metta Bhavana meditation (loving-kindness). All of which are some of India's most ancient techniques of meditation.

This consisted of roughly 10 hours of formal meditations and 14 hours informal practice per day. This informal time includes evening talks, eating, rest time and optional one-on-one with the teacher. Even insights into how to practice meditation during sleep ??.

I also had to undertake the following five precepts for the duration of the course:

1. to abstain from killing any being;
2. to abstain from stealing;
3. to abstain from all sexual activity;
4. to abstain from telling lies;
5. to abstain from all intoxicants.

I also had to follow the rules of Noble Silence, which means silence of body, speech, and mind. Any form of communication with fellow student, whether by gestures, sign language, written notes, etc., was prohibited.

For more about the Code of Discipline you can read it here, you can also see the agenda per day at the bottom of that page. Ok, now to my highlights.

1. It gets loud

The transition from a Tetris-like calendar, from busy city and corporate life to isolation, not only made me re-realize just how loud the inside of the head is. I had songs pop out of nowhere, phrases loop round and round, and random memories reveal themselves, reoccurring thoughts like a lone mosquito ?? hungry for fresh blood??. And since there is no busy streets, no phone??, no watch, no screens, no music, no talking, you realize just how loud this moment can be, if you just pay attention to it that is. From your own breath and heart ?? beat as you sit in meditation or even move around, to the sound of the wind and insects, especially with the bare-foot walks in the near-by forest.

And after some time in the silence the silence becomes loud too. If you continue though, after a few days, between the many meditation sessions, some tough some more blissful, you become more present. This moment becomes intensified: your situational awareness increases, the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touch allows you to be child-like again, fascinated by the simple things, even your own body and mind.?More balance between mind, body and experience is still with me. Let's see how long it lasts ??.

2. Experiential Learning

The technique of Anapana, Metta Bhavana and Vipassana are?simple to understand intellectually, perhaps. We can intellectually understand how attention works and how by focusing it on the breath we can not only train our attention but also hone into the sensations of breathing. We can intellectually understand that wishing yourself and others peace, compassion and equanimity is good. And we can understand intellectually that we can better understand ourselves, our reactions and our suffering by experiencing directly the physical sensations that form the life of the body, and that continuously interconnect and condition the life of the mind.?However, it is a whole other story to experience that directly. Talk is cheap in other words, or in this case, thinking is cheap.

Experiential learning is?an engaged learning process whereby students “learn by doing” and by reflecting on the experience. During the 10 days, I learned by doing, or better said, by "being" with the doing. To really experience how the mind works in relation to the body, in relation to the mind, to present moment experience.

I needed to be fully with the ups and downs, with the past and future thoughts, and deeply relive what is happening in the body as I did so – thus allowing me to feel all sorts of sensations, all sorts of emotions, to be terrified and furious and blissful and ecstatic in accordance with the reality of the situation. With the truth of the moment and not the truth I wanted or didn't want to experience. And it is on the basis of this kind of hard-won experiential knowledge, not its more painless intellectual kind, that I continue to discover a measure of relief from the troubles within. Working directly with the sensations in the body on an experiential level has proved quite useful in switching from reacting to responding.

3. Anicca

The Pali word for impermanence, anicca, is a compound word consisting of "a" meaning non-, and "nicca" meaning "constant, continuous, permanent". While 'nicca' is the concept of continuity and permanence, 'anicca' refers to its exact opposite; the absence of permanence and continuity.

And I really got to put this into practice. First with noticing how thoughts come and go, then as the breath comes in and out and then with sensations in the body. In other words, all physical and mental events I experienced, came into being and dissolved.?Because of our physical limitations we experience things as permanent and a lot of our suffering results out of this.

I will give you an example. I was sitting for an hour in the same position and a sensation arose in my leg, sharpness, and my reaction was to tense up, to breathe faster and to increase my heart rate. To think about how to solve this problem, to get ride of it. Something I learned many years ago, as a child first I guess, to recognize potential pain, damage and injury and react to it. A useful approach but not as useful if we are constantly reacting to everything as a threat. During the 10 days, whether that was a sensation in my muscles or a hair moving on my skin, or a small fly landing on my arm or a sudden loud cough or movement in the forest. I wanted it to go away, I was practicing aversion to it. And when everything felt great and I was enjoying the moment, oh, how I wanted that to stay, the craving was so strong. And the craving for wonderful meditative experiences also, so strong. I found myself constantly craving or trying to avoid.

In one of the meditations. I felt an uncomfortable sensation for the entire 45mins, "It is not going away. This is definitely permanent," I thought. However, I remembered what the teacher said, "to accept, to exam, to go deeper, to investigate where the sensation starts and ends, what else is there, objectively." When I let go of the struggle of aversion and craving and accepted the moment for how it is, I noticed that the sensation was coming and going very very rapidly, like a flame on a candle ???, quickly coming into existing and dissolving. This is anicca, this is impermanence, I experienced. Because I focused so much on craving it to go away and doing everything to avoid it that I didn't recognize the moments of no "pain"... and my own reaction just intensified the whole experience. Anicca, made me understand on a practical level, just to be in equanimity, to just be balanced and peaceful and to observe the constant flux and flow.

I learned and re-learned, day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, how much energy I give to cravings and aversions. How much I react to things on a physical level. And with each practice more subtle and subtle reactions arose. Until I could practice with harmony, with peace and equanimity. To practice compassion to myself and enjoy the bhanga states without attaching to them. Bhanga is?a Pali term that means “dissolution” or “breaking up.”?It is typically used in the phrase, bhanga nana, which refers to “knowledge of the dissolution of formations.”

Conclusion

It's a wonderful experience that I highly recommend for anyone with meditation experience, especially a mindfulness teacher. For new people to meditation, I have some hesitations and would recommend to speak with someone who has attended before embarking on the journey.

It is loud. It is different than what the vast majority of us experience on a daily basis, let alone for 10 days. Therefore, you get to really witness the loudness of the mind and of everything around you. Even silence becomes loud. Thereby your senses and everything sharpens.

It is experiential. It's a great training ground to put the intellectual into practice. To learn and experience first hand the nature of the mind and body, to reactions, to cravings and aversions and so so much more.

Life and every moment is changing. Realizing the impermanence of things opens us up to a world of endless possibilities, it can give us confidence, balance, and joy and may make more fulfilling relationships, and more peace of mind.

I am really glad I went and plan to attend at least one retreat per year.

Thanks for reading.

May you all be peaceful, practice equanimity and compassion and be free from suffering.

Thanks for being.