A 2500 year old mental fitness program

Having founded a company that makes mental fitness curriculums for children, I decided to try Vipassana, a 2500 year old mental fitness curriculum for adults. The program, designed by Buddha, which teaches meditation & self-awareness, strangely seems more relevant today than ever before.

For the uninitiated, basically you reside in the centre, have no contact with the outside world, don't use any technology/read/write and don't communicate with anyone, allowing you to focus on yourself for 10 days. A typical day looks like this:

So how long do you think has stress been around? I used to think that stress and the wider problem of poor recognition and management of difficult of emotions is a recent phenomenon triggered by technology overuse and a “modern lifestyle”, which would have explained why positive psychology, a newish largely academic field with limited meaningful impact, has only been around for a couple of decades.

But if you think about it, stress and difficulties in managing emotions have been a struggle for humans as long as we have been around. What else could explain parents and teachers being so focused on a child’s academic outcomes that they overlook how the child is treated during childhood. Or pursue some idealistic version of a perfect child who does numerous extracurriculars and performs well in studies but does not know what to do when they experience unpleasant emotions that doesn’t let them sleep at night. Or workplaces being so stressful that they impair any meaningful creativity and productivity.

And what makes a 2500 year old curriculum so relevant today? It turns out that our brains have not changed much in this relatively short period of time. Evolutionary changes typically happen over millions of years and none of our lifestyle adaptations of living in civilised societies are nearly that old. So, we essentially have the same brain that our hunting-gathering ancestors had. And these brains have evolved for survival, not happiness. Evolutionary demands meant that we have an overdeveloped fight or flight response, and a negativity bias, which means that we’re five times more likely to hold on to negative events than positive ones. This means that brain attributes that were essential for surviving as hunter-gatherers are cumbersome and unhelpful in the sort of lives we live today.

So what was it like? Well it was not easy. I know someone who has a fortnight off in the summer and wondered whether this would be a reasonable alternative to a holiday on a remote beach - there is no comparison! I had a tough time during the middle. Didn't go as far as wanting to leave, but definitely felt like I was unable to do even the basic level of meditation that I had been able to do a few days earlier. Around 10% of our batch did not make it till the end, and some of these were students who had done it before.

Finally, what did I get out of it? Quite a lot, I think. The first is an experience of calmness and freedom. The second is learning about not being too attached to things, ideas, ways of working & being open to new possibilities. And finally an appreciation of mindfulness in everyday life that is exceptionally difficult to get without undergoing something this intense. I have no hesitation in recommending it to everyone, and believe it is of particular value for mental health professionals. To know more please visit - https://www.dhamma.org/en/about/vipassana