I meditated 120 hours in 10 days...

10 days without speaking, no eye contact, no physical touch, no reading, no writing, no phone, no exercise, 20 hours of fasting, gender segregation, and a schedule from 4 AM to 9:30 PM. That more or less would describe a Vipassana meditation retreat.

Some people have told me I was voluntarily going to prison. At times, I was staring at the floor and laughing at the thought of it.

If you ask me, there is nothing else that allows you to gain peace of mind and clarity on what your blockages are, and how you can be a better human. The reward is too big to miss out on. There are several tools that allow you to understand the theoretical frameworks of the mind, but the unconscious connections? I’m here for the plot.

I don’t think there is anything I’ve ever done that is more challenging than spending 10 days in complete silence (with no distractions). The first thing I realized is that silence can be the loudest place one can ever be at.

Your head never stops chattering, and it’s physically and emotionally exhausting. You want to rip your brain out and throw it away every minute. At the same time, you get entertained by thoughts, and realize 2 things:

• Most of our thoughts go into a loop of existence - they repeat themselves over and over and over again. My interpretation is that your brain is trying to make sense of certain events, by changing their course of action - useless!

• A single thought has a huge impact on our emotional well-being, which gives sense to the quote “we are what we think“ - this made me think of the people I surround myself with, and which kind of mindset I’m unconsciously adopting.

Directly from the website

“Vipassana, which means to see things as they really are, is one of India's most ancient techniques of meditation. It was taught in India more than 2500 years ago as a universal remedy for universal ills”.

These kinds of retreats have no underlying religion, so they are accessible to everyone regardless of religious beliefs. The person teaching is a householder, not a guru, and he’s introducing a way of living by removing all suffering from one’s life (suffering gets stuck in different body parts and comes out as sensations, which they call samkaras). How suffering comes out through sensations goes beyond my understanding, but I’m sure we can find a good metaphor for it because in practical terms it does seem to work.

The second thing I'd like to point out is practical knowledge. I am someone who likes to find information to back up theories and philosophies before accepting something or remaining agnostic. Saying this, there are so many theoretical frameworks we can adapt to live better and more lively. One needs to put himself into a situation to properly understand what is meant at a practical level. So, this is to say that we can read as many books as we want on meditation and different techniques, but until we get the ingredients together and feel the effects, it’s the same as nothing.

Lastly, another question I get asked quite often is about pricing. “It must be very expensive”. Nope. The course is fully based on donations from previous students who benefited from the technique, and all the resources are offered - accommodation, food, and electricity. You give back based on your own availability.

This was the second time I was doing this retreat, and I thought I knew what to expect. I had a completely different experience. Let’s debunk it day by day.

Day 1 - 2

Doing well. I had a lot of surface-level thoughts related to recent conversations I had with people, and thought about all the things I had to do after the 10 days would be over. I kept wishing I could write them down on a piece of paper so that they’d be put off my mind. Craving. The first thing you’re told not to have. I tried to focus on my breath, but I couldn’t stay present for more than 5 minutes at a time.

Day 2 - 4

The goal of these two days was simply to focus on the breath and start to feel sensations. I knew that from day 4 we’d start using the technique, so that made me distracted from focusing on my breath for 12 hours a day. I started getting frustrated with the fact that we couldn’t do anything, felt a lot of interior turmoil that kept telling me to pack and leave. I also had a lot of attachment to my phone and kept wondering if someone had texted me (always imagining a worst-case scenario).

I thought a lot about certain people in my life, and I had so many conversations in my head. I found it funny because my mind kept playing games and I would say different things, but achieve similar results. I kept reminding myself I was living in the past, and whatever happened, happened. You can’t go back and change the past. You can only use what you learned from it to be better tomorrow.

(before the course) I tried to prevent certain pending issues to come up, so I made a list of people I wanted to talk to and tell them how I felt/ thoughts I had. I did that the week before the course, which felt very liberating.

Day 4 - 6

These two days were the absolute worst. It felt like my brain was exploding, thoughts started affecting me a lot emotionally and my physical reactions didn’t allow me to stay equanimous at any moment.

(after the course) I talked with the girls in my room, and they said I was very aggressively moving on my bed. I have no memory of that happening, but I guess it released some internal anger I wasn’t aware I had.

Day 6 - 10

The last half went faster than the first. I was already accustomed to the routine and schedules, and the fact that I had less than 50% of the course left made me more focused on getting to the end and attaining the best possible results. I finally stopped having surface-level thoughts (I kept telling myself nothing really mattered, as I couldn’t attend to any burning fire for 4 more days).

The goal is to not think or feed thoughts (that’d be craving again), and simply observe reality as it is, as we walk through the body with the mind. Saying this, it is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE not to think (at a non-monk level or without the Blank Mind Syndrome, at least).

I still had a lot of physical jumpiness, and I realized that it came from the fact that I over-plan and live calendar block by calendar block, so I don’t know what doing nothing means (biggest nightmare, but a good insight to force myself to be uncomfortable).

I was able to sit for a solid 30 minutes without distraction. With each thought, I would feel like a little monster was trying to capture my equanimity. I loved these last four days’ thoughts, because they came in a very positive light, but very deeply rooted in past trauma. I had the urge to explore them, but decided not to for the sake of the technique. A lot of things started to connect.

After the course

Although I absolutely love silence and had a lot of insights, when we were finally able to speak to the other participants I felt an amount of joy I had never felt.

Life felt real again. I prolonged the peace, before going back to the real world. I decided not to turn on my phone immediately. When I did, I solely replied to 2 messages that were more urgent and turned it off again.

I went to a café to write down everything I could recall, and funnily enough, I built a huge Trello board (I was feeling way too creative).

I was sensitive to every external reaction for more than one week (and I went back to work 2 days after) so I took everything veeeery slowly.

Again, on the practical level, a lot of things made sense then, but the real reflection came after the after-course reflection. Because I would take time to answer or react, I got to observe a lot of what other people were saying (without saying) and I had a HUGE window of awareness before acting. I noticed some old patterns of behaviour incoming and chose not to act upon them (this caused some anxiety, which I also found quite funny). And heeey, being comfortable in silence with someone else is a love language - I went back to having awkward silence and feeling like I had to fill them in.

Soooo, that’s it!

Would I recommend it? Definitely - To everyone and anyone looking to heal, understand themselves, and make life-long changes. Take it step by step, though, or it can be too much to deal with. Maybe start by meditating 10 minutes a day, build it up, and understand the effects it has on your brain.

10 days of silence… or 10 days of hell?

Life is about the journey, and how we can choose to be better every day. Although these 10 days felt like 2 months, 5 punches in the face, and 3 heartbreaks, it’s just the beginning. I’m here for the ride.