Living as a Buddhist Monk for 10 Days: Describing My First Vipassana Meditation Course experiences

A report on a Vipassana meditation course does not seem to fit into the typical LinkedIn articles themes that revolve around work, careers and organizations. However, I came to see all aspects of life connected and it is clear to me that what happens to us outside work has direct impact on our work-life and... vice-versa.

The last couple of decades saw an increase in interest in Mindfulness based activities as introduced into organizations and these activities, based on various meditation practices, are not considered strange and esoteric anymore. In my own work as a business school lecturer, I have introduced brief meditation introduction into my EMBA and other Masters classes, from about a decade ago onward. While the way in which I introduce mindfulness and meditation to my students de-emphasizes the traditional Buddhist background of the practice and presents only a fraction of its philosophy, there are multiple levels of depth that are relevant when understanding and practicing mindfulness. Thus, I hope that some of you will find this report on my experiences with an intensive Vipassana course that I have recently completed as interesting and maybe relevant for your life.

Last month I have completed my first 11 day Vipassana course in Dhamma Kuta monastery (south of Kandy, Sri Lanka). I do not feel the need or wish to share any particular experiences. Partially, it is because the experiences were intensive but not too dramatic and partially it is because they are subjective and may not be informative but, rather, counterproductive in forming conscious or unconscious expectations in others.

I have also did not try to retain the insights and experiences; some stay for longer and others fade away. It seems to me fitting with the strong Buddhist emphasis the practice had on impermanence (or transiency) as well as trusting that whatever needed to be retained and absorbed by my mind, was.

What I can and wish to share is information about the course itself and a reflection on how i experienced the system and the taught techniques themselves. In this, i build on my various identities and experiences; as a spiritual seeker who has been, in this way or another, experiencing and practicing various Eastern ways for over 30 years now and as an empirical psychologist, who has been studying human behaviour and mind through Western social science approaches.

I’ll start by giving brief background on my experiences with Buddhist teachings, continue with describing the setting and scene in which the course took place. The core of this piece includes more general remarks about the course structure and then moving to more specific elements taught.

I started my interest in Buddhism (and Hinduism) sometime at the end of my high-school period. In 1987, in my first big trip to Sth. Asia, i had my first direct and life-changing encounter with Buddhist teachings in a week-long intensive introductory course to Buddhism that took place in the Tibetan monastery of Kopan, near Kathmandu in Nepal. The course, the clear, logical and non-theistic teaching blew my mind and set me on a long-term path of integrating Buddhist practices into my life. This has been the case for the past 35 years and Buddhism informed many aspects of my life. I have been exposed and interested in different Buddhist schools, from Tibetan, through Theravada (the original teachings) to Zen. After many years of start-stop relationship with meditation and being frustrated that, although i could clearly see the benefits of it, about a decade ago it became a steady, mostly daily, morning practice. I have attended multiple retreats and courses, some more and some less intensive but the longest has been a full weekend course of about 3 days. For a while i was saying to myself ‘it’s time to go for the full 10 day Vipassana course’ and then, this year, I made the leap and participated.

There are four locations in Sri Lanka where these courses take place. There were about 17-18 men and same number of women participating in the December course. Most of the participants were Sri Lankans, mainly Sinhalese and a few Tamil. There were about 5 men and 1 woman with international background. All teachings were bi-lingual, Sinhala and English and nearly all instructions were through voice or video recordings of the original teacher, Goenka. The age range seemed to go from late 20s to well into the 70s. For most participants (over 80%) this was the first course they took part in.

The Vipasssana technique (spread and popularised by Mr Goenka) is very Buddhist in nature and considered to be taught originally by Buddha (Guatama) himself. What has impressed me from the start is how empirical and systematic the whole approach he designed is. It became evident that Guatama (there are many Buddhas so, for sake of accuracy, i refer to the one we typically call THE Buddha, prince Guatama Siddharta in Sanskrit or Siddhattha Gotama in Pali) started his ‘career’ as an applied philosopher and an empirical psychologist. Then, upon realising the whole life system and the cause, effect and way out of suffering, he devised a systematic psychotherapy program based on his discoveries. You could say that Guatama’s psychotherapy approach relates to modern approaches such as MBCBT (mindfulness-based cognitive-behavioural therapy) and biofeedback techniques, with a strong element referring to bringing unconscious processes to the conscious surface, though not in a psychoanalytic way but rather through increased somatic sensitivity.

Buddha’s empirical approach, while, obviously, is not a modern scientific one and is anchored in subjective experience (yet, verifiable as common to many people who engage in the practice, making it inter-subjective rather than purely individual) gained through experiential learning approach. Indeed, a major differentiator of Buddha’s core applied spiritual teachings from religious systems is that he does not ask students to become followers first; that is, he emphasises that the system is based on individual experiential experience, NOT on belief. This aspect, that belief cannot ‘help’ you to get out the basic human predicament, has been emphasised multiple times in the recordings of Goenka, which instructed our practice.

Although i have been reading and listening to Buddhism teachings since my first exposure in Kopan Monastery in mid 1987, it stroke me stronger than before how congruent most of Guatama’s approach is with modern psychology. His approach is based on combination of logical deduction of what is in the core of human suffering (this is the spiritual/philosophical part) with systematic practices that are designed to resolve or, at least, minimise the suffering (or dissatisfaction with life, as sometimes Dukha is translated). That second, applied aspect, follows principles that can be easily translated to modern sensation and perception.

The instructions we received had relatively little theory to them and the theoretical parts (as well as the stories told, to pleasantly spice up the abstract principles) were in service of the taught practices, which were the core of the course.

The practice itself started with a first phase (3 days) of increasing our sensing; we focused on a small part of the face and tried to enhance our ability to detect the passage of air within and around the nostrils. Gradually, the area of focus became smaller and, with it, the intensity and specificity of experience. No mysticism or spirituality here! Rather, pure practice of somatic (body-related) sensing, which involved a finer tuning of mind and body since it is our mind that detects what happens to the body. In other words, we have worked on strengthening our FOCUS by attending to more and more subtle bodily sensations.

The second and core phase of the practice involved a combination of Awareness (building on the focus practice we did using the breath) and Equanimity, which is a philosophically-based response to what the awareness brings to mind. For example, when we sat for an hour without moving in a position that, for most of us, became excruciatingly uncomfortable and painful, the practice is not to suppress (push away or distract ourselves from) nor to express (follow) the physical discomfort but to try to ‘objectify’ it, that is, looking at it as a sensation that happens to “a body” (or somebody, as opposite to “my body”) and, based on the universal natural law that ALL sensations and experiences change and are temporary. This gradual detachment from pain and discomfort changes our attitude to them and, gradually, to the/our bodies.

In this practice, we learned to be more and more aware of subtler and subtler bodily reactions through repetitive (and, oh my god, boring and demanding) scanning of each part of the body to detect what our skin feels/senses. Then, comes the practice of Equanimity, that is, reminding ourselves that we needn’t react with neither aversion (rejection) nor craving to the sensations experienced. The sensations experienced represent our basic, instinctual and perpetual reaction mode to everything we experiencing in the world: we want to have more of some things and we want to eliminate some other things (or experiences). This, the rejection of reality as it IS, and the ignorance in forgetting that all changes, is in the basis of our suffering, states Buddha.

The scanning technique (which is different and, for me, was more demanding than visualization) progresses through finer and finer detection of more and more subtle physical sensations. The principle at its core is that ANY reaction that produces an emotion is experienced physically and, therefore, the ‘way out’ is through reconditioning our reactions. This is the element of the practice to which i referred as dealing with the unconscious (which is not treated as Freud’s subconscious but as subtle experiencing that can be made conscious) that may not correspond, per my limited knowledge, to empirical psychological science, though i suspect that more recent research in mind-body connection, such as based on biofeedback can map this principle too.

There were two aspects of what we learned of Buddha’s teachings that can be considered as falling outside empirical psychological principles and pertaining to religion:

A. Silla, which is the first of three parts that constitute the core of Buddha’s teachings (the other two, Samadhi and Panna relate to knowledge and wisdom) relates to five moral principles that appear in most religious systems, such as not killing, not stealing and not lying (the other two are right livelihood and avoiding intoxicants). The explanation is that when people transgress the Silla principles, their mind is not peaceful and creates turmoil that stands in the way of focus, awareness and equanimity.

B. The principles of reincarnation, which, while may make sense, need to be taken on faith if one didn’t experience them directly (such as through enlightenment or a mystical experience), as is the case for me (while accepting something that I have not personally experienced as true by believing someone/s else is not part of my spiritual path, I also don’t insist on disbelieving it; i just don’t know if it is so or not. There is a growing ‘drawer’ into which i put such items that ‘i did not experience, do not fully understand but I don’t feel a need to reject’).

The above two elements, especially the reincarnation system, do not pose obstacles to practicing the system as it taught. At least, this was the case for me, where i am not convinced at all about reincarnation but am rather convinced that the system taught can enhance my awareness in THIS life cycle and make them happier, for me and others.

My final comments would be for those considering taking part in such course. I can make a few recommendations that may not apply to all:

* It is not necessary, but some background and interest in Buddhist philosophy would be helpful. You get all the information you need during the course, in a very organised and systematic way. Emphasis in much more on the method and its application that on the concepts and theory, but you get enough of both to start you on the way. At the same time, having learned a bit about basic Buddhist concepts can be beneficial.

* This is even more so with mediation practice. It is possible to go and do the course from 0 but it is more realistic to try and establish a sort of meditation practice and then come to do the course.

* I’d recommend doing it as early in life as you can commit to. No problem doing it later (again, there were locals in there 70s who came to do their first course) but you will have more years to benefit from the practice it from younger age… like anything else.

* This may be counter-intuitive for some; at least it would have been for me: it is not necessarily preferable to the do the course in an Asian country, even if it is a Buddhist country (like Sri Lanka). The method is the same and the teaching is done mostly based on Goenka’s recorded voice and videos, so you shouldn’t expect much variation in the basic technique taught. This is why I would consider going for the course in your own country or in any Western location you can do it in:

1. If you are doing it in a country where English is not widely and well spoken (and where you are not native), you can expect all the instructions to sound in both native language and English. Frankly, it becomes an overload, both because you keep hearing too much talk and because it cuts from the practice time. So consider centres that deliver in one language.

2. While the spartan conditions where I did the course were adequate and, although very simple, sufficient for the course duration, there are aspects like power cuts (happened on most days of the course) and water stops (happened a few times) as well as mosquitos and other bothersome factors that may distract you. On the one hand, it gives you more chance to practice not being affected, equanimity (which is how I try to approach it); on the other hand, trust me, you will have enough challenges to deal with in the form of the course itself, so no need to add external/environmental difficulties in addition to your own mind!

3. Related to the language issue, your chances to get a teacher who can effectively communicate with you, is much greater if you do the course in a place where you speak well the native language. Every day, there is a session with the local teacher, to help with clarity and allow time for Q&A. Our teacher was very nice and had a LOT of meditation experience but his ability to communicate in English was somewhat limited and, therefore, there wasn’t as much benefit for the non-Sinhalese speaking among us from those meetings.