Vipassana: 10 Days of Noble Silence

For my 30th birthday this year I went to a 10 day silent meditation course called Vipassana.

For 10 days I gave up access to my phone, journal, books, music and every other kind of outside stimulation, including talking! It was an intense challenge, one that involved meditating for 12 hours per day.

Looking back it was one of the most difficult yet rewarding things I have done in my life.

On just the second day of the course, I began experiencing intense pain through my entire back. For a few days I suffered and persisted, before finally approaching the course teacher. I explained that I recently dislocated my shoulder and herniated two discs, causing intense throbbing pain while sitting upright for extended periods.

The teacher looked at me with a disarming smile and asked an unexpected question: “Why do you want it to be pain free?”

Vipassana is a meditation practice rooted in two core principles: Awareness and Equanimity.

It begins by teaching you to observe the sensations in your body, a level of awareness most of us rarely achieve amid the hustle and bustle of daily life. We're habitually engrossed in external stimuli and the subsequent thoughts they generate, ignoring the sensations within.

Vipassana trains the mind to once again learn to be aware. By sitting still for an hour at a time and simply feeling the sensations that pass through us - whether they be pleasant or unpleasant - we begin to regain the ability to observe ourselves.

This is much more difficult than it sounds.

When you finally attempt to sit down and observe your body and mind, both react with extreme resistance. The mind races with thoughts, dredging up memories from the past and anxieties about the future. If there's a song stuck in your head, rest assured it will play on an incessant loop. The body mirrors this resistance by sending out signals of discomfort - itches, aches, and pains that you would typically ignore when distracted by the external world.

It's a 10 day journey of self-discovery, a rigorous process of purifying the mind. To begin, we have to first cultivate the faculties necessary to become aware of our own mind and body. This awareness allows us to penetrate the root causes of our unhappiness. The longer we remain attuned to our sensations, thoughts, and feelings, the more apparent it becomes that the true sources of unhappiness reside within us. External elements serve only as triggers, surfacing the feelings of desire or aversion within our minds that are the true causes of our unhappiness.

The mind, I learned, is an active participant in this process. It consciously chooses (without us noticing) to react and, by doing so, fosters unhappiness within. This is because over time it has become conditioned to do so - every external trigger is met with a sensation on the body and a subsequent reaction in the mind. Vipassana, at its core, is a technique that imparts the art of non-reaction, teaching us to observe and respond with equanimity - the quality of remaining calm and undisturbed.

This transformation is far from straightforward. Throughout our lives, we become conditioned to react. When faced with actions we disapprove of, we respond with animosity or aversion. Conversely, when we come across favorable situations, we tend to get attached, perpetually craving more of that pleasant sensation.

Our lives unfold in a predictable pattern of chain reactions. Every external event triggers sensations in our body, depending on the nature of the event. Picture, for instance, someone publicly insulting you - it's as if a switch is flipped. Your body temperature rises, your blood boils, and your mind seethes with anger in response to the audacity of that person's actions.

We've all experienced these visceral reactions at some point. The truth is, controlling our thoughts in such moments is a Herculean task. The intensity of emotions and the sensations coursing through our bodies make it nearly impossible to observe our thoughts, let alone divert them in a more positive direction. We've developed ingrained patterns of reaction that are immensely challenging to break free from.

However, Vipassana allows us to follow a different approach. Instead of reacting impulsively, we learn to observe the physical sensations in our body and not react. At first we practice this in silent isolation, observing basic sensations on and inside the body during our meditation. But this way of living applies in every situation.

Someone hurls an insult our way? Fine, let's see how our body feels. Our blood boils? Well, let's observe how long this sensation persists without reacting. This is where the foundations of awareness and equanimity are laid.

Our conventional habits rarely follow this pattern. In the face of an insult, our default response is retaliation. We grant ourselves no respite for awareness or equanimity; instead, we respond to negativity with more negativity.

This chain reaction is filled with self harm. We craft narratives about ourselves based on how we react to the world's provocations. With every reaction, we tie another knot in the fabric of our minds. If we respond to an insult with another insult, we reinforce the idea within ourselves that we are individuals who react aggressively to provocation. We perpetuate the cycle of responding to anger with anger rather than with equanimity and harmony.

This is the essence of Vipassana. A journey to untangle these knots, rewrite our story and change our habits through a combination of awareness and equanimity.

During those ten days of isolation, we delve deep into the recesses of our minds, unraveling stories, both significant and seemingly trivial, that have etched themselves into our psyches over the years. These stories often revolve around specific trigger points, either positive or negative, that we carry with us throughout our lives.

Through this immersive experience we gain the tools to unlearn these habits and undo these knots. Armed with this newfound awareness, we can resist the compulsion to react constantly and, instead, start living life consciously.

This transition is the beginning of the escape from survival mode. Human beings possess a unique capacity for self-observation, unrivaled by any other species. We have the power to observe ourselves and, crucially, choose how to react. We can shape the way we act and the way we live.

In a world defined by perpetual noise and ceaseless external stimuli, my Vipassana experience showed me the invaluable gift of introspection. It showed me that within the silence of our minds lies a profound reservoir of wisdom, waiting to be tapped into. Through awareness and equanimity, we can navigate the complexities of life with clarity of mind.

If anyone found this interesting and would like to learn more, please visit dhamma.org or contact me directly. The courses are run on a volunteer basis all around the world and are completely free of charge.