What it feels like to go 10-days in a silent meditation retreat

My Mum was adamant I was going into a cult. I’d be indoctrinated, she said. Never to be seen again. When I arrived and they took my passport, wallet, phone and laptop, I did start to wonder. So began my 10-days at a silent ‘Vipassana’ meditation retreat, here’s what happened next..

My journey into this spans 6 years. In brief. I’d been miserable and unhealthy. I’ve since worked very hard at changing that. I learnt a bunch of stuff, met some wonderful people, moved to the north Sweden and started connecting with myself and the things around me.

So there I was, having arrived at my home for the next 10 days. I was assigned a bed, the seat where I’d eat and the mat I’d meditate on. I was there to learn 'Vipassana' meditation, an ancient technique to sharpen the mind. As such, there were rules. No communication of any sort, with anyone. No writing, no proper exercise, no nothing other than eating, sleeping and meditating for 10 hours a day, 10 days straight. Shit. Had I thought this through?

At the first meditation session, the lights dimmed and the gargling voice of a chanting Indian came over the speakers. What is this? It felt like an age had passed before he stopped. It was probably 10 mins. My legs already screaming. He told us, sternly, ‘you will focus the entirety of your attention on the area at the end of and inside your nostrils. You will do this persistently, without trying to control the respiration, just observe it coming in and going out’.

For two days, this is ALL WE DID. Every now and then the silence was broken by him chanting some, and then repeating the directive to focus on our nostrils. It was intense. The pain brutal. My imagination threw everything at me to stop. Your legs weren’t built for this, Dan. I think they’re actually going to break if you continue. Somehow I managed to ignore all of it and continue sitting there.

Day three came and so with it uncontrollable tears. Years of suppressed emotion released. So too came new instructions. Now we were to focus on the triangular area between our top lip and the bottom of our nose. A sharpening focus, our friendly Indian told us. I felt a throbbing in the area. A wetness. My breath passing over it. On day 4 he told us ‘the Vipassana would now start’. What’s that now? Is that not what we’ve been doing for 3 days..? No, we were just getting our focus ready. Now we were to take said focus and apply it to every part of our body from head to toe, toe to head.

Somehow it worked and I could feel some sensation on every part of me, if I focussed on it for long enough.?

Over the next few days more instructions came and the focus intensified. Simultaneous focus on multiple parts, then the ability to feel every single spot across, say, a limb at once. Then I was able to sense every inch of several limbs, simultaneously.

Finally, on day 9, I could feel the throbbing sensation of every single part of my body alive and alert, inside and out, all at once. It was as if my physical form had disintegrated. If someone coughed from across the room, I’d feel it like a wave passing through me. I felt intense peace. A complete calm. That savage pain that I’d felt for 9 days, it was still there, but I’d stopped reacting to it. All the judging thoughts I’d had about my fellow Vipassaners, those were gone too. In their place, an acceptance. My constant craving and aversion momentarily switched off. No reflecting on yesterday or imagining tomorrow, there was just now. Send this paragraph to 6 years ago Dan and he would’ve scoffed at it as complete nonsense.?I still find it hard to write. To believe.

I’d read about the concept of ‘Impermanence’ and thought I understood it. But, perhaps, only in experiencing something do you fully understand it. Each night during those 10 days, our friendly Indian explained what had been happening to us. The ‘surgical incision’ we had been making into our deepest subconscious. His words guiding us through all our trauma that the process released. For me it was mainly all the people I had been unpleasant to over the years - sorry if you’re one of those who bore the brunt of that.?

I cried more in 10 days than I had in my entire life combined. It was truly horrible at times. Equally though, through it all came a glimpse at the power of awareness. That when we’re able to focus objectively on the sensations of our body reacting to the world around us, we gain control over our response. We stop projecting our reactions out onto everyone else. Our need for reciprocation diminishes. Instead peace. Comfort. Happiness.

Through it all, I saw that pain comes and goes. That it rises and falls and is always impermanent.?It’s been hard, the reintegration into normal life, particularly as I went straight from my seclusion to the airport and onto the world’s largest travel trade show in London.

Ultimately though, I came away with the feeling that self love is possible, near even, and that compassion, love and acceptance for others are all there when I'm able to focus enough to dissolve the power of fear and ego, of craving and aversion. And that, fellow humans, is something I would recommend to all.?

Thank you for reading, and a huge thank you to everyone at https://sobhana.dhamma.org/ for making my 10 days such a huge experience.