What I Learnt Meditating At A Buddhist Center For 100 Hours

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Discover the root of all mental misery.

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In April 2019, after losing twenty thousand dollars in a bad investment, I left for my first Buddhist silent meditation retreat.

For ten days, I meditated for 10 hours each day, beginning at 4AM. Every day, I practiced noble silence — this refers not only to the absence of communication, but also the absence of inner chatter via meditation. The goal.

In December 2022, I returned to 'the path' as a server — I cooked meals, cleaned the meditation center, and assisted in the operation of the retreat. My team and I got along well, as you can tell from our photo together.

Every day, we were supposed to practice 'noble speech.' But we liked each other too much to uphold this... so we talked and laughed all day.

In this article, as I did in my Darkness Retreat post , I want to explore the practical implications of these experiences on my attitude and behavior.

If you would like to explore the teachings of the Buddha, please take a look . I recommend the 10 day retreat to everyone I meet who has a mind. It's a secular practice and it works. It's also not-for-profit.

Let's dive into the diary of the party scientist.

1 I am responsible for all my suffering in my life.

This is my newest affirmation.

I create my misery by mentally interpreting my situation as desirable or not. Often, my mental interpretation is reactive, not conscious. By not taking the reigns on how I interpret and label the vicissitudes in my life, I let my default reaction create suffering.

Let's consider an example from my life. I was recently at a networking event where I made an awkward, poorly communicated joke. After the fact, the thoughts that arose contained interpretations of the situation. 'They don't like you, you're incompetent, you weirded them out.' I felt incompetent all the way home. I created so much suffering by interpreting the sensations I was feeling.

Suffering is a mental construct.

2 The root of my suffering is the mental pattern of reacting to my sensory experience.

Attachment to particular sensory experiences is the root of my suffering. In other words, discontentment with what I am feeling in the moment creates suffering. This is a reaction.

The Buddha teaches us that enlightenment is attained through being aware and not reacting to sensations. When you become indifferent to sensation and unconditionally happy, you become enlightened. Indifference to sensation means nonreaction — the mind stops categorizing the sensations as good or bad.

There are two ways to react. 1. Aversion: I want these sensations to stop. They're bad. 2. Craving: I want these sensations to continue or restart. They're good. The mind reacts by creating these black and white categories. The 'good and bad' dichotomy.

When you interrupt this process, feel the sensations fully, and remind yourself that all sensations are impermanent, you can get out of the suffering loop. You can separate your well-being from your sensory experience. Inner peace.

3 People who hurt me are miserable and deserve my forgiveness and compassion.

You have to be suffering to hurt another person. Whether they're consumed by greed, anger, or hatred, harmful people are miserable and or ignorant. Let's unpack this with an example the teacher, Goenka, shares.

Jesus...

I know, you didn't expect that from a secular scientist hey? Jesus was enlightened. Even when the Romans pinned him to a cross and tortured him, he had love and compassion for them. "Oh, I want their misery to end. Oh, ignorant people. They do not understand that I am not the root of their suffering." Jesus did not develop hatred. He understood the relationship between misery and mental defilements.

For someone to hurt another person, their mind must be contaminated with a mental defilement — Greed, hatred, animosity, ill will, anger, & jealousy. More on this later.

Buddhism has transformed how I react to violence, ill will, and animosity in the world. The bad actors in the world are either miserable or ignorant. Probably both. If they discovered Buddhism, they would change their behavior and realize other people are not causing their misery. They themselves are.

Another story to make this tangible.

In ancient India, there once was a murderer who had killed 99 people in a village. Each time he killed someone, he would take one finger and add it to a neckless. He was desperate to kill his one hundredth person.

Buddha visited the region where the killer lived, and against the counsel of all the villagers, traveled to his home. Upon encountering the murderer, Buddha, with his love & compassion for the miserable, changed the murderer forever, who determined to abandon violence and practice under Buddha. The murderer became a monk.

I want to develop this extreme compassion.

4 Mental action is the origin of vocal and physical action.

Uncontrollable mental defilements are the cause of immoral or hostile vocal and physical actions.

Let's break this down. A mental defilement is a thought, story, or mental interpretation which leads to anger, animosity, jealousy, or hatred. What I mean by uncontrollable is that the defilement has power over you — you don't have control over how it influences your behavior.

When a mental defilement is truly conscious, it means you're in control. You have the choice to ignore it or act on it. When you 'catch' mental defilements in their infancy, you don't allow them to transform your emotional state or generate any vocal or physical action.

Now, how do I practice this? Let's say I am biking on my commute and a big truck pulls up beside me, opens its window, and curses at me. The mind automatically starts to interpret the situation: "I'm not safe. I have to defend myself. Fuck this guy, he deserves to be put in his place. People in big trucks are always like this." This defilement might lead to anger, and then to me cursing back or kicking his truck.

My ideal reaction is this. "This person is miserable. I hope they find a way out of their suffering. Let me wish that they find a way out."

5 The opposite of dogma is experiential knowledge.

Goenka tells multiple stories throughout the 10-day course. He's very entertaining. One of his stories is about the difference between belief and experiential knowledge. He explains many paths to enlightenment as necessitating blind belief — they focus a lot on theory and language, instead of experiencing the practice for yourself.

He tells the story of a doctor and his patient. The patient goes to see the doctor, who recommends some behavior changes. The patient goes home and is so confident about his doctor. So he sets up an altar and worships the doctor. But he doesn't follow the doctor's behavioral prescription. There's no experience, only belief in the doctor's healing abilities. This is how a lot of people approach religion. Through belief.

Dhamma (the teachings of the Buddha) does not require belief. There's no need to learn the theory. If you do the practice, you will come to your own conclusions.

The application here is in teaching and learning: When a student experiences something for themselves, they eradicate doubt about the theory and become more motivated to learn.

Experiencing the benefit of something is the ultimate test for its utility. Not believing in its utility.

6 Addictions are to sensations, not to physical things.

The opposite of enlightenment is addiction. Addiction is the most extreme form of craving for a particular sensory experience. A drug may be the vehicle for the sensory experience, but it is the sensory experience that the addict craves. The sensation of withdrawal is what the addict avoids.

So you could replace the addictive drug with many things, and you'll see that the pattern of addiction is everywhere, to different extents.

Netflix'ers and TikTok'ers may be addicted to the absence of sensation coming from shutting off awareness completely and being 100% absorbed in entertainment. Social media influencers may be addicted to social validation (my next article).

7 Everyone is worth talking to.

When I was serving, there was one man who kept pestering me. He always asked me to follow really dumb rules. "You can't wear shorts. You need to sanitize the compost bucket. You shouldn't walk off the property." It drove me insane. He was enforcing the rules that made no sense!

And then, I talked to him.

He told me about his adventures, his self-inquiries, his transformations. He told me that he was leading meditation courses during the pandemic, during which he had to be meticulous.

I never saw him in the same light. I realized, "If this really annoying person was really fun & interesting, anyone probably is." Hearing him out dissolved all the tension.

Now, I am keen to hear about everyone's experiences. Even the cold-hearted people.

8 Don't work because others are working more or less than you.

When I was serving, I became a pro at washing dishes. I was fast, yet often I was the last person in the kitchen. My efficiency and effort led me to think to myself: "I likely do the most work here. They should do more work." After a few times, I said to myself. "Oh wait, I'm not doing this work to prove I am better than others! I am doing this for the meditators, to serve selflessly."

In teams, I tend to judge how much I should work based on how much work others are completing. When this judgement happens, it robs my work of joy because I am telling myself I am doing the work merely to compare myself to others.

When the work is being done for service or enjoyment, then how much work others are doing is irrelevant. Stop keeping score, because you're not doing it for the score. You're doing it for other reasons. When you keep score, your purpose for your work becomes superficial and your motivation to work dwindles when you're number #1.

Comparison is the thief of joy, they say.

9 Sacrificed reward in the moment < Reward for future self

When I was grating carrots, I overheard this conversation.

"What led you onto this path."

"Cancer. But after I cured my cancer, I left the path for a while. It wasn't until I got cancer again that I refound the path permanently. (Laughter)"

So often, humans skip the prevention and behave differently only when there is an immediate requirement. Only when the symptoms begin to appear. This short-term thinking pattern leads to a shallow life, an unhealthy body, and fragile relationships.

When you stop prioritizing the pleasures and comforts of the present self, there are sacrifices. Rewards accessible in the present are forgone. But these present rewards are less than the future rewards to the future 'present' self. And the future present self is just that: You, in the moment, in the future.

It's just that you won't be aware of how much your past self is benefitting you. It's not self-evident.

Maybe put down the wine this holiday season ??

10 I am always alone.

In the forest, I took out my journal and started to write. Here's what I wrote.

"All that matters is how you feel about yourself when you are by yourself. Right now, Jacques is alone. But is this true? If there is no self, is there such a thing? As a matter of experience, one is always alone. Being with others is a layer of conceptualization on reality."

WTF.

On another note, this is what Naval Ravikant says.

"The reality is life is a single-player game. You’re born alone. You’re going to die alone. All of your interpretations are alone. All your memories are alone. You’re gone in three generations and nobody cares. Before you showed up, nobody cared. It’s all single-player."

The core idea here is that 'feeling company and social support' is just that. It's a feeling felt alone. And so, nothing is stopping me from feeling this feeling when I am in the absence of other beings.

Loneliness is the lack of feeling of social support and inclusion. But this is a feeling — a collection of sensations arising in the body given the label of loneliness. The mind reacts to the sensations with the synthesis of lonely thoughts: "I am a loner, nobody wants to hang out with me, I have no friends, people don't include me, I'm so alone."

And, the result is physiological stress, poor health outcomes, and a weakened immune system. This is the power of the mind.

So, the takeaway? Humans think their way into loneliness. By letting your mind rule your body, you convince yourself that you're lonely and then start to identify with the label — a self-reinforcing loop.

Really, you're always alone. You just think your way into a sense of connectedness and inclusion.

Ironically, I am the greatest advocate for human connection you'll ever meet. I am also hypocritical, like every human you meet.

Final Commentary

Buddha discovered the laws of reality and taught them. The 10-day course is one of the most challenging experiences I've faced in life. Worse than real emergencies. But now, I am equipped with an understanding of the root of misery, and one of the paths out.

To become unconditionally happy, find fulfilment and gratitude in the continuity of consciousness, not its contents [sensations, thoughts, visions].

Final Recommendation

When you notice yourself labeling & interpreting your sensory experience, stop & feel.

10 seconds. If you're feeling thankful, could you like or comment on this article? What wisdom do you have to share with other readers? We'd love to hear your additions.

If you liked this, you'll like my blog about well-being and social skills.?Sign up for?access to my best event tools.

Thanks for spreading healthier human connections ??

— Jacques The Party Scientist, BSc. Pharmacology

PS:?I help workplaces develop a connection strategy to prevent turnover and burnout.?Feel free to forward my contact to innovative leaders who want new paradigms for improving their workplace rating and retention.