Vipassana meditation course

Me, Julien Deckx, going on a meditation course? That sounds a bit like the pope going to a school of rock, you may say. How did I get this crazy idea? A French guy I met in India - the same guy who had told me to go to Tribeni Ghat - had done it. He told me how "his mind had escaped his body" at some point. I'm a bit too skeptical to accept that kind of statement just like that, but I thought I should be open-minded enough to at least find out for myself. Adding to that my growing interest for Buddhism and the vague resolution to "work on my body and mind" during my trip, it sounded like a perfect plan.

Vipassana meditation is "a method of mental purification which allows one to face life's tensions and problems in a calm, balanced way". During the ten-day course, you spend ten hours a day meditating. The rules are very strict: no talking or other forms of communication with other students (a.k.a. noble silence), complete separation of men and women, no music, no reading, no writing - even physical exercise and religious rituals are forbidden. The students must also observe Five Precepts: no killing any living being (yep, that includes the mozzies), no stealing, no sexual activities, no telling lies (pretty hard to lie when you're not allowed to communicate), no intoxicants. Also, there is no dinner; there's a tea break at 5 p.m., where new students do get cereals and an apple. Here's the full timetable of a day in what I like to call "concentration camp":

4:00 a.m. Morning wake-up bell
4:30 - 6:30 a.m. Meditate in the hall
6:30 - 8:00 a.m. Breakfast break
8:00 - 9:00 a.m. Group meditation in the hall
9:00 - 11:00 a.m. Meditate in the hall
11:00 - noon Lunch break
12:00 -1:00 p.m. Rest
1:00 - 2:30 p.m. Meditate in the hall
2:30 - 3:30 p.m. Group meditation in the hall
3:30 - 5:00 p.m. Meditate in the hall
5:00 - 6:00 p.m. Tea break
6:00 - 7:00 p.m. Group meditation in the hall
7:00 - 8:15 p.m. Teacher's discourse in the hall
8:15 - 9:00 p.m. Group meditation in the hall
9:00 - 9:30 p.m. Question time in the hall
9:30 p.m. Retire to your room; lights out

At the center where I went, Vipassana is taught by S.N. Goenka. Since there are hundreds of such centers all over the world, the teacher is only present virtually, on CD's and DVD's. He is also represented by an assistant teacher. Just like the rest of the staff, the teacher works as a volunteer. The course is completely free of charge, but students are encouraged to give a donation.

On the first of September, the first day of school for children in Belgium, I took a couple of buses and hiked up to the Vipassana center at Begnas lake, close to Pokhara. I felt a bit like on a first schoolday - the same mix of excitement, curiosity and fear. How will the teacher be? Will my classmates be nice? When I arrived, other students were filling in some papers. Whispering, I asked if I was still allowed to talk. Yes, was the answer; the noble silence would start after the first evening session. After going through the necessary paperwork, we had the afternoon free. So I spent a couple of hours chatting with the people I would live with, but not say a word to, for ten days. After tea, we got an introduction, where they repeated the rules and modalities of the course. And then, to the meditation hall! The teacher (the real one) gave a short introduction, after which he switched on the CD player. The teacher (the virtual one) then explained what we were to do the first three days. We had to breathe through our nose, and observe our respiration, as well as any sensation - tickling, pressure, pain, etc.- in the triangular area formed by the nose and the base of the upper lip. That's it? That's it. For ten hours a day. I was looking forward to it.

At 4 o'clock the next morning, the gong signaled the start of day 1. There's a wake-up gong 4, and a second signal at 4.30, when meditation starts. That first morning, I found it very pleasant to be woken up by a gong. For the first and last time, I enthusiastically got up with the first signal to freshen up and brush my teeth. I really enjoyed my first morning meditation. While we all sat there, perfectly quiet, the day slowly awoke and the first rays of the sun appeared through the windows. The last half hour of every morning session, the teacher (the real one) puts on a CD of chanting by the teacher (the virtual one). Meditating there, with the rising sun and the (not so melodious, but still special) voice of the teacher in the background: I was loving it.
Day one was fairly easy. Of course, I had a hard time keeping my attention on my breath. My thoughts were wandering, but I tried my best to bring them back to my respiration. I was a bit worried about my position. I knew that at some point we wouldn't be allowed to change position during meditation anymore. So I started experimenting with how to put my legs - with little success. Lotus position? Impossible. Half lotus position? Extremely painful. Cross-legged with right foot under left leg? Foot falls asleep and hurts a lot after a while. Left foot under right leg? Ouch, no! Whichever position I tried, I had to give up after less than half an hour because the pain got too intense.

On the second day, I had the first case of what I call "mental mutiny". I got angry, and started questioning the whole meditation course. What am I doing here? I have a bad concentration, I don't really believe in Buddhist theories, and I'm too stiff to sit cross-legged for a long time. Besides, I'm perfectly happy; I don't need this. I got over my anger and carried on patiently, but it came back the second day, twice. I just got sick and tired of constantly concentrating on the same thing. This set the tone for the rest of the course. Every day had its ups and downs. There wasn't a single day that I didn't feel hopeless or fed up at least once; but every day I managed to win a couple of small personal victories.

My biggest enemy, I soon understood, was time. I knew the principle all too well from my boring summer jobs as a student: the more you want time to pass, the less it does. So you try to make the best of the situation - in this case, to explore the wonders of your own respiration. Not easy, with a concentration span like mine: "Okay, concentrate on your breath. All the air seems to go through my right nostril. Interesting. Yeah... I feel a bit thirsty. I could definitely go for a Belgian beer right now. Possibly a Duvel. Hmm, Duvel... I wonder what kind of weather they're having in Belgium. And if we have a government yet...probably not. Oh shit, that's right, I'm meditating. Were was I? Oh yeah, so, right nostril...amazing..."

On day 4, we started the actual Vipassana meditation. We now had to focus our attention on our entire body, as the teacher (the virtual one) repeated endlessly: "part by part, piece by piece". The purpose was to understand the changing nature of our body: nothing stays forever (or to say it in terms of western classical philosophy: panta rhei - everything flows). Unfortunately, by the time I would get to my left small toe I would have forgotten the itch I had felt on top of my head and the strange pressure on my right cheek.
After the 4th day, the three one-hour group sessions we had every day would be "hours of strong determination". This meant we had to try not to move at all during one hour. I knew this was the start of some serious suffering.

In the meantime, I started to get into the daily routine at the meditation center. I got used to getting up, eating and going to sleep at the same times every day, and developed my own little rituals. Having no-one to talk to, I entertained myself with jokes and comments, smiling on my own. I looked forward to the teacher's discourses in the end of the evening, showed on DVD - the one time in the day I did something else than meditating, eating, sleeping or just sitting around. The teacher (the virtual one) is an extremely good speaker, who uses a lot of humor and anecdotes in his discourses. Every night, he would tell something more about the theory of Vipassana meditation and Buddhist ideas in general. However, as the days passed, I disagreed more and more with him. He talked about how everything is made up of basic particles consisting of earth, water, air and fire and then he claimed that the theory matches the modern ideas of quantum physics - a bit hard for me to stomach.

During the breaks, there's nothing else to do than taking a nap or just sitting outside. It was raining quite a lot those days, but when it didn't, most of us would hang around in the garden in front. We would admire the magnificent view on the lake, and observe the shadows that the clouds painted on the green terraced hills. The prohibition to communicate - which, by the way, is not at all hard to observe - made it pretty special; not often do people spend long moments just enjoying a view together without saying a word. I knew that, when the sky was clear, there was a magnificent view on the snow-capped Annapurnas. I secretly hoped that the last days, the rains would stop, and I would be able to admire the mountains - an excellent transition to the trek I had planned to do after the course. We caught our first glimpses of snow and rocks on day 6. On day 7, we occasionally had good views on some of the peaks. The morning of day 8 was beautiful and clear, and most of the mountains, with their unlikely jagged forms, were visible. We all stared, awe-struck, at the beauty that surrounded us. Those unmovable white giants, which had been standing there the whole time, were finally revealed to us. My euphoria was bad for my concentration: monsoon is over! Let's go trekking! Unfortunately, it was too good to be true; the rains came back in the next days.

The rainy season is a great time for insects. Many a times I had to dodge because I was on the trajectory of some flying invertebrate madman - quite often huge flying cockroaches. It was impossible to observe the precept of not killing any beings. On one of the first days, I rescued ants who were helplessly drowning in my shower. I later decided that my vow didn't compel me to actually save lives. I must have (half-)unintentionally squashed dozens of ants. I don't think I killed any mosquitoes; fortunately, I had brought large quantities of insect repellent cream. But there weren't only cockroaches, ants and mosquitoes. Our meditation sessions were always accompanied by vuvuzela concerts of grasshoppers and crickets. I also saw a couple of real masters of camouflage - insects looking extraordinarily accurately like a leaf or a twig. And one time we stared with open mouth at a huge caterpillar, I estimate about 20 cm long and and 3 cm in diameter. The Nepalis quickly caught it with a branch and threw it away, because it might be dangerous.

After the freshness of concentrating on something else than just my respiration, I got bored with the Vipassana technique pretty quickly. I was still fighting my battle with time - in fact, it seemed to go slower and slower. I forced myself not to think about it, and never to look at the big clock that was hanging behind us. Another temptation was to analyze the movements of the others, and to compare. "See, this guy is fed up too, it's normal", I would think, or, "that guy seems to be so concentrated all the time. How does he do it?". By far the most interesting moments for me were the group sessions. Sitting cross-legged for one hour straight is a real torture. After half an hour, the pain starts. Initially, it's pretty easy to ignore- but after a while, it just becomes too intense. That's when you start negotiating with yourself. You started the hour determined not to budge. So there's a part of you that really wants you to succeed. But there's another part of you, one that's screaming louder and louder, that wants you to stop the madness. It's very much like the little demon and angel on the shoulders. As a child, I used to play a game with my grandmother. She had a mirror with two sides, one of which was magnifying. My reflection on this side was "big Julien", a mature and reasonable boy, and the other side was "small Julien", a capricious child. On those moments of agony, small Julien is angry with big Julien: "Why are you doing this? It hurts!" He starts inventing excuses: "You're too stiff for this, you won't succeed anyway. Besides, it's only the third time you're trying it. Nobody expects you to do the full hour that quickly. Look, the guy next to you gave up already." The first few times, that's how I usually failed; I would come up with an excuse that seemed acceptable. So after a while, I started thinking of all the possible excuses beforehand and making up counter-arguments. That worked well - big Julien became intransigent. After running out of excuses, I would start begging myself, mentally dropping to my knees, but the determined part of me was just stronger. So I managed to make it through the hour, one or two times a day, but the suffering was still intense. I had to find a way to make the last fifteen minutes more bearable. At first, I tried just to ignore the pain, and to stay positive. I had to disconnect emotionally from the sharp impulses my body was sending to my brain. After a while, I became pretty good at it. Interestingly, rather than trying to ignore the pain, it seemed better to focus on it and analyze it - sometimes, it would even fade away. I had moments in which I could look at my body objectively and observe that I was in a lot of pain, without reacting to it. My mind disconnected from my body; in that sense, I think I came to understand pretty well what my French friend meant. It was even a bit frightening sometimes, and a couple of times the feeling lasted even after the meditation was over. One time, as I was concentrating on particularly intense pain in my leg, I had a very special feeling, as if my whole body was being sucked upward. One step closer to levitation, I guess.

As the end of the course drew nearer, I started really losing my patience. On day 9, during the lunch break, I burst into hysterical laughter at the thought of some funny event. I just couldn't contain myself - probably a result of the long days of forced self-restraint. That afternoon, I realized I was really tired of observing my body over and over again. I didn't agree with the theory behind it, and I had completely lost my motivation. But I saw it as a challenge to make it until the last day, and the hours of strong determination I still found interesting, so I stayed. I started taking more breaks, but still tried to concentrate and make the best of it, as it was the only way to cope with it.

On the morning of day 10, Vipassana meditation was over. We were allowed to talk again, and only the three remaining group sittings would still be held. I had thought I would come out of ten days of silence and meditation (almost 100 hours in total!) calm and detached. More the contrary, I was bursting with energy and full of plans. I wasn't the only one; everybody was beaming with joy. We chattered and chattered and chattered - I have never been as talkative as in the next few days. It's amazing how you can become attached to people you don't communicate with. For nine days, we hadn't said a word to each other, but we had lived together, eaten and slept together, gone through the same difficulties - that really creates a bond.

On the morning of day 11, after breakfast, we were free to go. Back to the real world. I evaluated the previous week. Was it worthwhile? The answer is definitely yes. The ultimate purpose of the technique is to learn how to suppress negative emotions like anger and craving. I don't believe in the theory behind the technique, which is based on Buddhist principles. Although the teacher insists that the technique is universal and not based on any religion, he talks about things like reincarnation as if they were completely accepted by everyone. In spite of that, I don't completely rule out the possibility that it could somehow be beneficial. When you're angry, you get a very strong impulse to react. Similarly, during the hour of strong determination, the pain gives rise to a very strong impulse that urges you to change position. It may be that by learning to observe pain objectively without reacting to it, you learn how to do the same with anger. In theory, you should meditate for two hours every day to make the technique effective - not very realistic, if you ask me. Apart from that, I think by meditating you learn how to be patient. Patience seems to be the ability to make the best of a moment, regardless of past and future. When you meditate, you are sitting there, and you'll be sitting there one more hour, so you might as well explore your body for sensations. And in fact, it's pretty surprising how detailed the sensations are that you start identifying after a while. I had the feeling that my mind was sharper altogether, although that's not something that I can determine objectively. Spending a lot of time with few external impulses, I also came to many insights and ideas - unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to write them down during the course. In spite of all these benefits, it was very hard, and I was extremely bored at times, especially towards the end. In conclusion: I'm glad I did it, but I won't do it again.

On the last day, we were shown a documentary about how the Vipassana technique was (allegedly successfully) taught to inmates of the biggest prison in India. You can find it, in 11 parts, on Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtbBYzrYnAs). To be honest, I don't really know what to make of it.