A Lifetime Happiness & Focus Enhancer: Vipassana Meditation

It’s good to be back ‘online’ here! I just returned from an amazing 10-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat in North Fork, CA (near Yosemite).

There were 120+ other people there, evenly split between men and women and ages from 20s-60s. Dhamma.org, describes Vipassana as: "This non-sectarian technique aims for the total eradication of mental impurities and the resultant highest happiness of full liberation. Healing, not merely the curing of diseases, but the essential healing of human suffering, is its purpose."

And a booklet from the retreat continues:

What Vipassana is not:

• It is not a rite or ritual based on blind faith.
• It is neither intellectual nor a philosophical entertainment.
• It is not a rest cure, a holiday, or an opportunity for socializing.
• It is not an escape from the trials and tribulations of everyday life.
  

What Vipassana is:

• It is a technique that will eradicate suffering.
• It is a method of mental purification which allows one to face life's tensions and problems in a calm, balanced way.
• It is an art of living that one can use to make positive contributions to society.
  

How I benefit from regular meditation

Even before this retreat, I'd been meditating for about a year (simple observation of my breathing, not Vipassana) because:

1. Meditation enhances my ability to focus. It creates mental ‘space’, helping me distinguish “activity” versus “productivity”. Ever feel like you’re so busy doing ‘stuff’, but when you look back, none of it felt like it mattered? It doesn’t matter how hard you’re working to climb that mountain…if you’re climbing the wrong mountain.
2. It opens up my creativity - I’ve had some great ideas come through!
3. It enhances my happiness and contentment
   
4. It's enjoyable - calming and relaxing, like a mental massage :)
   

How I got started with meditation – slowly; babysteps!

I started about a year ago, after beginning to work with an Ayurvedic nutritionist (which is also when I stopped drinking coffee and alcohol). I started with just a few minutes at a time in the morning, and slowly built from there. Even now I don’t meditate every day. For the past six months, it’s been about 3-5x per week, for 10-30min, and slowly getting more consistent over time. I am increasing that now after the retreat.

Attitude makes all the difference

I've found my attitude makes a huge difference. When I started a year ago, meditation felt like more of a chore, as if my conscious was a mom saying “eat your peas, dear”. OK ok…grumble, grumble. However, once I got the hang of it and stopped resisting, I began to look forward to it as an enjoyable, relaxing mental space, like a mental spa break ☺ Do you look at going to the spa as a chore? The kid grew up and realizes they not only like peas, but even looks forward to meals full of them! (Please ignore this analogy if you don't like peas as an adult.)

I heard about Vipassana from a friend about three years ago, and even though I wasn't meditating at the time and had no idea what Vipassana was, I immediately had a feeling of "I want to do that!" (someday).

The retreat: 10 days of silence to calm the mind and enable the study

It's called "Noble Silence" - no communication during retreat with other students or the outside world, either by voice, glance or gesture. The purpose is to calm the mind, to enable one to really learn and apply the technique. You can see ask the teachers questions, and their is instruction, so it's not totally silent. I found the silence actually very easy, and it did make the practice easier to learn.

Walking into the retreat, and leaving behind iPhone, camera, etc., and knowing I wouldn't have access to email or my phone for 10 days, my mind immediately calmed down...

How it went & what I got (including an unintended addiction)

We had a suprisingly busy schedule, beginning at 4am, of meditation, breakfast, meditation, lunch, meditation, evening tea break, meditation, and then evening discourses. I was asleep by 9:30p each night. During the long meal breaks, I'd nap or take walks on the walking paths. The food was amazing! I became addicted to Celestial Seasoning's "Bengal Spice tea", a form of chai without black tea or caffeine. Yum!! Don't worry, caffeine addicts - they had instant coffee there too.

Although some people had a really tough time in the first couple of days with the silence and hours of meditation, I found it was surprisingly easy; a piece of cake. I had some tough days (Day 8 was a low one for me), but it was all worth it. I was surprised that it was harder physically than mentally for me, because I wasn't used to sitting like that for so long. Many other experienced meditators brought their own cushions and backrests. For novices like me, the Center had a ton of cushions and benches there for people to try out and use. It took 3-4 days to figure out my 'seating system'.

Here are some of the specific things I got from the retreat:

• A practice that will increase my happiness, calmness and awareness in all situations in my life
• Clarity/confirmation that what I'm doing with PebbleStorm is exactly what I should be doing with my life
• A GREAT image for PebbleStorm, using a tree to illustrate four levels of happiness, and how PebbleStorm helps people tap into the most enduring, meaningful forms of happiness. It's only sketched in pen now, I'll have to play with it before I'm ready to post it here. First a Sun, now a tree...I sense a trend here in using natural images in addition to my circles...
• A shift in my thinking of the balance of buddhism/happiness thinking and capitalism in PebbleStorm (a topic for another day). I used to think it was 50/50, but really the mix is more like 80% buddhism/happiness and 20% capitalism. By the way - if you're unfamiliar with buddhism, its core isn't religious at all, though sects have added rites and rituals. It is simply a system to help people achieve lasting happiness ("enlightenment").

Did I mention the 10-day retreat was free? It’s 100% donation-supported.

And by the way, the course is free. Yes, lodging and TASTY meals for 10 days. They do ask for a donation at the end, “to pay for others”, but it’s by no means required and there is really no pressure at all. The entire worldwide organization, in 120 countries, runs on a donation and volunteer basis. This is how strongly people feel about how Vipassana has impacted their lives!

A worldwide non-profit driven by genuine, passionate commitment

Both the practice itself and the non-profit organization teaching it at more than 120 centers around the world are fascinating. Run by volunteers (even teachers aren’t paid), it’s a worldwide, well-oiled machine. The retreat ran like The reason the organization works so well is because of people’s passion for the benefits they receive from Vipassana...and they want to help others receive the same benefits.

Now: integrating it to my (daily) life

They recommend, as a minimum, an hour of meditation in the morning, and an hour in the evening. Rather than start out strongly and probably have some discouraging breakdowns in the practice, personally I know I'll be more successful with a gradually building practice (this is me - what you need to be successful might be very different). It'll take me some time to figure out my routine and to really make it a part of my daily life. For the next three months, I'm going to do it as much as possible, at least once a day, but realize that I have some experimentation to do. Especially since I'll be traveling and moving quite a bit between San Francisco, Los Angeles and Buenos Aires...and any kind of travel plays hell with my routine.

“I could never meditate, my mind is too busy/I have ADD..."

I've heard this from so many people. If your mind is so agitated, isn’t that exactly why you should work to tame it, to put it to work for you rather than being at its mercy? Jumping into a 10 day silent retreat might be too much at first, but there are plenty of ways to try it out in smaller steps.

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