Vipassana:-in the Buddhist tradition means insight into the nature of reality.

So I did the retreat, and I found it very difficult, but very interesting upon reflection and very rewarding. My mind cycles very very quickly, and I have been aware for a long time that I need a lot of stimulation to keep it interested, so the difficulty came when i removed all stimulation’s! Its was like trying to watch 10 movies at the same time all on fast play sometimes! Still, i did find moments where it slowed down to the speed of life and even slower. I was going to do 10 days, but since they said at the start that 7 is the recommended minimum, I bailed out after 7 days!! I feel a bit like i let myself down by that, but also I realize that there are many other ways to gain from the mind. Vipasanna is just one way.

I took these pictures of the ‘instructions’ they give you when you arrive, this is the first book, the main one. (The one below is additional information).

This is the second book, additional information, the main thing they point out in these booklets is to watch the mind, and label everything it does. So when you walk, label it like this “left foot, right foot” and you can do a very slow walk where you label it like this “lifting (left foot) moving, placing, lifting (right foot), moving placing” and when doing the sitting meditation you just watch abdomen “Raising, lowering”. Over and over, with the aim of increasing your concentration, and its this increase in concentration that delves into the almost infinite depths of your mind, to find realizations and inspirations as to the workings of the mind. They are worth reading though, these booklets, its quite insightful just to read the information in these, and it shows you how different a religion Buddhism really is.

There are many aspects to the retreat that are talking about in the above ‘instructions’, I can’t be bothered writing them all out but they are interesting, so read it if you like.

So I did learn that my mind is super runaway and fast, I see it as a gift and a curse, but I don’t think I would risk changing it for another mind if I had the chance, its super interesting to me. So I would be meditating and then suddenly i realized i had been indulging in some thought and wondering mind for 10 minutes or so before realizing to label it as what it was, a wondering mind, this is the whole point of it all, whatever goes on in the mind just label it, realize it as soon as possible. I was often are of this super fast searching just underneath my watching the breathing, my mind flicking through so many pictures, sometimes i gained a glimpse deeper into that, i got a glimpse of something wonderful, a knot of potential thoughts, a thousand potential things to think about, then something would rapidly leap out and block the view to its source. Once I even suddenly caught myself juggling in my head! Just juggling away, this i happily indulged watching my juggling in my head. It amused me greatly! It made me think about my juggling as something special. Not just my juggling, but all juggling, and all action for that matter, all automatic movement. When I juggle my arms move fast, and comparing it to the meditation walking i would find it very hard to watch each movement of the arms. So I was super keen to get out of the retreat and juggle and watch my mind when I was doing it! The speed of juggling is also interesting, i found that sometimes doing the walking meditation that i could concentrate for longer if i moved quicker than the very slow walk i was doing, i think its my quick mind, the speed of walking fast and juggling, it finds it relaxing, it ‘catches up’ if you like (Yesterday I had a great juggle, going as fast as I could, realizing that there was great peace to watch the body without really see what its doing, more like seeing all these rapid complicated movements as whole, I wonder what Buddha would have to say about this as a potential practice, watching complicated processes without getting involved, seeing them as a whole, using them to some conclusion like he did with this mindfulness, i kind of suspect it would lead to the same conclusions). Also whilst meditating i was presented with patterns that I wanted to draw, and drawing for me is a much slower process, very slow in fact, so its nice to have this balance in my interests. One fast and one slow. I know i’ll for sure never loose this vipasanna way of looking at the mind now when i do these personal things. I was doing it in way anyway, always curious to do something to my mind to see how it would react. Hence my love of traveling, wanting to put myself in new situations all the time.

I had some very tough times in the retreat, there were so many mosquito’s! Too many! One of the days it was so hot as well, very humid, i was dripping with sweat all over my body, and being eaten by mosquito’s everywhere I went, apart from sat under a net. In the hall however the electricity had gone off, so under the mosquito nets we al had for sitting meditation was like a sauna, with no fan to cool me down, i got very frustrated and went to my dorm, but there were mosquito’s in there! So i sat under the net in there and cried a bit out of frustration! Amazing that putting myself in this vipasanna situation caused this emotion to rise up so much, so much frustration at not being able to still my mind, but then after a while it passed and since I was constantly trying to stay with the frustratio, stay looking it at objectively, when it passed i realized rather profoundly the impermanence of these states of minds. A wonderful realization, this is what vipasanna helps to develop, the realization of the impermanence of all things. I had a wonderful few times meditating, where i got such strange feelings, stepping out of my body but still feeling it, yet not letting the pains accumulate. It made me realize with time all these feelings, pains, and emotions accumulate and cause more trouble than they are, this aspect permeates in many ways. For instance we accumulate predicatively reflectively. I’ll explain, we get a pain in our body from sitting, our mind then knows that if we move we can alleviate the pain, so we get a desire to move, our mind reflects on past experiences to predict a better future and then causes a desire for us to…well..desire! And its this desire which is the cause of all suffering, its so abstract and to actually see this is quite liberating (it leads me to ponder if a being is in pain from birth then would they ever actually be aware of the pain? if its one isolate pain that doesn’t subside, the body would know know different, i guess there wouldn’t be a pain then, pain it seems arises out of the contrast between two states). Anyway, Whilst in this strange state of mind I was in a very spacious zone where i could feel all the influences around my body, like i was in a wonderful art gallery glimpsing pieces in all directions, deciding which one to go and inspect, the vipasanna recommendation for this state of mind would be to watch the breathing whenever its the most predominant, and since I felt like I had full choice here I did eventually focus on the breathing, its tempting to just stay back though and try and focus on all things at once, but they recommend not to do this, I never found out why not, what would happen if you develop this state of mind, try and remain aware of all things at once, maybe if you develop ultra awareness for one thing long enough eventually you just become aware of all things rather neatly, this is actually one of the claimed skills the Buddha gained, not just awareness of all his mind objects, but omniscient awareness of everything, I remain skeptical about that sudden awareness of everything, like what does it mean? Was he aware for instance of the activity on a star some 100′s of millions of light years away? I think not. Anyway, this spacious zone state was a feeling that like had stepped to the side of time and was walking around a timeless zone, there was none of the accumulative nature that time has on the mind. Another similar feeling i had was ultra focused on the breathing, my main sensation was the pattern of my breathing, seeing the whole path it took as a shape that moved within its own time, a still shape in 4 dimensions i guess. It was so huge and that session of meditation passed very smoothly. A few other times I had these sensations of stepping out of my body, one time i had a weird feeling that I couldn’t seem to shake, it was a feeling that my right arm was on the left side and my left arm was on the right side! Weird hey! Another time I had a sensation that my eyes were just to the right of me, floating outside my body, very strange and unique and I couldn’t shake it, of course when I opened my eyes eventually it stopped.

Like the last retreat I went on there was a western monk who would give lectures, (along with a very peaceful female monk from Burma who spoke excellent English). I think he was Irish, he had a slight accent that could have come from England or America really, I couldn’t tell, but I do suspect Irish. I didn’t find out his western name but his Buddhist name was Vivekananda. When i first saw him, this western monk, I felt awe, respect and curiosity. But then a few things he said made me a bit skeptical, (I wouldn’t be where I am today if I didn’t have this skeptical doubt within me). Once he talked about joy and happiness, and how all the meditator’s in there have the joy of the retreat, and sometimes one of them will have to go out for a visa extension or other such reason, how they have to deal with traffic and noise and so much stimulation in the cities. But then they have the joy of coming back to the retreat. But I like cities! I like all that noise and stimulation. To observe it all is wonderful, to be stuck in it can be hard I agree, but when you observe it without getting involved its wonderful for me! Its can be as wonderful as watching wildlife, whats the difference between us and nature anyway? We are perfectly natural, to think otherwise is a little bit self hating isn’t it? Another time Viv went on about effort, and how to increase your effort, thinking about the Buddha and his ways being a way to do this. Thinking about the omniscient powers he had, he said that since the Buddha was the only person to attain this type of Nirvana, where he gained these omniscient powers, he was therefore “The most special human that ever lived” he actually said this, but if your gonna believe in 2000 year old stories, what about good old J.C. superstar, walking on water! He talked about how he entered another monks dreams and gave him advice, and then he talked about this Indian holy man he came across near Burma. This guy he was told could do special things, one time he stopped the rain for a few weeks whilst the villagers built a damn, and sometimes when he meditates in-front of a bowl of water bubbles can appear in it, also when this guy walked in the jungle tigers don’t eat him. Well, sometimes it doesn’t rain, and sometimes bubbles do come in water, and quite often people don’t get eaten by tigers, and these are all just stories, and for sure I know how I can exaggerate things to make something appear more fantastic, and I know other people do so its hardly information that’s to be trusted, and certainly not believed without question, Viv never saw the guy do any miracle, but he did say that these were stories from the local people, allowing us to make up our own minds about them. To me this talk of miracles in certain contexts is cheap, like unneeded special effects in a movie. Already there are enough special effects going on in my mind and in life, I don’t need these tales really, I just need to stay aware of the uniqueness of it all as it stands (A wonderful quote from Douglas Adams is “Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”). Viv also went on about people who do Vipasanna to just see what its all about, with no real dedication and understanding of the practice, people who lack effort and ultimately not enjoy the vipasanna and leave. This felt a bit like me, I did lack effort at times, and dreamed of the day I would leave a lot. And whats wrong with doing it just too see what its all about, he did say though that if someone is lacking effort, missing sessions and such this effects the other meditator’s which is fair enough, I see the truth in this, this aspect did make me put in more effort. He was curious to me though, this western monk, and obviously has a lot of wisdom and dedication and its to be admired and respected, but i think he is set in his ways, or more set in the ways of Buddhism, he is a monk after all! I wonder if he accpets that there are other equally enlightening path ways you can go on in life (he mentioned in another talk that there are people that have attained enlightenment without following Buddhism, yet these people cannot explain their enlightenment or teach it as well as the Buddha did), but then again Buddhism does totally kick the ass of any other religion (Hinduism coming a close second). My talking of Vivekananda in this way is a way to boost my own ego, I admit that, when we talk low of someone else and criticize them its to climb upon their shoulders within our minds, whatever elitism i’m accusing him of is reflected in me, however its not such big criticisms, it would be nice to talk to him about these issues I have, still, some things he said did clearly raise some questions about his mindfulness, and to say these things for an audience of learning meditator’s was a bit strange to me. I guess its the religious aspect of the whole thing which I do keep forgetting, Buddhism IS a religion. Even though its right near the edge of not being one. In my mind though this retreat pushed Buddhism a bit more towards religion than I thought it was. It is the most insightful one going though, its super good in many many ways. I wonder what Buddha would think of it all now? I suspect some aspects of it would give him cause for concern, seeing that he has enslaved some people as apposed to setting them free. I’m sure J.C. would be more let down by whats become of Christianity though. As for a fight between J.C. and Buddha, my money would be on J.C. he proved himself physically by casting out the money lenders from the temple. Buddha is all emaciated from all that meditation, this prediction however is nothing to do with me being from a Christian country, as I said before, Buddhism wins above other religions for me by a long shot. Its much more no nonsense and to the point, the way it talks about the mind is still very relevant today, and even more so what with our increasing scientific understanding of how the mind works. I think a culmination and joining of esoteric learning’s and neurological science could lead to some amazing insights, and ultimately ways to decrease suffering in the world.

The other meditator’s were curious. Its funny because everyone has such a serious concentrated look. And since we never really have half an opinion of someone, more like we instantly take whatever we see and it fills up the space for “One person” in our mind, i just saw everyone as struggling and kind of grumpy because this is all I saw when I looked on their faces! Either that or just a blank expression. I heard of few of the people speak when they were asking questions after a lecture and this was very interesting. All of a sudden they exploded into more fuller people in my mind. One woman from Belgium was very dedicated, she was planning on a 5 month retreat! I would love to experience that, maybe one day I will feel that curiosity strongly and i will have enough effort to be able to do it. Now though i’m way too interested and eager to do all these other things and follow all these thought pathways in my mind to conclusions. A friend of mine said she did this same retreat and when she did it there was a German girl who was there for 13 months! In the end she had to leave, but she didn’t want to. I’m not sure why she HAD to, seems a little like an addiction really. Vipasanna for me was/is a way to learn to understand and ultimately deal with my mind, not to run away from it, which she clearly was if she didn’t want to go back to the real world, because whats she running away from really? Surely its her mind! I wonder if she saw a goal with all the vipasanna? Was she really aiming for Nirvana? Still, I shouldn’t criticize, there is no way I could consider doing even a month there, so she has something that I don’t. Such concentration. I guess she has something special and she is learning how to control it, and vipasanna holds it together and enables her to control it nicely. I am more a being of chaos, the control is what causes suffering, like putting an animal in a cage I guess, let the animal go and learn from what it does i say, little touches and interactions here and there work well enough for me to gain more insight.

As I said it was super tough for me. But I feel great for it now, my mind is full of inspiration. And i am using the practice of watching the mind, and will continue to do so for as long as it appears useful. I have no doubts as to how useful it is to watch the mind like this. I believe some kind of mind watching technique should be taught to children, even it should be one of the first thing a child learns, show them that their mind will do things without them being aware of it and to improve this awareness leads to great things. We never teach anything like this in the west, to me this is a major travesty and we are letting down people by not sharing this insightful knowledge.

Any questions? (And Batty, Nope! I didn’t squeeze in any Squarepusher! The only thing I did which I shouldn’t was take a few pictures of some ants and spiders in my room )