[ V I P A S S A N A ] 10 days meditation camp | Not for the light hearted

10 days silent meditation course is FU@KING HARD! 

It’s not for the mentally lazy people for sure, this military-styled bootcamp required a huge amount of strong determination & strong will power.
I’m so proud that I have graduated from kindergarten of Zen and can now sit still for an hour in peace almost anywhere, anytime. 

So proud.  

WHY I DID IT?

Two years ago a friend mentioned this and I thought
“no talking for 10 days? Nah-ma-stay-at-home, I’ll pass”

I wasn’t ready back then, but the seed had been planted.

Few months ago another friend mentioned this to me again, something in my heart told me to go.

“Don’t do research, don’t check reviews, don’t find excuses, shut up and just sign up, just go!” My heart said.

Ok. There I was, checked myself into the meditation centre in Healesville, wondering what the fuck? Can I even do this? Is it a nice & relaxed yoga retreat holiday? 

(No, I was so wrong, this is like going to the hyperbolic time chamber from Dragon Balls Z, you go in for 12 days, like 5 years of a monk’s life, we should all get a PHD in meditation, it’s fucking tough.)

WHAT'S THE END GOAL?

• To live a harmonious life:
  Live with inner peace, spread the love to all beings.
  
• To embrace change:
  Life has ups & downs, but how you handle your emotions is the key to happiness.
  
• To be aware, alert and stay equanimous:
  Good things bad things they come & go.
  
• To break out of misery:
  Realized that your life today is the sum of your thought pattern of the past 30+ years, how to control your own mind is the key to change your reality.
  
• How to break the blind reactions when facing any situations:
  Agreeable or not agreeable, be the master of your own life.
  
• When making decisions or do any actions in the future:
  Be aware that you don’t harm/hurt anyone, including yourself and all other living things, human or animals.
  
• Head to the enlightenment direction:
  Stay with the path to the truth, eventually you will be a loving person.
  
• To train your mind, work out for the brain, to have a strong will power.
  
• Learning to acknowledge and accept without judgement.
  
• Learning to focus your attention, to be here and now.
  
• Learn how to welcome greater awareness, clarity and acceptance into your life and celebrate the beauty of living with mindfulness.
  
• To remove your deepest darkest emotions:
  Totally cut out from the root, in the physical form, from your body.

WHAT'S THE FOOD LIKE?

They are very simple home cooked vegetarian meals, prepared by the volunteers, freshly cooked daily.

At first I thought “what do you mean by No meat? Not even eggs? And only one breakfast + one lunch + afternoon fruit a day, no dinner? No mocha? How can I survive?”

Surprisingly, I really enjoyed the meals and ate way more then my normal portion and probably put on weight! That’s why I power walk a lot.

INSTANT KARMA

The teacher kept reminding us not to generate any new blind reactions to aversion or cravings, they are the reasons why human suffer, why we are miserable.

I understand that we shouldn’t have negative emotions like anger / shame  / guilt  / depression / doubt.

And we shouldn’t be greedy neither.

But how about happiness?

A lot of religion will tell you that if you be a good person you will go to heaven, if you do bad things you will go to hell.

I thought: “yeah that’s alright, I’ll be dead anyway, might as well do some bad things, tell some white lies, be selfish little here & there, as long as I’m not breaking the laws or hurt anyone, it’s ok right?”

Teacher says according to the Law is Karma / Law of Nature / the universal law / cause & effects (whatever terms you wanna call it), there’s an instant karma.

For example if you get angry or frustrated from situations like:
“something or someone that you want, didn’t happen”, or
“the things that happening to you, wasn’t exactly as how you would like it” or
“the things / person is not as you expected”,
your instant karma is that you feel upset / angry / annoyed / fears,
you lost your inner peace, you already are suffering.

And if you react blindly, such as yell at the others, feeling piss off and throw your phone away, taking revenge, punch someone in the face, vent on facebook to get supports from your peers... whatever things that you do when you are not thinking straight.

You now not only miserable, you also making others around you feeling uncomfortable, people doesn’t feel nice around you, you are wrapped around in a negative emotion bubble, not approachable, you are now causing others to suffers too.

This is instant karma.

EXPERIENCING FIRST HAND

Okay I get it, but how about if I love food, when I eat one bowl of yum I’m happy, I eat two bowls then I’m double happiness right?

One day the meal was just super delicious, I have gone for a second.
Even though I was almost 89% full, I thought, just one more little spoonful please, taste so good.

As soon as I finished that extra bite, holy shit I am now 118% full!

So I went for a power walk to shake it off.

Nah, I couldn’t move, belly’s too full.

How about I go take a nap now?

Went back to my room.

Nah, too full I couldn’t sleep.

So I just try so hard to slow walk for 45 mins, basically to kill time, let the food digest, and had a full belly in the next group meditation sitting.

I suffered for 1.5 hours, lost my inner peace.
Cuz I was craving for extra bite that my body didn’t need.

ORANGE CAKE

Lesson learnt.
Few days later I had the most yummy orange cake ever!

OMG so yummy I wanted to grab a second piece!

“No don’t! Didn’t you learn from last time?” Inner voice said.

“Yeah yeah whatever”

While battling in my head if I should grab a second piece of cake.

Suddenly I realized that I was on auto pilot and ate half the cake without knowing!

I wasted time on thinking about if I should have another piece or not, and forgot to enjoy the cake that was on my hand!

I closed my eyes, on that warm sunny spring afternoon, with cool breeze blowing, the sounds of nature, the trees, the birds, the insects... warm sun on my face, sipping a nice cup of sage tea, i enjoyed every last bite of the remaining orange cake, with tears all over my face and a big smile by myself  lol 

I was so glad to be alive, can experience this amazing orange cake, I have everything that I need.

HARDEST PART OF THE TRIP?

I thought not be able to talk for 10 days, no phones, no internet, no electronic devices, no books, no music, no reading or writing materials was the hardest part...
No they wasn’t that hard.

I thought to be able to sit still for one hour was the hardest part...
No it wasn’t.

The hardest part was to be honest with myself, face my own fear, and physically sit through some intense pain in my body.

This is an intensive heart surgery, toxics that has been buried deep since childhood (or even from your past life time) must come out to the surface in order to release them and heal your heart again, it’s a painful process but necessary.

You can never be free if you keep running away from your dark side, avoid any challenges or distract yourself and think they’re gone.

They’re still there, in the deepest place in your mind, and you know it.

TELL ME HOW YOU FEEL DAY BY DAY?

(Spoiler alert!) 

if you think you are going, stop reading now, just go, or you may have some expectations.

If you are not too sure and want to know about my experience, which is difference from everybody, then carry on.

Below is just my own experience, no two people will have the same feelings, this is very personal, please understand that.

(Stop reading from now if know that you are going)

Just so you know, the hall doesn't look as posh as this

[DAY ZERO]

We registered in the afternoon, filled in forms, used our phones one last time before handed in to the management.

I began to make friends with my fellow “inmates”
haha, which is good and bad.

Good things is you can talk to new students like me, calm my nerves knowing that not everyone knows what's gonna happen next.

Bad thing is that once we have only just got to know each other for an hour, found out just a little bit about their names, background, reasons to be here. Then we can’t talk to each for the next 10 days.
We have to pretend strangers, put on our resting bitch face, avoid eye contacts, that was weird.

But it’s necessary, I’m glad that made this rule, because we really meant to turn inwards, we’re all here to learn about ourself, focus on self development, not to care about what others think about us, at least not in the 10 days.

After a light soup dinner, we had our first “meditation sitting” for one hour.

All we need to do is to sit at our designated spot for an hour, and focus on our breathing.

I was excited enough to try, even thou I didn’t know what I was doing but that was fun to try.

Still no, the meditation hall is nothing like this

[DAY 1]

4am morning gong rang, we were meant to “meditation in the hall or in your own room until 6:30am breakfast”.

Yeah right, I thought.

I had made up my mind to sleep in until breakfast.

When that first 4am gong rang, I heard three noises:

1. Gong rang 
2. Zip sound (my room mate zipping up her jacket)
3. Door opened & closed 

Before the second gang rang, my room mate were out of the room already!!!!
3 Sec, from sleeping to out of the door. The world is changing fast.

Wow, did that just happened? 

Holy shit, I thought everyone were going to sleep in, guess not.

Alright then, I’m awake now. Might as well get up and go meditate in the hall.

We have minimum 3x one hour “group sitting / class” daily: morning, afternoon and evening. We must sit in the hall together and meditate with instructions.

Day one, all we have to do was still to focus on our breath, and sit for an hour.

What the fuck?

I’m breathing all the time, duh!
What’s so special about my breath?

I could hear everyone’s struggle, not everyone could sit still.
Good, not just me.

Lots of coughing, sneezing, blow their nose, moving their legs around, changing positions... You can hear the struggles in the room.

Even thou no one is allowed to speak, and must have our eyes closed, I could tell that many guys (they sat on my left hand side) just could not stay still, like me.

Guys on my left be like

Little did I know, the first two rows were old female students and they have done this before so they were all sitting crossed legged like a stature.

I was behind them so I thought all the girls were statued, shit, I better try stay as still as possible.

(Yes guilty as charged, I peeped, to check how others were doing)

Old students in front of me be like

Pins & needles, numbing feelings here & there, shoulder pain, sleepiness...

Fuck, it was hard.
JUST GET ME OUT OF HERE!

I was like

Later I found out that most new students behind me were struggling too, but I couldn’t see them, lucky that I was watching a bunch of calmed old students this whole time to motivate me.

DISCOURSE 

Each night before bedtime was audio discourse, my favorite part of the day!

There were explanations, stories, lessons, inspirations, why you are doing this and what’s the theory behind it... like a Buddha talks, get deeper & deeper everyday.

Wow, fascinating, I was so looking forward to listen to this 1.5 hours discourse everyday, this is what kept me going actually.

[DAY 2]

Still observing my breathing.

Okay this is getting really boring now.

Everyday we have straight time table: meal time, rest time, mediation time, bed time, etc. from 4am to 9:30pm.

We’re not allowed to do any exercise except walking.
I felt like a pig, just eat and sit all day so I power walk a lot during “rest time”.

We’re not allowed to make gestures, we must remain noble silence so we don’t distract others.

I felt like we were in prison, just walk around the track round & round.

Like zombies, no eye contacts, everyone just look at the ground minding their own business, just look sad.

[DAY 3]

Now I must focus on any sensations on my lips.

What the fuck? 

I felt  N O T H I N G!

I had to make some duck face to feel my face.
(You're not allowed)

My mind keep chatter chatter chatter so noisy.

So hard to stay focus on my lips, how boring.

So hard to just sit still, I had pains here & there, legs were numb, still having pins & needles, move around a lot.

I got hay fever (spring time!) try not to sneeze or blow my nose, try not to make any noises.

[DAY 4] VIPASSANA DAY!

OMG this is the real deal, the actual vispausana meditation method is taught today!

The first three days were just for us to practice on our breathing, a taste of meditation & mindfulness, and let us adjust what is the most comfortable sitting positions, to get most of our random thoughts out of the system, to prepare us for what’s coming up next for the next 7 days.

By day 4, without any new stimulations from the outside world, no technology, no new conversations with people, no work, no outing, no nothing, we are ready for the challenge.

New instruction:

From now on, we must  

N O T   T O   C H A N G E   P O S I T I O N
during the 3x group sittings

At first I thought that’s bull shit, nobody can sit still for one hour without moving a muscle?

But then all of a sudden, the whole room gone so quiet, I could literally hear everyone’s stomach (what did they put into those soup?)

Ok, let me try.

Strong determination!

Will power!

I can do this! 

Stay focus!

AHHHH!

Oh wow, pins & needles are gone, no more numbness, no more itchy here & there anymore.

I sat still for an hour!

Not easy thou, but it’s do-able.

When you made up your mind to do something and working on it persistently no matter what, you are bound to be successful.

Your mind is very powerful.

[DAY 5] Time is running out

From day 5 / 6 onwards it was the real deal.

I started to realized that I only have 5 more days to go, time is becoming previous now, I must treasure every single sittings.

I stopped doing power walk and actually took naps during “rest time”, so I could actually do meditation in my own room (not napping 3 times a day as what I did in the beginning)

I really made an effort to sit for at least 5 to 7 hours a day, intensively, continuously working on the method.

Not just sitting there but day dreaming.

I need to work on my mind and body, to break through my pain, physically, literally.

On the last day at one point I was going through some intense pain from the back under my shoulders all the way to the front of my chest, shooting pain out through my nipples.

I thought I was gonna pass out so I took a deep breath, tensed up my muscles, the back / chest pain gone back inside, I was so close to cut it off.

It’s okay, I’m not here to torture myself, I’ll keep working to get it out next time.

I won’t go into details of what pain I had or how to get it out and stuff, everybody has different experience.

Whatever deepest emotions you may have, may manifest in difference forms.

Some people doesn’t have any crossed sensations at all, instead, they were almost like high on drugs and gone to another world and didn’t wanna come back.

Not every sitting is the same either, sometimes I just felt nothing.

One day my monkey brain scream so much that I gave up that day and let my day dreaming run wild.

I wrote a few detailed blogs in my head, had a full on conversations with somebody I needed to talk to in my head, I planned my business to do list vividly in my head...

I knew I should stay focus on the “now” but that day I couldn’t switch off my chatty mind so I thought “fuck it, they are at least productive thoughts.”

It’s a shame I couldn’t write them all down.

 

[FINAL THOUGHTS]

This 10 days meditation course is not for everyone.

If you are a quitter: if you think you are busy / if you think you can't do this / if you think you can't stay silence for 10 days / you think you can't live without smoking alcohol drugs phones music / if you think you are not strong enough...

Then just don't, this is not for you.
They sold out in an hour, please don't waste the space.

One girl in front of me, I didn't see her anymore from day one evening, she didn't even make it to the 1st discourse (audio story time).

If you think like this. Don't do it

You must have done something good karma in your past life to be able to stumble upon to this opportunity, it means you probably had practice Vipanssana in your past life and now something inside you is awakening.

This is an intense bootcamp to purify your mind, to operate a deep mind surgery, to remove you from misery, to learn this skill and apply to your everyday life, to see things as they really are, to develop heightened awareness and concentration, which is then used to examine your own mental and physical nature.

To be happy.

By this practice you gain insight and detachment to free yourself from such mental tensions as anger, greed and fear.

After this ten days doesn't means we are a monk now, this is just the beginning, we now must keep practicing daily, brain work out is as important as your body work out.

But if you truly want to live a happy life, bringing more joy and loves to all being, to have inner peace, not to rely on something from the outside to make you happy.
Come join this course!

[IN THE END]

I'm so glad to have met some bright souls, even thou we must put up our resting bitch face, I know we are here to make the world a better place.