The Experience Of Doing a Vipassana Meditation Retreat -

If you haven't heard about Vipassana

I can say that "It's the art of learning to see things as they really are and not how you want them to be" It is one of the oldest meditation techniques in India and it supposed to be the one that buddha uses to reach Nirvana state.

A few years ago I was struggling with panic attacks, depression and agoraphobia desperately looking for some kind of cure to my problem but nothing seems to help.

I knew my problem was not in my brain but rather in my mind, as a Linux and CISCO profesional I saw my braind as the hardware and my mind as the software so if nothing was wrong with the hardware it has to be a software problem and if the software was runing bad it was due to the programer, I just didn't knew how to access the source code happily this code was open source and I was the programer.

reading about the technique they supposed to teach you how to be quite enough to look at the thoughts inside your mind and I instinctively knew that If I could look inside my mind maybe I could get a better view about my issues and change the way this software was running, I was looking for a way to reprogram my mind and to my fortune that's exactly what they teach you.

I subscribe to the Vipassana web page and start to find some really interesting things: first of all there is no charge for teaching the technique, there is no charge for acomodation, and there is no charge for food.

So how can this people run a world wide organisation without money?

You are allow to contribute with money but just if you are brave enough to complete the 10 days course. They know the experience is so powerfull you are going to feel In the obligation of contributing to help others to live the experience.

But why don't they allow you to contribute if you don't complete the whole course? In one word: altruism ... I realized about that a few month after the course was finished, they want you to feel the need to finish it so that you can contribute with others.

Reaching the place where the course was taught was in fact a little hard, it's up on a mountain, of course you can go by car but there is almost zero noise in that place, so once the cars are turned off you can even heard you heart pumping.

They makes me sign a document where I acept I did have no medical condition, they took away my cellphone and they explained to me that was not allowed to talk o touch other people. They explained to me that the idea was to
develop a feeling of loneliness in students.

I didn't complain I was there to learn how to meditate but that first afternoon of meditation was the hardest of all my life.

They took us to the meditation hall a nice woman who supposed to be the teacher was sitting in front of all of us, I understood later on the reason why she was there, she wasn't there to teach us how to meditate, but to give us the example that it was possible and to answer a few question after the meditation sesions were over.

I experience back pain I thought it was impossible to remain in meditation position more than a few minutes time passed and it was time for the first meal. It was the afternoon, I was in pain, exhausted, trying to deal with panic, depresion, axiety, agoraphobia and learning how to meditate.

Food was serve and guess what? It was vegetarian Food I knew in that moment I was not able to eat meat for 10 days bye bye fried chicken. They also recomend to eat just to fill 70% of your stomach because it's harder to meditate with a full belly. Until that time I was the kind of person who use to eat I used to eat until I was completely full due to that experience I have changed

I could see that the people who prepared the food were the same ones that were in the meditation room, I found out later on that they were old students who provided that service for free, again altruism.

Everyday it was easier to meditate, step by step you start to understand the technique. The final day came (or that's what you think) and you find out the course it's actually 11 days because you arrive one afternoon and leave the place on afternoon so it's actually 11 days not 10.

On day 10 you are allowed to talk to othe people and to have human contact. Everyone who finished the course (half of the people were gone by then) was really happy, a girl came to me and hug me: I didn't now until that day how important was for us physical human contac, that hug made me cry, after 10 days I was finally able to feel the heat of another human being and it felt incredible. When you spend ten days without touching anyone you become very sensitive it was imposible to avoid crying.

On day 11 I had my breakfast and leave the place. The panic, depression and agoraphobia were still there but I saw them from a diferent perspective I understood they were just thoughts and I thought can't harm you ... That experience change my life forever and I meditate to this day and will for the rest of my life. I meditate two hours every day I do it as soon as I wake up and I do it on the afternoon from 5:00 to 6:00 pm ... Meditation is not always a pleasant experience but you don't meditate to feel good since meditation is the tool not the goal.

If you need a tool to reprogram your mind learn how to meditate, It's worth the time