😎 Likedeeler Meditates 😎

likedeeler (66)in #travel • 8 years ago

So finally the big day had come, the first anniversary of Shanti Stupa in Leh, Ladakh.
It was quite an affair with lots of Ladakhi monks in their red robes attending, playing their long horns for some Tibetan music and chanting and us, the volunteers who had been working diligently on the freshing up of Shanti Stupa´s elaborate paintings were given seats behind the Japanese monks in honor of our contribution, so altogether a very nice day.

Shortly after the anniversary it was time to leave the monastery and head for our next adventure, cooked up by crazy Yannick.
“I was told that this meditation is like LSD, so I want to try“ was Yannick´s explanation of this funny meditation method he had found out about.
Now me, I had always avoided hallucinogenics, LSD, mushrooms, whatever, because I was afraid I would lose control and got stuck on a trip, but I was certainly interested to try a meditation with a reputation for similar effects.

Beautiful Blue Hour

So we went to Choglamsar, just a few kilometers outside of Leh to a building which was the Dalai Lama´s residence whenever he would come to Leh, but now would be used for a Ten Day Vipassana Retreat.

I had never meditated in my life, the time with the Japanese monks chanting Namu Myoho Renge Kyo was my first contact with this "weird Asian stuff" and here I was, starting my meditation career with one of the most gruelling regimes a meditation beginner could possibly encounter, probably only topped by being thrown straight into a sesshin in a Japanese Zen monastery.

This was Vipassana according to Goenka, so none of this modern stuff, like yoga classes between meditation sessions and so. Ten hours of meditation per day, so if you want to know what pain is, just follow my example.
At the beginning you had to sign a disclaimer stating that you had no mental health issues and were not taking drugs and acknowledging all sorts of rules and regulations.
So I guess Yannick faked his answers a bit.
All notebooks, pens, electronic devices like walkman (yo it was the nineties!) and camera, also prayer beads, crucifixes, in short anything related to any other spiritual practise, any possible distraction was taken from you to be returned only after the retreat.

“During those ten days we want you to give Vipassana a chance. So do only Vipassana. There might be problems, but if you have done only Vipassana we will know how to help you. If you mix Vipassana with other techniques we might not be able to help you.“ was the very reassuring advice.
Were they hinting at LSD-like experiences?

As beginners we had two meals a day, the advanced guys in the longer retreats eat only once a day.
But "Noble Silence" had to be observed at all times by us beginners already, meaning you were not allowed to talk with your fellow practitioners. You could talk with the teacher about the practise, ask him questions, and talk about some practical problems (clogged toilets etc.) with the Dhamma workers, some volunteer helpers who had been already on some retreats.
As luck would have it, our Dhamma worker was a German who was very strict, occasionally spied on us and would burst into the rooms when people were talking and remind them to observe "Noble Silence" with a very sour face. 😊
There were quite a few Ladakhi monks participating in the retreat and since their main spiritual practice is chanting and reciting, they also had a hard time keeping quiet.

We would start early in the morning and go all day long till evening, having about ten hours of meditation per day plus lecture in the evening, little bit of walking in the courtyard between sessions to shake out those aching legs, and the best, this “concentration camp“ (one of Swami Vishnu´s jokes about ashrams) was free of charge.

When Goenka came up with his idea to spread Vipassana into the world, he insisted that all meditation classes, courses, retreats would be free of charge, only based on donations.
His close disciples said that it would never work, but he proved them wrong. Many centers were established all over the globe running on donations by people who had experienced the benefits of Vipassana and wanted other people to get a chance to try it also.

In short, Vipassana is a mindfulness meditation where you sit and observe your body in a method called sweeping. You always scan the body in the same manner from the crown of your head to your toes and back up, sometimes slowly, trying to become aware of every square milimeter, every point of your body´s surface, sometimes fast, flying up and down your body with your awareness in seconds or even split seconds.
Whatever you encounter, pain or joy, horror or orgasm, “Don´t react, just observe!“
Later on during the retreat we would go inside the body with our scans, going three-dimensional, trying to become aware of each and every atom and beyond atoms.

Long before science came up with quantum physics and stuff, the Buddha had already taught the utter ephemerality of matter, Anicca, and it was probably Capra who, in his The Tao of Physics summed up that relationship best.
Science does not need mysticism and mysticism does not need science, but man needs both.

We started off by some kind of sensitivity training, observing the sensation of the in and out going breath on the triangle below the nostrils, then we learned the sweeping method on the surface of the body and then they introduced “The Hour of Strong Determination“.

Our meditation sessions were of different durations. Some were 90 minutes and three times a day we had one hour sessions which were of course our favorites because relief came sooner, but on the fourth day we were told that we, from now on, should try to not move at all during the one hour sessions.
At the end of each session the teacher, an old Indian guy, would hit the button of his tape recorder to redeem us with some mantras, and boy was I ever waiting for this click sound during “The Hour of Strong Determination“!

In the first few days, my mind would fool me. I would start to think all sorts of stuff. “The hour must be over already. This old fool must have fallen asleep!“ etc, so I would open my eyes to check the big clock in the meditation hall, just to see that it was still a bit till 60 minutes, thereby fucking up my “Hour of Strong Determination“.

Ain´t it time yet?

I still remember how it was on the 7th day of the retreat, so on the fourth day since they introduced this ardent practice, when I managed to sit without any movement whatsoever till the click signalled the end of one hour. I was just a stream of light, of energy, shooting up and down with my sweeping and I thought
“Wow great! I want to experience this again next time!“

Big mistake!
The next one hour session was also very intense, but also very unpleasant. It was like I imagine being on an electric chair. I did not open my eyes, but I could feel myself shaking all over the place and I could hear some of the other particpants, in total we were about 50, whispering and talking about me.
“Look, he´s shaking!“

So the teacher told me to open my eyes next time and the shaking would stop.
I did but the shaking did not stop, I could just watch myself shaking.
So the teacher told me to open my legs next time.
“But then I cannot adhere to “The Hour of Strong Determination“ I said.
“Not important, this is to much distraction from your meditation.“

I was not happy with that advise but I followed it in the next session and the shaking stopped.
My German mentality with its infatuation with totality, with the typical Western either-or approach could not appreciate this Indian approach to a meditation problem, so I was a bit sulky during the final time of the retreat. I was also doubting the blissful experience of my first “Hour of Strong Determination“, seeing it more as a manifestation of some physical conditions rather than something “mystical“ or “supernatural“, similar to the “electric chair“ experience for which I blamed just the physical pain and discomfort of long sitting and some physical reactions to it.
And the fact, that I was never able to regain that blissful experience during the other sessions also did not help my mood.

Now I know enough to know that basically I was given a beautiful gift during that first fully endured “Hour of Strong Determination“, something some people strive for in meditation all their life, but never get it, but I also know now that this kind of experiences are not the goal of meditation, but just a side effect, and that graving for them can become a serious obstacle.

Needless to say that my French snowflake Yannick did not even make it through the whole ten days, he committed the ultimate Vipassana sin and left earlier, I think one day before the end, much to the chagrin of the organizers.
I guess he was just too much of a rebel and a weirdo to fully do what was expected of him.

When we met again in Leh, the dark clouds of drama had left his forehead again, he was all smiles and bubbly and charming, so I asked the most important question:

“So was Vipassana like LSD?“
“Yes, yes, totally!“ he answered cheerfully.