The Painful Art of Inner Regeneration
My brutal yet transformative experience of a 10-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat.
I just came out of a 10-day silent Vipassana meditation at Dhamma Sobhana in Sweden. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
Most of the time it felt like I was drowning. Drowning in my own misery. Being confronted with physical pain. Negative thoughts. And intense cravings to be free from suffering.
And at times surfacing out of the sea of misery. My body and ego dissolving into a blissful cloud of love. Experiencing glimpses of pure peace, happiness and equanimity.
It’s a bewildering experience I would wish for both my worst enemy and my dearest friend.
Here’s what I’ve learned about myself and life from 100+ hours of meditation and 10 days of silence.
During some meditations, visions of Grogu (a.k.a. Baby Yoda) from the Disney series The Mandalorian came to mind, somehow beautifully showcasing the rollercoaster of emotions I experienced. I hope you enjoy them too.
The daily schedule
A Vipassana 'retreat' might sound like a relaxing holiday. It's not. It's hard work. Day in, day out. 11 hours of meditation every day. Over 100 hours of meditation in 10 days.
This is how the daily schedule looked like:
Vipassana — Experiencing reality 'as it is'
Vipassana is one of India's most ancient techniques of meditation. Starting 2500 years ago with Gotama Buddha, Vipassana has been handed down by an unbroken chain of teachers up to S.N. Goenka. Before he passed away in 2013, Goenka left behind a comprehensive system for training and teaching, enabling hundreds of thousands of people to learn the practice of Vipassana.
No spiritual consumerism
Vipassana is not taught commercially, but offered freely to everyone. No person involved in its teaching receives any financial remuneration. There are no charges for the courses — not even to cover the cost of food and accommodation. All expenses are met by donations from people who completed a course and who wish others to have the same opportunity.
The interconnection of body and mind
Vipassana means “to see things as they really are”. Vipassana focuses on the deep interconnection between mind and body, seeing them as two sides of the same coin. All thoughts and emotions that arise manifest themselves in the breath and bodily sensations. And when the mind reacts to unwanted thoughts, emotions or feelings, we start creating physical tensions; we start tying Gordian knots within.
Self-purification by self-observation
By observing bodily sensations equanimously (without attachment), the knots lose their strength and start to untangle. And by overcoming this negative conditioning of the mind, we can respond in more balanced, loving and compassionate ways — Vipassana teaches us the art of living in peace and harmony with oneself and others.
Observing the impermanent nature of reality
By training your equanimity to bodily sensations you become aware of the impermanent nature of reality (Anicca). Like our breath, all things come and go. Come and go. No experience lasts forever. All storms eventually pass. And all blissful experiences ultimately vanish. And we can only find peace when we accept the continually changing and impermanent nature of reality.
Day 1-3 Training the mind
The first step is, for the period of the course, to abstain from killing, stealing, sexual activity, speaking falsely, and intoxicants. This code of moral conduct (Sīla) serves to calm the mind, which otherwise would be too agitated for self-observation.
The next step was to develop concentration of the mind (Anapana) by learning to fix one's attention on the natural reality of the ever-changing flow of breath as it enters and leaves the nostrils.
The madness of my inner landscape
The first three days my mind was totally out of control, jumping from one random thought to another. Subconscious thoughts were bubbling up continuously. I was often inwardly laughing at the madness of my inner landscape. I found myself mentally binge-watching Game of Thrones episodes, which I've been watching every evening the last months. This showed me how the things I consume become part of me, whether I want it or not (and I definitely don’t want to embody the monstrosities of Game of Thrones).
Life is not a competition
But according to my mind it is… During these three days, I became aware of my ultra-comparative and competitive mind. Always trying to sit longer than the person next to me. Comparing how much food others were eating. Worried about what other people might think of me.
In search of perfection
Besides competing, I got through the first three days by comparing and testing different pillow and cushion constellations each sitting, under the illusion that there must be that one perfect position where I’ll be free of pain. At the end of day three I settled on sitting in a kneeling (Seiza) position, accepting there will always be some pain and the perfect position doesn’t exist. Or a perfect article for that matter, which I’m also trying to accept while writing this…
Day 4-9 Mind that settles and clears
After the third day the seemly infinite spring of subconscious thoughts was drying up. My mind became clearer and clearer — like mud that settles and clears. By the fourth day, when my mind was calmer and more focused, the practice of Vipassana was introduced, which involves 1) systematically observing bodily sensations from head to feet and feet to head; 2) understanding the impermanent nature of bodily sensations; and 3) developing equanimity by learning not to react to them.
Sittings of strong determination
Three times a day there were sittings of strong determination (Addithana), where you sit for an hour without moving at all. I've had some experience with meditating without any movement for half an hour at Rinzai Zen Centre in Oslo, but an hour proved to be an entirely different game. Physical pain and mental torpor are inevitable. There's no escape. An hour suddenly seems like an eternity. And similarly to live, it's the art of staying calm and equanimous when shit hits the fan and things get difficult. It's easy to find peace in heaven. Adversity will happen. And Vipassana helps you react to adversity in equanimous ways.
Through the eye of the storm
“We suffer more in imagination than in reality.”
—Seneca
During these days I found myself being sucked in a storm of suffering, feeling intense aversion to present and future pain. And severe cravings to be free from suffering. And at times, entering the eye of the storm — experiencing a continuous flow of energy throughout my whole body, being dissolved into a cloud of equanimity, radiating unconditional love to all beings. And subsequently clinging on to this ephemeral experience of bliss, and being sucked into the storm of aversion and craving again and again… Like a whirlpool, the more I resisted and denied reality, the harder I got pulled into the negative flow and the more I suffered.
Blissful nature
During the meditation breaks, there were wonderful moments, especially when I was outside in nature. Massive flocks of geese roaming through the pink morning skies. Intricate cobwebs softly glowing in the backdrop of the evening lights. Snowflakes twirling through the sky for the first time in the year. Woodpeckers rhythmically hopping and pecking around in the woodlands. Ladybirds gracefully gathering materials for their nests. Squirrels diligently searching for acorns. Vibrant colors of falling leaves dancing through the sky. Majestic trees casting beautiful shadows. Truly blissful moments in nature.
Day 10 - Facing my fear of pain
Running away from the spikes
At the final evening meditation, it was the first time I had the courage to face the intense pain in my upper left back. For the full hour I attentively and equanimously observed the pain, without judgement or aversion. With every inhalation and exhalation, the pain got worse and worse — like a blade piercing deeper and deeper into my flesh. Penetrating the deepest levels of the unconscious mind…
Facing the spikes bravely and smilingly
Yet, just before the hour passed, the pain magically dissolved. The physical tension disappeared. I felt a huge emotional relief. This Gordian knot — a knot of habitual distraction and avoidance of pain and suffering — finally untangled. I realised I had been running away from this pain all this time. And not just this pain, every kind of present and future pain I experience in life. Learning I have to look the beast in the eye. And face my dragons. ‘Facing the spikes around me bravely and smilingly’, as Goenka would say.
Conclusion
Everything I need to know is already present
In the 10 days I’ve learned so much about myself. Of most of which I forgot, as we were not allowed to write… At first, I found this incredibly frustrating. Now I realize that everything I need to know is already there, present in each and every moment. Every breath is an opportunity to be observant of my inner state. And to see things as they really are — a constant changing flux of impermanence.
No outer regeneration without inner regeneration
“Between the stimulus and response, there is a space. And in that space lies our freedom and power to choose our responses. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
—Victor Frankl
I’m happy I did the hard work. As there’s no outer regeneration without inner regeneration. They go hand in hand. And inner regeneration hurts. It’s not easy. But so worthwhile. As we can only take wholesome actions when we have a wholesome mind. To heal the system around us, we need to heal ourselves. I’m looking forward to continuing the practice, keep on untying the knots of habitual negative thoughts, and create space for equanimity, unconditional love and living a moral life.
Memory ≠ Experience
Odd as it may seem, I am my remembering self, and the experiencing self, who does my living, is like a stranger to me.
—Daniel Kahneman
Please note that this is written by my remembering self — not my experiencing self. And there’s quite a significant difference between the two. Reflecting upon the experience I can see the beautiful aspects, but I want to stress I found it extremely challenging, physically and mentally. I noticed a massive difference in the narratives of myself and others directly after the breaking of noble silence (“It was extremely tough”) to the next day we went back home (“It was wonderful!”).
Experience thyself
I participated because many dear friends told me about their own transformative experiences. Vipassana is not a philosophical or intellectual game. It is to be experienced. It is to be practiced. Patiently and diligently, as Goenka would say. It's a wonderful gift you can give yourself and others. Gettting to know your self.
Perhaps somewhat contradicting your last paragraph — but I would say that if one cannot experience Vipassana for themselves, the second best thing would be reading this essay to absorb at least a small percentage of the wisdom imbued by the experience through the words written here :)
You did what we in Seōn Imge Buddhism (Korean Rinzai)call "hard practice." Congratulations! The point of all the pain, both physical and mental, is ultimately to make you able to universally benefit all beings. Compassion is the heartblood of all Buddhist practice in my own experience.