Vipassana Experience|10 Days of Meditation & Peace [INFOGRAPHIC]

Vipassana, experiencing things as they really are. If you suffer from existential questions like who I am? why I am here? what is the purpose of my existence?  what’s the purpose of my life? Vipassana experience might be the end to your introspection and the answer to all of these existential questions.

In this blog, I have tried to cover:

What is Vipassana?
History of Vipassana
Rules of Vipassana
Everyday Schedule
Infographic about the feelings
The Monkey Branch Anology

What is Vipassana?

Cleansing is the inseparable part of human life. We clean our bodies, we clean our clothes and what not. Similarly, our brain needs a purification as well. A detox from all the blurry thoughts constantly going on in order to get a “clear vision”. That’s exactly what Vipassana means. It is the Pali word from ‘clear vision’.

Let’s dig down at the history of vipassana, one of the most ancient meditation techniques in the world.

History of Vipassana

When the civilizations were rising, a lot of ambitious personalities from remote parts of the world visited India in search of the precious art of meditation. After learning this technique some of them were so delighted that they took it to their own country and start teaching it to their people.

But due to the busy course of life and revolution in all the industries, the years passed and vipassana disappeared. The story doesn’t end here.

Burma(Myanmar) still believed in the power of meditation and continued to preach vipassana in its original form. S.N. Goenka, originally a businessman, spent some time learning it and moved back to India. He thought of starting his own institution of vipassana and wanted to spread the word. Like any other venture, there were only a handful of people that joined him at first. Once the word started spreading, people started knowing about vipassana. Today, there are 310 vipassana centres in 94 countries.

I was curious about the concept of “meditation” so I did some research of my own and applied for Vipassana 10 Days meditation camp. After the registration, I received an email containing rules and regulations. I was shocked to my core while reading them. For a moment I thought to myself that I should not go for it. Somehow, I was able to convince myself that it’s just 10 days. How hard could it be?

Rules of Vipassana

• Noble silence for 10 days: Nobel silence does not only mean you need to keep quiet, but it means you can’t even any kind of unnecessary noise at all. You can not clap or step loudly. You can’t even communicate by making eye contact with other people for 10 days.

• Waking up at 4:00 in the morning: Waking up at 8 o’clock is a challenging task especially in winter. Here, it’s 4 am sharp in the morning. The sound Gong would get you out of the deepest of sleep within just a few seconds.

• No communication with the outer world or family: It’s 2019, a mobile phone is like a part of your bodies. Remember the last time you spent your day without looking at a screen? Well, I don’t. This has to be the hardest rule of all.

• No Exit rule: Once you have entered the vipassana centre, you cannot leave it unless you have a medical problem. On the first day of your meditation, they show you a video explaining why these rules exist and believe me it is quite rational. One of the reasons for having this rule is that people feel all kinds of things while going through meditation, if you let them quit, there will hardly be 1% of people, who’d continue the meditation till the last day. People usually thank vipassana centres for having the “no exit rule”.

For each rule, they have a valid reason which you’ll get to know during those 10 days.

Everyday at Vipassana Centre

When I read this Vipassana schedule for the first time, I was a shocked as you are right now. I wondered the horrors of spending 9 hours sitting quietly. But within just 2-3 days, I blended in.

Infographic of Vipassana Experience

This infographic summarizes the feelings one would go through during the course of Vipassana.

Day 1 – I was on my way to the Vipassana centre with a backpack on my back and thoughts in my head. Once I reached the location, I felt the positivity in the air and all the negative thoughts seemed like going away. They had a beautiful garden where birds were constantly chirping. I was guided to my room and my phone, wallet and other belongings were kept in a locker by them. After going into the room, I lied down for a while and thought if I had Instagram, I’d be making “stories” of this amazing place right now. Yes, it took me 11 minutes to think about my phone. Guilty as charged.

Day 2 – Woke up in the chilly morning at 4 a.m. by a bell that loud enough to get Kumbhakaran out of his sleep within seconds. After refreshing in the morning, we all gathered at the meditation hall where we were told to try and focus for a while. Believe me, this is tough! When I entered the hall, there was a vibe about that place which felt different. It felt like I was being welcomed by something big. Something bigger than the existence of my being. It took me a few seconds to stop Racing thoughts. After a short time, everyone sat on their allotted spaces so did I and the Ānāpānasati began.

Anapanasati A.K.A Anapan aims at focusing your attention on the triangular area of your nose. You would be taught to observe how the air goes inside the nostrils? where it touches? Is it cold or hot? The beginning is difficult as when you are sitting quietly in a hall full of people observing the temperature and direction of the air coming out of their nostrils. It gets weird. Day 3 was quite similar to day 2 just a little focused one.

First 3 days were quite awkward and challenging. When you go out of your comfort zone it feels strange. You’ll miss your home, the freshly cooked food or the comfort of “not waking up at 4 a.m.” I guess. But in a few days, all those things will fade away.

The Monkey-Branch Analogy

This is a pretty effective analogy for meditating. Every thought coming out of your brain is a branch and your attention is a monkey. This monkey would jump from one to another branch thousands of time in a day. You need to get this monkey under your control and make him follow your orders. This monkey needs to stay on one branch and walk on it. Once that branch has ended, he can jump on to another branch.
This suggests when experiencing meditation, you need to get your attention aligned with your thoughts and make sure you lose your attention through different thoughts

For the first 3 days, I was continuously fighting with my monkey mind. Race of the thoughts was hitting me hard. In every session, I was waiting for the bell to ring so I could go out and spend some time in the garden. There was a really beautiful and well-maintained garden outside the hall. The place was so astounding that birds would feed on your hands. Unlike the cities, wildlife trust humans here.

Day 4 – They introduced us to the Vipassana. The ultimate meditation technique. Vipassana is the technique where you focus on the whole body instead of your nose. I felt like climbing the Everest after practicing it on the local hill. Jokes apart, this was the first time in my life I felt my whole body and its elements. The heartbeat passing through my body could be heard and felt. This state of mind wasn’t attained in a few minutes though. It took hours to get there.

Day 5 to Day 10 were the best days among all. As I was doing my best these days. In the beginning, seconds were like hours and it has reversed. In these days, we had to practice Adhisthan meditation technique where you do Vipassana but without moving any of your body part for 1.5 hour. It helps you to take difficult decisions about your life. It also helps you to be in discipline.

I took a few vital decisions of my life these days and I am really about these decisions today. Last 5 days went like sand in a glass box. Before I realize, it was over. At first, I didn’t want to meditate and now I didn’t want to leave. But as all great things come to an end, this one did too. At last, we learned “Mangal Maitri Sadhna” where we send positive vibes to the atmosphere. It was an indescribable experience.

On the last day, we ended our 10 days noble silence. It was funny how none of us had anything to say to each other even after spending 10 days together. After a while, a few people initiated the conversation and others hopped along with them. We had a little chat about how the experience was and the reason why all of them were there. They let us talk on the last day as they were making us habituated of the real world. If one goes to the normal surroundings all of a sudden, then his brain might not be able to comprehend all of it at in such a fast rate. On the 11th day, I grabbed my phone but didn’t want to use it. It just felt like an unnecessary thing.

Conclusion

All the blogs you read, all the videos you see or all the podcasts you hear about the Vipassana experience will not be enough for you. It will be a different experience for you and it will impact your mind and body in a different way than mine. But bottom line, you will come out as a better person than you were when you entered it.