5 Lessons from a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat
Exactly 5 years ago, I decided to do a 10-day silent meditation course. It turned out to be one of the most challenging and most enriching experiences in my life.
How did I first hear about Vipassana?
When I was 19 years old and fresh out of high school, I met Konrad at a party. We clicked immediately. Konrad was a troubled soul. I could feel an immense sense of kindness radiating from him, but I could also sense a deep and buried anger within him. He had always had trouble fitting in.
When he was 12, he got caught spraying graffiti on train wagons. Three years later, he thought it would be a good idea to experiment with fire inside the bathroom of his high school and almost burned down the entire building. But his anger didn’t stop there. He even hated vegetables because they were considered “healthy” by society and ate almost nothing but meat. Take that, veggies!
After high school, Konrad took a 6 month-long trip to India. When he came back to Germany, I almost didn’t recognize him. His smile was bright (to be fair, he was extremely tanned), his body language relaxed, and he had become vegetarian. What the hell had happened in India? I had to ask him.
That’s when I heard about Vipassana for the first time. As we sat on the floor (yes, he was that kind of guy now), he told me about a 10-day meditation retreat he had completed in the North of India. During the course, he wasn’t allowed to talk, read, write or distract himself in any way. He would sit for hours in meditation every day and only eat plant-based meals. He told me he had finally faced his inner demons and made peace with them.
I was curious. I knew I wanted to give this course a try, but I didn’t feel ready. So I did what every responsible young adult would do: I stored it somewhere deep down in my conscience and never thought about it again. Until four years later…
So what is Vipassana?
Vipassana, which in Sanskrit means “to see clearly,” is an ancient Buddhist meditation technique that dates back thousands of years to the Buddha’s teachings. It was popularized by the teacher S.N. Goenka, born and raised in Burma (Myanmar).
Beginners are introduced to the technique over a 10-day silent retreat. In contrast to other meditation techniques, Vipassana does not include any mantras, singing, or unusual breathing patterns. It’s just about you and your body sitting still and in silence. Students are instructed to merely observe the thoughts, feelings, and sensations that arise while they meditate. No matter how much pain you feel as you sit through a session, the goal is to not react, to remain equanimous. The goal is to interrupt the never-ending cycle of craving and aversion that guides our lives by observing our inner life and then acting consciously. Not merely reacting.
Before the course starts, students are asked to abide by a set of rules. The most prominent of them being: Communication in any form is strictly prohibited. Students are not allowed to talk, gesture with each other, write notes, or make eye contact. This is also called “noble silence.” These rules serve to calm the mind by learning to fix one’s attention on the breadth’s natural reality and bodily sensations.
My Experience
Disclosure: I will not go into much detail about my personal experience of the course. To derive the maximum value from Vipassana, one should go without any expectations. Everyone’s experience is different, and I don’t want to bias anyone.
Fast forward 4 years. It’s 2016, and I am about to graduate from a renowned business school in Maastricht. I’m 23 years old and miserable. I’m sitting at my desk. It’s raining outside (I’m in the Netherlands after all), and I’m wondering what to do with my life after graduation. At the pinnacle of my self-pity, I suddenly remembered my friend’s story about Vipassana.
This time I was ready. I signed up for a 10-day course in a center located in Belgium, 1.5h away by car from Maastricht. The center was formerly a family hotel and is surrounded by forest and farmland. There are beautiful trees everywhere and spacious walking areas.
I wish I could tell you that the following days were blissful, but that would be a lie. The experience was a lot harder than I had ever imagined. For the next 10 days, I would wake up at 4am to meditate for 10 hours a day. Of course, there was the physical challenge of sitting still for such a long time: after the first day, my knees and back already ached ardently. I even got sick on the second day, and my nose was clogged, which made focusing on my breath especially hard.
The real battle, nevertheless, was fought inside my head. For the first time in my life, I experienced what the monkey mind actually is. My thoughts would jump uncontrollably between past mistakes and regrets, sexual fantasies, childhood memories, and plans for the future. Usually, I would distract myself by watching a series, reading a book, or hanging out with friends. This time, however, I had to face my inner demons. Many people quit during the first days, and I admit that the same thought crossed my mind several times.
On day 6, I could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. During meditation, I managed to scan my body from head to toes without losing my focus. Sure, my body was still hurting. But I observed the pain, acknowledged it, and slowly realized that every sensation, feeling, or judgment I had, would eventually pass by. I experienced moments of real serenity, of deep happiness. As I would walk around the forest during our breaks, I was fully submerged in the present moment. I felt the warmth of every sunray on my face, the texture of every stone below my feet, and every gust of wind with such intensity that I doubted I had ever REALLY felt anything before.
5 years later: 5 learnings that stuck
I learned a lot about myself during those intense 10 days and I was in a state of bliss right after. Like everything in life, this feeling eventually faded, but I am grateful for the learnings I could draw from my experience. I am not claiming to have internalized the following conclusions completely. Yet, my Vipassana experience gave me a glimpse of how life could be if I really did.
Nothing is permanent. I know this sounds cheesy, but it’s so true. Every pain that I felt while meditating, no matter how excruciating, faded eventually. The feeling of serenity that I felt right after the course? Gone. I am not saying this in a nihilistic way. I think it’s important to be grateful for the good moments in life and remind myself that every challenge or problem I face will eventually be a thing of the past.
Don’t judge people based on their appearance. I love this one. For 10 days, I ate at the same table with the same people, meditated in the same hall, and with some, I even shared a room. I knew nothing about them and could obviously not ask them about their story. Naturally, I began to create my own backstory for each of them. It turns out I was utterly wrong every time. At the end of the course, one participant confessed that, in his head, I was a fisherman from the north of Belgium only because I was wearing a sweater that eventually made me look like one (I have never fished in my life).
One course will not magically fix your life. To be truly honest, I had secretly hoped that one Vipassana course would immediately solve all my problems. That I would suddenly know what to do with my life. Of course, that didn’t happen. In fact, it only marked the beginning of a long journey towards a more conscious lifestyle.
We waste so much energy on useless thoughts and worries. On day 7, a fellow student crept up on me as I walked through the garden. He broke the noble silence and told me how difficult the experience was for him. Baffled for a moment, I only told him to talk to a teacher and continued walking. For the remaining 8 hours of meditation that day, I could not stop thinking about that 10-second encounter.
Meditation is worth the time investment. I have been meditating (more or less) daily for 5 years. I squeeze 20 to 30 minutes of practice into my morning routine. I am more balanced in general, and many friends have told me that I radiate a sense of tranquility.
Conclusion
Vipassana changed my life for the better. It didn’t happen overnight (or rather 10 days), but slowly and steadily as I continued to meditate. Last year, I completed another 3-day course offered only for “old” students, and I plan to sign up for another 10-day course this year.
I have recommended it to several of my friends, and most of them have had similar experiences. As I mentioned before, Vipassana will not make your problems go away magically. It is merely another tool for life. Like any tool, we need to maintain it and use it appropriately.
In case you are wondering what happened to my troubled/enlightened friend Konrad: The change he experienced was genuine and not a phase. He inspired many people to try Vipassana and live a conscious and happy life. Today, he is happily married and has a beautiful son, Emilio. He lives in Leipzig, Germany, and sprays graffiti legally for a living. He became a known local artist and founded his own book publishing company.
