10 days, zero talk: my first Vipassana meditation course

What if you stopped doing anything that excludes your physiological needs, for ten days, while diving deep into meditation?

Drop your phone, laptop, book, notebook, and whatever else might distract you. Shut up. Sit down. Go inside. And meditate, meditate, meditate. Here is my attempt to describe my own experience at a Vipassana meditation course.

🤯

Just like that, together with a bunch of strangers, I embarked on my first Vipassana meditation course. I was eager to find out what was going to happen inside when meditating for 10 hours a day. And why would someone even do this?

During my travels I have heard a lot about Vipassana meditation. Countless friends and strangers praised the technique and its benefits, encouraging me to give it a go. No talking for 10 days? Sounds interesting! So, I applied for a 10 days Vipassana course at Dhamma Malaya in Eastern Malaysia, starting January, the 1st... What better way to start the new year, I thought to myself.

My spot was confirmed, I packed my stuff, had a very early night on New Year’s Eve, informed my loved ones I was going to disappear for a while and left with a promising message:

Happy New Brain!

There are quite a few rules you will have to observe during the course, including the sila, 5 precepts that can be summed up like this:

• no killing
• no stealing
• no sex
• no lies
• no drugs

Furthermore, you are asked to abstain from any other ritual or practice (such as yoga, mantras or prayers, to name a few), to “give a fair trial to the technique of Vipassana meditation in its purity”. You are not allowed to have any books, writing material, nor any other “entertainment” devices. You will deposit all these potential distractions at the office right at your arrival, phone included, before starting the course, and immerse yourself into the Dhamma, discovered by Buddha over 2500 years ago and made available as a meditation technique by teacher Goenka.

DAY ONE: PSYCHO-DELIC

4 am.

Goooooooooonnnng... Gooooooooooooooooooong... Goooooooooooooooong

Is it too early to say good morning?

I am D6 and my meditation seat is 8E. Our names, identities, belongings, and the like, are left “outside”. We say goodbye to it all and get ready for a mind-full-immersion. We only bring our bodies, our minds, some clothes and toiletries. Ready to grow our awareness. Ready to go nuts.

Males and females go separate ways from the evening of day 0, which is smart and beneficial. Eliminating as many distractions as possible is the most effective way to bring the attention towards the inside. Yet females can be so inexplicably attractive and distracting too, my dear. Especially if they remain silent. Oh, the stealing charm and mysteriousness they carry with them! Males are to be seen only during meditation hours, on the left side of the hall, and it’s surprisingly easy to feel like somebody doesn’t exist.

The first hours of meditation, between 4:30 and 6:30 am, make me wonder what the hell I am doing here. Sitting in the pitch black of my closed eyes, I try to fight my incurable restlessness and meditate. What does it even mean to meditate?

Vipassana meditators are required to observe “noble silence”, which is meant to help focusing, to avoid comparing their experience to other students’ and to create a fertile environment for meditation.

The silence is only broken by some not so noble burps, loud and trembling, mostly coming from the female side. And then the coughing, the cracking toes that inevitably demand more cracking toes, creating an irresistible stereo effect, and some long, deep sighs. Someone is clearing their throat, just as if they were about to speak.

Noble silence means also no eye contact, no gestures, and no physical contact allowed. And it’s impressive how easy it is to mess it up.

So, when I finish serving myself some wholesome vegetarian food from a large metal tray and the spoon inevitably falls in the soupy plant-based mixture, my mind wants to say shit, my right hand tries to land on my forehead and be like oh no, but I can’t. I stop everything, look at the red sea of soup where the spoon sank, think of how to save the wreck, but the line of judging looks is behind me waiting, pressuring, so I decide to simply leave the spoon to its sad destiny and move to the next tray of wholesome vegetarian food, as if nothing happened. I feel so stupid, for an hour or so after the occurrence, that I really need to have a word with myself.

I realize it looks like everyone is tripping balls here. Like zombies, we wander around, lost in our minds. Walking slowly, like prisoners in a concentration camp, in hopeless resignation and accepted misery. Prisoners of our minds. Twisting and contorting, stretching like we’ve never done before after each meditation session, sighing, unable to find ease yet so curled up in such pleasureful relaxation. Ten hours a day of meditation are no joke. I find myself walking at a much slower pace. As well as eating, serving myself food, sitting down, brushing my teeth and the like.

You naturally become more present in each and every action. Showers become like holy purifying rituals, as if your sins were washed away by a crystal clear waterfall in the Garden of Eden. What thoughts could possibly cross your mind in such a place?

Much like in a psychedelic trip, even the most uninteresting little plant becomes a wonder of nature. You lose yourself in it, for minutes, checking out the small ecosystem that surrounds it. Staring at the ground, the trees, the sky, in awe and amazement, utterly unaware of time passing.

The meditation sittings are torture. I feel like I need to cry, but at the same time I’m experiencing some kind of bliss, peace, as if something deep inside me knows how special this is. When I leave the Meditation Hall after the first few confused sessions, exhausted, the colors seem so vibrant, everything is alive and breathing.

DAY TWO: MIND, MY MADNESS

I think. I shouldn’t think.

After barely 48 hours in the mental center I feel like I’m losing it, for real. During the 8 am group meditation I silently watch my mind sabotaging me in different ways, trying to make me give up on the course. Obsessive thoughts, violent thoughts, anxious thoughts. Distant memories, commentaries, Q&As, love and hate. Zero control. Absolutely. Zero. Control.

It’s insane how chaotic, compulsive, repetitive, stale, ignorant and destructive are our minds. It’s ridiculous how little control we have over it and how hard it is to collaborate with it. Here you can see it all, as it is, your mind with no filters. Your mind, who doesn’t care about seeming crazy but at the same time will try to justify every single thing. Your hypocrite mind. You just observe and try to tame it, but with no violence, oh no, because that won’t work.

“Hey, I’m trying to do some work here, could you just…”

“Remember that time when you…”,your bloody mind interrupts you. Abruptly, heartlessly, disrespectfully. At first you barely realize what it’s doing, because of course it’s a trap. And it goes on and on and on, jumping here and there like a monkey from tree to tree. By the time you do realize it, it’s been 2,858 thoughts already. You forgot where you are and what you are supposed to do, sucked up by a massive mind trip.

“Hey, what’s this game we’re playing? Didn’t we say..."

“I bet this is going to fuck up my knees permanently, maybe I should get a chair, too. But that would be an unbearable defeat, can I take it? I guess I will just suffer for now, think about it later...”

“No! No, hell, no! You don’t think about it later you bloody bastard, you are already thinking about it now! Now just be here and now, please.”

“I know... Sorry... But what if it gets even worse until something tears apart and...”

SHUT UP! I want to shout, to stop the ignorance and redundancy of my mind’s blah blah. I don’t, I have to treat it kindly. Smile, and bring my attention back.

At some point you will have to come to an agreement with your mind. Possibly a peace agreement. You could see it as a naughty little sister you have to take care of, prevent from self-destruction and help understand things. It’s a continuous talk, chatter, debate, battle that often degenerates into war. It’s your mind! And if you lower your guard, be careful, because you might waste quite some time listening to its nonsense. So arm yourself with patience and attention, and be aware of what happens inside you. Learn to forgive it, learn to teach your little sister how to move around in the world.

2 pm. Group meditation sitting. I am in despair. This is torture, self-inflicted, willful torture. Suddenly, I realize small groups of students are being (silently) asked to join the teacher for a brief consultation-meditation session. She is sitting cross-legged on her white throne like a fallen angel. Still. Peaceful. Shiny. “Don’t get angry” she says, when my turn comes. She is looking so deep into my eyes, her calmness is trespassing me. “The mind will play many games. Just observe it, and whenever you see it is wandering away, gently bring it back to your breath”. Her words fill me up with peace. My motivation is full stock again. I understand that my restlessness, here, is pointless. I really just need to go back to my cushion and work. Harder.

DAY 3: SOMETHING FALLS APART IN THE DHAMMA HALL

5 am. As usual, we are diligently meditating (or trying to) in the big white Dhamma Hall. After two full days of meditation my knees are cursing me, my impinged shoulder is killing me and my back is stiff as a rock. At least I am trying hard. Patiently and persistently, patiently and persistently, Goenka’s voice echoes in my head. This is a place where you learn to forgive yourself if you just can’t make it to the end of the meditation sitting and decide to leave the hall in helpless anger and frustration. You also learn to be really determined, because really, the “only” obstacle here is your mind. And it happens to be the greatest obstacle of all, too.

So, I feel pretty determined and relaxed while observing my breath. I am slowly accepting th…

Who am I?

I hear, thinking it’s some more instructions for meditation.

Who am I?, echoes from the back of the male area, this time loud and clear. I remain vigilant, listening.

Who am IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII?!, once more, and this time more like a desperate scream.

Oops, looks like somebody lost his mind. I feel you, bro. Yet I don’t blink an eye. I must admit it’s a bit disturbing. I have lost all my focus. It’s only day three. I’m here, still struggling with sitting properly, and this guy, breathing heavily, is now breaking up in a creepy mixture of laughter and cry. He broke the silence. The noble, pure, so cherished silence. A part of me perceives this as an offense, as a disrespectful outrage of the golden rules. Each and everyone of us is all alone with his own mind, his own awareness, pain, obsessions, desires, traumas – the full “I” package. Coping with all this, you don’t want to deal with other people’s struggles as well. Because one, most of the time you can already tell from their faces – and it looks like you guys might be on the same boat – and two, you have already a hell of a workload yourself. Just like when you are tripping balls, the only idea of someone sneaking into your thoughts or you inadvertently sneaking into someone’s mind is threatening. Dangerous! You don’t want that. But you are here to learn, to accept, to forgive.

I adjust my posture, ask my heartbeat to slow down, take a few deep breaths and try to jump back inside. Billions of thoughts are crowding my mind now. I try to silence it, but I’m in a loop. Time is standing still, and maybe I should be thankful, for it is giving me the time to get back to myself. One hour of meditation can literally feel like a whole day sometimes.

DAY 4: THINGS GET SERIOUS

Today we start real, full-power Vipassana meditation. You cannot move. You cannot open your legs and hands. Keep your eyes closed, spine and neck straight. Goenka’s voice reminds us to work patiently and persistently. With a calm and attentive mind, calm and attentive mind. We are bound to be successful. Patiently, Elena, patiently! But my knees, my hips, my shoulders, my neck… Not to mention my mind:

“Chicken soup”

She had warned me, the white angel-teacher. “The mind is going to play many games”. Here I am, again, listening to my mind’s rubbish. The amount of trash, repetitiveness and negativity it can vomit is insane. Then, by thinking that it tricks me pretty well, I get inevitably pulled in a timeless loop of misery. I guess I’m here to learn to break these chains, and I should not expect incredible results that fast. Isn't that something the ignorance of the mind would do?

Day 4 is quite hard, my mind is on fire. At the tea break, I spill tea all over the counter because the massive teapot does not work as I expected. I feel stupid as fuck but there is nothing to do about it and I didn’t know there was a cloth on the other counter. Either I get angry at myself, or I forgive. I decide to do both, because after a couple of minutes of anger I realize I don’t quite like it. Well this sounds like a step forward! Then I feel pleased I got over it and there you go again in the like-dislike loop.

My body is in tremendous agony. After meditation I need to wait for my legs to come back to life, before I limp away, waiting for my knees to go back to a decent amount of pain. This procedure subtracts about 4 minutes out of the 5 minutes break between sittings.

During my routine walk in the mental center, fenced and enclosed by a palm tree plantation, I see a Malaysian man laying behind the set of rooms, chilling in the shade with his head lazily resting on a backpack. I skip a couple of heart beats. I guess I had almost forgotten which country I am in. Time and space here are far away concepts. The sight of a man in “my” territory is a bit disturbing. What I am experiencing here feels so intimate, that any stranger is out of place, out of our “collective trip”. I feel shaken. But then I get over with it, because this, too, shall pass away. I keep on walking my way. Some people are exercising. I see them walking around the park going past me 5, 6, 10 times, while I am still happily stuck at the same spot, looking at the shiny little pearls of water droplets on the blades of grass, mesmerized.

Sometimes the silence doesn’t sound so silent, and you bump into some Chinese woman vigorously tapping and slapping her body to improve circulation. Just accept it, and move on.

Further away, two squirrels are spiraling after each other around the tree in the blissful ecstasy of life, playing hide and seek behind the wavy branches, laughing and jumping around. Playing the game of love.

DAY 5: THE ANTS CONSPIRACY

Day 5 starts as usual with the 4:30 am meditation. I make myself comfortable, as much as I can, on my meditation seat, stacking up cushions under my knees, unrealistically hoping I won’t have to move for at least an hour. By day 3, usually, the whole stock on cushions is gone. Some people are sitting on towers of pillows to survive the meditation hour of so called “strong determination”, meaning you are not supposed to move. At all. Others, including me, got too little cushions, barely one for each knee, but now it’s too late. So accept it, forgive yourself for not having thought about it before, and move on. And remember: don’t think about it now. It’s past. It’s gone. It’s too late. Accept.

Just before I close my eyes I see, between me and my sitting-straight-and-still-like-a-Buddha Chinese neighbor, a bunch of fast moving, highly agitated reddish ants. It unsettles me. I can already see them crawling on me to turn my meditation into two hours of cruel torture. I can already feel them on my skin, biting me, going into my ears, tickling under my shirt and surveying my nose to set up evil nesting plans. Challenge of the day. As if the rest wasn’t enough already. I try to close my eyes and begin, with a calm and attentive mind. Ironically, we are supposed to observe sensations on our body. Be it tingling, throbbing, itching, pain, cold – any sensation. Does that include ants’ invasion sensations, I wonder?

Lunchtime. The worst is gone, I am quietly eating my bloatsome vegetarian meal, and there it is, a cute tiny black ant roaming around in my plate. It doesn’t seem like a threat, but I have to beware not to kill it, nor harm it: that would go against the rules.

Walk time. I am peacefully making my way to the sunset corner of the center, enjoying every single step on the rustling leaves. The place is so peaceful, a bit like you would imagine heaven. Calmness, harmony, nature all around. Widespread happiness that does not need to be expressed through words. Time is slow, but not dull. The sounds mix and isolate, the breeze and delicate heat of the sun are caressing my skin. I am wandering around and my mind is not. It feels good…Until something stings my calf. A red ant diving deep into my skin, aggressive and determined. Okay, war is declared. I try to push it away, at first too gently, because of the 5 sila precepts, then I have to give it a proper side-kick with my index finger.

“What the hell? Are ants plotting to make me lose my newly gained peace of mind?”

I feel like nature (or just ants?) is turning its back on me, furiously rebelling. I thought we were friends and this must be some sort of punishment. Or are they just trying to teach me not to react?

“Remember impermanence, Elena. Anicca. Anicca. Anicca” (in the ancient Pali language, which was spoken in northern India around the time of the Buddha, anicca stands for impermanent, ephemeral, arising and passing away)

Geoffrey, the monitor lizard, is sticking his forked tongue in the grass to catch some food. I feel a bit better, ready to continue my walk along the pathway with equanimity, as if nothing happened. But then again, a pinching sensation on my waist, under my skirt. One more on my thigh. How did they get there? The ants situation escalated, it’s an invasion. I start walking faster, almost running, drawing the attention and stares of a couple weird out fellow meditators. On the edge of a crisis I rush into my room, take off all my clothes to check for more ants and run in the shower to wash off this abuse sensation and freshen up.

GONGGGGGGGGG…. Gooooonggggggg….. gooong

The bell brings me right back to my senses, back to “normal”, back to the meditation hall. I need to forgive the ants and move on. But will they forgive me, will I forgive myself?

DAY 6: MY HEARTBEAT, OH SO LOUD!

Halfway through these crazy 10 days, my knees are burning with excruciating pain.

Sooner or later you will need to surrender to the pain, discomfort, numbness. This is also what the technique wants to teach you, and you learn it through your own experience, witnessing your own misery, dealing with your own frustration:

You are not your knees.

Don’t react to the pain, just observe it. Your mind will always be there to make you a hero, or a loser. There is never a middle ground, there is never objectivity, unless you train yourself. The madness of the thinking mind is always so drastic, so brutal. It prevents you from seeing things with clarity, with equanimity, in a calm and balanced way.

“You suck. You should have picked up that spoon.”, and aversion arises.

Ego slap. Your mind magnifies everything, bringing up even the stupidest event just so you can’t meditate and find peace. Why would you want to think of that spoon now? The mind wants chaos. It loves ups and downs, it never rests and doesn’t want you to rest either. It will try to find anything to think of, anything to grasp on so you just can’t live the present.

“Hey, you are doing good, though. Sitting for so long exploring the mysterious wastelands of the mind...”, and pleasure arises.

The good, the bad, the ugly. Let it talk as much as it wants, listen and observe, but don’t get pulled in.

Day by day, my senses are getting sharper. My heartbeat became so loud it’s almost distracting. Like it’s amplified, and it’s pumping heavy beats in my veins. I start seeing every little bird, insect, spider, lizard, gecko that roams around the mental center. I even make friends with two permanent resident monitor lizards, Geoffrey and John. I never get tired of looking at them. I spend minutes on end admiring the tiny complex world of fire ants, in awe, and get lost in it. It’s a psychedelic experience, an explosion of colors. It’s the wonder of nature manifesting itself naked, fresh and pure, as it is. It’s the magic of observing nature’s beauty without constantly defining, characterizing, evaluating, liking or disliking. It feels like my vision has embraced a whole new range of colors, where everything seems alive, pulsing with life.

DAY 7: WHERE IS MY MIND?

Morning. On my daily walk after breakfast I stop and look at two giant hornbills on the Tree of Life at the sunset end corner. Goosebumps. There’s a woman not far from me, also enchanted by the hornbills’ interactions. Shouting and talking over each other, they fly from branch to branch.

Another woman joins the group, silently, of course. The excitement and wonder are palpable in the atmosphere. In any other context, someone would be saying “Hey, are those hornbills?!”, “Look at their beaks!”, or “Wooow, it’s the first time I see this kind of bird, what do they call them?”, and other things that would completely spoil the moment. The silent pleasure of looking at some live nature scene without commenting on it, be it in solitude or in group, is underrated.

Afternoon. Group meditation. It’s hot. I am going deeper, deeper, with a quiet and alert mind. I feel a sudden WHOOSH, and the world around my closed eyes starts spinning, or I start spinning. The swirling gets faster and faster, my spine mechanically straightens up, and waves of energy scan my body in all directions, in something like a cosmic orgasm. It feels like I’m in space, it feels like I am space and space itself is void. My heart is pounding in a scary way, and for some time I have no control at all over what is happening. My mind is gone. Then I start tearing, for no reason at all, I just can’t help it and I don’t want to help it. I’m fighting to keep my eyes closed and I realize how difficult it is to do so while crying. I feel some sort of gigantic love towards the universe that is inexplicable. I feel serenity all around.

When I’m back from this space trip and I can feel my body touching Planet Earth again, my breath normalized and my mind talking as usual, I open my eyes. Everything looks quite normal around.

Vipassana teaches you the importance of observing sensations and thoughts with equanimity, knowing that everything is impermanent. So I tell myself not to give it too much importance, not to get attached to it or take it as something I want to achieve, but just as something. Neither good nor bad, not even special in any way (this one is rather hard). It’s so easy to fall for it and give in to the instinct of liking or disliking, craving or aversion. But it’s a trap, and at least here, now, during these 10 days, I need to remember not to seek pleasure, nor to disapprove pain.

Goooooong goooong goooong.

I walk out of the hall, slowly, stop and freeze at the sight of a brave little squirrel who is munching on something just in front of me, on the path. I am standing, motionless, on the way, just in front of the hall. The squirrel sees me but doesn’t show any human avoidance behavior, he just keeps on looking at me. I stare at his tiny black squirrel eyes, he stares at my big, weary human eyes for seconds that feel like eternity. Then people start swarming from behind me, out of the hall, walking towards him to the path, until he eventually decides it’s time to run away.

How unlikely is such a thing to happen in an environment in which people talk? How has the squirrel not shown any fear whatsoever and just kept on playing the staring game with me?

DAY 8: THE DIVINE IMPERMANENCE

Wake up. Meditation. Breakfast. Poop. Take a walk. Bell. Meditation. Lunch. Shower. Laundry. Take another walk. Lay down for a minute in your room while staring at the white, aseptic, anti-distraction wall. Bell. More meditation, and more, and more. Tea break. Take a walk. Bell. Guess what? More meditation. Goenka’s discourse. Meditation. Rest. And when I say rest, I mean it. At the end of the day, between exhaustion and serenity, you touch the bed and finally give relief to your body.

By now this has become your only reality and every day runs the same way. This routine is your home, your safe terrain, your anchor. Inside, though, there’s a whole world of subconscious madness that brings up new truths and illusions for you to deal with, with an ever-growing clarity of mind.

My dreams start to get very vivid, weird and disturbing. There is death and destruction in my nights, chaos and complexes, cats and dogs, and my lovely grandma is still alive. I close my eyes and see Hindu gods. I false-awaken in my room experiencing heavy visuals of the surrounding world falling apart, colorful mandalas, geometries and choking sensations. I true-awaken in the middle of the night with my heart beating out of my chest. It’s a beautiful mess.

Meditation, on the other hand, has become less of a mess. I start to realize that my mind doesn’t go as far away as it used to just a few days ago. Its range of action seems to have reduced. I rarely see it wandering away to remote places. Maybe, we are starting to collaborate.

DAY 9: DRY LIKE THE DESERT, WET LIKE THE NILE

7:30 am, although I have no watch. During my walk I see a black, long snake sneaking through the bamboos. This zoo never stops impressing me.

After all these struggles, aches, joy, achievements, you should never “settle down” and think “I got this”. This is a rule for life. On the ninth day my eyes stop cooperating. They won’t stay shut. I do the math in my head:

My dear mind immediately starts complaining, thinking we are not supposed to have our eyes closed for most of the day. While walking outside, some paranoias make their way into my brain. It seems like stuff is getting blurrier and blurrier and I start thinking that I am slowly losing sight. I shouldn’t be thinking about this, nor get angry that I am getting distracted, again: I am not my eyes. I am not my “I”s.

But then my mouth starts over-salivating, and it’s out of control. The only thing I can do is keep on swallowing, and my swallows sound so loud, I’m afraid I’m disturbing my neighbors, in addition to myself. No way I can meditate like this. I feel like sitting for so long might have turned me into a dog and now I am sweating from my tongue.

Then I think to myself: “Hey, how come I’ve been sitting for over one hour without moving? Where did the pain go?” - Yet another reminder that things come and pass away.

I have been there before, I have already realized we should never settle down, never think “I got this”, as a general rule. And here I am, struggling over something new and at the same time smiling because I have gained a new insight about impermanence.

Can you see the pattern there? Can you see the infinite loops we get into?

DAY 10: THE WORDS THAT BROKE THE MAGIC SPELL.

Day 10 marks the end of noble silence. After meditation, the dining hall gets filled with the overlapping chattering you haven’t heard in ages. The magic is gone. It’s time to step back into the real world.

“You were the last person I talked to” are my first words to a fellow student. So empty, it would have been better to shut up. Ego slap. At first it’s very strange to communicate, as if I am watching myself talk and everything I say is so worthless. But I quickly get the hang of it, ending up speaking English, German and even freaking Russian.

The switch is shocking, almost like waking up from an endless dream. Attached to the peaceful atmosphere of 10 days of meditation, I struggle to fit in this reality made of communication which I have been inhabiting for my whole life.

🤯

To wrap it up, in the endless journeys your mind takes you to during a Vipassana meditation course, you might go over your entire life condensed in 10 days, through random episodes of pure madness and some glimpses of peace. Just sit comfortably, put on your seatbelt, close your eyes and be ready to be born, die, review your life’s highlights, your identity, your obsessions and much more, in an in-depth exploration of your own mind. You will experience “truth as it really is, not as you would like it to be”, through constant self-observation.

You will learn that eventually everything turns into either craving or aversion, like or dislike. It’s good food for thought, although you are supposed to be meditating. Can’t wait for that coffee break? Craving. Cannot stand the pain on your knees? Aversion. Do you feel miserable? I know, right? Everything arises and passes away. Pain included. So, embrace the pain. Everything is so adorably and inevitably impermanent. Your job is to enjoy the ride, watching patiently, with an equanimous mind.

Why a Vipassana? To learn to move around your awareness, grow your patience, absorb wisdom that doesn’t come from intellectual games. Have you ever wondered who is driving that flickering mind of yours, and who is you and what is the point of everything? A Vipassana meditation course has a pretty practical, full-immersion approach that will promptly show you pleasant and unpleasant truths that you can experience on your own skin.

If you’re afraid you will go nuts, well, you probably will unless you already are. Fearing your own mind might make it your worst enemy. But hey, you can be friends.

DAY 11: THE END

Abracadabra, Sim Sala Bim, Bibbidi Bobbidi Bu.

Meditators are thrown back into the chaotic outside world, whether they are ready or not to deal with the overwhelming reality of things. It’s the end, but not the end of impermanence.

May the force be with us. May all beings be happy!

Bhavatu Sabba Mangalam

May all beings be happy

DAY 365:

One year later, here I am, having the same old realizations, and occasionally some new ones, too. I keep laughing, or crying about it while making my way through life. Vipassana meditation is no panacea, you have to keep doing the work, keep the awareness high.

By the way, I still meditate. Due to divine impermanence, I am sometimes very strict with my meditation schedule, and sometimes I am just not. But it’s okay.

Also, all this was written after the end of the course, I did not cheat:)