Wolfgang Maehr

Quite a few people asked about the meditation experience and here I should give a bit more detailled description on that and then raise a few questions.

Vipassana Meditation as taught by Mr. Goenka and his delegate teachers is the meditation technique developed by Buddha Siddartha Gautama and preserved in its original way for all the years in Burma until it started spreading again a few decades ago. It is based on observing the reality within ones body in equanimity. In the ten days seminar one is supposed to learn the basic technique and then one is set off to use it in everyday life and serious practitioners tend to return almost every year for another course.

Meditation Environment

The whole teaching is done through a non-profit organisation with only volunteers. Participation in courses is free of financial charge, the only precepts are that for ten days one is not to 1) steal 2) lie 3) kill any being 4) have sexual misconduct and 5) intoxicate oneself. This creates a very peaceful and positive environment, with the basic needs of the students taken care of. In our case it was one- or two-bed residences with own toilet and shower. The site of the Dhamma Thali is nice and calm at the end of a small valley outside of Jaipur. Peacocks and monkeys would roam around just like chip-monks living in between all the pittoresque residential quarters. Food is basic, healthy, vegetarian and subject to a monks gratefulness as it is the result of somebody else’s generosity. Day schedule rund from 04:30 to 21:00 with 10 hours of meditation.

Program

The first two and a half days are preparation, where the students learn to simply observe the breath flowing through the nostrils. By narrowing down the observed area the student is supposed to sharpen the mind to experience subtler sensations and observe them equanimously.

After this warm-up one would learn to scan the whole body for any type of sensation. For this one is scanning each body part (skin first, later the whole body) from head to toe and vice versa. From this point on one is not supposed to change the posture while meditating and instead fully focus on the experiences. Observing the body then helps recognising the sensations as what they are and not the solidified reactions like pain, fury or craving. This makes meditation a bit easier even if then all former “sins” start bubbling up.

On the 9th day, the technique of loving compassion is taught and after that the taking ban is lifted. The silence is suddenly gone and suddenly there is chatter everywhere. After a few minutes this was too much at least for me and I started longing for the silence. But eventually one gets used to and the idea is as well to have the last day as a re-socialising day to prepare for the hustle and bustle. Yes, people start smiling and laughing – as far as I see as well because of the ability to speak the seriousness is gone.

Personal Experience

For me, many of the basic philosophical principles were already known from beginning. Instead it was the practice that was new and to be learned. Sitting motionless has always been my problem with meditation and the same was now. The sensations were not as much as the problem as the lack in variations thereof. After half an hour my mind would get bored with the ever-same sensations of the lower foot numb, the back with a bit of pressure and the rest of the body calmly present. Yes, this would change but only by nuances that were not really easy to spot. Yes, my mind is not subtle (I prefer spicy over blend, I prefer strong colours over pastel, etc…) and it was craving for something to happen no matter wether joy or pain. Just sitting was boring.

On the other hand, to be fair, I have to say that I went there to face my inner demons and that, I have done. So every now and then big questions would pop up, issues that I carry with me, that I never really resolved. The lack of distraction would bring them up and they would make my meditation impossible. So then I usually had to get out of the room and figure them out first, before sitting calmly was possible. That was the obvious demons, whereof some have been eradicated.

The other, bigger elephant demon is the restlessness of a non-sublte mind. The teachers said that a mind cannot be subtle if not balanced. I find my mind balanced but it never learned to be subtle, instead interests range from here to there, initial enthusiasm is high but soon becomes shallow. Long commitment is a tricky task for this brain, instead it aims for scalable solutions that you can push off and that then feed themselves (let’s see how that will work with kids, hehe). of course, the obvious answer is that practicing exactly this Vipassana method one hour in the morning and one at night would cure this, but getting the motivation to do this is the difficult part. And as the teachers said, one only has motivation when one sees the benefit. In my case certain crucial principles have already been present in my life, which make spotting benefits in daily life difficult. Instead, I guess I have to wait until another motivation crosses my path, one that motivates me to slow down, enjoy subtleness and the joy of tiny nuances in everyday life. ;)

Philosophical Discussion

This part for me, was the most disappointing in that programme as I personally cannot start practicing something without understanding and agreeing just on mere belief. Well, or just to a certain level and my threshold seems lower than the one of many people. Ironically, the teachers said the same thing of “believe not because of a guru or because of intellectual understand but only when you experience”. Supposedly the philosophy should be taught further down the Vipassana path, but that is too late for me and if anybody has a good recommendation on books on the philosophical underpinning, please let me know.

So, now a few concrete philosophical dilemmas:

• Sharpening your mind by focussing on your bodily experiences – where does reality end? One starts with observing the breath. At the gross level this is clear but the more subtle the sensations become, the bigger are the error margins in relation. Imagine drawing a dot on a piece of paper and then searching it. The smaller the tip of the pen, the less secure you can be about knowing where the dot is. Without an instrument, you cannot verify it at a certain point. Same here, breath is real, its sensation is real but when becoming subtle one cannot know if the sensation is real or an imagination. The reasons are manifold, like one’s wish to succeed in sharpening the mind or the mind’s unwillingness to be tamed, etc.
• Enlightenment comes after dissolving the ego and compassion for others. So far clear, but how does an enlightened person the relate to oneself? Let’s say an enlightened person and a stranger are thirsty when crossing the desert, they find an entities of water, with the amount enough for saving one person to come to the next oasis. What will the enlightened person do? Sacrifice him/herself for the non-enlightened one even though surviving longer he/she could probably help so many others to come closer to enlightenment still? What if there is another, second, poisonous entity of water, how would that change the situation?
• The good and the bad only exist because of each other. And love nothing specific and you will love everything. Both are recurring themes in many philosophies and beliefs. This means that I will enjoy plain water just like I enjoy salty water, sweet water or water with lime taste. Will that also mean that I will not prefer either anymore if given the option? or will I choose the right one to drink with a better understanding for the context? Yes, a very mundane problem as such and a un-enlightened question because I care for the taste of water instead of the essence of water (it keeps me alive). But as for me living is experiencing (the gross or subtle) it does matter to taste the different flavours of water. Sometimes it is sweet, sometimes it is salty. Sometimes one deems its taste “good” sometimes one deems it “bad”. Is that not how life should be? The bad also being good, just like the good is bad?
• Last, a more historical question on the method. They say the method initially spread quickly and many many people benefitted from it. Then it got modified and altered and lost its effectivity. Why was that? I mean I understand that modifying it the wrong way makes it useless. But why would a proficient person modify the method to become unusable? And why would a proficient teacher not be able to show the benefits compared to a charlatan with a fake method?

Random Impressions

• Not communicating is a matter of attitude and not knowing anybody in the course does help. But in general, this should not be the most difficult thing.
• Ten days without communication is nice but also a strange feeling as outside the world might crumble and one will not find out.
• Take every step when you are ready. There is no point to be in a hurry. Doors open when one is ready to look careful enough.

Conclusions

I am glad I did it, I learned many new things even if I think that with the right preparation I could have taken far more from there. I mat well consider attending another programme but only when I feel ready for the next step and currently I do not. Until then I guess I will stick with what my friend Deepak did: 3 weeks hiking in Leh Ladakh (well, or some other place…). :)

Still, if you consider going, have questions, comments and opinions, please leave them in the comments or mail me. Happy discussing!