MY CLAIRIFICATION

My “Clair”ification – How spending ten days in a silent meditation course spoke to me loud and clear

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“Hope you have a Clair-ifying and cathartic next few days.” This was one of the last texts I received before turning in my phone for ten days. TEN DAYS! That’s a mighty long time.

I have to admit that when as we drove down the final road, deep into Texas farmlands, I had scenes of the movie, “Get Out,” going through my head. Who does this? Who voluntarily signs up for ten days of silence and meditation removed from all of society? We must be some kind of crazy.  But then again, I had several close friends who had participated in Vipassana Meditation Courses and had many positive things to say. What did I have to lose except ten days that I could never get back? I loved to travel so being stuck on a farm for ten days was not ideal. Although, after travelling to over 80 countries and territories, I knew that it was time to take the deepest journey of my life – within. And if the benefits were as they described, I had so much to gain. Countless people around the world received benefits for centuries.

What is Vipassana Meditation? I won’t go in to lots of details because there is a large amount of information online but it’s a meditation technique from ancient times. It has ties to Buddha but existed before and after him and is strictly non-secular. It is NOT A CULT. I repeat, IT IS NOT A CULT. I don’t even like Multi-Level Marketing, so there’s no way that I would ever drink the Koolaid. There’s no magic. This is reality. For more information on the meditation, check out www.dhamma.org. My favorite statement about Vipassana meditation is that it is “..an art of living that one can use to make positive contributions to society.” The word Vipassana means insight and I was about to spend one hundred hours in meditation getting to know myself more than ever before.

Why did I decide to do it? Because it felt like the right time in my life to be open to possibilities of growth. I’ve always been a seeker of information and this is the truth. The truth about you.
Who better to know deeper?

The Rules:

Noble silence – No talking, eye contact, physical touching with other participants. No communication with the outside world (we turned in our phone, computers and all items of entertainment). No sexual contact or fantasizing. No contact at all with the opposite sex. Multiple hours of daily meditation both alone and a group setting were ahead of us. No killing of insects. Even inside. Those lucky bugs.

We were about to live like monks and nuns for ten days. There is never a fee for a Vipassana course. You are reliant on the charity of others (which you have the opportunity to pay forward.

The Residences:

I chose the Vipassana center in Kaufman, TX because it’s known as the Hilton of Vipassana centers. I wanted my first experience to be pleasant reducing the risk of me want to run for the woods. We each had a private room and private bathroom and shower. It was extremely clean and nicer than many hotels. There were 51 residences on the women’s side and I think about the same in the men’s building.

The Meals:

Delicious! We were fed plenty and there was a great variety of food. We were not about to start even though we finished our last meal of the day by noon. That was supposed to keep us more attuned to the evening meditation (as long as you could concentrate over some rumbling stomachs).

All meals were vegetarian and many had a international flare. Chick pea curry, poha, moong dahl, brewed chai tea. And all of the healthy ingredients were available all day – apple cider vinegar, flax seed, sesame, and gamachio. I have no idea what gomachio is but lots of ladies seemed to be sprinkling it on their food so I went for it. I must have tried ten varieties of tea just to give myself some entertainment – oolong, green teac, yerba mate, chamomille, etc.

Exercise:

Regular exercise was prohibited because it is often an addiction and leads to craving. But there were walking trails that I avidly used twice daily after breakfast and lunch.

The Group:

There were about fifty women and more than fifty men.  We ranged in age from 20s to 70s and represented the United Nations – White, Black, Hispanic, Asian.

I looked around at this varied group and wondered what our stories were. Why were we here? I’m sure that the reasons varied as much as those from “The Breakfast Club” from the quite benign to the highly traumatic.

With each course, there are two main teachers – one male and one female. And two assistant teachers as well. They are the only ones that you are able to talk to if you have questions. Same-sex of course. There wasn’t any way around fraternizing.

The Daily Schedule: It’s like McMeditation from that popular fast-food chain. You cannot deviate from the menu. Below is some of what was required. The full schedule can be found on the website and is the same at centers all over the world in 70 countries. It is essentially one hundred hours of meditation in group and solo over the course of ten days.

4a – Gong wake-up (OUCH!)

10p – Lights out

And in between, we had three required hour-long sessions of group meditation and several meditation sessions that we could do on our own in the meditation hall or in our private room or in our cell in a pagoda. Yes, cell. You were assigned a cell block number just like it were a prison. But in this institution, the goal was to free yourself and your mind. The goal is to come out of bondage.

Each evening, we watched lectures from the main teacher SN Goenka. They were recorded in 1991. They were insightful and hilarious. Something that we could look forward to each evening after a long day of meditation.

We also had breakfast and lunch which both ended before noon. Buddhists were the masters of Intermittent Fasting well before it became a thing. Our eating window was five hours a day and fasting for nineteen of the other hours. First time students did have the option of eating fruit at 5p but I stuck to the main goal of fasting. After all, I wasn’t getting my usual heart-racing workouts for ten days. If they saw you trying to get a good sweat in, you’d be stopped in your tracks.

My Wardrobe:

Well, considering that my entire wardrobe is a dress code violation with bare shoulders, form-fitting clothes and above the knee skirts, I adorned a variety of PJs from Target, surgical scrubs and an assortment of scarves for flair that I collected on my travels throughout Asia when enter temples. I was nice and comfy in my jammies and bare face. No need to wear makeup when we weren’t even allowed to look at each other.

The Group Meditations:

Boys on one side. Girls on the other. No talking. Don’t look at the boys. Try not to wiggle in your seat. Yes, we were back to kindergarten. Our discipline since that young age was better but as expected, the boys were more challenged to sit still and not make noise. Why was belching, farting, chronic throat clearing, knuckle-cracking and fidgeting not considered breaking noble silence?????????? Woo sah. Keep breathing.

My Experience:

Day 0 – I rode in from the airport with three other women who I would end up bonding with very closely. They are my new Dhamma Sistas. One other was from Florida and had several mutual friends. And guess what? We even grew up in the same city of Indianapolis. Definitely paths meant to connect. Another one of our sisters was from Phoenix. You could tell when you met her that she had a gentle and beautiful soul. And a third from Pakistan. She was a sweet girl but I was a bit concerned because she was a smoker. I could imagine going cold turkey at the retreat. I had heard of people going nutty without having nicotine withdrawals.

Day 1 –  When was the last time that you tried to sit on the floor for an hour? For me, I would go into yoga class a few minutes before and sit on my mat and think that I’d be fine with all of the sitting in meditation. I was wrong. It was brutal! Excruciating! I could have asked for a chair but I may have been denied and after seeing about ten women opt for chairs, I decided to tough it out. It is not easy to meditate when your legs are on fire. It got better. On Day 10. Just in time to leave.

Day 2 – When I was walking to the dining room, there was a man from the outside delivering fruit. I looked over. He look over. And then he kept looking because he didn’t take a noble vow of silent. Part of me was silently screaming “Take me with you!”

In group meditation, the girl behind me cries. My eyes well up for her. It’s always been there but the love and compassion is reaching deeper.

Day 3 – I did realize that it was nice to look up at the sky at night and watch the stars. I even saw a satellite that night. And in the mornings, I appreciated a golden hour sunrise without reaching for my camera. I was finding gratitude in the disconnect.

We had homemade chocolate chip cookies for lunch dessert, too. It was the slowest that I’ve ever eaten a cookie in my whole life.

Day 4 – Vipassana Day – That’s the day when our meditation became more active and the insight goes deeper. We learned to observe our bodies without reacting. For the first three days, we mainly connected to our breath. I was thinking “My friends recommended this and all we are going to do is breathe through our nose for TEN DAYS.” Woo sah. Keep breathing.

The main teacher said that it was our first time diving into the Ganges of reality.

Day 5 – We were halfway over but the thought of five more of the same was tough. I had a moment of feeling very bored. After tea time, I decided to go out and stare at the cows. Why? Because staring at cows was not against the room. At one point, I saw six more people staring at cows. WE LOOK LIKE SEDATED MENTAL PATIENTS. We were crazy. But the good kind of crazy.

Day 6 – Chocolate Cake for lunch dessert! You gotta celebrate the small pleasures.

Day 7 – The assistant teacher knocked on my door at 7a. “The teacher needs to ask you a question. Please come in ten minutes.” Oh no! I’m in trouble. I’ve spent a lifetime being in trouble with teachers and this wasn’t going to be any different. I was worried. But with meditation, I quickly took some breaths and calmed that thought. And guess what? I wasn’t in trouble! The teacher asked me to do a medical consult. One of the women in our group thought that she had pink eye so I had to do an evaluation and recommendation. Phew! And fortunately since we were such a sterile environment with no touching, she was able to stay. Once a physician, always a physician – on planes and even in remote farmland.

I also had to break my noble silence two other times. One of my Dhamma sisters thought that she had a tick bite from the wooded area where we stayed and needed a second opinion and once, I was walking in the woods and saw a large black snake on the side of the path. He was trying to be sneaky. So I had to inform the woman coming up from behind me. The beautiful thing is that breaking noble silence out of love is acceptable.

Day 8 – Almost there but the last two days are going to feel like FOREVER.

Day 9 – This is the day when I finally knew that I could do it. Just 24 hours to go. All downhill! 

Day 10 – We made it! Most of us. We lost a handful of men and three women. One was our friend who was the smoke but she was there for eight days until she received news that her dad wasn’t doing well. Wishing him healing vibes.

We heard that some of the men disappeared without informing anyone. They just drove off. Often the most difficult thing is to be in the company of yourself and only yourself.

My Takeaway:

Would I do it again? I think so. I learned a valuable tool that I can now use for the rest of my life. We all have histories of suffering whether it was from childhood or career or relationship. Our goal in this life is to alleviate the suffering. Don’t go to your grave with misery. That is not the goal in life. As the main teacher, SN Goenka says, the art of living becomes the art of dying. Die smiling that you lived happy and at peace on this Earth and shared your compassion with countless others.

My Advice:

I know that it is not realistic for many to be able to do a ten-day silent retreat but there is still work that we can all do to improve our lives and reduce the suffering that we mainly cause ourselves:

1. Know yourself – In Claire terms, “Know your shit.” Know how you are. Do you get offended easily? Upset easily? Hold grudges? Worry excessively? Doubt yourself and others? Anger issues? Know what your challenges are.
2. Have some tools. Find tools to help you with your shit. They could be YouTube videos, books and lectures, meditation, yoga, music and art therapy, trusted friends and family (Note that I said trusted. Some of your family, especially, are far too dysfunctional to be of great help. No judgement. It’s as it is.
3. Surround yourself when possible with others who are doing #1 and #2. Spend time with a cohort of who are also passionate about knowing themselves. These may even be strangers but they will eventually become much more to you.

The Art of Living Buddhifully. Namaste. Claire