I had gone into vipassana with a lot of hesitation and fear. Almost like it was a punishment that I had to suffer through, especially since people had told me stories of how you go crazy and the silence is really hard to maintain. It was actually quite the opposite.
First about the technique itself and how it's taught - the method and the gradual build up make it really powerful - you first learn to focus and observe and work with your mind before going into the actual technique. It's testing both physically and mentally, but the beauty is that in the daily discourses Goenkaji actually tells you what is going on inside of you - scientifically(?!) as well as in Buddhas experience of it. Through the discourses he explains how Buddha used this technique to gain enlightenment - transcending all suffering that arises from ignorance - the attachment of craving and the displeasure of aversions. We feel both craving and aversions in our lives without realising that these are both impermanent. This causes us to build more Sanskaras and each time we react we deepen the Sanskaras, creating karma. Vipassana teaches you to use your own body's sensations and by maintaining equanimity towards both the good and the bad sensations, to slowly slowly get rid of our sankaras created and carried over lifetimes. As you slowly maintain equanimity toward to the pleasurable feeling during the light floating vibrations as well as the physically testing pains of sitting still without movement for an hour, you realise that both pass, both are transient and you just observe without reaction. You instead observe, analyse and inspect the pain with complete equanimity. Therefore a good meditation isn't one where you feel good and light, but one where you observe with full awareness (vipassana actually means seeing things as they are) and maintaining complete equanimity. Slowly this becomes the way to live your life as well.
He also explains the relationship between our senses (body) and the mind and the outside world and how by using vipassana and realising the Truth of phenomenon, Buddha was able to free himself from karma, and therefore the cycle of life and death. (It's quite beautiful and I don't want to kill it for anyone who wants to go - so will not go into details)
Since I've been to tushita and kept silence before,it didn't bother me too much. Having Gopika around was tempting - we smiled maybe twice and I broke silence once only to tell her on the second day that it's too small a place to avoid each other. After that till the last day, we would be next to each other, head down, and it really wasn't a problem.
The silence actually helps you to stay with yourself. I think a lot and almost in all my alone time live in a land of fantasy. I observed this behaviour pattern play itself out and hopefully have left it behind.
Lots of dreams, inner children (that I did chat with), memories came up - healed hopefully!
My test was the noise. The Pune riverside center is surrounded by a really party village with no loudspeaker laws. All night they'd have something going on and 6 nights I had almost no sleep. I finally went to the guruji and told him that instead of dropping attachments I was adding on more every night from crying and frustration from this sound (it was even Hindi or English music that I could understand or hum) - he told me to simply practice in bed before sleep and see what happens. The first time I did that I felt like my body was floating about a foot above me and wasn't really physical anymore. It was a layer of vibrations. I'm not even sure if there was any music after that! According to Goenkaji in one of the discourses, this experience is that of the true nature of matter. As science now knows, we are all energy, the physical form is of denser particles and we can only "know" this by true self experience - this was what I was experiencing. Vipassana is supposed to be the tool to experience the true nature of life at the level of self, and therefore making it a personally realised truth - the only way to moving toward enlightenment.
Not eating cereal was hard (I was on a restricted diet for other reasons including testing my will power) cause the food looked so good! But I think it served me well cause I found a determination that I didn't think I still had. I think I've gained some perspective about my own minds thought and behaviour patterns - almost as if I was observing it from the outside. My mind isn't racing anymore and I haven't moved into fantasy land even once in the last 3 days even when I've been completely bored. When I do start, I'm able to recognise it immediately and use the technique to come back completely into the present.
I still have a backache which I developed there but it's ebbing. Our Sanskaras come out as pains and as we maintain equanimity toward them they start to go away. By not reacting anymore we don't create new ones, and then the old stored ones come out. Slowly slowly we release them one by one... one step closer to nirvana :)
