Going into Vipassana , I had strong opinions about relationships, morality, routine and personal choices. Walking away on day 11, I felt detached from so many of the preconceptions upon which I had built my identity. Rather, it felt like a new beginning. For anyone who wants to start taking the first steps along the journey that I have been on, I have a few suggestions. Vipassana can seem intimidating at first and therefore my suggestion is to start small. Devoting one minute a day, every day for a week, could be a good way to begin and you can then gradually progress as you gain more experience.
Meditators generally begin their practice by focusing their attention on their breath. I remember the first time I sat to meditate, all my mind did was wander and think of every possible thing in the world, except my breath. That, in fact, is very normal. The basic idea is simple. Every time your mind begins to shift its focus away from your breath and you get lost in thought, you simply — and gently — bring your attention back to your breath.
And then you repeat this again and again until your meditation timer rings. Investors who espouse environmental, social and governance ESG principles will achieve little by selling their shares in so-called "dirty" companies, according to new research co-authored by Wharton's Jules H.
Ziroom is the leader in apartment rental services. Log In or sign up to comment. It was taught in India more than years ago as a universal remedy for universal ills, i. It is a traditional Buddhist practice, dating back to 6th century BC. Vipassana-meditation, as taught in the last few decades, comes from the Theravada Buddhist tradition, and was popularized by S.
Goenka and the Vipassana movement. How to do it [There is some conflicting information on how to practice Vipassana. Here goes an introduction, aimed for beginners. The first aspect is to develop concentration, through samatha practice.
This is typically done through breathing awareness. Focus all your attention, from moment to moment, on the movement of your breath. Notice the subtle sensations of the movement of the abdomen rising and falling. Alternatively, one can focus on the sensation of the air passing through the nostrils and touching the upper lips skin — though this requires a bit more practice, and is more advanced.
As you focus on the breath, you will notice that other perceptions and sensations continue to appear: sounds, feelings in the body, emotions, etc. Simply notice these phenomena as they emerge in the field of awareness, and then return to the sensation of breathing. A mental note identifies an object in general but not in detail.
One observes the objects of awareness without attachment, letting thoughts and sensations arise and pass away of their own accord. Mental labeling explained above is often use as a way to prevent you from being carried away by thoughts, and keep you in more objectively noticing them. As a result, equanimity, peace and inner freedom is developed in relation to these inputs. Surrendering to Silence in Meditation Rather than straining to quiet the mind in meditation, simply relax into the quiet that contains the mind.
It seems that Mrs. Gandhi would occasionally consult with the Shankaracharya in moments of turmoil during her administration as prime minister. On one visit to the holy man, she invited her journalist friend to accompany her. They flew by private plane, and upon arrival Mrs. Gandhi was immediately taken to see the Shankaracharya alone. After a few hours she returned to the plane, and she and the journalist headed back home to New Delhi. Gandhi, what happened in there?
She found herself in the quiet understanding wherein questions are either answered or fade away. You and I may have our own preferences, but neither is inherently better than the other. Many people find the use of mantras repeated words or phrases to be a great benefit, and there are well-established schools promoting this system. Every TM student is given a specific mantra to use for the entirety of their practice. At the opposite end of the meditative rainbow are the schools teaching silent meditation, the rules of which can range from silence during meditation sessions with discussion allowed afterwards, to absolute quiet for the duration of one-, , and day retreats.
Some have gone on multi-month or even multi-year silent retreats. By that we mean that we become trapped, wrapped up, and stuck in the thought chain. One thought leads to another which leads to another, and another, and another, and so on. Fifteen minutes later we suddenly wake up and realize we spent that whole time stuck in a daydream or sexual fantasy or a set of worries about our bills or whatever. We use breath as our focus.
It serves as that vital reference point from which the mind wanders and is drawn back. Distraction cannot be seen as distraction unless there is some central focus to be distracted from. That is the frame of reference against which we can view the incessant changes and interruptions that go on all the time as a part of normal thinking. Ancient Pali texts liken meditation to the process of taming a wild elephant. The procedure in those days was to tie a newly captured animal to a post with a good strong rope.
When you do this, the elephant is not happy. He screams and tramples, and pulls against the rope for days. At this point you can begin to feed him and to handle him with some measure of safety. Eventually you can dispense with the rope and post altogether, and train your elephant for various tasks. Now you have got a tamed elephant that can be put to useful work. In this analogy the wild elephant is your wildly active mind, the rope is mindfulness, and the post is our object of meditation, our breathing.
The tamed elephant who emerges from this process is a well-trained, concentrated mind that can then be used for the exceedingly tough job of piercing the layers of illusion that obscure reality. Meditation tames the mind. The next question we need to address is: Why choose breathing as the primary object of meditation?
Why not something a bit more interesting? Answers to this are numerous. A useful object of meditation should be one that promotes mindfulness. It should be portable, easily available, and cheap.
It should also be something that will not embroil us in those states of mind from which we are trying to free ourselves, such as greed, anger, and delusion. Breathing satisfies all these criteria and more. It is common to every human being. We all carry it with us wherever we go.
It is always there, constantly available, never ceasing from birth till death, and it costs nothing. Breathing is a non-conceptual process, a thing that can be experienced directly without a need for thought. Furthermore, it is a very living process, an aspect of life that is in constant change. The breath moves in cycles-inhalation, exhalation, breathing in, and breathing out. Thus, it is a miniature model of life itself.
Breath is a phenomenon common to all living things. A true experiential understanding of the process moves you closer to other living beings. It shows you your inherent connectedness with all of life. Finally, breathing is a present-time process. The first step in using the breath as an object of meditation is to find it. What you are looking for is the physical, tactile sensation of the air that passes in and out of the nostrils.
This is usually just inside the tip of the nose. But the exact spot varies from one person to another, depending on the shape of the nose. To find your own point, take a quick deep breath and notice and point just inside the nose or on the upper tip where you have the most distinct sensation of passing air. Now exhale and notice the sensation at the same point.
It is from this point that you will follow the whole passage of breath. When you first begin this procedure, expect to face some difficulties.
Your mind will wander off constantly darting, around like a bumble bee and zooming off on wild tangents. Try not to worry. The monkey mind phenomenon is well known.
It is something that every advanced meditator has had to deal with. I did not worry about spiders. This was a mistake. The course was on a bird sanctuary outside Auckland, and I arrived only to find that spiders carpeted the wooden buildings, inside and out. When you take a Vipassana course, you agree to abide by five precepts: no killing, no stealing, no lying, no sexual misconduct and no intoxicants.
No writing, no talking, no eye contact, no communicating. At the end of day one, I noticed a daddy longlegs struggling on the carpet but heading toward the door.
Instead, I took a deep breath, skirted around the creature, and opened my door. I stood there silently cheering its departure from my room. In the meditation hall, daddy longlegs dropped from the ceiling, feeding my anxiety.
Huge black spiders dotted the corner of the room where we picked up our pillows, watching over us as we shuffled into yet another meditation session. This was a Tupperware container plus a piece of paper to slide under it for ease of transport. I did not find this helpful. Then, on day five, I hit peak spider. Just before bed, I caught a glimpse of a bulbous black spider in my peripheral vision, dropping out of a tiny hole near the ceiling. Unlike the many spiders on the veranda, this one was huge.
I leapt out of bed in a panic. Every time I tried to reach the spider, it would crawl in the hole again and disappear.
I left the light on, drifting off only to dream about spiders and wake up breathless. Finally I shut the light decisively. At 2am, I awoke to a feeling of deep alarm and turned the light back on. The spider was dropping from the ceiling, right above my head. Gasping, I fell sideways out of the bed. The spider, as startled as I, hastily clawed its way back toward the ceiling. I watched in horror as it spent the rest of the night eating other spiders in my room.
I did not sleep at all. Studies have shown that people who are blind or deaf have heightened ability in other bodily senses. I felt a small, temporary version of this phenomenon at the course.
I could not speak or write, but my mind was whirring away at an alarming speed. Trapped in a cognitive cycle of shame and blame, my phobia of spiders was magnified. The next day, I swallowed my pride and broke my noble silence.
I begged the female volunteer leader to let me switch rooms. At that point in the course several people had left, and I was able to move to a different cabin. For the rest of the week, as everyone else sat on the grass enjoying the sun between sessions, I stayed in my room, too scared to leave. A friend once said that in life, worrying ahead of time was futile, because what you are scared of never manifests.
Instead, what you least expect creeps up behind you and scares you out of your mind. Or in my case, drops down from the ceiling in plain view. I wish I could say that the spider incident was a turning point.
It was simply a bump along the way. By day six, I felt exhausted by the pain, the sleepless nights, and a mind slowly unspooling. Some people talk about intruding memories of childhood or overly sexual thoughts during their Vipassana experience.
For me, the challenge was suppressing the urge to run around like a toddler. Instead of doing a body scan, I fantasized about flinging off my pillows and running through the empty space in the center of the hall, screaming like a banshee. I daydreamed of doing snow angels on the worn carpet, making a mockery of the meditation. When the gong rang, I was covered in sweat from the effort of thinking past the pain.
By the end of the course, students often report feeling full body flow of energy during meditation. I did not. I felt shelves of pain along the way, no fluidity between them. But by the last day I could scan fluidly through arms or my right leg. More importantly, I could refocus my mind away from the pain.
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