This moment was pictured by my friend Carlos, while we were waching the beautiful Hampi sunset by the 24 hour chanting temple. Love it! Chanting with this guys are fantastic.
It's been a while, first of all because I've been traveling, and this has not been a priority. I did in november my first 10 days vipassana meditation course. It was not really about the slience, the silence was just a tool to help us focus on our inner self. It's basically about self observation. It's really hard to keep it short, but I'll try to explain in a short matter. Yeah..about MATTER, it's about universial laws, that your body is matter, that everything arises and passes away.
The rules are simple. No talk, no eyecontact, only look at your path;), little food, wake up bell 04am, and 10 hours of sitting in meditation every day. No killing, wich I thought would be easy, but it turned out it wasn't.
The first 3 days are only breathing. Sitting cross legged (I use padmasana) observing breath, not changing. Anapana, not pranayama. Observing sensations in the triangular area in nose and upper lip.
With the sitting, not moving, eyes closed, we are also practicing strong determination.
Then, we start to observe sensations of the hole body, from head to toe. Then the days goes a little bit into eachother, since we are also not allowed to write. Everyday it's like a new thing to add, to go deeper into the meditation. This information we get from new boards every morning in breakfasthall and outside the meditationhall. At night we wach a movie by Goenka, the vipassana guru. Vipassana is thought the same in all his places by this videos, and it's also free everywhere in real vipassana centres.
In like day 5 we are supposed to get our flow on, just rinsing through the hole body, like a drop of ink that goes into water. First I don't get it right, but in day 6ish it happens when I'm lying in bed for night. Flow, flow, flow, wow! Is it really working? But it's hard, and we are learning about doubt, and yes I have it! My knee is hurting! I'm thinking, this can fucking not be good sitting like this 10 hours a day. I'm not even allowed to practice yoga, I'm getting worried about my fysical health. No running or streaching allowed. Only a small path for slow walking. This is of course not to be a distraction for others, and yourself. Actually I do have an old knee injury I kinda fixed with my yoga. We are allowed to ask the teacher, and they say it's doubt. Another girl had her thigh num for 3 days, and they said it was ignorance. Actually we traveled together after the course, and she was still num after many months. All this is due to vipassana old samkaras from past life or this life that we solve through meditation. Piercing the areas, getting deeper, getting equanomous with everything. Nothing is permanent. More universial laws. More matter.
Anyway, at day 7, we get into the wicked pagoda. I never knew what was in there! I absolutly loved the meditation cells! And, yes, they are in deed real cells. Smaller than the avrage jail isolate cells in the west. I had real good meditation in my cell. I had a really good vision about my long time shoulder problem, like the area was lost, and I saw the reason why.
Again, it was hard, I'm tired, hungry. The board say something about getting liberated and I'm thinking 'yeah, I could have been in Goa right now'. At some point here I comitted the killing. It was like 10-15, I don't know. Aunts. We are waching our dishes all together, and it's not so clean area. I see the aunts comming, more and more, and without thinking, I rinse them down the drain! Yes, I felt shame!
After day 10, we have to sleep one more day, and you get to talk to your room mate and the other girls. We were 40 girls, mostly indian, the rest mixed tourists. I think we all were tired and happy to talk, and I think everybody have a different experience. I was expecting some mental issues, but nothing came. I had a nice dream about my mother and my cousin, and anotherone about a friend. Other nights was hard, due to little sleep and hard restrictions.
Was it worth it? Yes, I think so now, but I have to think about all of this for a long time. After the course I went traveling another 4-5 months in India, and I was not practicing vipassana 2 hours a day like they recommend. I was buisy with beachlife and yoga. Meeting wonderful friends and learning, in Hampi, Varanasi, and my hometown Colomb, and many more. I still have this sansations from vipassana going on thouh, I should find out what to make of it.
I will come back to all this wonderfull and not so wonderfull places later. Now I have been back home for a while, and getting used to the computer again. I should maybe write in norwegian, since my english is not so good, and I never check the spelling, but maybe I'll do a little bit of both.
