I was led into a spacious hall where white walls and tall windows climbed to a vaulted wooden ceiling. Bed sheets covered every painting; blinds were drawn over all of the windows. A lonely single floor lamp provided the only light in the hall.
I was shown to one of the meditation mats and cushions neatly arranged in rows of five. I would spend 12 hours a day, for the next 10 days, meditating in complete silence with 50 other men on a Vipassana training course, the honours class for meditators.
I had never done anything like this before. It had all that first day of school nerve-tingling feeling. I surrendered my phone and my freedom and signed a form to commit to stay the course until it was fully over. There would be no Houdini escapes. In the quiet of my own rebellious mind, I promised myself that if there were any funny business, I’d just walk.
Vipassana , which means to see things as they really are, requires hard, serious work. There are three steps to the training. The first step requires, for the period of the course, that you abstain from killing, stealing, sexual activity, speaking falsely and intoxicants. This simple code of moral conduct serves to calm the mind, which otherwise would be too agitated to perform the focused work of self-observation.
Men and women were segregated for the duration of the course. The women had separate living quarters, their own meditation hall, their own eating facilities.
Natural reality
The next step involves developing some mastery over the mind by learning to fix one's attention on the natural reality of the ever-changing flow of breath as it enters and leaves the nostrils. For each hour of the first three days, this was pretty much the only instruction we were given, and it took me that long to focus and sharpen my attention on the sensation of my breath.
On the fourth day, when our minds were calmer and more focused, we began the practice of Vipassana itself: observing sensations throughout the body, developing steadiness and learning not to react to whatever churned up. Tuning in to the most subtle and not-so-subtle sensations in our body remained the focus of every hour, every day, until the retreat ended.
Our unconscious minds – those deeper emotions that we may not be aware of until they are triggered by some event or shards of memory – get played out in sensations we feel in our bodies. Our bodies never lie. We open ourselves to our deeper minds, when we pay close attention to what happens in our bodies.
Vipassana
teaches us to calmly hold whatever sensations arise, to sit with open hearts.
Fantasy world
It was a relief not to have to cope with the company of women. My heart was so open. If I'd had to look at them every day it would have killed me. I was visited by every feeling that I have ever experienced, with an intensity that I would normally kill off. But the strict, non-distracting regime that underpins this course contained and kept me from getting lost in a fantasy world. I understand now how people can meet and fall in love so easily on these retreats.
When the men and women finally gathered in the refectory on the last day, we each huddled at opposite ends of the room like teenagers at a Gaeltacht céilí. The lads were in deep conversation with each other. It looked as if they were indifferent to this burst of colour and femininity.
What I’ll remember most about this experience was being in a room for 12 hours every day with my band of 50 silent brothers. They spanned five decades and came from every walk of life. They had all given up something to be here: annual leave, hard cash, being with families for the Easter break. We were all radically compliant with the retreat’s insistence on minimal eye contact, no passing of notes, or hand gestures.
I can still see the men now as they sat with their eyes closed in perfect stillness. These guys were serious about what they had undertaken and they gave their all.
This
Vipassana
experience was tough but powerful. When the dust settles I will be able to tell you what difference it makes to this year of living mindfully.
Tony Bates is founding director of Headstrong – The National Centre for Youth Mental Health
tbates@irishtimes.com