The question I’ve been asked the most since coming home is “How was the mediation retreat?! That’s insane!” To be honest, I asked myself the same thing the first four days I was there. Being woken up to a bell at 4am, meditating for 10.5 hours a day and not eating after 11:30am, does sound a little extreme. There was no escape from the chaos of the mind, as talking, reading, listening to music, writing, using electronics, and even looking someone else in the eyes was strictly banned. And as my mind was slowly going insane, the effects of sitting cross legged and perfectly still on the floor was not going unnoticed by my knees, back, and derrière. But as the morning bell rang on day five, something changed inside me. Instead of feeling trapped without my phone, I started to feel liberated. I no longer sensed the physical pain in my body. As my mind drifted to thoughts I typically try to avoid I was able to see them from the outside, more clearly than I ever had, and was able to move outside the negativity and come to peace with them. Equanimity. That is what Vipassana stresses. The importance of recognizing both positive and negative sensations, in the body and in the mind, and not growing attached to these sensations. The positive sensations, from food, sex, success, are great and we should appreciate them, but not allow ourselves to crave them. The same is true for negative sensations. When we are in pain, stressed, or experience sadness, these sensations won’t last forever, so there is no point in allowing them to negatively affect our energy or pull us back from life.
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