The Why of Vipassana- Dropping the Story

There is a simple beauty in this practice for me. Why? It doesn't involve the stories we love to tell so much about why we are who we are and who has hurt us and why we can't change.
We do a lot of work at the surface level of the mind telling our stories over and over again. Trying to dig into the why of what transpires in our lives.  Sharing our woundology with everyone we meet and often creating deep relationships with people who's woundology matches our own. We call it support.
And I believe it is part of the healing process, but it isn't the end.

I love several people in my life dealing with addictions. They spoke a lot about addictions within the framework of the course. The impurities of our minds responsible for our suffering don't sit lightly on the surface. They are part of the deeper framework of our minds. And as such we often don't know what the root of them is. It sits deep in the recesses of our minds.

Mr. Goenka speaks about the foundation. The Sila or morality being a must. All religions would agree. The foundation of everything is your moral compass. Samma-samadhi means right focus.
Beginning with breath. All things begin with breath. My yoga teacher Rameen used to say "without breath there is no life. Breath is the bridge between the mind and the body. "And it's true. For three days we did nothing but witness our own breath. Not alter, but witness. I found my mind wandering all over the place and I would gently bring it back to witnessing the breath. And after a while it wasn't so difficult. My monkey mind quietly slipped to the floor and I felt fully present. When body pain arose, we were asked to acknowledge it, and then come back to the breath. Bhavana-maya panna. Not book wisdom, but the wisdom arising from the experience of witnessing truth within my own body. Again I was reminded of Rameen encouraging us to take what we learned in Sattva and not accept it as truth until we had an experience of it in our own bodies. The truth of Dhamma, the law of impermanence, was easy to witness within the framework of my own body. And beautiful to behold on more than an intellectual level. When I first was able to watch my pain dissolve I wanted to cheer. I had only experienced it intensifying before. Never dissolving. I was intently focused on it as most of us are. Pulling back and observing had a very different quality to it.

Day three people began to cough and sniffle and I thought I am not getting sick. We are in close quarters and I know it is easy to transmit stuff via doorknobs, etc and so I became the hand washing nazi. My biggest frustration is taking time off of work to do these important courses and then getting sick. I feel like I don't get the most out of the course because I am struggling to be present. They had a big jar of vitamin C at the tea station and I started taking 10,000 units a day, five in the morning and 5 at night. By day 4 I was into a full on sinus infection and earache. I settled into the fact the last 6 days would be a struggle.

The manager of the facility stopped me in the hallway. "The teacher can see you are getting sick. How can we support you?" I was kind of stunned. I have never been asked this in a course I paid for let alone one that was free. "I think it is a sinus infection and earache so I probably need antibiotics, but I will be fine until the end of the course."
"Marie would like to see you at lunch so please put your name on the list to see her tomorrow. "

Our discourse that night was all about the samskaras. The seeds we sow in the future that are related to our cravings and aversions in the moment and it hit me hard. This illness was a seed I sowed a long time ago as my biggest aversion is getting sick in the middle of learning! I wanted to laugh out loud!
It rang so true. And in that, I am being asked to simply witness this illness and acknowledge that this too will pass. Everything is impermanent, and then it will be pulled out by the root and released.

I met Marie at noon the next day and she asked me how I was. "Did I need medication?" I told her what I believed to be true and she laughed. "That sounds about right. However, could they offer hot packs three times a day on the breaks and some fisherman's friend lozenges?" I was so grateful. Tears strained at the corners of my eyes as I looked up into her kind grandmotherly face. The care was so kind. So genuine. Or perhaps my perception was so altered because I was so open. So clear.
And every day, three times a day I would leave the meditation hall and find a hot pack in a tupperware container sitting on my slippers. I slept like a baby with the heat soothing my earaches. And I was able to stay very present.  Other like packages began to turn up on the slippers of other participants. We were held in a very loving space of care during this process.

I had begun this process expecting to suffer. A past student had told me, you will fight four days with your body, four days with your mind and then you will find spirit.

I met a girl at Bloom who had done it and I told her I was ready and what I had heard. "Don't go in like that ! " she said. "Who wants to go in with a story of suffering? Stay present. That is all I can share. Just be sure to stay present." Her advice was loving and accurate. I did not suffer. I did witness, and stay present. It was a balm to my soul instead of a marathon.

This is not a quick fix. It is a lifetime practice. But who wouldn't want to do this work when you realize it clears the path in front of you?
As we practice and become grounded in the present and in Dhamma, the Universal law of Impermanence, we cease to create new Samskaras. No more painful forrest growing on the road ahead. And then the old Samskaras begin to uproot themselves and arise to the surface. We experience them as pain in our bodies during meditation. We observe it, and then watch it shift and change until it moves on. It doesn't come up with a tag on it that says specifically " I am the samskara of addiction, or I am your anger over ...."
It simply uproots, and if we are willing to observe it and not react, releases us. There is no requirement for you to understand any more than the sensations occuring in your body. We are freed from our stories and our minds are purified in the process. This is the road to enlightenment.

Someone once asked Rameen in my Sattva training, " So how do we save the world?". "Do your work," he replied simply. "Yes, but after that, how do we change this for everyone else?"
"You can't" he replied. "you must simply do your own work, and in doing so you shift all of consciousness and others will wake up and do their own work too.".
Mr Goenka repeatedly said, "For all Buddha learned, he could only save one. Himself. And because of that he spent his life sharing this teaching, that each of us might wake up and do our own work. No one can save you, but you. No one can do your work for you. You must take responsibility for your own life." No truer words were ever spoken.

In love and light,
Kathryn

The Why of Vipassana - My Birthday

Day 3 was my 46th birthday.
Three's are about integration and four about listening to your universal compass ( heart ) and six is about joy and bliss. What a perfect process for this particular birthday!

My day started at 4:30 with two hours of meditation and a delicious breakfast of oatmeal, stewed prunes and raisin toast with jam. I don't know why but suddenly sitting, drinking my tea and eating I remembered that my Mom once told me stewed prunes were her favourite. It was a hospital thing I think, she was a nurse and there were two things she really liked. Stewed prunes and their liver and onions. Both sort of an easy institutional meal. Now I have never liked liver and onions, and I don't think I have ever had a stewed prune before but they were surprisingly good! And raisin toast is my Dad's favourite breakfast and therefore became one of ours. I am always trying to eat less bread so I hadn't had it in ages.

And the tears began to flow. Happy tears. Thinking of how lucky I have been to have these parents in my life, how perfect all the lessons were, easy and hard. And as I sat with salt water dripping into my oatmeal and stewed prunes I vowed that when they get old I will make sure that they have the things they enjoy. I will have endless mountains of raisin bread for my Dad and I will make stewed prunes from scratch for my mom. With each bite I felt the love overflowing in my body and I just sat in that.

I wondered for a moment what people might be thinking around me as I sat in silence in my own thoughts and then I smiled because there was no way to explain anyway. It didn't matter. I could sit in my own process without having to explain. It was beautiful. I finished my breakfast and went outside in the warm autumn air for a walk. It was a glorious day. I had been walking every day and the weather was gorgeous. Made me glad to be alive. And this day was special. I spotted a snake. I love garter snakes. Again inherited from my Dad. And I was quick enough to catch it! I got to spend an hour in the sun with this special creature winding it's way in and out of my hands.

I was dying to look up the spiritual significance of snakes like I always do but alas I had no phone. Later, I promised myself and went back to being present with my little friend. At last it was time to go in again, but at the next break I came out and I discovered a nest with a bunch of baby snakes in it!!
Jackpot!!! What a wonderful birthday gift!!!! I couldn't wait to get out and walk everyday to play with them.

I laughed because with all the talk about craving and aversion, I realized I began to crave to see the snakes. And then I make a different decision. Regardless of whether I saw them or not, I knew they were there. I wished them love and decided to be delighted either way. And about every second day it was warm enough that we shared space in the sun.

At dusk that night after supper I again went out for a walk knowing it would be getting chilly and my little friends would not be out, but the sunsets were spectacular and I loved the freshness of the air and the golden flickers of light as the sun dropped in the sky. I was making my way through the trees when I found a warm spot where the light still held the heat of the day. The sun was in my eyes and all of a sudden I realized there were a thousand spider threads all billowing out sideways from one of the trees. My human thought was "oh my God. It's a wonder I don't find more spiders in my hair!" But spirit said this is what it looks like to us. Everything is connected.

Years ago, my youngest son woke me up when I was sleeping. He said "Mommy you are talking in your sleep. You keep saying 'seek Brahma, connectedness in all things'". Now at that point I thought Brahma was a type of cow and nothing about that made sense. I sought wisdom from a close Indian friend. She asked her mother and her mother said it sounded like a Bal. A bal is a key, something you repeat like a mantra in meditation that allows you special access.  Now, I know Brahma is the creationary face of God. And wouldn't you know an hour later in the discourse that night they talked about Brahma. And connectedness. You just can't make this stuff up.

My understanding now is that whatever I do to you, I do also to myself. If I lash out in anger and shoot an arrow at you, I look down to see it coming out of my own chest. As I learn to purify my mind, and I heal myself, on some level I also heal the world. We are all connected.
I am grateful Brahma for this precious gift.
In love and light,
Kathryn

The Why of Vipassana- The Technique

So why 11 hours of meditation a day?

I have meditated for a long time. I can sit for two hours without an issue. And I like it. But I am not an angry person, or someone trying to navigate a lot of anxiety or anything else. I am pretty happy and peaceful. So it wasn't adding much.

I thought maybe it would increase my intuition. My ability to hear my inner voice. But even that was pretty much the same. And yet I am all about discipline. I wanted to practice. But I needed there to be a reason. An outcome.

Vipassana was the technique Buddha used to become enlightened. It was all but lost except for one teaching line which kept the technique pure for over 2500 years. I didn't know any more than that when I signed up. But it was enough to peak my interest.

I have taught an advanced meditation class on Buddha. He is an interesting dude. He recognized that we are born into suffering or "dukkha", it is the human condition. And he believed there was a way out of it. All of the teachings of the day, (and now actually in terms of religion) is that human suffering is created by craving and aversion. We either want something we don't have, or we have something we don't want. They all agree. We have 6 sense doors ( eyes, ears, smell, etc) and when an object comes in contact with the senses it results in one or the other. Craving or aversion. What no one got, was how to solve that. Many religions forbid the objects themselves thinking that if you never get tempted you can avoid suffering. I would say that has had limited success.

And crazier than that, when you have one craving or aversion you have to picture this. From that one craving or aversion, it is like you take that seed, toss it ahead of you on your path, and that seed creates a whole tree of craving or aversion that then over it's life has 1000 fruits each with 10,000 seeds. So from that one craving or aversion you have sown 10,000,000 cravings or aversions ahead of you on the path. These are called Samskaras. We sow the seeds of our own misery from the impurities within our minds.

Buddha sat beneath the Bodhi tree and decided he was not going to move a single muscle until he was enlightened. He would sit long enough that they could sweep away his bones if they had to. As a result he experienced a great deal of pain and sensation in his body and he realized that that as he stayed with them, they all came and went. Everything was impermanent. What is born dies. What goes up must come down. Nothing lasts. Suffering results from defilements in the mind and by becoming clean in one's actions, using right focus, we could experience wisdom arising from the body that begins to purify the mind.

In Vipassana we deal with a concept called Dhamma.  Dhamma as I understand it is the Universal Law of Impermanence.  Dhamma has three parts, the first is Sila or moral actions. The second is samma samadhi, or right focus, and the third is bhavana-maya panna or experienced wisdom.

There were 5 precepts we were asked to accept before the course ever started. They were as follows:
1. no killing of other beings ( read, this is a vegetarian experience and don't kill the flies)
2. no sexual misconduct ( read this is a celibate retreat, no messing with others or yourself lol)
3. no telling lies ( and in order to do this we will make it easy and just have you not speak)
4. no stealing
5. no intoxicants

I learned that these are what are called Sila. They are the foundation of one's moral code. The beginning of laying the foundation of the process. Students returning for a second course observe three more
6. no high and luxurious beds
7. no evening meal ( only tea)
8. no bodily adornments

The second piece is samma- samadhi. Right focus. This was the actual experiential portion of the course where we first began to observe our breath as it passed in and out. No words. Just observing the natural flow. It is easy to focus the mind using words but you realize quickly that soon the in and out don't actually match what you are doing. We are just asked to observe. And when we could do that we were asked to focus on the sensation arising in the triangle of the nose. A small area to begin to focus the mind. And then only the upper lip. Now 11 hours sounds like a lot but there were a lot of breaks and there was a lot to practice. It was very relaxing.

And what I began to notice was that good feelings would come and then inevitably pass, and so did any pain I had. When I focused on the pain, it intensified. Became almost unbearable. But when I followed the instructions and pulled back to observe it, I realized it was constantly moving. Always different and changing and then as quickly as it came, it would dissolve. It was fascinating. I have always had pain if I sit too long and I always shift positions only to find two minutes later everything hurts again. This was in incredible lesson for me. Wisdom.

Bhavana-maya panna. Experienced Wisdom. The understanding on an experiential level that all things are impermanent. I had this experience.

Now once you understand, and begin to practice the art of observing and not reacting, you stop creating new Samskaras. No new seeds are thrown out ahead of you, and the Samskaras will rise to the surface where they can be pulled out by the root. We begin to purify the mind by uprooting the impurities. The mind becomes stable and peaceful. There is huge significance to this in terms of addictions. Many things we do operate only at the surface levels of the mind. Vipassana works at the deeper levels to uproot these impurities and heal them.

One night during the discourse it really hit home. I almost lost both of my children in childbirth. One premature delivery two months early in our bedroom and one where my water broke at 18 weeks and resulted in a dramatic 128 day hospital stay. And when it was over, that fear of loss never went away. I was married to the medical examiner who would come home and tell me all the ways that children died. I became a neurotic mother, entering a room scanning for anything that could be a hazard to my children. At a crisis point, I had a moment of clarity where I remember having a firm conversation with myself. You can't live like this. What if one of them dies? Will you be the only mother who has ever lost a child? NO. Millions of women across the globe must navigate the death of their children. And you too will survive.

Mr Goenka, our teacher that night told a story of a woman who came to Buddha asking him to bring her child back to life. She had struggled to get pregnant and the boy died at 2. She would not let them take the body saying he was only sleeping. She begged Buddha to help her. He told her he would help her if she would go to the city and bring back a handful of sesame from a house where no one had died. She went door to door and all were willing to give her sesame, but every house had the death of a father, mother, aunt, uncle, brother or sister or grandparent. She covered the whole city and realized the lesson. Death comes to us all. She returned to Buddha and he instructed her in Dhamma and taught her Vipassana that she might be liberated from suffering.

Everything is impermanent. And the lesson is "be present". Enjoy what is here for this will also change. And in times of difficulty know, that this will also change. Nothing lasts.
Intellectually I know this lesson well. But experiencing it within my own body has brought an understanding I could not achieve through reading.

It is interesting how long the days are without the distraction of Facebook and computers and cell phones. How clear my mind was as I walked the garden free from it's usual chatter. The space around me was clean and expansive. I felt so peaceful. And yet I was doing the math, day 2, hmmm. that means 8 days left and then I snapped to attention. BE PRESENT was what I heard in my mind. Only this moment matters. And I let the counting go.
In love and light,
Kathryn

The Why of Vipassana - Part 1

"Why?"
"Why would you miss your birthday and Thanksgiving Dinner to spend 11 hours a day meditating and not talking with a bunch of strangers?"
And then a slight confused tilt of the head as they waited for the reply.

It isn't the first question like this I have fielded.
My other favourite is "You fast for Ramadan? But you aren't Muslim, right?"
"Right." Smile.

How do you explain that once you begin to hear your own inner voice, that the directions get clearer than anything on the outside? That even when the directions don't seem to make sense to anyone else, that your own experience has been that when you listen to that voice every thing flows in your life without effort.

Those of you who know me, know my life is rich in ritual. I have things I do to prepare for these experiences. I had a vision of driving down the four hours, listening to an audiobook, or listening to music and just letting my mind drift, enjoying the silence of my own company. And then I got the email. You have been added to the ride share list. Now it isn't that I don't believe in cooperation or sharing, but I didn't put my name on that list for a reason, and now I was stumped! It said originally that you needed to sign up to be on the list and at the bottom of my email it said "if wish to remove your name, text 108 to this number". Hmmmm. Who wants to text "NO" to a divine number? Not biting on that one. And that was how I met Carmen.

Now Carmen was out by Niton Junction out by Edson. "I am leaving at 10 am", I wrote in my email, "and I would be happy to meet you at the Starbucks near my house".  There. Boundaries set, ( which I am normally not very good at.) If I have to share a ride I can at least practice not letting my entire plan get changed. She wrote back that her ride to Edmonton had backed out and the only Greyhound once a day arrived not until 11:50am. It was a four hour drive and we were to be there no later than 5pm or they would give away your spot. Well after taking 2 weeks off and arranging everything else I wasn't willing to take that chance for someone I had never met! I explained the issue and she said she would look for another alternative.

I sat with myself and began to feel uncomfortable. Am I being too rigid with my boundaries? What is the lesson supposed to be here? I decided to email the Alberta Vipassana Foundation and tell them what was happening. After all they added me to the ride list. I asked if there might be a possibility of renegotiating the arrival time based on the issue as I would be very unhappy to lose my place and Carmen was looking at the possibility of having to cancel her course if we couldn't make it work. I had signed up almost 7 months ago and the possibility of cancelling would have been very upsetting to me and I assumed the same for her. The reply came within hours. "Please wait for her, absolutely we will renegotiate your arrival time." And moments later an email from Carmen saying she had come in a day early and would be staying overnight in Edmonton, ready to leave from the agreed spot at 10am.

l laughed to myself and wondered, was that an exercise simply in compassion for me? That when you can let go of your own agenda for a moment and consider someone else's situation, we will in the end let you do it the way you wanted? Funny.

It turns out Carmen is travelling from Germany and is a Physicist! We had an incredible conversation about quantam physics and spirituality that literally barely paused for the four hour trip. And several times I thought, I might have missed this if I had not trusted things were happening for a purpose.
I would not have wanted to miss that ride and that conversation for anything.

We arrived safely and checked in and they placed us in our room assignments. I got room 227, a number that for me is the reflection of relationship with self and the non local field. Perfect. And I was the only one without a room mate. Solitude. I felt grateful.

We had about an hour before silence was imposed and met a few other students. And then after a light supper it began. Men and women were separated in the building and our journey began.
In love and light,
Kathryn