Memories appear like a tape from some movie. More negative moments, few positive ones. We have already reviewed ten, twenty, thirty movies that portray our life.
TOMORROW: Part 3: Finish the training. Now begins the real fight for self-knowledge
You hear a bell. Break your dreams. Even with your eyes closed, you wonder if the sound entering your ears is real or imaginary. You open your eyes and see the time. It is 4 am. Then you remember that it is your first day of the retreat. You hear sounds in the corridors. It is a small brick building that houses about 25 rooms. We all share about four bathrooms. Like zombies, we move without speaking. Forgetting ‘good morning’ or ‘hello’. We avoid each other when walking, we take turns for the bathroom.
And 20 minutes later, the bell rings again. He announces that in ten minutes you have to walk in the dark to your first meditation session. It will be two hours. There are small cushions and bedspreads for you to build the bunker that you will house for ten days. The first meeting, we will not have a guide. We will only sit following the directions given to us when we arrived. We will practice Anapana, a technique that focuses on breathing to quiet the mind.
It is not motivating to know that you are going to sit for two hours at 4:30 in the morning without having eaten food for 14 hours.
You enter the main hall and you only see shadows settling into their places. There are no clocks, the bell will indicate the beginning and end of the session.
I settle into my space, trying to make sure it’s a position I’ll be comfortable in for two hours and I close my eyes. The recommendation was to focus all our attention on the air that enters through our nose. In that light breeze that comes in and out.
I know that around me, there are 60 other people trying to do the same thing.
The first moments are a fight that begins in my mind. I want to open my eyes and I know I can’t. I want to move, and I know I can’t. The mind is our worst enemy. It will be a fight without quarter. Will I be able to silence her? I wondered. How much time will have passed? It is a question that comes and goes continuously. I go to sleep? And the breath? There I was. But the Israeli was right. Stories from my childhood begin to come to me. Of indefinite times. They question me, they torture me. Did I do that right? Did I do that right? I regret? I apologize? And that puts me in a state of greater restlessness. Besides, I’m tired of the position I’m in. I can’t stand my knees, I move them. I rebel. I change the position of my legs. I hear slight noises around me. I imagine that my companions are also getting the ghosts. Do I stop and go? Wasn’t this an experience to quiet my mind? The waves that shake me do not end. One, two, three, four, four, three, two, one. I repeat and repeat. I concentrate on breathing, but there appears that frightened child, that adolescent without a compass, that rebellious adult. The first blows in life, the first disappointments. And I wonder, why aren’t those stories my mind tells me more positive? And I get it. He doesn’t want me to feel good. He wants to make me angry, not accept this experience. I feel dejected, desperate, and when I least expect it I hear the bell.
We all quickly stood up and hurriedly walked to the dining room. It’s 6.30 in the morning. It seems that we have lived an experience of years.
Breakfast consists of oatmeal, juices, fruit and two slices of bread. There’s no coffee. Stimulants are prohibited.
From 6.30 to 8 we have a break. I take the opportunity to bathe. Before 8 o’clock, the bell rings that moments later we will begin to hate. We have a one hour meditation session with our teacher. Basically, we listen to the instructions of the Vipassana promoter, SN Goenka. He is emphatic. It is a fight against ourselves. You have to focus on your breathing and again, don’t think about anything else. Neither in divinities, songs nor people. plainly in us.
We started, and the experience is similar. More stories, claims and people challenging our right to meditate. Noise and more noise. The living and the dead appear. The forgotten and rejected. Nothing else. Where is the breath? Memories appear like a tape from some movie. More negative moments, few positive ones. We have already reviewed ten, twenty, thirty movies that portray our life. And we’re still there. Could this be meditation?
I open my eyes for a few seconds. I see a scene of chaos. Some have already moved. Others have stopped. Others have left the room. The bell rings. We have a five-minute break. Two more hours of this Vipassana experience will follow, seeing reality as it is.
During the break, some colleagues stretch, others walk, others simply stand and others look at each other trying to figure out if they are all living the same experience.
And the bell rings again. 120 minutes that they already consider torture. The same is repeated, only expanded. The fatigue of the body is already visible. The mind declares itself the winner. The bell rings at 11am, and we go to have lunch. It will be our last meal of the day.
They serve us spaghetti, salad and dessert. There are fruits and tea. That’s all. You would like to take a plate to your cell, but it is forbidden.
We have until 1pm to rest.
Some bathe, others lie in the sun, some walk and others flee to their cells. We can’t talk. Just think and reflect.
We return at 1. An hour and a half session of inhaling and exhaling, eyes shut closed and your fight starts. This time, I’m playing catch the stories and destroy them, but I don’t react as quickly. As soon as I destroy one, the other appears. Some look tired. Others, the most experienced, still have the energy and attitude of their arrival. Me, I’m still on the battlefield. The Israeli will not beat me, no matter how much kung-fu he knows.
There is a session of more than an hour while what is called the snack arrives. At 5, we can drink tea and eat fruit. The eyes of some of my companions were bleak. They won’t eat until the next morning.
There is a last hour that is different. It’s a speech by Goenka. He tells us that he knows that we are frustrated, suffering, annoyed. And he insists, it is the nature of the mind, our worst enemy. We have to fight to tame it, and we won’t do that in 24 hours. It will be a hand-to-hand fight. But with will and effort it will be achieved. Before concluding, he tells us: If you thought today was difficult, tomorrow will be worse.
“How cynical!” I said to myself as I went to my cell defeated.
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