Why are we here?
To enjoy life’s beautiful experiences.
What is stopping us from doing that?
Our bondages to our pain/pleasure cycles. We constantly come into contact with objects/experiences and we experience a positive or negative physical sensation on the body. We get attached to this sensation as either an aversion or a craving, and thereby internalize the attachment. We fail to realise that it’s not the object/experience we are attached to; it’s actually the physical sensation that is brought about in the body. We also fail to realise that all sensations are impermanent and have the same characteristic of arising and passing away, arising and passing away. Additionally, all objects/experiences are also impermanent. By this line of reasoning, it makes no sense to get attached to the sensation, whether as a craving or an aversion, because it will come and go, as is its nature.
What can we do?
We have to liberate ourselves from the various pain/pleasure cycles that exist in our lives.
How do we do that?
Vipassana offers a technique which claims to liberate us from these cycles. This technique is known as Samadhi – mastery of the mind. By doing Vipassana exercises, we learn to become equanimous to the sensations that keep arising and passing away in the body, whether painful or pleasurable. By remaining equanimous during meditation, we learn to apply this skill to life, thereby allowing ourselves to remain equanimous to the various sensations we feel in our body, in response to the various objects/experiences we come across on a daily basis. By not attaching ourselves to these sensations, we allow ourselves to fully feel the pain or pleasure of the sensation, but not internalize it and create an aversion or a craving.
Additionally, once we have stopped creating new aversions and cravings, by continuing to sit in meditation we can begin to eradicate our old aversions and cravings which are stored deep in the body. As we sit in meditation, old aversions will arise as painful sensations, and by remaining equanimous to them we can allow them to pass and be eradicated from our systems. Similarly, old cravings will arise as pleasurable sensations, and by remaining equally equanimous to them we can allow them to pass and be eradicated from our systems. This ensures that we begin to lose all our attachments, one by one.
It is important to note that this technique is not about stopping the enjoyment you gain from pleasurable experiences or feeling the full effect of a painful experience. It is about not being attached to either of two and getting embroiled in a pain/pleasure cycle.
Then what?
By eradicating our attachments, we can discover true inner bliss. This is a bliss that is different from the pleasurable sensation brought on by objects/experiences that we like/crave. This is a complete, constant feeling that one is truly equanimous to life. Once this bliss is discovered, it makes sense to do activities that enhance this inner bliss. Each person has to decide for themselves what activities enhance their own inner bliss, and fully allow them to enjoy their lives, free from suffering and misery.
Although Vipassana has a strong moral code (Shila) backing it up – you should not steal, lie, kill, do sexual misconduct, consume intoxicants etc. – I propose that it is up to each one of us to discover our own moral code and standards to live by.
What else?
Finally, Vipassana believes in Panya. This is the wisdom that life brings you and it consists of 3 parts:
i) You must hear/read/learn about the wisdom from scriptures or a teacher etc.
ii) As a rational human being, you must intellectualise the learning
iii) As an experiential being, you must experience the benefits of the learning
Vipassana claims that this technique was discovered by Buddha himself, who very clearly stated that even though this was his enlightenment, it did not mean that it had to be anyone else’s. You should not accept Buddha’s word, any scripture’s word, any teacher’s word. Only accept the learning if it brings you benefit on an experiential level.
Understandings
It is important to understand why the retreat forbids us from speaking, making eye contact, touching, reading, writing etc. for the entire period. There are no phones or computers and each student lives the life of a monk/nun. We wake up at 4am and sleep at 9pm. In these 17 hours, there are 10 hours of meditation, 2 hours of discourse and 5 hours to bathe/eat/relax. The idea is to slowly begin to quiet the conscious mind so that it can focus on the task at hand – meditation.
Since there are no distractions at all, my mind was on overdrive every day for the 5 hours of alone time. Initially it was great as I had time to slowly and methodically think about each aspect about my life and found that was having mini-breakthroughs each day. As the days passed, I began to realise that I had thought and re-thought about everything and that all I wanted to do was shut my mind off. This is not possible since there is nothing to distract the mind with.
Realisations
I began to realise the pain/pleasure cycles that I was a part of in my own life. Pre-Vipassana, I believed I had become pretty adept at understanding what made me miserable, why it was happening, and how to deal with it. This experience allowed me to unveil aspects of my life that were making me miserable that I was somewhat blinded to. Only when I realised the different cycles I was a part of, I was able to begin working on them.
Another big realisation I had was about wisdom. I understood that with my involvement in hypnotherapy, I had fulfilled 2 parts of the requirements and not the last one. I had learnt about it, I had intellectualised it, but I had not experienced my own liberation. When the knowledge failed to liberate me, I eased into the role of a therapist, expecting that helping others find their route would help me find mine. This didn’t happen either. I then took on the role of a teacher, hoping that teaching others would be the answer, but this was also a dead end. I finally realised that I had to take a step back and re-assess my own route to liberation and enlightenment and that is where I stand today.
