Ten years of Vipassana

In November 2006 I sat my first Vipassana course. And here I am almost ten years later still involved in Vipassana.

In November 2006 I was 47 years old, had been working in an office job at a desk for most of my adult life, and had spent very little time in a cross-legged sitting position since primary school. At that time the folks running Vipassana were likely a little more hard-line than they are now in trying to get people to sit cross-legged. I suffered a lot of pain during that course. And, in many respects, was the hardest ten days of my life.

Probably would not have returned except for the feedback from my ex that there seemed to be an impact that lasted around three months. And that was despite my doing pretty much zero meditation in the months after my first course. It seems her perception was that I was much stiller when asleep. To the point that every so often she would prod me to see if I was still alive / breathing. From a distance of ten years later I attribute my lack of meditation after that first course being due to the message given in one of the later discourses in the ten day course. That is,  that we should commit to two 1 hour meditation sessions per day. And given that I could not easily sit cross legged that was a sure recipe for failure with respect to being able to sit for two 1 hour sessions per day.  These days I would advocate that any time spent is better than no time spent. And if I had started off at an achievable level I may well be more advanced in my practice than I currently find myself. Even ten minutes once a day would have been a good place to start. The Ted talk on Tiny Habits advocates starting small and banking achievable wins when starting out on the path of trying to imbed a new habit into life. I would also point out that the Vipassana desire to get its students sitting cross legged is based off some words attributed to Bhudda with respect to how one should sit when meditating. Personally I believe sitting in a chair is fine. And that cross legged sitting can be optional. But that sitting without back support is a good goal to work towards as it allows you to stay more awake.

Fast forward through my next two courses - November 2007 and Feb 2009 and there was still much pain associated with sitting. A few days into my third course I was starting to wonder where the subtle vibrations were that were mentioned so frequently during the course. So I asked the teacher. Who sort of looked at me a little sadly and advised me to keep working.  It wasn't until sometime on day 9 of my third course that I started to experience the subtle vibrations on a 2 to 3 cm wide area on my face....  And on each course since then the areas I experience subtle "vibrations" has expanded to cover most areas of my body.

The dogma put forward is that the subtle "vibrations" is the mind's perception of the dissolution of the body and that the mind is perceiving the vibrations of  kalapas. I reject that part of the theory as it just doesn't seem credible to me. I can see where Goenka may have developed his belief that the perception of subtle vibrations is the minds perception of kalapas. However, my view is that the brain is being rewired to be more sensitive to the background noise of the sensory neurons.

Each sensory neuron automatically fires after a set amount of time. Say every 70 milli-seconds. Sort of like an "I'm alive" signal being sent to the sensory cortex. And when the rate changes - say to a less frequent rate or a higher rate, these changes in firing frequency can mean something to the sensory cortex. My own belief is that the "subtle vibrations" that Goenka talks about are, in fact, the background "I'm Alive" signals that are being sent in by millions of sensory cortex neurons.

Thus, for me, when I perceive subtle vibrations on a new part of my body where I have never detected subtle vibrations previously, the conclusion I reach is that I have rewired yet another part of my sensory cortex.

Each time I sit a ten day course I essentially commit to listening to the same set of discourses again. The ten day discourses were taped many years ago and are replayed at each ten day course at every Vipassana center around the world. Each time I seem to find a new part of the discourse I disagree with. Having said that, there are some useful parts for new meditators who may be struggling with practical issues related to their meditation. Goenka discusses problems with meditation that may arise and the mind set you can use to get around those problems. But all the talk of Bhudda,  past lives and kalapas is pretty much ignored by me these days as being faith based dogma with no evidence to support the dogma. Thus the price of admission, listening to the discourses, is something I have to deal with during each course.  Essentially I believe that a ten day retreat to meditate is good for me. And that I will put up with the discourse as a rather small price to pay for attending an affordable meditation retreat. Goenka states in one discourse that it is not important to believe the information in the discourse. And when the time is ripe you will start believing the discourse. Well, not in this life time. And as I believe that one life time is all you get I'm a thinking that I'll never be believing his discourses.

After sitting six ten day courses I started serving. And I've found that I enjoy serving a course more than sitting. When serving you have to sit three 1 hour meditation sessions per day. I find that, when serving, as the time available for meditation is concentrated into those 1 hour sessions I focus more in the sessions and take the sessions seriously. When I'm sitting a course with up to 10 or 12 hours of meditation looming in front of me for the day I seem to spend more time being unfocused and re-living moments from the past. And that is not an activity that I particularly enjoy. Especially following my break-up with my ex as that could lead me towards regretful thoughts and some pretty dark places.  Therefore I'm serving more than sitting these past few years and enjoying the experience.

One of the benefits of serving up until this 30 day course is that the discourses have been optional on the ten day courses. And I was expecting that to be the case on the 30 day course I served this last August. Alas, this was not to be the case. There was a mandatory evening discourse scheduled every night for the servers. We could not listen to the discourse that the 30 day students were getting as you had to have sat the 30 day course before getting that set of discourses.  But if the discourses were anything like the ten day discourses, or the discourses from the 8 day Satipatthna Sutta, then no great loss. Probably more exhortation of how great the Bhudda's words were. What a great scientist he was etc. And very little new in terms of meditation technique.  Unfortunately the discourse is scheduled for late in the day, in this 30 day course, just before evening metta. So I was pretty tired going into most of the discourses and slipped off to sleep several times.  When I was more awake I tried to ignore the discourse and meditate. Sometimes successfully.

I keep my views on the discourses pretty close to my chest when serving as many servers seem to have bought into the explanation by Goenka for why the technique works, and I see no point in trying to convince them otherwise. It isn't too hard to find some critical posts on the internet regarding the Goenka courses. For example, at one website there is a long thread discussing whether the people who drink the kool-aid, (as in believe the discourses), have been caught in a cult. It seems that to become a teacher at a Goenka center that you have to have bought into the dogma. And, as the organisation promotes unquestioning obedience to authority, it is unlikely, in my view, that there will be any change to the discourses in the near to medium future. However, it is my believe that, at some point, the evidence from research into how meditation works will end up discrediting large chunks of Goenka's discourses. Belief in past lives is a belief I put into the same bucket as belief in Santa being real of the Easter Bunny being real.  A faith based belief.

These days I can sit in, what is, in yoga terms, easy cross legs, for an hour at a time with little discomfort. And that is a nice place to be when meditating. The people that have bought into the Goenka discourses would attribute the pain when sitting during my early courses down to my having Sankaras being present and I needed to work my way through my load of Sankaras. Which I think is a load of bollocks. The pain was due to me stretching connective tissue. And the connective tissue was complaining at being made to stretch for the first time in about 40 years. Subsequently, now that I've sat for long enough, the tissue has been stretched and is much better at coping with lengthy periods of sitting in a cross-legged posture.

Another trick I've found useful is to acquire a meditation stool and alternate between sitting cross-legged and kneeling on the meditation stool. Alternating sitting positions seems to allow me to better cope with prolonged sitting.

So I keep returning to Vipassana centers to sit or serve in the knowledge that to get the benefits of being supported through a ten day meditation course at a cost I can afford, I have to sit and listen each day to a discourse that, with each passing year, shows more and more signs of being sadly out of date.