10 Day Silent Meditation Retreat Reflection — Vipassana
10 days with your laptop/phone/books/notebooks confiscated, not allowed to read, write, talk, workout, have any physical contact. Along with around 10 hours daily meditation practice starting your day at 4 am til 930 pm, who would sign up for this?
On my way back to Taipei from Chiayi on day 11th, writing this while it’s still fresh in my mind while I’m still re-acclimating to society— my phone feels like a foreign object, the world obnoxiously loud, and talking feels completely weird. Meanwhile feeling noticeably lighter in the head, sore in the legs, but with way more mastery over my mind, and an immense feeling of gratitude.
In this writing, I want to share about why I tried Vipassana, what Vipassana is, and what my journey looked like, what I learned, and what I plan to do after. Hoping to answer friends who are curious about it and connect deeper with people who have experienced this.
It’s not an easy 10 days, a lot of pain and introspection in the physical and mental level that is ultimately rewarding. My experience was wonderful but in ways hard to put into words, but I’m going to try:
Why
I believe in the benefits of extremity. Biking for a day trip is fun, but you really learn about biking if you bike around Taiwan. Similarly for meditation, I’ve used Headspace app for 10 years and had my fair share of mindfulness practices and readings in Buddhism — but to truly reap all the benefits, I knew going deep was going to provide a next level experience and understanding.
Some people go in with a concrete goal or topic to think through. I didn’t have any other than maybe at the base level hoping to reset my dopamine level, improve my focus, deepening my mindfulness, calibrate my mental health, and finally have a concrete break from starting projects after projects since quitting my job 3 years ago.
I was also curious that what effects this would have to my family, relationships, projects if I am offline and unreachable. “How much does the world actually need me?” experiment to the universe. I’ve previously quit alcohol and carbs for a month and then could accurately pinpoint effects of them by isolating the variable. In this case, I am the variable to the world. If nothing came out of this, I would have just been proud of myself for challenging myself and completing it. One of my favorite movies “It’s a Wonderful Life” comes to mind here, for those who have seen it will know why but I digress (please watch it if you haven’t).
Vipassana
means “See things as they are”, an ancient technique of meditation said to have originated from the Buddha himself in India after his enlightenment. The purest from has been lost in India and other places and this pristine practice is only maintained in Burma without any attachments to religion, belief system, rites or rituals. Vipassana is open to all any religion or atheists with no desire to convert anyone — a practical technique where the benefits are felt immediately and proportional to how much work you are willing to put in.
Schedule
The daily routine looked like this:
You are asked to sign a form agreeing to abide to this schedule and not leave for 10 days straight. You meditate for around 10 hours daily broken down in to different sessions. Have 2 chances to ask questions to the teacher during the day (lunch and before bed), and 1 lecture at night where you watch video recording of the legendary teacher Goenka explaining the concepts and what’s expected step by step, day by day. There is no dinner as well, only light fruits and tea. Simple yet productive.
Spoiler alert: some have told me they enjoyed not knowing the full course agenda and like the element of surprise on the daily basis progressively — if you prefer this, can skip to Summary in the end :)
Day 1 — Pain
Pure intense physical pain and body adaption for the legs and back sitting for so long in one position observing one’s own breadth.
I remember walking around outside and seeing the sunset over the school during break, stood there and watched peacefully and thought to myself “I can’t remember the last time I watched a sunset without taking out my phone to capture it, what a wonderful moment.”
Day 2 — Sensations/Gratitude
We were taught to focus observing the sensation of the breathing on the nose. Is it coming in/out from left/right, or both nostrils? Is it cold/warm/dry/wet? There was still a lot of pain in the body but feelings of gratitude emerged.
Having the opportunity to take 10 days and do this is extremely rare. Everything is FREE as well, the food, lodging, teachings, not a single dollar is charged. Only students who have completed the course are allowed to donate their money or time volunteering helping other batches if you find your time here was beneficial. It was actually hard to find a spot in one of these so I definitely felt lucky to be there
Day 3 — Negativity
We were now taught to only focus on the area below your nostril and above your lips, narrowing down to a very small area of your body to train the sharpness of your mind that is required for the real Vipassana training that will start the next day.
This was one of the tougher days, starting from the day before, my mind unconsciously went through every single face I have stored in my memory. From childhood playmates, school friends, basketball team, social clubs, and adult/professional friends from every friend group, community, or organizations in every phase and city thorough my times in Taiwan, California, New York. I was surprised at how many names I remembered from early days when they popped up. I’m not sure if this served any purpose other than clearing out space in my mind. Like when you want to clean a drawer it’s easier to first dump everything out to see what’s inside. A fun and nostalgic experience nonetheless, where a lot of memories I’ve forgotten about found its way out.
However, along with this, past regrets, unresolved feelings, bad decisions, disappointments also surfaced. I didn’t care to stop it, felt like just how its supposed to be: you move the couch in the living room, you’re bound to find some dirt underneath you can clean.
Day 4 — The Body Never Lies.
This is when the actual Vipassna is taught, the first few days are meant to set the stage, calm your mind, and prepare you for this. You are taught to scan through your entire body from head to toe through every body part and try to find tiny sensations on each part. At first you will have a ton of blind spots where you feel nothing, and need to wait for a minute and move on, then try again the same spot next round, over and over. The goal is to eventually get to the point where you can feel every part of the body giving you subtle vibrations and sensations, a lot harder in practice than it sounds.
This was a tough day because I got a bit more tired and lazy. This is the first and only day I accidentally slept in and completely skipped the morning meditation from 430–630 am and breakfast til the next joint session at 8 am. I felt terrible about it all day, completely disrupting my flow. This was probably at some point bound to happen given how little I was sleeping and chaotic things were in the week leading up to the retreat. The body never lies, all debts are due.
Day 5 — Determination
This is the day we were instructed “Determined Meditations”, where 1 hour each in the mornings, afternoons, and evenings you are not allowed to move your feet, hands or open your eyes during.
My first attempt failed at the extreme pain after 30-45 minutes. It felt like operating a heart surgery on oneself as they described. You must cut deep into your heart/mind to really get the impurities out, it hurts and feels good at the same time. One must also have a strong enough determination to persist pain inflicted by one’s own will, a masochist idea but true testament and great practice of mental strength.
This is also the first time the idea Equanimity is introduced.
Equanimity means a balanced mind.
Equanimity means a mind without cravings or aversions.
Equanimity is not wanting a unpleasant sensation to cease or a pleasant sensation to continue.
When we feel pain on the physical level, an equanimous mind is able to separate that from the mental level. Like seeing the pain on “your own” leg as if you are a doctor looking at a patient’s leg and saying “oh, there’s pain here?” objectively. You’re not ignoring it, but you’re observing it.
This is perhaps the most important concept in the course. Being able to handle sensations and stimulus without reacting. Separating the body and mind connection and taking back control of your mind. Just like when negative emotions arise in our daily lives, it is ultimately up to us how we want to react even if it’s triggered by others.
This is a pretty well known concept in any Buddhist or western philosophies like Stoicism. However, the big difference here in Vipassana is learning and practicing this on an experience and empirical level, rather than merely intellectualizing it. Deep rooting it in a meditative environment under this intensity of pain is what they say training your mind at the atomic level. Rather than just surface software level, hacking the circuit of stimulus/sensation to reaction/response gap at the deeper hardware level if you will.
When pledging in college, I was reminded of the quote often shared:
This quote got me through the 3 sessions that day successfully after I amended:
Pain is weakness leaving the body, and mindfulness entering the mind
But why torture yourself? Physical pain during meditation is the easiest and raw method for us to practice better handling perceived negative sensations (discomfort, cravings, greeds, aversions) caused whether through (words, thoughts, or action).
“No one can hurt you without your consent” — Gandhi
They say that all the Saṅkhāras(craving and aversions) are the source of our misery and we build up so much of it from a young old. As soon as we practice equanimity and stop generating new ones, the old ones will inevitably surface and be dissolved. As the old layers gets evaporated one by one, we become lighter and closer to enlightment — where you no longer have any Saṅkhāras and impurities covering your mind.
Day 6 — Showing Up
I was scraping the barrel for sustained focus and will power. I promised myself that no matter what happens, I will always show up where I’m supposed to and try to do the work when I can.
I was able to show up to every session since and felt an amazing out of body bliss at the end of this day where the previous mentioned subtle sensations became stronger and stronger and more previous blind parts of the body became more activated to a comforting sensation while scanning through the body.
Day 7 — Smile (in pain)/Impermanence
The concept of Impermanence(無常/anicca) is introduced here, where anything good or bad will not last, change is the only constant in the world. So when a sensation or thing happens, the Buddhist say “Annica” which means impermanence and implies:
“This too shall pass”
Not just when something negative happens, even for something positive, one should still remember:
“This too shall pass”
Tom Hanks put it very nicely in this short video here:
https://youtube.com/shorts/jetL7f4fTr4?si=QK9e37QX2SJli81q
I am also reminded of Vitkor Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist who survived the concentration camps, after getting stripped of all his belongings, writings, seeing his family members killed one by one in front of him — he realized he still had the the freedom to choose how to react to what happens to him, and ultimately used this mentality to help others and himself survive. Between a stimulus and reaction, there is a gap where no one can take away from you, the freedom to choose how to respond.
The Buddha gave up the luxurious life he had as a prince and discovered this through years of meditation to break through the cycle of sufferings to become enlightened — the idea that after one can become fully aware and equanimous in your mind can one become fully liberated from the sufferings of this world generated by our own cravings and aversive reactions to the world and what happens to us.
In some ways, I feel like Viktor is the western version of an enlightened person like Buddha that went through much worse conditions. And what virtue is to Stoicism is like what the Dhamma is to Buddhism. Western and Eastern, completely different schools of thoughts and practices but with many similarities.
Day 8 — Darkness
Day 8 was the hardest day, after giving my all, through all the pain and mind wandering distractions, I had no focus and will power left that day, absolutely nothing at the bottle of the barrel. My mind kept drifting to the past, day dreaming about alternative universes. This was quite frustrating and felt like a waste of time but the teacher also told me those days can happen and if it does, must have been necessary, face what comes out with a calm, equanimous mind and move forward.
I learned one thing about my mind is it’s very nostalgic, but sometimes too nostalgic in negative ways — It’s always easier to imagine what could’ve been done and what would’ve been, over what can and should be done in the present for the future. Perhaps the pain makes me procrastinate and move my attention to the past instead. If the energy I have in the past can be converted more into dreaming and scheming for a feasible bright future, that is something I want to train and channel my mind to do better — replace more nostalgic/regretful linger to optimistic dreamer and planner.
Day 9 — Brightness
For the last day, I told myself that I will channel the mamba mentality I have and deep root it into my bones and go as hard and as focused as I can on every minute of the meditations to see how far I can push myself.
Unsurprisingly, this was the most enlightened day for me. The subtle bodily sensations we were asked to observe everyday blew up like fireworks throughout my body via a warm and small vibration of vitality that felt calming, warm, and energizing. It felt like particles of impurities dissolving from the back of my head. And as distraction of thoughts inevitably come up, I tell my self
I am here, fully aware, fully equanimous, all things shall pass, annica, annica, annica(無常).
Day 10 — Liberation
This was the last day where the “noble silence” is removed, meaning we can finally talk to each other. The noble silence is there to ensure we’re as pure and perfectly undistracted as possible and I cannot say how much I appreciated that environment.
“What are your names?” I say to my roommates of 10 days with a funny smile, they all laugh too. We eventually got our electronics back too and I was hesitant to open up phone or internet, wanting to preserve even longer the last precious feeling of clean disconnection. The amount of messages that I need to consume is also a overwhelming thought, many shared the same feelings and some opted to not turn on til the day after when we leave.
We each opened up about why we came here and how we felt, and I was shocked at how different everyone’s experiences were. Some people tried to escape and failed, some people felt no pain at all only wonderful sensations, some people felt anxious about all the things that surfaced that they need to now face more directly.
One interesting thing afterwards is after exchanging contacts, a common theme after sending a message to say how great it was to meet them and connect, a common response I got was “Even though we couldn’t talk, I had a feeling we would vibe well, and it was so accurate” truly proving that humans connect on the deeper level vibration rather than the surface level conversations.
I don’t want to say broadly I had a wonderful time so everyone should try this. Hard to say how different everyone’s experience will be depending on their past and current circumstances. Though I believe one has to want to come oneself for the best results.
Summary
A lot of the Buddhist teachings were familiar to me and I actively practiced them and often share how valuable meditation is, but this technique is noticeably different. To practice to such an extreme level in such an intentional environment definitely opened my mind on how far the benefits of meditation can continue be to my life or anyone’s life.
What I love about Vipassana is how it’s very practical and direct. You get as much benefits proportional to how much work you put in, with an instant feedback loop and long term benefits. The toughest days always followed with a more determined bounce back that turned into my best days (4->5 / 8->9). Failing is okay, just focus on the future and come back stronger.
The darkest nights make the brightest stars
The fact that it is universal and not religious makes me feel like there is more fundamental truth than what any rituals/rites/religions may have. And it’s sustainability through charitable donations only allowed from people who have found it beneficial and grateful to give back, is an inspiring example of a mission driven organization.
Change After
I want to continue some of the things I learned and the benefits of longer meditation sessions at early mornings to start the day. A long term 4 am cold shower and meditation might be hard to sustain, but I want to see how long I can extend the 4 am cold shower and straight to meditation routine for.
In terms of difficulty, for comparison, I’ve done a 14 days hike to Everest Base Camp, 9 days cycling around Taiwan both without any preparation or training. But this 10 days Vipassana retreat is by far the hardest even after 10 years of meditating, and reached the deepest level of effect for me.
I wouldn’t say I feel like a new person, but I do feel a spiritual afterglow, immense love and gratitude as I slowly reconnect with the world and society while I catch up with people I love spending time or working with slowly.
After seeing some of the messages I feel a lot of love and care from the world and eager to give back and serve others in an ego-less way. The people I love in the world needs me but without my ego. And the world definitely doesn’t need my constant attention. I know the thing I will miss the most from this 10 days is the peace and harmony without the wordily distractions. I will want to schedule long walks without my phone or have times where my phone is off at least a few times a week, and stay away from digital distractions as much as I can. Your phone needs you more than you need it, protect your peace at all cost.
I feel like I have a purer and lighter mind that is more anti-fragile, and more stubborn on being honest and true to itself. I want to continue improve my spirituality and continue to dissolve the ego more and more with continous practice of the technique.
I am by nature a more happy and positive person than average and I want to be able to see more of that true and natural form of me shine even brighter than before, as much as possible.
I am here, fully relaxed, fully aware, and fully equanimous. Annica.
