I spent the last 12 days (10 full days) at a silent meditation retreat in the southern California desert where I learned the art of vipassana meditation from S.N. Goenka and his assisting teachers.
My previous post details why I went. This post goes into how it went, and followup.
Going into potentially psychological surgery was/is a risk. There’s an element of not knowing if one’s happiness and success is because of certain psychological traits, honed over decades, or in spite of them. Without knowing for sure, any change has the risk of decreasing happiness, and lowering success (whether with the same personal bar of or resulting in moving the bar itself). For example, I believe Steve Jobs was successful in spite of many negative traits, as is Elon Musk. That is they could be equally successful without causing as much harm to their employees and families. In addition to reasons I listed in my previous blog post, I went into this experience hoping to tweak traits I am successful/happy in spite of. I believe I have several such traits, including sending blistering emails at points!
The first 3 days
For more than 3 days we focused on our respiration, and feeling sensations on a small area beneath our noses to sharpen awareness. This technique is called anapana meditation. The sitting was hard. The schedule was brutal, up at 4am with 11 hours of scheduled meditation per day. I spent a lot of time walking during my off hours, as sitting alone in my room or the hot heat outside didn’t seem appealing. Parts of the day we were permitted to meditate in our rooms as opposed to the group meditation hall. I had a roommate, separated by a curtain, who I had never spoken to but for negotiating the air temperature of the air conditioner the first day (76 degrees F). I took advantage of this as there was more space to be flexible in my sitting posture and stretch out my legs. Occasionally at first I would fall asleep, and I learned that the 4:30am meditations were best had in the hall to avoid this. Quickly I convinced myself it was likely I would never do this again, so I tried to take advantage of my presence to follow the technique as diligently as possible.
I enjoyed the vegetarian food, there were many vegan options available. Each evening there was a lecture, of about an hour, and a closing 30–45 minute meditation session before 9pm bedtime with a 10pm “lights out” curfew. The lectures were recorded, by the recently deceased master of the technique, and the assistant teachers were available to answer questions twice a day. I didn’t take advantage of this. From my perspective during these days, the entire 10 day course was going to be focused on the 2 cm below my nose at this stage, as I hadn’t read much on the technique previously. Each meditation session began with some chanting (not a ritual but helpful in focusing initially) with some short instructions, and ended with chanting (always to some degree of relief although you began to train to neither experience relief nor disappointment at such events). There was some foreshadowing in the meditation instructions, “for now, feel free to change your posture”.
During these first few days, I would say the main challenges were the intense amount of focus on a small area, the sitting, the hours, and the psychological reality of there being “N days to go” where N seemed impossibly large. The teacher mentioned days 2 and 6 were popular days to give up, and I had two friends who had left on days 2 and 4, so I resolved to have two countdowns, one to day 7, and the other to day 10.
Vipassana day
Day 4 was “Vipassana day” where we learned a new technique of meditation and things got both better and worse, all at once. Vipassana involves extending the focus from a small area to throughout the external, and later internal body. After focusing on such a small area below our nose for days, my senses and awareness were sharper, and the extension of this was a welcome mental change. The advantage to this was also that it was distracting from the extreme pain we began to be subject to. Namely, 3 times a day during the regular schedule group sittings we were requested to take an “adhitthana” a resolution of strong determination not to change our posture: legs, arms or open eyes, for the entire hour. The group sitting provided peer pressure on top of things.
I managed from the get go, but we were told that the purpose of the adhitthana was not to inflict unnecessary pain or suffering but to sharpen the senses and develop a feeling of detachment toward both good and bad sensations, so that if we absolutely had to move we should, and simply try to move fewer times the next sitting. Types of pain from my perspective ranged from back, to neck, to particularly the first few days my legs falling asleep. I tried a variety of ways of sitting. Many classmates had small back supporting pillows that the center had provided, but by the time I figured that out they had run out and I decided to just start out in the advanced configuration as maybe it could help improve my posture.
It is difficult in words to describe how difficult sitting for an hour without moving is. I can’t emphasize this enough. What is fascinating is that without moving, we can be incredible generators of what must result in endorphins. I was able to make small micro movements of my muscles, a cm that way or this way, which since you had plenty of time to notice the cause of the pain, often helped. I gradually learned a new way to sit that made things slightly better, cross legged but with one foot in front of the other vs piled up, something I gleaned from watching how the teachers tended to sit. It never got easy, but at times nothing hurt at all and it felt more like I was on some kind of muscle relaxant. Sometimes, as I went to make micro movements to straighten my back, after so long it was difficult to figure out which way was up. Sometimes I ended up sitting with a straight spine but somehow with a non-neutral pitch yaw or roll when I checked the position of my back at the end of the sitting.
We were instructed to remain “equanimous” to all types of sensations, good or bad. Part of the theory behind the technique is that emotions or reactions themselves are not always abstract but often manifest (additionally) as physical sensations; anger for example being accompanied by an increase in heart rate and by focusing on these observables while remaining objective one can learn to be more objective about the root cause as well, potentially even eradicating it altogether. Moreover, this observation of the results of the unconscious mind by the conscious mind, has the potential to give a more direct coupling between the two. Equanimity was also very hard: not to wish the pain would go away when it was present, the good times would stay when it wasn’t, or for the end of a sitting either to end the sensations or the at times repetitive sensation scanning. I had varying degrees of success at the equanimity, but altogether I think subjecting my body to this extreme form of willpower will be helpful in both sports and the personal realm.
Throughout this period I had extremely vivid and intense dreams, and many memories, although none new or surprising, just a chance to revisit them. The dreams were fascinating, and I believe the unconscious spelunking, the transition from meditation to sleep, and the overriding of the physical desire to move or sleep gave some element of sleep to my waking mind and some element of lucidness to my sleeping mind.
Metta day
On the penultimate day (the course was actually 12 days with 10 full days) we were permitted to talk again and we also learned a final technique of meditation called metta. Being permitted to talk was at first overwhelming. I didn’t really quite have the desire yet. But when I saw a group of women sharing experiences (we were still segregated by sex except for a single group meeting to discuss logistics of the final days), I walked up. Laughing with others for the first time in awhile (we laughed in the lectures but more to ourselves/at the teacher) was liberating, and it seems many thought the course was just difficult for them and were relieved and intrigued to find that it was equally if sometimes differently difficult for others.
It seems everyone had a different difficulty, even returning students. One student discovered much of her every day pain was phantom (or she would feel the pain before the event that caused it) and yet still was subject to a variety of pain. Another student had a lot of painful childhood memories crop up. Still another nearly had a mental breakdown. One returning student had extreme pain this time sitting, as opposed to her first retreat where she often experienced the relaxed muscle easy going sitting. After telling the teacher she was considering leaving, she was moved to a chair and it was emphasized she should not be attached to the good experience physically she had the first experience, that this sense of lacking or loss was likely making her body more tense. In fact after a day of this, her pain went away, though never to the degree of her first retreat, and she was able to follow the program she decided to stay.
Most students had read any material (a short pamphlet on the Vipassana technique, schedule and rules, as well as a sign with cleaning instructions) multiple, multiple times. One girl had broken a rule to bring a pencil, which she didn’t use to journal but did trace over every typed letter in the pamphlet. Another girl counted the vowels in the pamphlet. Still another stole the marker from the shower sign up briefly to make some short notes on toilet paper. I was glad to have taken my walking hobby up, which others seemed to have noticed I took to an extreme walking continuously in almost every break. It was preferable to counting vowels for sure, and I’m used to exercising quite a bit every day. One joke on the final cleanup day was the manager saying “here’s how you clean up … but I know everyone knows what you will need to do as it’s the only thing you’ve had to read in your rooms for 10 days”. L.O.L.
The technique of metta meditation was short and simple and should be practiced on the tail end of any vipassana sitting. It is a short ~5 minute session and involves having a deep sense of compassion and love for all beings, being in a relaxed posture, and focusing one’s attention outward vs. on one’s body as in Vipassana. It was a good way to end the course, and it made the adhitthana sittings, which I could finally count down on one hand, more bearable (they were both shorter and ended on more of a ramp down).
On the small things
Every day I had to actively talk myself out of leaving the course and the most effective way of doing so was to break it up into chunks and convince myself to stay for one more chunk each time. The routine was there, but I had a count of milestones. At some point I convinced myself July had 30 instead of 31 days, and therefore the course was shorter. I was extremely disappointed to find that this was not the case, as I had a revelation mid meditation and did the knuckle trick to confirm my dark suspicions after the session.
Although the general public I talk about this retreat to seems to think 10 days of silence would be the most difficult portion, the silence was never an issue with me, and many others seemed to find this part not particularly difficult. In fact, I travel so often by myself rarely speaking to others meaningfully, it reminded me of one of my travels. I was perfectly comfortable with the silence part, and believe I could have done that for a longer period (30 days?) without many issues given my freedom of movement throughout the compound and the fact that I could communicate with management at any time should I need to. Clearly there is a point where all humans, including myself, would have an awful time at this. Solitary confinement is a form of torture and every time I began to think I had it the slightest form of rough, I thought to my friends who had been subject to it. For the short duration I appreciated not having to small talk, and the ability to eat alone. I missed reading probably the most, and writing a long second. I missed my work, insofar as I thought of plans and projects often, but not the actual execution. I did not miss the computer screen.
The ups and downs of various days were small. I enjoyed seeing a lot of desert wildlife, and seeing an animal would often make my day. I saw bunnies, other rodent animals, lizards, and birds. I liked when I beat my personal best of walking laps. And also when I occasionally did handwashing of my clothes. Yes handwashing of my clothes or cleaning was also a highlight of my week. Any small change in routine would be a delight (one day they gave us apple cider during tea; there was a vegan dessert another, the days they introduced new meditation techniques or sat with old instead of new students during the non group sittings were also highlights). Its amazing how adaptable our joy is to hinge on things we take as routine and not delightful in the everyday.
A followup Adhitthana to the course, the thing about hard things
I came back from the retreat with a lot of small life and productivity improvement ideas, perhaps more from my 40+ miles of solo music free walking than the meditation. Everything from needing a new stapler, to getting back to skating, to buying a get your skydiving license in a week package, to particular research tracks and ideas that I had.
To continue practicing the technique of vipassana one is advised to practice meditation for 2! hours! a day, 1 morning and 1 evening with additional practice a few minutes before waking up and going to bed. The adhitthana of not moving for these sittings is not necessary. Additionally taking a 10 day retreat once a year, and group sitting once a week if possible is recommended. Whew! I used to have trouble to convince myself to meditate for 15-20 minutes a 3–5 times a week even as I saw clear benefit from doing so.
The teacher claims that 1 hour can come from sleep as practicing this technique you will need to sleep less; and 1 hour can come from work as practicing this technique you will be more than 1 hour per day more productive. I’m not sure what the minimum effective dose of meditation is for maximum benefit, nor if these claims are true for me personally. For the rest of August, I am giving a larger dose a try, and this has been one particular benefit of the retreat. Namely, I’ve found little difficulty in meditating for 1–2 hours a day as it seems peanuts and easy compared with my retreat schedule.
Mostly I’ve managed to build in an entire hour into my morning schedule, robbing that hour directly from sleep (I typically religiously sleep 8 hours a night so 7 hours is also adequate), and monitoring whether I am in fact any more productive (I have many metrics for this in place already as well as historical data). Of course as the subject of the experiment I also influence the results, but I don’t much care *why* I am more productive and rested on fewer hours of sleep and work, only that I am, or am not. I already find this causality mixed, in that I enjoy my 1 hour sitting so want to be more productive to motivate taking it.
Long term
I am doubtful I’ll keep this increased schedule up long term, but certainly envision after the retreat and a month of 1+ hour daily meditation, having no problems taking my previous meditation schedule regularly. Easy peasy. Doing a much harder thing, makes a hard thing seem easy. I often put hard things in perspective before I start them, and doing another hard thing helps with the sorting “slightly harder than X thing I have done but at least not as hard as Z thing I have done, I think I can do it!”.