In addition to following the moral conduct and a few other rules (such as staying for the entire duration of the course), the participants promise to observe noble silence. Although people often seem to think that not talking for over a week would be practically impossible for them, I don't think restraining from talking is that hard (and I think that holds true for non-Finnish people, too). However, the fact the noble silence means more than just not talking, but "silence of body, speech, and mind" - and it forbids any communication with the fellow students makes the experience extraordinary. I think if you could gesture, smile or frown, write notes or hug the other participants, the experience of isolation would be much less. MUCH less.
The schedule was the same every day up until the 10th day when the noble silence (and pretty much all the meditation) ended:
| 4:00 am | Morning wake-up bell | |
| 4:30-6:30 am | Meditate in the hall or in your room | |
| 6:30-8:00 am | Breakfast break | |
| 8:00-9:00 am | Group meditation in the hall | |
| 9:00-11:00 am | Meditate in the hall or in your room according to the teacher's instructions | |
| 11:00-12:00 noon | Lunch break | |
| 12noon-1:00 pm | Rest and interviews with the teacher | |
| 1:00-2:30 pm | Meditate in the hall or in your room | |
| 2:30-3:30 pm | Group meditation in the hall | |
| 3:30-5:00 pm | Meditate in the hall or in your own room according to the teacher's instructions | |
| 5:00-6:00 pm | Tea break | |
| 6:00-7:00 pm | Group meditation in the hall | |
| 7:00-8:15 pm | Teacher's Discourse in the hall | |
| 8:15-9:00 pm | Group meditation in the hall | |
| 9:00-9:30 pm | Question time in the hall | |
| 9:30 pm | Retire to your own room--Lights out |
10 hours of meditation a day may sound like a lot. And it is. The fact that we weren't allowed to communicate with the other participants meant that the breaks didn't really feel that different from meditation, either. In practice, it meant being with yourself surrounded by your thoughts for about 17 hours a day. For 9 days straight. Naturally, during meditation, you're supposed to have a break from your thoughts as the goal is just to observe your sensations, but as it turns out, that's not an easy task to do.
10 hours of meditation a day is physically challenging, too. After desperate attempts to try and alleviate the hip, leg, back, and neck pain by a careful placement of several cushions, I had to face it. No matter how hard you try, sitting for 10 hours is uncomfortable. The trick is to learn to deal with the pain.
In Vipassana meditation, one is supposed to objectively observe the sensations in one's body; sensations, that are caused by an object encountered by the six senses of the body (typical five senses + the mind). Typically, when one feels pleasant sensations, it is easy to start craving to prolong those sensations. According to the Buddha, this causes suffering. Similarly, craving to get rid of an unpleasant sensation causes suffering. When we can get rid of the craving itself, we are free of the suffering. When one realizes that all the sensations, both pleasant and unpleasant are impermanent, it is easier to remain unattached. Additionally, when one learns to observe the sensations instead of reacting to them, one attains control of the mind and an inner peace.
As we weren't allowed to have anything to write on during the course, it is hard to remember exactly what happened during those 10 days. However, I do remember that the emotions ranged from an overwhelming frustration and sadness to joy and peacefulness.
The first three of days were hell. There was part of me that secretly hoped that my mind would just quiet down after a couple of hours (or at least after 20 hours) of meditation and I would all of a sudden experience something extraordinary. I didn't. Instead, I experienced overwhelming physical discomfort, pain, and the worst case of monkey mind. My mind was all over the place. My thoughts ranged from childhood memories to work-related worries to thinking about this Christmas to re-living unpleasant situations from last year. The mind just would not focus on the breath, as instructed. And I wasn't patient and kind for myself when I realized my mind was wondering, although I was supposed to be. Instead, I was blaming myself. Feeling sad that I was failing. And anxious knowing that the course would last for 10 days. 10 days of misery.
Every night, we saw a video by Goenka (the principal teacher of Vipassana). For me, the video was the favorite part of the day. It meant that there was only one 30-minute meditation to go and being an intellectual person, I loved hearing him explain the philosophy behind the meditation and him making us understand that the misery we all were experiencing with our unbearable back or leg pain was all part of the process. Process of learning through experience.
After the first 3 days, things improved dramatically. My mind would actually focus on the sensations for minutes at a time and my body didn't ache as much as it used to. I was happy to be meditating - at least most of the time.
Unfortunately, the improvement turned out to be impermanent (which should have not been a surprise for me, since the impermanent nature of everything was repeated to us tens of times a day). After day 5, we were supposed to use "strong determination" and sit completely still for 1 hour three times a day not opening our eyes, hands, or legs. Interestingly, about 40 minutes would have been fine with me, but 60 minutes was pure torture. During the last 20 minutes, I experienced such intense pain that made it impossible to stay still. There were times when I could objectively observe the intense unpleasant sensations and they actually weren't that bad. But other times, the sensations were simply too much. All of a sudden on day 8, I realized that my mind was back in square one. I couldn't focus on my sensations anymore but instead, my mind was back focusing on mostly unpleasant things that had happened to me in the past. The frustration made me want to cry - I thought I was crazy for wasting my time in India trying to learn meditation when apparently, I was not capable of learning it, and that I should have gone to Goa instead to at least enjoy myself.
An interesting thing about the silent meditation is that you have no idea what the other participants are going through. As far as I could tell, everyone else seemed peaceful and didn't seem to suffer the way I did -- and as I learned after the course, everyone else seemed to think that I was this perfect meditator who was always sitting still in a perfect cross-legged position looking content.
Not surprisingly, the agony and suffering turned out to be impermanent, as well. After spending a lot of time feeling depressed and pitying myself, I realized that I had started to dread the meditation sessions; I didn't want to meditate and I craved to be somewhere else instead. I wanted to show myself that I had "strong determination". I didn't want to give up. That's why I would sometimes push myself too far - to the point where the pain would just overwhelm me. I didn't know how to balance the pain and the determination. I realized that if I could find myself out of this dilemma, things would improve. After I consciously gave myself the permission to give up - to have determination but not to the extent where I have to be afraid of hurting myself, things started to improve again. The pain wasn't usually overwhelming and most of the time, I could actually sit still for 1 hour, and when the pain seemed to be too much too soon, I simply adjusted my legs and could sit still for another 15 minutes or so. The main lesson was to be a bit less demanding towards myself. To understand that there are limits to how far I can push myself and if I actually listen to the signs that tell me that I'm approaching the limits, I can maybe go even a bit further.
Goenka, the principal teacher, described the course being like a deep mental operation. He kept telling us that the operation will be unpleasant at times, but it is necessary to go through it once it's started. In addition to the problems I had with meditating, my mental operation caused me to have problems sleeping, especially during the last three nights. It seemed clear that so much was going on in my mind that I needed the hours reserved for sleeping to process the changes, too. Oddly enough, although I had problems sleeping, I wasn't tired during the day and could easily stay awake in silent meditation.
When the 10th day finally arrived and we could start talking, the first thing I said to my roommate was: "We survived." That was pretty much the only thing I wanted to say - that it had been hard, but we pushed through it. During the 9 days of silence, I had found peace that I hadn't experienced in such a long time - if ever. I really didn't want or need to hear about other participants' thoughts or experiences. Of course, I didn't lock myself in my room to meditate as I could have done, but I ended up sharing my experiences and insights with other people. I learned that the experience had been similar to most of us; harder for some, slightly easier for others. But the best way to describe the joy and feeling of togetherness was that we all survived a truly extraordinary - maybe even a life-changing experience.
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