I recently attended a 10 day Vipassana meditation retreat. This is the second part of my story about it.
You'll find the first part of it here: https://steemit.com/meditation/@peterveronika/a-failed-attempt-at-a-10-day-meditation-retreat-part-1
And here is the initial post that explains why I decided to go there in the first place:
https://steemit.com/meditation/@peterveronika/the-hardest-part-of-my-retreat-and-it-hasnt-even-begun
Day 1
I woke up before the gong at 4am and put on my warmest clothes for the first session of the day, which lasted from 4:30 until 6:30am. The morning was chilly, so I quickly walked into the meditation hall, which was already filling up with other meditators. The two teachers weren’t present during this session, only one male and one female server. I was doing quite well during the first hour, concentrating on my breath again, although I thought about You a lot, and about how much I miss You already. I must have fallen asleep during the second hour because I didn’t hear the two teachers come in or when the chanting from the loudspeakers began.
At 6:30 we stood up and went to have our breakfast, which was surprisingly good. Oatmeal, cooked prunes and raising, yoghurt and bread. There was no coffee to my disappointment, so I had black tea instead. It felt like the caffeine had been extracted from the tea bags as I didn’t feel the usual kick at all. We had our breakfast in silence, me secretly looking at everyone around me, trying to guess where they were from and if they attended a retreat like this before. It was difficult to tell without hearing them speak.
After breakfast there was an hour break before the next meditation session. That was when I started talking to You in my head. I told You about how I felt, that I didn’t want to be here and how much I missed You. I knew it was insane, but it was comforting to imagine You in my head.
The first day passed very slowly. We were instructed by Goenka through a loudspeaker to concentrate on the area above the lips, just below the nostrils during meditation. All kind of thoughts kept creeping in but I did my best not to engage in them and keep focused. I kept thinking about how many more days, how many meals and how many more hours of meditation I have to sit through before the end. I knew this was normal, the mind fights against boredom and control, it wants to run wild. ‘Shut up’ I told myself, ‘I am here for the 10 days and leaving early isn’t an option’. Goenka said ‘work hard, work diligently and you are bound to be successful’. And I was determined to do that.
There were two major feelings inside me, one of them wanting to leave and the other was missing You. As the hours and days passed I got used to the idea of staying, although I still thought about leaving about a thousand times a day. I was able to deal with it by telling myself that I don’t want the feeling of failure which would probably come if I’d left early. I wanted the feeling of success which would come if I hang on till the end.
The problem was that the feeling of missing You kept increasing minute by minute. I kept talking to You in my head during breaks and sometimes even during meditation. I thought about how much I love our life together, everything we do together is so great, that You’re the best, most supportive husband ever to have walked on Earth and I dawned on me that I love You so much more than I thought.
Day 2
At night I had a bad dream with You in it, so I spent half my day analysing it and talking to You in my head about it. I got up for the 4:30 meditation again, but went back to bed for an hour into the session and I was happy to have done that as I felt quite refreshed after that.
It was raining outside so all I had was the four walls of my small rooms to look at and the meditation hall. It’s difficult to imagine if you’ve never tried, but feelings and thoughts get amplified if there is no distraction at all, no one to talk to or share things with, crazy ideas you’d never have otherwise will come up. That started happening to me on my Day 2. I was panicking that by the time I come out, You’d realize that you’re fine on your own and You don’t need me. Maybe You won’t love me. Maybe I just made You up in my head and You don’t even exist! But I have my wedding ring so You must be real, right? Everything outside the retreat’s compounds felt like it was in another universe. I know all this sounds crazy, but things seemed very different in there. This kept going round and round in my head and I fought back the flood of tears (for now). I tried to imagine You telling me that you love me forever, I thought about our wedding day and that calmed me down for about a minute. Then I thought about how selfish I was, because I only think about myself and if You love me, but don’t they say that if you really love someone you let them go?
That was how day two went by, slower than a snail, meditating for 12 hours, concentrating on the area above my upper lip.
The only release of my days were the evening discourses, when we watched an hour video with Goenka talking about Vipassana. He started every teaching with the sentence ‘You reached the end of Day 1, Day 2 and so on.’ I found that sentence comforting. He had a good sense of humour and I liked listening to him.
Day 3
Another nightmare with You in it, another morning spent analysing it. Again I went for the first meditation at 4:30am and went back to bed after an hour because it worked so well the day before. Later in the morning I started thinking about begging the teacher to just let me give You one call. Maybe I could say either that or I’d leave. I kept replaying in my head what I’d say to her or the Ania and their possible reactions to my request. I knew they wouldn’t allow it as it goes against their rules, but I kept riding the thought until it was annoying the hell out of me.
I spent the last half hour of the second meditation session by doing sit ups, squats and sun salutations in my room quietly. I felt like I needed to move, and not just walk around. It felt good, although my mind got a distraction this way too, which was probably one of the reasons they asked us not to workout during the course.
I perfected my dental hygiene, brushing my teeth after every meal slowly and flossing after lunch just to have something to do. I gave myself a goal of walking along the path in the small forest 5x after breakfast and 10x after lunch. It was a 5 minute walk so it didn’t take too long. I washed all my dirty and semi-dirty socks and underwear and hang it out slowly on the washing line. All these activities were to give me a distraction from my thoughts racing to You. They didn’t manage to distract me too much, I only got a couple of minutes release, then the thoughts were back again. The place remined me of a camp for elderly zombies, because girls were walking around slowly without looking at each other or speaking.
That evening I had a tiny breakthrough, during the discourses I felt some of the worries being lifted off of my shoulders and I suddenly felt much better. I still missed You but I felt like I made my peace with it. I meditated with You again at 8:15pm, imagining that You hugged me close.
I was looking forward to Day 4 because Goenka said we would start with the actual Vipassana, Day 1-3 had only been a preparation for the next 6 days. I was looking forward to the change and I thought Vipassana meditation would make me feel better. I also decided to wash my hair and my jeans, which would take around 40 minutes if I did it slow, so most of my noon break would be taken care of.
Keep an eye out for the next part of the story, we'll be posting it soon!
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