Dhamma Shringa Vipassana Meditation Centre, Part 2
Letter #32: It gets worse before it gets better.
We are only on Day 1 of the 10 day course. The bell rang again for our late morning meditation sessions at 8am. I headed to Dhamma Hall for another hour of group meditation, the 5 assistant teachers sitting in raised seats at the front of the room, facing all the students. We were all on the floor of this octagonal room, facing forward. We sat on large, flat but firm pillows, with a large fleece blanket in case we got cold. I usually sat ON the fleece blanket to alleviate some of the weight on my legs, or pretended that sitting AGAINST it would provide even a little bit of support for my lower back (it did not). But I never used it as a blanket, instead opting to wrap myself in a scarf if I got cold. We sat in the same seat for every meditation, and I was surrounded by the same women for all hours of the day. #G6.
The bell rang at 9am for a 5 minute break before we entered the hall again for further instruction over the loud speaker, and another 2 hours of meditation. 😵💫 Seriously…what was I doing here?!
And so began my bathroom routine. I drank plenty of water during the breaks to make sure I was still consuming 6-8 bottles a day, but going to the bathroom every 1-2 hours to be sure I wasn’t making myself even more uncomfortable during the meditations.
During this morning’s instructions, the teacher asked us to continue to focus on the air passing through the triangular area of the nose. His voice still gave me the feeling of bugs crawling across my skin. Like nails on a chalkboard. Halfway through the mid-morning session, we were given the option to go back to our rooms to meditate instead of staying in the hall. And so, my roommate and I quietly sat in our beds, propped up against the wall for some back relief. It wasn’t long before she started snoring.
I let my mind wander constantly. I was thinking about the final day and getting out. I was daydreaming about going back to the US in June, replaying each day of the trip over and over in my head. I dreamt of what farm life would be like in Italy. I dreamt about all the foods I wanted to eat in New York. I dreamt about the tiniest, most mundane little details just to pass the time. Eventually, I’d will myself to refocus on my breathing. I felt like I sat in that bed forever—it would be hard to take this course seriously.
At 11am the lunch bell rang. Another version of dal bhat. I washed my dishes and went back to the room—I had another hour and a half for a nap. I brushed my teeth after every meal, but why shower every day when I’m just sitting around with my eyes closed? No one was looking at each other, why even wear makeup? There was no reason to put effort into physical appearance.
At 1pm the bell rang, signaling us to begin another hour and a half of meditation in Dhamma Hall, followed by a 5 minute break, another hour of meditation, a 5 minute break, and another hour and half of meditation with instructions delivered over the loud speaker. How could I possibly survive 10 afternoons of nearly 4 hours non-stop?! HOW?! I was so uncomfortable. I was bored and annoyed. I was even kind of mad. I was frustrated that no one was explaining the end goal. There was no outline for the curriculum what we would be learning during these 10 days. Just the same chanting, the same instructions, the same words driven into our brains over and over again. And then we’d have to try to sit there and focus in a room of over 200 people who all seemed to simultaneously have horrible colds. Dogs barked incessantly outside. I must’ve listened to 10 different bird calls, creating a cacophony of sound, coupled with the construction on the grounds that waged on from 3 different directions outside the hall. How to even describe how unsettling all this was inside my body?
Finally, FINALLY the bell rang for 5pm tea time. The new students received a small banana, half an apple, some dried rice puff cereal with turmeric and peanuts, and tea. The “old” students (the returning students—why would anyone subject themselves to this?!) received only lemon water as now they were to fast until breakfast the following morning. Yikes.
I ate, again, in silence. Washed my dishes, and went for a walk around the grounds. There were so many different plants and flowers, so many varieties to look at. I began to embrace the fact that I may as well observe the smallest details of things in nature where I would’ve otherwise passed over them without a glance. I had so much time to think and observe since I couldn’t do anything for entertainment. After making 4 rounds, I went back to my room and laid in bed, regretting so much about my decision, anxious about how my sanity would hold out over the next 9 days (basically 10 because we are only dismissed on Day 11). When I say I agonized over counting the days…I mean it. It was all-consuming. Later, after we broke Noble Silence on the tenth day, one of my roommates told me there were notches marked on the wall next to her bed, noting the countdown of days, like the cell of an inmate. She added to the notches.
At 6pm we went down to the hall for another hour of meditation. At 7pm we split off to different halls to watch the first actual discourse, which was spoken in our respective languages. The video of the discourse was dated 1991, and an old Indian man (who grew up in Burma), appeared on the screen. It helped to see the face that matched the voice of the chants and instructions we had been subjected to during the meditations. I still was not NOT irritated by it, though. Not yet, at least. He began to further explain the reasoning behind focusing on such a small area of our body, and observing our respiration. We are sharpening our minds to be incredibly sensitive to detecting the most subtle of sensations. That we can control our outer limbs, and the movement of our bodies, but that we cannot control the involuntary functions and sensations within our bodies. The breath is the only thing that is both voluntary and involuntary—our body breathes without our having to make a concerted effort, and yet we have the option of controlling our breath. Breath is the bridge between the voluntary functions of our outer body, and the involuntary functions of our inner body.
He reviewed, again, how important it is to observe the 5 precepts. To maintain total morality is essential to a successful course of Vipassana meditation. He cracked some jokes, expressing how aware he is of how crazy the students feel on Day 1—he went through it once, too. It was oddly reassuring to have him acknowledge that. It helped me realize that we were all having a collective experience. He advised that Day 2 and 6 were likely to be the hardest days for the students. He reiterated how rewarding a life of practicing Vipassana is—that dharma, the law of nature, is that all things are impermanent. In the west we say “this too shall pass”.
Over several days of discourses, the teacher explained that we’d be learning the importance of “sīla — moral conduct. Sīla provides a basis for the development of samādhi — concentration of mind; and purification of the mind is achieved through paññā — the wisdom of insight.”
Combining his nearly perfect English, with some goofy ESL phrases, a heavy Indian accent, and his intuitive way of speaking, repeating key points over and over again…was beginning to grow on me. I began to develop trust for the teacher.
That evening of Day 1, we went back to Dhamma Hall for another half hour of meditation before retiring to bed.
And so the schedule continued on for days. It was maddening at times. At other times it was quietly therapeutic to be so methodical about my routine—always sure I had 3-6 squares of toilet paper on me, my chapstick, a full bottle of water. I brushed my teeth when I woke up, before going to sleep at night, and before every nap. I would wash my face and perform facial massages before the 6pm meditation bell so I could just crawl into bed after our 9pm meditation concluded.
Day 2 wasn’t the hardest day for me. 🙏🏻 I was still miserably bored, in pain, daydreaming and doubting, but I was ok. The assistant teachers called us forward in groups of 4 during the 9am-11am meditation to be sure we understood the technique. So much repeating of the instructions—what for?! Can’t we move any faster?!
At tea time that night I decided to blow up my rice puff cereal. I added a little hot milk and sugar. Could be a little weird with the turmeric and peanuts, but let’s give it a go. It was SO GOOD. Like a sugary American cereal! I was so happy, my first celebration in the past 3 days. I could look forward to this little treat at 5pm every day.
I also showered on Day 2 and washed my hair for the first time. The water was cold for the first 10 minutes, but I felt comfortable because it was so warm and sunny outside. I hand-washed some unmentionables and hung them up to dry on the line outside. Nepali people tend to all hang their clothes outside to dry, there was a HUGE area for it. I kid you not, the items were dry in 30 minutes because of the perfectly dry, warm weather.
I was so glad to go to bed that night, another day out of the way. Still 7+ days to go. It was always hard to fall asleep. I slept only 5 hours a night (and you all know by now that I like 9-11 hours of sleep a night), but with the 2 hours of naps during the day, plus the fact that our eyes were closed for an additional 10.5 hours of meditation, led me to not feel too tired during the day. I may start to nod off a bit at times, but I never fell asleep during meditation. I can’t say that for the guy across the way who fell into a deep sleep almost immediately at the start of every meditation session. His heavy snoring filled the hall until a volunteer would go over and gently wake him up.
On Day 2 we focused on how to observe the air passing through either our left nostril, or our right nostril, or both simultaneously. And to do so with equanimity, without reaction or judgement.
On Day 3 we shrunk the area of observation even further. We now focused only the ring of the nostrils the space above the upper lip, and the breath that passed over these areas. We continued to sharpened our minds. We observed how the breath coming in was cool from the outside environment, then, warmed by our lungs, passed back out of our nostrils. I had never considered that before. As frustrated as I was by the whole experience, I found moments of calm in just observing my breath, the thing that gives me life force.
But Day 3 was the first day I began to crack. I was skeeved out by the amount of hair on the bathroom floor and the unkempt state of our room, so I grabbed the broom in the hallway and gave our dorm a little refresh. Feeling accomplished and little bit cleaner, I went to my bed to nap when I noticed a black spider on the wall above my bed. ME?! WHY ME?! I had just cleaned this room out of the sheer goodwill of my heart, and now the bad omen of a spider?! My greatest fear!
I reminded myself of the first precept—thou shalt not kill. I grabbed the soft, handmade broom again, and gently ushered the creature out of the room and into the hallway, hoping he’d crawl down the stairs, on his merry way, and out the front door. I had been so merciful to my lifelong enemy—maybe I was already improving.
The afternoon meditation sessions went on, and at 3:30pm we had the option of meditating in our rooms, so I took it, not only to rest my back, but to have a change of scenery and some privacy. When I got to the room, my roommate’s area looked very bare. Her bags were gone, and she had left her cheapy watch that would always be 10 minutes behind and her roll of T/P on the windowsill near my bed.
My mind began to spin. I knew I’d been waking up in the middle of the night coughing, struggling to kick a lingering cold from before the Annapurna trek. Could she just not deal with me as a roommate? Would I get a new roommate? I tried to sit and meditate, but it shook me. I was spinning. When Anna, the volunteer, walked into the room, I pulled her aside to ask about the Irish student leaving. She knew one student had left already on Day 3, but didn’t know it was someone from our room. I asked if she was ok—she said “she’s ok, but she didn’t like it (the course).” That comforted me a bit. Why I was taking her departure personally was strange. But who DOES like this anyway?! No one likes it! Sure, during the discourse last night the teacher used some religious words that were triggering for me…so maybe that scared her off? But even still, he repeatedly reminded us that the law of nature is universal, it is scientific, it cannot be defined by any religious sect. The breath is universal, and we are observing only our breath. We are not to perform any rights or rituals, mix in any other techniques, and were advised not to add any verbalization (like the name of a god or the method of counting), or visualization (like the shape of a god or saint) to our observation of breath.
Obviously, I was projecting my own insecurities about my decision to be there on her reasons for departure.
As my thoughts continued to spiral downwards, I wondered if I should also leave. Could I? What would I think of myself if I didn’t complete this course? What would everyone else following my journey think?
And suddenly I remembered that I was supposed to be meditating. I did my best to shift my focus to my breath, and slowly I began to calm down. The minor anxiety subsided and I recommitted to staying another day.
And one final omen before Day 3, my worst day, passed. That evening, before the 6pm session, the monkeys finally showed up. I had seen signs around the grounds, warning against feeding the monkeys, making eye contact or gesturing towards them, and to keep the dining hall door closed so they would not enter. But I had yet to see any monkeys, until about 8 of them showed up during our break. I guess some of the girls started teasing them and they reacted. The monkeys turned a bit aggressive as the girls tried to shoo them away. One of the groundskeepers ran over to help encourage the monkeys to move along. Then one of the girls, distracted by the commotion, misstepped and nearly tripped down the stairs in the garden. I heard several women gasp, checking on her to make sure she was ok. She was, but it felt so weird to hear their sounds, as that was the first break in Noble Silence I had witnessed.
We all entered the hall, doing our best the avoid the monkeys that lurked around, now messing with each other instead of the humans. We heard a groundskeeper using buckets of water to scare them away, the monkeys shrieking in anger just outside the hall windows. The whole scene was unsettling! The compound is at the base of a national park so there are beautiful, wooded mountains stretching behind us. No doubt the staff know how to safely deal with the monkeys without harming them, and have learned how to harmoniously coexist with them. But it was the foreigners’ fault for messing with them, as we are invading their environment and not the other way around.
Day 3 came to a close and I was relieved at the nightly discourse when I learned we’d begin the true Vipassana meditation on Day 4.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Hey! Would you like to connect over creativity, self-growth, and problem-solving? Or just to have a virtual glass of wine or mocktail? Please book a time on my Calendly for us to chat! I can’t wait to see you. XOXO.
If you’re enjoying On the Road, please share with others who you may think would enjoy as well! As always, I love reading your comments and feedback. If you're not already subscribed, please click the button below so I can continue sending you weekly-ish stories and lessons while I travel. 🚙
Just wow!
That schedule gave me anxiety!! Loving these day by day breakdowns and the tracking of your emotions.