The train ride from Chicago to Cali was AWESOME. What a beautiful route! I saw such gorgeous landscapes the entire way out (The Rockies, Red Rocks, Canyons, etc. ...wow, this country is amazing).
Anyhow, I have arrived safely in California, greeted by Becky's wonderful embrace, scrumptious food, and ice cream. Oh, and a shower! Whew!
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Below is the Vipassana meditation post I wrote while on the train:
As my rideshare provider, Brandy, and I turned the corner through a flat landscape of corn fields and dirt roads, we reached our destination: the Dhamma Pakasa Vipassana Meditation Center. The grounds were gently covered with pathways, ponds, trees, wildflowers, and occasional benches, boulder rocks, or tree stumps for sitting. All of this was surrounded by fields of tall corn plants (which transitioned from deep green on our arrival to dead yellow by the time the course was complete -furthering our lesson on impermanence and constant change). The air was still and clean. The wildlife content and active.
We moved into our rooms (a dorm building in which each person had a small room with a modest cot of a bed, and a bathroom and sink that was shared by two people), and I met my "roommate" who I would be sharing bathroom and sink with. Lisa was in her early forties, face decked in makeup, wearing an outfit that looked like she was heading off to the gym for a spinning class, water bottle in hand. Despite her cliche appearance, she was friendly and kind, and expressed to me that this was her first time she was doing this and that she was "psyched!" (she said this as if we were getting ready to have a week long super bowl party). An hour after that the vow of silence began, which also meant no eye contact or body language, and I was in mental isolation amidst a group of women who I did not know (though I, of course, made up stories about their lives and personalities in my head throughout the course).
The first full day of meditation was... hell. Any experience or drive I had with meditation went out the window and I thought "I wonder if Lisa is still 'psyched' " as I heard her sighing and shifting positions in her room on the other side of the wall. We were told to focus on the breath in the triangular area that consisted of our nose and the area directly beneath the nose above the upper lip. This was all we could do. In the act of sharpening my mind to focus on this one thing, I listened objectively to all the other things in my mind that began surfacing and disappearing. It was like a carnival funhouse of voices, all different tones and speeds, some speaking complete sentences or words and others spewing gibberish or weird mixes of language like two unrelated thoughts were mating with each other to produce something completely nonsensical. I went into camp counselor mode to try to moderate the situation. I imagined that controlling my mind was the same as walking into a room of rowdy ADHD children and creating some order. This method was the only way I could keep from being down on myself about what seemed like absolute insanity in my head. It mostly worked.
This continued into day two, and by day three the thoughts were still active but began to be more orderly. On day four we were introduced to the next step of the technique and my boredom began to subside. The focus was finally able to move away from the nose, and we began to slowly scan our bodies from head to toe feeling each and every sensation in our physical structure. The catch: we absolutely could not move. Whatever position we placed ourselves in on our meditation cushions was how we had to stay for at least an hour, observing our bodily sensations without reacting to them. This meant that any unpleasant sensation (like my right leg consistently falling asleep until it felt like it was 2 feet in diameter) should not create a negative reaction that we then experience aversion towards, and any pleasant sensation (like my armpit, which never got sore or fell asleep) should not create a reaction of clinging or craving. We were to meditate on the fact that everything, in the particles that make up our bodily form, is constantly changing and impermanent. We were to observe the sensations with an equanimous mindset, knowing that they will also change. In not reacting through craving or aversion, old subconscious conditionings of cravings and aversions could rise to the surface and pass away (as long as we didn't react to those either). This technique was extremely difficult, but equally beneficial.
My body hurt through much of it, and I made jokes in my head in order to deal with it positively. I invented a product and ad campaign in my mind for padded meditation pants ("Get some junk in your trunk if you wanna get enlightened!") after dealing with the ramifications of meditating for 11 hours a day on a bony rear end. I had hoped that my body would adjust itself by creating more cushion in my butt, but instead by butt just got tighter (meditation: the true buns of steel program) and my stomach created a protruding bookend to hold up my spine -not exactly the figure I'd like to have, but it worked.
Ultimately, 97% of my experience with this course was either too personal or too abstract to put into words, but I can tell you that it changed my perspective in ways that I never would have imagined. And at the closing of the 10 days, when we were able to communicate with each other, I found myself making invaluable connections with certain people, and even more invaluable connections with my self. I strongly recommend Vipassana, and will most likely do this again at some point in life.
