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| The gardens of Thai Monastery at Sarnath. |
I attended a week-long Vipassana retreat recently at the beautiful Thai Monastery in Sarnath. Yes, the same Vipassana you might have heard people boast about a lot including stories of hardships.
Thankfully, my experience was neither hard, nor something to boast about. I didn’t get any great revelations of how the outer or inner world works. And it was not difficult to keep mum. Partly, it was because of the flexible format of this retreat which was very unlike the famous Goenka-style Vipassana. The latter, I am told, involves silence sitting for 10 days and is a very strict practice involving need to focus on your body sensations.
The retreat I went for is conducted by Christopher Titmuss, a 72-year-old spiritual teacher from UK who used to be a Buddhist monk for good many years, living in forests and caves of India, Thailand and other Asian countries. But most notable of his personality is the great sense of humour which makes the whole experience so much fun.
We had silent sittings, but the day also had time for walking meditation, which were refreshing; discourses on Buddha’s teachings, and we could as well have one-to-one interviews with the teachers, if needed (besides Christopher we had Zohar, who has been on the Buddhist Dharma path for last 20 years).
Sarnath is a satellite town of Varanasi but thankfully not as crowded and noisy. The wide roads are adorned with big neem and peepal trees while the ancient Buddhist stupas and beautiful monasteries add to the landscape.
Sitting on the gardens of the Thai Monastery before entering its secluded Vipassana grounds, I was wondering why am I here, what do I need from this? No answer came except the desire to explore the unknown, within and without.
The dread to be cut off from the world for a whole week rushed in and remained there for a couple of days. The organisers recommend we give in our gadgets at the start of the retreat to be kept in a trunk, which Christopher called “The Coffin”. Many still didn’t surrender. My roommate, a teacher from the US, kept his Kindle. This, he said, was for the days he has to be confined to the room due to chest congestion and read something, instead of brooding over the level of phlegm.
Our days would start at 05.45 with a very energetic yoga session that made me fall in love with my body. A sitting followed by breakfast and some ‘Karma Work’ time and we would fall into the rhythm of the day. The most enchanting view was of so many people (around 40) together in one small campus and eating, walking, doing the chores without sharing a word with each other. It might have left the birds wondering.
I started getting into “the mode” only on the third day. Increasing focus on the present, away from happy memories and fearful future, there was the live moment to experience, for far longer time than in the outside world.
Not engaged with any gadget or entertainment source, I went within and despite the effort to remain in the present, certain things came rushing in with a great force. This is how I guess Vipassana works. During daily instructions in the morning, teachers told us not to reject anything that comes by. The time of intense love and loss, identity crisis and need to indulge in frivolous means came and went by.
Self-pity was a major emotion that overwhelmed me. In routine life, I seldom experience the “victim mode” but it was surely lying deep there waiting for space; else it would not have put me so off balance for so long. Finally, it was a walk in the thriving gardens of the monastery that made me get over it. The trees, sparrows and the sky made me realise the web I had woven around myself, forgetting the small identity I have in this big, beautiful world. The need for supremacy, to dominate through acquisitions of wealth and relations is bane of human society.
Things got better soon after. Zohar introduced us to the states of ‘Chitta’ or ‘Chit’ (heart-mind) as we call it in Hindi. She listed the unwholesome states and how we need to move from those to wholesome states. I had a specific problem to ‘Desire’ being listed in the unwholesome state. Zohar explained this later that desire can lead to love but only if we know how to play with it. For instance, the desire to do good may get harmful for us if overdone or we may get too attached to the act to get pride from it. So, always watching yourself and achieving that balance is important.
Another useful tip was to recognise the contraction in body or heart when doing something or being with someone. Our nature is to expand as I experienced in the gardens earlier. Being limited to your space or feeling suffocated/contracted means you need to move out or work on it through patience, empathy and other positive acts or wholesome ‘Chit’.
This was the first time I was on a silent retreat. The meditation retreats earlier were mostly to the Osho centres. I always came back with a not-so-good feeling due to commercialisation of these places and snooty people who arrive there. Last time, an old spiritual teacher told me and a friend that we should attend a workshop he is coming up with on how to plant paid news in media.
In contrast, one of the basic tenets of Dharma path is ‘Right Livelihood’. This is not to degrade the teachings of Osho whose work has been very important for me; especially his reading of ‘Nirvan Upanishad’ was of immense help at the time I decided to leave my job. But the way those on spiritual paths tend to behave sometimes make me question their practice of ‘detachment’.
Thankfully, the energy at Sarnath was more comforting. It was not a peaceful time though. And I got to know later that everyone was on a similar roller coaster. But all of us were glad to have touched those raw nerves. As it happened, I was reading Jiddu Krishnamurti’s ‘The World in Crisis’ on the train to and from Varanasi and his talks somehow helped put together all pieces of the jigsaw puzzle.
Christopher comes to India around this time every year. The man is very political and I loved it. He has campaigned against land mines, environment destruction and also GM food. During one of the sessions, we sent ‘Meta’ (goodwill) to the Muslims from middle east and African countries facing war at home and hate abroad (at that time, thousands were stranded on US airports). "May they be safe," is all we could wish.
In case you are also interested in attending a retreat with Christopher next year, check out his website- http://www.christophertitmuss.net/
This works on donation basis.
Do write in your experiences with meditation or any thoughts that come to mind after reading this.
Update (March 7, 2017)- I guess the real impact of Vipassana manifests after some time. It's almost a month now and I am feeling so positive and 'in the moment' these days. Taking it slow, still. Less of fear, more of life :)
