Vipassana meditation course: how I lived 10 days in silence

In my tour of the world, I decided to make many small dreams that I had been harboring for some time. Among these was to participate in a meditation school. I started to get interested in meditation after I went to Burma in 2011. The dictatorship was still there and few tourists visited it. If you were lucky enough to find monks who could speak English, it was then possible to chat and explore many issues.

I discover that Siddhartha Gautama had become enlightened, that is, he had become Buddha, following a deep and very long meditation, the technique of which had been lost over the years. For over 2500 years this technique had been preserved, in its authentic form, right in Burma thanks to a hundred monks. Definitely, an interesting story that sparked the spark in me and I began to inform myself more and more on the subject. All of southern Asia is known as the cradle of several meditation schools, so when I decided to leave and cross it to be able to make my world tour, I promised myself to attend such a course. Through various readings, from Terzani to Taglia, and several chats with people who practiced or had attended courses, I get to know the technique and the Vipassana course.

What most convinced me to choose this course was the fact that it was free and that only at the end of the course could you decide whether or not to donate. It was also an absolutely secular technique in which religion was not taken into consideration. I then discover that it is precisely that pure technique taught and practiced by Siddhartha Gotham and of which the traces had been lost for over two thousand years. It is one of the toughest schools in the world and actually turned out to be just that.

I spent twelve days closed in a sort of retreat near the Shivapuri natural park about an hour from Kathmandu. Two hundred other people with me. On the first day, when we found ourselves in the city to leave, we seemed to be in the "group reception" area of ​​the airport, where all the other participants in the longed-for vacation are scrutinized. All with the same faces, hopeful and full of good intentions. After the initial speech in which the rules of the course are introduced to us, we are taken to our new home. The rules are very strict: don't steal, don't lie, don't kill any living thing (including mosquitoes), refrain from any sexual act, don't talk. If the first four are not so difficult to respect, the last one is much more difficult. The silence required is noble, that is to abstain from any form of communication, verbal or otherwise, for the 10 days of the course. The day of the transfer is day zero and only on the eleventh day can you speak and return to the city. Ten days of absolute silence and total absence of interaction with 199 other people. Cell phones and computers are requisitioned and will remain inaccessible for the duration of the course along with books and anything that can allow you to write. Besides, men and women are divided and cannot come into contact in any way. It is also necessary to dress in long pants and long sleeves for those who, like me, are tattooed. Gaze fixedly at the ground when walking because it is also forbidden to look into each other's eyes.

I happened to be in the room with a Brazilian boy of clear Italian origins whose name was Cassio, a surfer who divided his life between Indonesia and Brazil. He tells me that I look a lot like his father whose name was Claudio. We are greeted with some fruit and with a speech in which the rules and breakdown of the day are explained again. From then on the silence starts. Initially you take it almost as a game, certainly as a challenge, you do not think at all about how difficult it can be and how long and interminable ten days can be.

Ten days all the same with the alarm clock at 4 in the morning and at 4.30 already in the room to meditate for two hours. Then from 6.30 to 8, you have time to have breakfast and rest for a while. At 8 am again to meditate for an hour, then the instructions of the master and another two hours of meditation exercises. At 11 we have lunch and until 13 we are free. And here comes the beauty, an hour and a half of meditation, then an hour with the masters, then another hour and a half of meditation: four hours straight with a 5-minute break. At 5 pm, one hour to have a snack with some fruit, tea and puffed rice with peanuts. This is our dinner because eating is not allowed until the next day, so imagine my diabetes problem too. From 6 to 7 we meditate again and then finally the long-awaited moment of the final speech, every day, from 7 to 8.30. Unforgettable moments because incredibly, the master's message was exactly what had passed through your head during the day.

All the difficulties and doubts did not need to be told because he already anticipated everything. Incredible indeed.

At 9 then all in bed to sleep.

The first two days pass quite calmly, definitely boring because we focus on the breath and the mind continues undeterred to get distracted. Travel, travel, and travel catapulting here and there without logic or apparent sense. Faded memories, bad experiences, beautiful situations, and unforgettable memories alternated relentlessly and logic. Also, the legs and back ached terribly for the endless hours in which to maintain the position.

In those moments you literally clash with your mind and the silence begins to get heavy. The third day is one of the most difficult because you are still focused on your breath and the most unpleasant memories are starting to pop up. You think about giving up and going home, you think it's all completely stupid and useless, but being the first crisis, I don't take it into account and decide to hold on. In the meantime, however, a few people had already given up and returned home.

On the fourth day, we are finally introduced to the true technique of Vipassana and it is finally clear how the first three days were preparatory to train the mind to concentrate for so long. Finally, we pass over and the following days go by well because finally we no longer focus solely on the breath, but we begin to shift our attention to our body. At night you have incredible dreams and fall into a very deep sleep, yet the undeterred mind continues to work. I will only eventually discover that it was my unconscious work and that I was processing all the old experiences that had brought me there.

On the sixth day, punctual as a Swiss clock comes the crisis. I was in the early afternoon meditation, the heaviest one, and I feel my breathing getting heavier and heavier. My heart starts beating fast and I feel agitated. I leave the room for a moment and go to drink a glass of water. Worse and worse, the breath is labored and the heart is pounding. I want to talk, I want to scream, I want to kick and slap someone, anyone, indeed that volunteer who was so on my balls. I'd break his face just for the fun of it. I want to run away, getaway. Back to the village, come on guys, I want to turn on the phone to see how the site is doing.

I realize that the mind is deviating thanks to another volunteer who understands the situation and tries to calm me down. I think it was a panic attack. I've never had one in my life, but I guess I was just in that situation because I couldn't reason at all.

But there it was the turning point. I went back, I calmed down and the next hour I was able for the first time to do a nice meditation, concentrated and still. Another volunteer, in defiance of the regulations, gives me the sign of the thumb up and gives me an incredible dose of confidence and energy. In the evening, during the master's message, I discover that the sixth day is the one in which statistically greater abandonments occur. In short, all written.

The last few days go by well and I get excellent results. I am much calmer and more balanced. The feeling, in general, is of physical and mental well-being and I feel my mind increasingly discharged, but at the same time concentrated and hyperactive. It looks almost cleared of all the old dross.

Change the perspective of situations and I understand many mistakes of the past: the analysis is as fair as possible and I promise to forgive the people who have made me suffer the most in my life. I feel a great weight go away and slip away. I am more and more serene and happy. The more the last day approaches, the more it is hoped that other people can live like this and experience this feeling of peace and harmony.

And this is precisely the final result, when we start talking again and the silence is broken they are all friends, smiling, we congratulate each other because we understand that we have overcome a really demanding challenge. In the end, the silence was necessary because the only way to confront certain realities is to tear down certain walls that you had built for yourself over the years. It was one of the hardest, strongest, most beautiful, and most rewarding experiences of my entire life. I savored it at the best moment and I feel it will help me a lot. When I went out I wrote to many people, wishing I could find harmony.

May you all be truly happy and find harmony. All the negativities and also the positivity of the world respond to a natural law that is impossible to escape: everything is impermanent, it is born, develops, and then disappears. Having an equal attitude towards both positive and negative things is the only way to live in peace with oneself and others.

I have found the turning key in Vipassana, but everyone can find it in its own way. I will try to meditate every day. I have described my experience and my emotions trying not to reveal the whole technique, but I will be happy to want to deepen with anyone who asks me. Also on how to participate in these courses that are held, among other things, also in Italy.

For everyone, my wish is to be happy and to live in peace.

Take your time, don't neglect yourself.

Namastè.