Reaching enlightenment and liberation of all sufferings
I was staying with Oleg and Andrii in a big monastery 500m away from Latthika Vipasssana center. It is the day to enter the center and leave all religions, rituals, other meditation techniques, books and phones, physical trainings and practices, internets, cigarets and other intoxicants and drugs, as well as utensils for drawing and writing and speech behind for 10 days. Noble silence, verbal and non verbal communication (except when necessary towards the volunteering staff). No lying, no killing, no sexual misconduct, wrong speech and intoxicants. Together, coming for a retreat but alone walking for the first time on the path to the Nirvana en complete enlightenment, free from sufferings and misery. The path of Dhamma, the path of Buddha. If that does not sound tempting.. We are walking 10 seconds towards the center and a group of drunk men in the back of a pick up are shouting at us: “where you go? Get in! We will bring you!” We get a beer in our hands and are brought drinking alcohol to the front gate of the center. After the necessary selfies we are left behind with the can of beer still not finished. Committing sins against the rules of the course, it did not start yet. I split up with the boys and go to the ladies side. I get a very simple room and facilities to wash, but not any less then I am used to in the monasteries. Noble silence is not started yet so I meet and talk with the other girls. A dozen foreigners like me and de rest are locals. Phones and other belongings are put in lockers and when we are invited to the Dhamma hall with a numbered cushion, just like a numbered chair in the dining room, I entered the room before finishing my sentence with one of the girls and started my 10 day of silence, the rest of the sentence has to wait. A firm loud cracking English voice starts rambling through the speakers. Apparently the teaching will be happening mainly by the voice and television screen where an well fead Indian guy with thick square eyebrows that almost cover the eyes teaches every day a one hour discourse, his obviously Indian fat wife is sitting in silence next to him. The first time I hear his voice I did not realize he is the teacher and the person who set up and spread these centers around the world. I could only think what an annoying voice did they use for these translations. There is also a couple who sit in the front of the room and are the physically present teachers. But we only talk to them a minute a day and they don’t give lessons or anything. I had a first initiation into meditation and tomorrow my real first day starts at 4:30 in the Dhamma hall for the practice. The first days we observe our breathing and feel the air going in and out, touching the inside walls of the nostrils, the entrance of the nostrils and that is it. Every day 11 hours of meditation and 1 hour discourse where the Indian Goeinka explains the technique. “the first day is over, you have now 9 more left.” At the end he chants and makes a deep moan “Take a rest for 5 minutes and start working.” He repeats it twice, he does it with every strong word and action we have to do with a true manipulative brainwashing tone in his firm voice. The day ends at 21:30, lights out. The second day I am so tired that I don’t hear the gong that wakes us up and reminds us of the time schedule during the day. I can sleep through the sound because I trained my mind not to react when I hear the same noise in the monasteries and continue sleeping for a little longer. With an hour delay I get to the hall because the manager came knocking on my door. Half asleep trying to get in a meditation state. One hour of real concentration is the most I can do a day. It is so hard to not let the mind wander and to have discipline to stop the wandering constantly. But he teaches us that we have to not have any aversion or disappointment and that we just have to accept the reality as it is. Live in the present and not in the past and future. We are here to control the mind and to train it to get concentrated and sharp. Aware. Patience. Observe. Do not react. Every day the discourse starts and ends with the same sentence: “the second day is over, you have now 8 more left to work. Work hardly, diligently, persistently.” “Take a rest for 5 minutes and start working.” His repetition and the tone in his voice are so manipulative that when you would play the recordings in our sleep we would be conditioned completely. Even without hypnopedia I can say does lines in my head and they get almost in my unconscious mind with the same tone and voice when I try to bring me back to the meditation. The unconscious mind is actually not unconscious says Goeinka. With observing the sensations in a small area above the lip and under the entrance of the nostrils we can sharpen the mind to become conscious of these subtle sensations that normally only the unconscious mind is observing. Day and night the unconscious mind is aware of these sensations and reacts on them with aversion and clinging and craving. A mosquito touches the skin and our hand reacts to stop the unpleasant sensation. We scratch when we feel itching and so on. Only of gross sensations the conscious mind is aware, pain for example. From gross sensations to subtler and subtler sensations until you feel sensations all over your body on the surface and inside. Heat, moist, itch, stinging, pulsation, a breeze, pressure and so on. Some of them we can not name, but it is not necessary because words are only attempts to try to describe them and needed for communication. Being aware of them and keep equanimous, not react with clinging, aversion or hate or craving, but just being aware of them and know that they are only temporary, pleasant and unpleasant. They have all the same characteristic of being temporary, Anicca, arasing and passing away. Staying equanimous and not be affected by these sensations by reacting on them we can get rid of the cause of our sufferings and therefor get rid of our sufferings. No attachment or aversion to outside objects or sensations. And the body dissolves into nothing but subatomic particles vibrating. No attachment to the decaying body, aware of the body being temporary. Only love and compassion towards every living creature, no hate no revenge, no clinging. We learn that feelings are merely a combination of sensations that get overwhelming and gross. It is having stress and getting a headache or a warm glow and pulsation on your chest. Or cramped muscles, sweat and so on. Emotions emerge physically on the body as sensations. They are overwhelming and you might want to run away or stop it or keep it if they are pleasant. But you can also just experience the sensations, observe and dissect the overwhelming gross sensations and notice it are a combination of multiple subtler sensations and that they are only temporary. If it arises and it has the characteristic of being temporary, it will pass away. If it will pass away then there is no need to react on it, the result stays the same. But by training not to react on it you might even end up liking you pains. When you stop generating new Sankharas, mental conditioning of aversion and clinging, the old ones will come up and you have to face them and they will pass away. And your stock of sankaras shrink every time you don’t suppress it or multiply by creating a new aversion. If you fierce them and don’t react, they will go away. And slowly all you rsankaras will disappear and eventually you will have no more sankaras, source of suffering. You will be liberated. Gautama Buddha figured this out and instead of keeping it only theoretical and not practical it, you can know that it is only temporary but experiencing the arising and passing away helps the mind to understand and practice. Not reacting does not mean you have to let your self been cut like a vegetable. You have to react with hard words and hard actions sometimes because that is the only language some people speak. For example: a kid is running towards fire. The kid does not see harm and wants to play with it. You have to push the kid away, it might fall down and starts crying. But you have to react, because you can not ignore and can prevent it. But never with hate or other negative feelings. Only compassion and love. Half way the course I was still struggling with the amount and duration of the meditation and most of the time I did not keep the discipline of going back and back to the sensations and i just kept wandering, thinking about past and future, rationalizing what I was doing here and what I felt. But I do get something out of this. I could fierce my anxiety and discomfort that I get every once in a while. Instead of distracting myself and wanting to run away I just let it happen. I observed and did not react. I could feel the overwhelming feeling dissapearig because I could dissect it in different sensations: heat, pulsation, pressure on my chest,… Arising and passing away. Anicca! The silence and the private talk I could have with myself, I enjoyed. As well as the awareness of sensations on every part of the body, including the area between my legs. Without any touch I do feel sensations over there! Becoming aware of your food touching your lips, the pressure your fingers produce when you are holding a glass, the pressure when you are leaning against the wall or a breeze rolling over your face. As well as the flow of all sensations happening at once when I got to that state. It feels like a chill over your back or an orgasm. But also this pleasant flow will pass away and is Anicca. No clinging. But feeling it, right here right now. This feeling is difficult to describe, not necessary. It feels liberating, as if you are sweeping away your pains. If you can feel the sensations all together on the full surface of the body, you can try to concentrate on the inside of the body and feel also biochemical reactions happening there. Piercing through the body and skin I found very difficult and could only do on certain areas so far. But after some time it will eventually also become easy. Before Gautama de Buddha there was the theory and knowledge of no craving and aversion and so on. But merely theoretical and not practical. How to stop craving? Gautama found out that it is only through the experience of oneself that everything is temporary and to understand the feelings in a form of sensations, is his contribution. The 6 senses (ear, eye, touch, taste, smell and mind) cognize a sound, flavor and so on and the sound and taste gets recognized and the unconscious mind reacts to it. I like this, I do not like this. This is bad or good. Based on that we react. Stopping this reacting stops the attachments and sufferings, because you stay equanimous. You do not get affected by it. It will pass away and therefor does not need a reaction. The sensations caused by outside objects do not affect us anymore. It is our own choice to feel intens gross emotions and feeling. Leaving aside these emotions means you can not feel passion and hate. Anger and sadness. Only pure love and compassion with others suffering or them being ignorant. We are selfish beings that have to start being selfish and become happy in order to bring a positive vibe for our surrounding and feel love and compassion for others. It is like save yourself to save others. Like your instructions in an plane: put on your mask first, then the mask of your child. Goenka says we are addicted to the craving. If we crave for something and our wishes get fulfilled we will create a new wish to crave for. Never enough. We also create an ego of I. Me. We feel shame if this ego gets a crack and if it gets a boost we feel proudness of the I that we are. If you fell on the floor, you hope nobody saw it because it is not good for your ego and image. If you get a boost you feel you are worthwhile. An attachment to the our own creation of I. This is the universal truth. Truth of nature. No religion or sect, although the tone in his voice, Goenka the teacher, of you having to spread this word because you have compassion and want everybody to become enlightened and the endless repetition of this not belonging to any religion (A way of living, a technique found by Gautama de Buddha, the path of Dhamma) feels uncomfortable to me and feels like brainwashing (but then not good enough because I can recognize the techniques he uses and a good manipulator can obviously do it without noticing). I like the technique and recommend it because it will do something good in your life if you complete a course. You will have at least some benefits. And as he, the teacher, himself says: ‘If there are certain thing of the teaching and technique you do not agree with: leave them out, put them aside and when you reflect on it and found them useful later bring those aspects back in the practice. Only do it because you believe in it and experienced yourself the truth and benefits of it. What does not make sense to you, put it aside and maybe bring it back in later.’ The last two days it became unbearable for some to not talk. During the waiting in the foreigners hall for the discourse the girls started talking a little bit. But the girl of the management points her finger at us every time she notices. We are loud and the couple teachers sleeps in a small building of only 3 hours per night, sleeping means resting the body and mind but no actual sleep for them. I do not miss the talking but I join the short conversations automatically. But when it is day 10 and we are allowed to talk my throat hurts. Producing sound and proper sentences is hard and I also do not know about what I want to talk. Oleg and Andrii look very happy and talking gives sensations, but our first conversation made barely sense. It was a couple of words stitched together. In the evening everybody is allowed to talk during dinner (only thea for old students). It is nice to finally talk to the girls you got to know only by there habits and there postures and behavior. It is like you made friends with people without having had any conversation. Now talks can happen and the eating area is so loud! I can almost not take it! Time to step in the outside world again and leave this prison/retreat. The practices are helpful and eyeopening, no distractions or a way out, but a confrontation and conversation with yourself. It does show you the truth of our nature, the universal truth. The practice and reminding of this truth can help you deal with things in life and show you a broader and realistic perspective on things, but is not always easy to apply. In some situations a middle way can be helpful. At least this meditation course shows what you your options. Because there simply are more options to deal with life and to react on negative events of life. You can choose how long you suffer from it and at least get your ego less effected and smaller when somebody says something. Because he or she said this or did that… The art of living.
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