Vipassana U

When I first started my first ten-day Vipassana meditation course, I considered calling this column Vipassana Lite. It wasn’t necessarily so bad as the Vipassana I had heard about, but I knew I would still get some decent results.

But as the ten days progressed, I thought that title sounded a little flippant for the subtly profound experience that our time at the Wat Phra That Si Chomtong temple and monastery in Chomtong, Thailand, has provided.

Then after completing the closing ceremony on the next to last night at the monastery Phra Ajahn Chotirat, one of the international Vipassana program instructors, made the comment:

We are not a kindergarten. We are a university.

His comment was referencing the fact that the monastery does not take cell phones from participants and allows each individual much more freedom than some Vipassana programs. The guidelines are there, but ultimately it is up to the individual to decide how much effort to put into the practice. Just as with any other course of study, we only get our as much as we put in.

I found his comparison to a university fitting on so many different levels. Not only does the monastery allow individuals the freedom to choose how they will follow the precepts, but they offer a selection of engagement that is not limited strictly to meditation.

It is a chance to live among monks and nuns in their daily lives and have a firsthand experience of the Theravada Buddhist monastic life. But for the individual very serious about meditation, the opportunity is there to sequester oneself away and practice vigorously.

Introduction to Vipassana

I’ve never really fancied myself much of a meditator. My legs and back get achy. I get bored of just sitting or walking slowly. My thoughts run amok. Basically, I am a slave to my mind.

So over the past several months, when people have asked me if I’ve tried Vipassana yet, my first thought has always been, “No but I’ve heard horror stories.”

When I was first introduced to the concept, my friend Benjamin told me about his experience, which was basically sitting for one to two hours at a stretch in a darkened room, listening to a voice recording giving instructions. These lengthy sitting sessions were punctuated by short breaks with no more than two meals a day and no food after noon. Then repeat that schedule for a total of ten days.

It didn’t sound too enjoyable to me. Maybe I could get something out of it, but it sounded like a lot of suffering to get there. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to try it, but when I was on the Buddha pilgrimage path in southern Nepal and northern India, I stopped and inquired about it a couple of times and even sat for a 15-minute demonstration at a Vipassana center in Shravasti, India.

I was moving around so much on that tour of the sacred sites that stopping for ten days was not really feasible; so I kept saying maybe one day I will try it.

In the interim, what I learned is that not all Vipassana programs are the same. Unlike the Goenka style, which is pure sitting; some teach participants to engage in mindful movement and walking meditations. This sounded a lot more up my alley.

Picking a Place

During my stay at the Sivasoorya ayurveda ashram, as I was considering my next moves after leaving India, the encouragement of a couple of fellow pashus and Guru Raviji’s repeated instructions during morning yoga classes to “go for the deep relaxation technique of Vipassana,” I decided to give it a try.

I was already leaning toward Thailand for the next stop after India, so I did a little research on the internet and found Wat Chomtong.

As I told Phra Ajahn Chotirat on my final night, I think it was karma that led me to Wat Chomtong. It was top on a list I found of places near Chiang Mai to do Vipassana and when I did the research I saw that it included both sitting and walking meditation. The big drawback was that it encouraged beginners to enroll in a 21-day course. Ten days sounded pretty tough to me; so I was little hesitant about committing to a full three weeks.

I spoke with Phra Chotirat via email and he indicated that the beginner course could be anywhere up to 21 days; so I went ahead and swallowed the ten-day pill. I was afraid that if I didn’t like it, I would be stuck in a nearly monthlong commitment with no way out. Now that it is over, I kind of wish I would have went ahead and planned to go all in.

Upon Arrival

I checked in with three other participants, Andrew, a young Canadian computer scientist; Claire, a French yogini coming off a six-month tour of India; and Guenther, an eccentric German gentleman who was on his 56th Vipassana retreat. According to many Vipassana rules, vows of silence are strictly enforced so I did not think I would really interact much with these other participants, but because of the more relaxed environment, we all became friends during the retreat.

I was also prepared to relinquish my cell phone and electronic devices and have my bag searched for reading material or other “prohibited items.”

None of this happened though. The front desk staff did not ask for our phones, they just took our passports and led us to our rooms, quietly explaining along the way where certain things such as the dining hall, meditation rooms and laundry facilities were located.

They then requested that we dress in white and be back at the office by 3:30 p.m. for the opening ceremony.

That first afternoon, I saw monks, nuns and other individuals in white coming and going – some were using cell phones, talking quietly among themselves and basically breaking all the rules I had associated with Vipassana retreats. It was nothing like the ideas I had of being locked up in a crowded room of meditators and being forced to practice in silence 12 to 16 hours a day.

I think my first three or four days were kind of like this. As we quickly ramped up from 15-minute sitting and walking meditation sessions to 30-to-40-minute sessions, I could tell that I was learning something, but I still had a feeling maybe it wasn’t “real” Vipassana because it wasn’t so strict.

But on the plus side, I got to interact and bond with the fellow participants … not just Andrew, Claire and Guenther, but young Germans Maximus and Daniela, along with some of the monks and nuns.

The Dhamma

One of the first lessons we learned was the definition of the Pali word vipassana, which literally means “clear seeing.” It is – along with samatha – one of two meditation techniques taught by the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama to his followers. It is not some branded method to be taught in a certain way.

Insight meditation, as it is also known, is based largely on the ability to control the mind through focusing directly on the chain of thoughts as they arise by orally or mentally noting them and then letting them pass.

When prostrating, note the individual components of each movement; when walking, note the subtle movements that comprise each step; and when sitting, note the rising and falling of the breath as it enters and leaves the abdomen and/or nostrils.

As our practice evolved, we learned to note the five hindrances: sensory pleasure; ill will or aversion, sloth or drowsiness; restlessness; and doubt. We learned about the defilements, which are the blissful or “zenlike” feelings meditators can achieve, and learned to see them not as the objective of meditation, but as side effects that are to be discarded along with the rest of the thinking processes.

It’s not exactly easy stuff to get your head around if you aren’t big on the philosophy part of this, but after nearly ten months studying yoga and Buddhism in the land where it was born, it does tend to make some sense at this point on the path.

This was the crux of the dhamma, or teachings of the Buddha, we learned at Wat Chomtong although there were other subtle points along the way.

I won’t pretend that I mastered any of it. My mind still drifts off along the currents of thoughts with much frequency but I can definitely say I am now much better at noticing when this happens and getting it back on track. And I even started to see thoughts as they first bubble up and just letting them pop before they reach the surface of the mind.

But as we say, “progress not perfection.”

The Protection of the Naga

Going back to my first month in India, at the Samadhi Yoga Ashram, one of the primary goals of our learning was how to awaken and align the chakras, or energy nexuses of the body, in a way that allows energy to travel up the spine and to the crown of the head.

In our yoga course, we referred to this as the kundalini awakening or rising. It can be a pretty powerful experience and when it happens suddenly for some people it can be rather jarring. Over the months since the course, I have practiced several of the pranayamas, or breathing techniques, and other kriyas or exercises that help facilitate this process.

During one of my meditations a little more than halfway through the 10-days, it happened for me. I could feel the Kundalini energy coursing up and down my spine and on my final night at Wat Chomtong, I could feel in hovering at my crown chakra, like Mucalinda, the king of the nagas, protecting the Buddha from the rain on the fourth week after the enlightenment.

This symbology of the Buddha sitting under the protective cover of the seven-headed naga, or serpent protector spirit of eastern nature lore, is a very common sight throughout Thailand. And as Phra Ajahn Poonsak explained, the temples of Thailand are designed with roofs that have seven serpent heads representing this mythological protector of Buddhism.

But it is also no coincidence that both this symbol and the kundalini energy are represented by serpents.

Getting to the Top

The goal is to balance the right and left side of the spinal energy channel, known as the Sushumna nadi. In yogic traditions, these are known as the Ida and Pingala or Shiva-Shakti energies and in Taoism as the Yin and Yang … the masculine and feminine, light and darkness, activity and passivity, or however you like to think of it.

The mudra the Buddha is shown in meditation, with both palms in his lap and thumbs touching, is the first step in achieving this balance during Vipassana meditation. It allows energy to flow through these energy channels at the base of the spine.

But the next step involved touching on 28 points on the right and left side of the body. I don’t think Phra Ajahn Poonsak intended to reveal all of these to me in my limited 10-day lesson, but I found a copy of a book in my room and started experimenting with these points on my own. I felt an instinctual ability to connect with these points immediately upon trying – like I described to my teacher not as if I was learning something new but as if I was remembering something forgotten or not practiced in a long time.

The best way I can find to describe the feeling I got when this happened was like using a bunch of clothespins to hang a suit of clothes out to dry. It was sort of like stretching the spine and skin of the body so that prana can move through it like the wind through the clothing.

Once I completed a dozen or so rounds of this and returned to normal rising and falling breathing, I could feel the sensation of the energy moving up and down my spine and each time it reached the top, a flash of white light sort of exploded in my field of vision. It was not at all a jarring experience, but quite pleasant and energizing.

I know my monk teacher was a little displeased with me for jumping ahead of the teaching but he also took time to ask the probing questions a good guru should ask when they see the kundalini may be awakening in a student. He must have judged it safe for me to proceed as he did not hold me back at that point but gave me a slightly more subtle next step, which I started practicing. But as he forewarned it leads quickly down the slippery slope toward the drowsiness hindrance.

He also reminded me that these pleasant sensations are not the goal of meditation but just some of the defilements that are there to waylay the practitioner.

The Sangha

While all this breathing and meditation stuff was really quite practical and very useful when it comes to finding the way out of this trap of sensory experience and suffering, I don’t think that is the most important lesson I received during my education at Vipassana U.

During my two months on the Buddhist pilgrimage path, I stayed at several different monasteries, but with the exception of the Sri Lanka monastery in Kaushambi, I never really had much interaction with the monastics. I would see monks coming and going at these monastery / hotels on the tour, but I didn’t really feel a part of the community.

At Wat Chomtong, I could sense the presence of the Sangha and knew that I was part of it. When I joined the evening chanting or the Buddha Day ceremonies, despite the fact that everything was in Pali and Thai, I could hear the words of the Buddha echoing in the lessons.

I’ve often asked myself if I am really a Buddhist or if it is just lip service. When I filled out my Indian visa application and answered the required religion question, I checked the box next to Buddhism, but was I just doing that because “none of the above” was not an option?

When it comes to a “loving and compassionate higher power,” I picked the Tibetan bodhisattva Tara. I’ve read quite a few books; and my favorite song is still Adam Yauch’s Bodhisattva Vow. But I’ve only been to Buddhist temples in America a handful of times; I definitely don’t have any serious religious practice; and as I’ve noted, I’ve never really pictured myself as an experienced meditator.

On the final three nights I spent at Wat Chomtong, I performed a clockwise circumambulation of the lighted stupa in honor of the Triple Gem of Buddhism, doing what started as mindful six-part meditative walking meditation to the syllables of “Bud-dha, Dham-ma, San-gha.” This eventually evolved into what could best be described as a three-part step much more akin to bhakti yoga dancing and chanting than to any traditional Buddhist ritual.

During those laps around the stupa, I realized that I don’t have to be anything other than what I am. Maybe it is some mix of yogi, mystic, new age philosopher with a bit of engineer and nerd mixed in, but I know that I feel a deep respect for the people of the Buddhist faith.

Graduation Day

As I sat under the nearby bodhi tree on my final evening at Wat Chomtong, I saw a slowly spinning carousel of white light as the serpent energy hovered above me. I was perfectly at peace with myself at least for that moment in space and time. This sense of pure contentment, even if it isn’t quite pure Vipassana is a pretty fine result of meditation.

While the end goal of achieving liberation from the cycle of suffering is indeed noble, I can’t miss the point that this is achieved through experiencing life here and now.

Sitting under that revolving halo of light as this trip nears a close was just as rewarding as my high school commencement, walking into the Ohio State horseshoe in pouring rain for baccalaureate ceremonies, my coronavirus infected remote graduation from Clark State and getting my Yoga TTC at Samahdi Yoga Ashram.

But this time I know I was fully present for that magical moment in this thing we call life.