My 10 Days in Silence — what the Vipassana Meditation has Taught me
Spoiler alert: it’s not just about not talking for 10 days in a row
I was on a yoga retreat when a girl told me: «I wanna do that Vipassana thing where you don’t speak for 10 days, you know?». I was like: «Yeah that sounds extreme, good luck, I doubt I’ll ever do it».
Flash forward two years.
I turned off my phone, set an automatic email reply at work, and took a train from Paris to Burgundy to experience Vipassana in the Dhamma Mahi center. The global idea is to dedicate 10 days to meditation and meditation only, as taught by Goenka.
No talking, no touching, no phones, not even trying to cross eyes with a person, no writing, no reading, nothing — it is just you and around 11 hours of meditation per day.
I signed up for the course six months in advance. Usually, the places are really in demand, especially for new students.
First I was like: “No I want it and I want it right now” but this was my first step to patience I would discover later on. These six months were actually a good thing: I could prepare all my work in advance, finish the ongoing projects, and basically have fewer things to stress about while I would be in silence in a forest.
For example, I told my Mom who lives in Ukraine to text my French-speaking Ukrainian friend in Paris every day to tell her that everything was ok. In case of emergency, my friend could contact the Vipassana center and I would be informed.
These are small things that help the control freak that I am to live a better life.
So here I am, the control freak without agenda, no make-up and not even a small book to read, making a promise before the course starts. The promise is the following:
- To spend all the 10 days of the course without leaving
I had six months to prepare myself mentally and I also made a promise that I would sit this through no matter what. Even if I felt like I was going crazy, I would still stay.
- To not kill any living being
I am so grateful it was February and not the mosquito season. The only time I had a chance to send another creature to a better place was when a stink bug visited my сell. I took it outside instead.
- To not have sex
Well… It’s not like I was in Ibiza and there was a Greek swim team (I took a flight with them once, I KNOW what I’m talking about) next door to me, and a pool party, and I was told to not even look at them and stay celibate.
Men and women meditate, eat, and live separately. Even the meditation hall is divided into two parts — men sit on the left and women on the right. Also, cold winds, waking up at 4 am, a 60 (yes, sixty) square-feet room, sweatpants and Uggs didn’t exactly inspire my libido, so this was not a problem at all.
- To not steal
I mean… If you steal something in the Vipassana center which could be a spoon or somebody’s toothpaste, there is a problem you should really work on outside of the center.
- To not use any intoxicating substances (nicotine included)
In no way should you consider that Vipassana is a donation-based rehab and go there to quit smoking or to make a 10-day break in your drinking because you are not allowed to consume anything. In these terms, I was also prepared because I wanted to focus on meditation and not on craving red wine in the evening.
You can also chew tobacco and hide it under your pillow and nobody will know but you will know and aren’t the promises we make to ourselves the most important ones?
- To not lie
Given that you aren’t allowed to talk to other people, it is really simple. Being honest with yourself and how you are practicing Vipassana is a completely different story.
First evening. After dinner and a debrief the «Noble Silence» starts. The Silence of body, speech, and mind. I had a feeling as if somebody hit «pause» on our dinner conversation and they can unpause us any moment. Nope.
The Noble Silence has to be observed until the last morning of the Vipassana course.
Zero communication whatsoever. You don’t thank the person who holds the door for you and you don’t apologize if you bump into someone by accident. One time I stood up after meditation and I hit the girl in front of me with my knee. I couldn’t stop thinking it for a few hours. We talked about it after the course and she said she hadn’t even noticed, which brought me to my first conclusion:
People think about us way less than we think they do. While you are overthinking, they are overthinking their stuff.
So here goes how this control freak let go and spent 10 days in silence and my unforgettable routine:
- The day starts with a gong at 4 AM.
Man, I was naive when I bought an actual alarm clock to make sure I wake up at 4 AM. The gong is loud and ruthless — zero chances of sleeping in. After the morning procedures, you go to the meditation hall.
4:30, howling wind, stars, a full moon in the sky. It was February and the sunrise in France was around 8:30 AM.
I trailed to the meditation hall in my sweatpants and a gigantic scarf, and I even came up with a little poem for my morning promenades:
«Moon looks like a loaf of bread
Lots of thoughts are in my head»
The first meditation starts. Vipassana teaches us that everything is temporary: pain, happiness, emotions… everything will be over. Us as well.
However, after the first meditation in the morning, they turn on Goenka’s chanting. I thought this was going to be the exception and this would never end. This is the trap. This is the thing that will last forever and will never pass. I had a feeling this was not happening to me, it was absurd, surreal, weird, early, unclear, long, out of this world strange.
Still, the chanting stopped, and even though it surprised me for a few days to come, at least I knew what to expect. Another test for me, the queen of patience.
Meditate and listen instead of trying to figure out when it would be over.
2. 6:30 AM — Breakfast time.
I tried to avoid fast carbs and sugar to avoid a drop in energy later on because well… My coffee machine wasn’t there with me.
3. At 8 AM the mandatory meditation starts. There are three mandatory one-hour-long meditations per day, the rest can be done either in your room or in the meditation hall. I would highly recommend to anyone who tries Vipassana, to do all the possible meditations in the hall
Meditation in your cell can quickly turn into a nap — talking from experience here.
On the fourth day, the mandatory meditations slightly change the format and you are not supposed to open your eyes or change your posture during the whole hour. It sounds terrifying but it is doable — of course, nobody is going to kick you out if you adjust your posture but I was there for the full experience.
I am not a very patient person in general and I do move a lot in life, yet I did it. What was happening in my head then was a true nightmare but a bit more on that later.
4. Lunch takes place from 11 AM till 12 PM.
You get an hour of free time afterward where you can walk around a leafless forest, get some mud on your shoes in a field, have a nap, or ask the teacher a question regarding your practice.
You are not allowed to jog, do yoga, or perform any kind of physical exercise. Just walking.
I counted how many steps there were around the field and tried to squeeze in at least 5–7K steps every day, whenever I had time.
I used the «Ask the teacher» prompt once.
«I can’t meditate», I said. «My thoughts are running away. I last for 20 seconds, best case scenario».
«What do you do then?», she asked.
«Well I see they ran away and I go back to my point of focus».
She smiled.
«This IS meditation, my dear. Another part of it is how you react to it. Try to recognize it but not be annoyed at yourself».
Turns out I almost had it right.
5. At 5 PM you take your dinner. Yes, this is the last food for the day. For the first-time students, it’s 2 fruits and a warm drink. For the experienced ones, it’s just lemon water with honey.
6. Around 6:30 PM you have another meditation, a one-hour lecture, a finishing meditation of the day and then you are off to bed around 9:15. I would literally pass out at 9:16 and wake up five minutes before the gong on the third or fourth day.
It is incredible what we can teach our bodies to do when we push them into an inevitable routine.
Surprise! My body also learned to sleep while sitting straight. I can’t believe I couldn’t even take a nap on my last 16-hour flight and had a bottle of wine instead.
Because of the silence, I became more observant of the sounds of nature. Probably it was my only form of entertainment but even hearing the sound of wind in the trees or the birds’ chirping was fascinating and it was as if the sound went through my whole body.
My sense of smell became more refined, which is when I realized I hated the smell of my face wash. I would highly recommend taking very neutral self-care items because you might fall out of love with the most favorite smell.
Speaking about my vision I can’t say much. I spent 18 hours with my eyes closed and the rest of the time my field and forest were just grey.
There were a few times when I thought I would burst out laughing in the middle of the meditation hall. I was wrapped in a beige blanket when I thought I might look like a blobfish. It was like middle school when the teacher tells you not to laugh and you just can’t stop it. I was suffocating trying not to laugh even though I had seen the blobfish before and it wasn’t nearly as funny as then.
So how well did I do in my mind during those 11 days?
I was leaving for Vipassana with a set of quite a few worries in my head. There was a war happening in my home town, I was very far from having a good relationship with my boss, work sucked, some bureaucratic issues, etc. etc. To say that to let all of this go was out of my comfort zone is to say nothing.
I was starting at the yellow ceiling of my cell and thinking:
What if I get fired while I am away? What if there is something bad that happens back home? What if there is an issue with my apartment in Paris and nobody to take care of it?…
The list goes on.
My thoughts and worries became clearer but they did not go away.
My life didn’t go away. There was absolutely nothing I could do from the comfort of my tiny room to change anything. I could only choose whether I would obsess about it or not.
Vipassana is not a magical solution but it is a tool, which, when used properly, can help you approach your issues with serenity and wisdom.
It also helped me get my priorities straight. When my mind drifted away to something that seemed important in high school, I was like: «Seriously dude? Are we gonna dedicate the rest of our only life to THESE thoughts?»
I recalled my old worries, the ones I had a month or a year ago, and (un)surprisingly none of them came true. Then I immediately started thinking that I should do trekking in Nepal. Maybe I need a new coat for that? Where could I learn trekking in Paris? I should be meditating!
My thoughts were running around my head, laughing in my face and the inability to catch them could only be compared to the feeling when you are trying to run away from somebody chasing you in your dream and you can’t move. I wanted to slap them across the face but they were tickling my brain to the point where I wanted to scream.
It did get better. Only practice and permanent repetition can make something better. It’s not an overnight success story.
Of course, one may have a lot of questions and potentially stressful situations before the course. One may think he’s way too important and the world will stop without him. You can also be afraid of going crazy — it’s far from being a simple course. Some are afraid of their inner demons and facing them.
The biggest revelation I had was that the Earth didn’t stop spinning while I was not actively participating in its life — this is for all the control freaks who are having a hard time letting go and switching off.
I had missed ONE email that a girl (with a great taste) wanted to buy my shoes online. My work didn’t involve saving lives, it was about writing content and it had all been prepared in advance.
My inner demons are mine, and I’ll deal with some of them and learn to live with the others — this is what my time spent with myself has taught me. Still, I have a very long way to go — I did a second course but more on that later.
The euphoria «OMG I am gonna meditate every day like forever and ever» will pas, the melancholy will go away, the war will be over one day and I might not even go trekking to Nepal.
However, with Vipassana, I am a few steps closer to living with peace in my soul when there is chaos around me. I admit that I don’t practice every day but I do go back to the lessons I’ve learned in a small town in Burgundy.
You can’t stop the birds from flying above your head but you can forbid them from building a nest inside of it.
