Vipassana Meditation: Where I'm at Now

Where? Now?

What is Where? A spacial point of reference? A state of mind? A stage in headspace?

Now? What about now? What is now? Isn’t “now” a mode of living many of us are still trying to understand and fully embrace. Now is happening, and we gauge the quality of our now by the intensity of whats happening in this moment.

Where is my now? Let me try to put it into words.

Right now I am in an equanimous headspace compatible with every fleeting moment.

What does this mean?

To be equanimous, by definition, is to be calm and content. Digging deeper into the word, equanimity is not having feelings of aversion towards pain or craving towards pleasure.

What good does this do a person?

Well, personally, in my past I used to be starkly affected by sensations (or feelings) of pain, pleasure, tension, and emotion of sadness or joy. I’d get drunk off a moment, whether it be insane laughter, windows down and weaving with a winding road, sitting around a fire in the forrest with friends, or deep conversation, so much that I’d have a minor come down. In other words, I was greatly affected by a good time, and even more so, a bad time. I’d hold onto a joyous moment like it be my last breath, never in full accordance with it’s ending. And these moments always ended, because everything ends. And I’d always be a bit sad with that ending.

But without an ending there is no beginning. The same impermanence of pleasure is for misery. In the past, I used to replay uncomfortable scenarios over and over again in my head, evaluating what went wrong or what I did that may have acted as a catalyst in the unpleasant occurrence. Recently I broke up with this psychic process. Engaging with that draining mental pattern is like living on a rollercoaster cart weaving up and down, left, right, circling round and round, repeating the same track day in and day out. Maybe you resonate with this. A similar mental rollercoaster ride of craving and aversion can be remembered as FOMO - Fear Of Missing Out.

Many of us struggle with this thought process, but how many of us know the way out or have tested an exit door of mental liberation? Not many I know, or knew, before I started this trip across the globe.

Let me back track a bit.

Last month I participated in a 10-day Vipassana. Ten days of silence, no eye contact, no reading, no writing (you read that right), no phone or music, no exercise, no yoga, no unassociated meditation techniques—purely Vipassana meditation. Twelve hours a day starting at 4:30 AM ending at 10 PM. Sounds heavy, right?

What came from this experience has changed the way I engage with my existence and the now.

Vipassana taught me the ways Dhamma (Law of Nature) and Annica (impermanence) dictate our lives, and that through observing our inevitable pain and misery we begin to naturally employ more compassion, love, peace, and liberation towards all beings. When we simply observe sensations within our physical body as temporary and fleeting, without craving one sensation in particular, or wishing abortion of another, or assigning one or another to ourselves, we gain more equanimity with our reality, we feel contentment towards our spectrum of feelings because we know the impermanence of all sensations. We are at peace with both pleasure and pain, less affected by the fluctuations of each.

Something pleasurable comes and passes. But it will reappear. Differently, and possibly more profound in the future. The same goes for pain.

Vipassana Meditation forces you to sit still for an entire hour, three separate times a day, for 5 straight days. Never in my life have I sat in silence, eyes closed, awake, not moving. This sounds hard enough as it is - simply sitting in silence and not moving. But no one emphasizes the pain, intense pain, you endure sitting for this long. Thats the true teacher—striking pain in the knees, hips, feet, back, neck, and shoulders. Everything hurts. AND THEN, you’re asked to observe these sensations of pain without any feeling of aversion towards them. You mean I need to sit in pain with a genuine welcoming attitude? What is this madness? It is insanity. At least thats what I thought as tears streamed down my face the first three sittings as I tortured myself to remained still, trying my hardest to gain the most from the technique.

This technique teaches you, at the experiential level, that pain is a part of life. But also that life is ruled by Dhamma, the law of nature, which states that everything is changing all the time. What you feel this moment will be gone soon, so to get worked up about your current situation is useless and only causing you more turbulence in the present moment.

During these long sittings I was asked to scan my entire body, head to toe, noting without reservation each feeling that arose. This sometimes meant sitting for 2-3 minutes observing my eyebrows, throat, or shins, for some tingling, itch, pulse or sensation to arise. What does this teach? Patience. That one virtuous key to life? I would agree, yes. But also to redirect attention from pain, or a pleasurable sensation, to other areas of my body, not to focus solely on any one sensation. Which teaches one that focusing on something you cannot change is like trying to swim in quicksand—it’ll only consume you.

When you take your negatively charged focus off the prevailing issue and redirect energy of acceptance to another part of your body or life, the problem is likely to dissolve.

All tied in with Vipassana is the theory of non-attachment. When we understand the impermanence of sensations and feelings, we understand the impermanence of everything else in life—money, clothes, cars, beauty, and other material items deemed important by our capitalistic society—and we become less attached to these rather useless possessions. When we become less attached to all that we’ve come to associate ourselves with during adolescence and adulthood, change is richer and bears more wisdom, and loss of possession is easier to deal with. When we begin to attach ourselves less to our phone, car, job, style, stature, physical appearance, ego, and more importantly people’s (and our own) perception of us, we, in turn, inherit our own set of psychic keys that unlock sustainable fulfillment, flourishing purely from the natural and wild energy and wisdom within. Happiness makes its way up as a fluid and constant frontrunner. Constant liberation.

And frankly, maybe all this is getting to be a little too heavy and studying the way of life and our individual human experience should be exercised with more grace, empathy and ease, but this is my take on living a balanced and joyful life. And at first I thought no way, this doesn’t seem enjoyable at all. Life is meant to be fun and exhilarating, a bit chaotic, and oftentimes mad, right? Thats what makes it so beautiful, right? The complexity, the struggle, confusion, the occasional game, some mystery.

But now I recognize the naivety in our games and and how this oftentimes self-inflicted internal chaos leads to a deficit in meaningful interpersonal relationships, intrapersonal understandings, and overall health and growth. When we focus on unimportant issues tied in with the lifestyle society convinces us we need to pursue, we move further away from understanding our own ability to achieve greatness in our relationships, health, work, and headspace. An orderly and balanced headspace is everything to me. When I can strip away everything that is unimportant and focus on what truly matters - happiness, love, compassion, peace, liberation - I’m able to easily live in the present moment, full of joy, energy, and goodwill.

You see, when you’ve got all this negative energy, confusion, doubt, guilt, fear, anxiety, pressure, and stress, building inside of you with no knowledge of how to properly release it forever, life’s difficulties will become more painful and harder to coexist alongside. And the next thing you know, you’ve spent your entire day thinking about what went wrong yesterday or what might possibly happen tomorrow, but none of those two things exist, and will never exist in the present. They simply do not exist.

We underestimate our own power to transform and rewire our brains. But it is possible, and you can do it. We all can. But reading this won’t engrain anything in that power plant of yours. Its the true experiential learning through a technique such as Vipassana meditation that engraves a lasting imprint on your mental and emotional stability, social habits, family and work life, relationships both interpersonal and intrapersonal, and engagement with the present.

I’m just here to tell you that this FREE meditation course (including accommodation and food) exists, all around the world.

You have all the tools you need and more.

Get out there and make use of them.

All my love,

Hailey