vipassana - take two
The Rules of Vipassana
You don’t talk at Vipassana
or write, or read, or sing, or hum, or emote
except in your head, maybe the teacher
You don’t talk at Vipassana
or look, or glance, or gesture, or touch
except in your head, maybe the teacher
You don’t mix the “genders”
to sit, to eat, to sleep, to speak
except in your head, maybe the teacher
You don’t focus anywhere but your nose
just single pointed focus, heightened sensation
except in your head, maybe the teacher
You don’t focus anywhere but your skin
just scanning the surface, ignore the grosser sensations
except in your head, maybe the teacher
You don’t focus anywhere but inside your skin
deeper levels for subtler sensations
except in your head, maybe the teacher
You don’t move your body out of position
keep it all in, devotional willpower, dedication
except in your head, maybe the teacher
You don’t pray
no yoga, no rosaries, no other teachers or deities
this methodology only, for just 10 days
except in your head, maybe the teacher
Except
Except
Except
Except
Except
Except
Except
Except when you do, because you are human too, because you are the teacher as the teacher is you.
The trinity greeted me upon my arrival at Dhamma Ujjala, and I broke the rule – gladly accepted a Nature Elders’ receiving. A gorgeous, tall River Red Gum tree beckoned me, and I took my thongs off and stepped up, and opened my hands to introduce myself and my lineage as it introduced itself and it’s nearby relations. I practiced nature communication all week long, far more than I had anticipated. And it was wickedly powerful, the land had a lot to say, and for who knows how long, has been waiting for someone to arrive that was open to listening. And just like the geographic landscape, the landscape of the body too was desperate to have some undivided attention. Vipassana is the back alley fight club where each time you take your seat you are asked, are you dead or are you sleeping?
Unlike life on the outside where Instagram and tiktok and youtube, the dishes, the children, the dog or cat, your bank account, your lover(s) and a hundred other distractions beckon and keep you from feeling, the only numbing that happens occurs when your limbs fall asleep, and even then it’s no relief. Otherwise, your awareness, because of the single pointed focus, is hyper-stimulated and actively listening to every sensation on and in the body. You are being initiated into FEELING the feelings of being you, there is no ceremony to help ease you. You’re not entering St. Brenden’s Catholic Church nor a Hindu Buddhist Temple; there’s no grandeure, no dieties, no saints, no incense, no wine, no wafers, no external physical representations of the qualities you desire/aspire/avoid/detest. There is only you, you are the altar, no confessional except to the self. Here I sat on the 2’x2’ mat, the 6” foam block, with the pale blue canvas cover, the pale blue cotton blanket, the royal blue equals for the “male” side, the greige laminate wood flooring, the white walls, the white ceiling, the wood platform for the teacher, the white overhead projector, and the black speakers and iPad stand. And when I pulled that blanket over my head, I entered Lou’s cave of enlightenment and set sail into the formerly uncharted depths of the waters of the
emotional body, a most uncertain circumnavigation of psycho-spiritual situation.
As I departed, the first thing the land told me was that it did not support what was happening, and the ancestors of the land, the stewards and ancient ones told me they did
not understand this methodology, it seemed “extreme”. Neither said they wouldn’t do what they do, which is to say, receive the psychic energies being releases and cleared for purification and transmutation into new forms of growth and beauty. But they did say, there was not enough recognition for their significant roll as stakeholders in the process. How numb have we become to the atrocities of extraction, endless war and genocide we commit against the land/this body/my body/your bodies/our bodies/their bodies. These holy sites where life is sustained with minimal supervision of the mind, under sometimes dire conditions of significant restrictions, and aggressive projections of insufficiencies and indifferences that lead to a belief of scarcity and superiority that removes the humanity. The trauma of being human, a tragedy the land is intimately familiar with.
On the third, fourth, fifth sit, I returned to find the bar back remains on fire, a neck straight up stiff, frozen solid ice blocks of trauma rising from the left thigh, the hips and pelvis in protest of being opened so forcefully, or, occasionally, disconcertingly, long blank shots with no sensation at all. And I thought of all the silencing, the hushing, the suppression, the ignoring, and the demands that I have made in false promise that I would come back later. Not now, I don’t have time, it’s not safe, I must not show or know how I really feel about what is happening, I don’t understand why and have no one to ask for help, no one’s listening. In this bare-knuckle training, you’re being instructed to witness, to remain neutral, and trust that this too will pass, clarity will come, and if all these sankharas can be released, new pacts can be made in good faith.
Hence the Buddha declared: Mind precedes all phenomena, mind matters most, everything is mind-made. If with an impure mind you speak or act, then suffering follows you as the cart wheel follows the foot of the draft animal. If with a pure mind you speak or act, then happiness follows you as a shadow that never departs.
Sitting is the complete opposite of being dead, it is the complete opposite of being asleep, the only thing you can be is viscerally and heart palpitatingly alive and awake. It’s an adrenaline rush of psychic tension, and it activates the fight/flight/freeze/fawn response. And if you aren’t sure which one is yours, Vipassana will very quickly show you. Are you avoidant > flight, freeze, fawn; bypassing and gaslighting yourself into believing it is okay, you did something to deserve this pain, you are okay because it is familiar, there’s nothing to see or know here. Are you craving > fight, ready to throw down, tyrannical forcing of holding your own, isolation of forced independence, no allowance to slow down to question what’s happening. Which is to say it is traumatic and chaotic, and you’re silenced the whole time, no talking, remember. No talking, that silence, it’s the ultimate teacher when you’re on the cushion because there is absolutely no silence.
There is only endless noise, the narrator mind telling stories, analyzing sensations, making judgements, assigning morals, tracking external sounds, focusing, focusing, focusing, trying to remember and recall the instructions, constantly questioning; am I doing this right, is this what I am meant to be feeling. More interestingly, the voice begins to sound strange, is this my voice, am I the narrator, are these my stories, since when did I believe or know that, who put this pain in my shoulder, when did my knee become so tight, why can’t I breathe, who’s been suffocating me, why won’t I speak up, shout out, tell someone how much this hurts, that I don’t understand, that it isn’t fair.
It’s in these maddening choppy waters where at each nexus you finally crest the wave and it is revealed, it is me. I am the narrator, the tyrant, the victim, and I have been internalizing other people’s thoughts/ideas/beliefs. I have been opting in consciously and unconsciously. I have been receiving their judgements, accusations, physical and emotional and verbal assaults on my being. I have internalized their toxicity and been acting/living/existing according to someone/everyone else’s actions and values. I have been silencing me. And suddenly the tension dissipates, momentarily, relief in fleeting clarity before once again, you drop down, for a second, third, fourth round. These endless rounds of grief knocking you out in disbelief of the power of your victimhood, that seasick root cause of your pain and suffering.
The teacher provides whatever guidance is needed in the practice, but it is up to each person to implement these guidelines: one has to fight ones own battle, work out one's own salvation. - S. N. GOENKA
What begins as a game of princess and the pea, making modifications and accommodations for the discomfort in the body of sitting for hours on end, turns out is not the only discomfort. The true dis-ease cannot be placated by the bartender slinging free drinks. The psychic tension of the unprocessed feelings have a rallying call, and you must back down as they take their turns being known in this confessional ring. Now, everything inside is outside, everything out is in, it’s unclear which way is up or where to begin. The golden bronzed Italian surfer recalls to me the sensation of the barrel rolls within. The quaking Antarctic explorer shares with me sensation of disjointed limbs. Two of the men storm out in frustration four and six days in, a fear of what was found within.
But I stayed, because there is nowhere to go, nothing to do except equanimous witnessing, silent listening, and the reward comes suddenly when the survival patterns begin to change. So I sit, and I sit, and I sit again and the body asks, will you finally learn to speak up, speak out about the truth, of what and who you are, what you have witnessed and experienced? Can you accept who you’ve been? Is this finally enough “physical” proof? And the rescuer within, and it’s crooked grin is steeped in compassion and conviction, and softens in contemplation around my individual values, and which actions are out of alignment, and how painful it is to sit with that discomfort. And suddenly the survivor, the wise one emerges and knows how to move forward without creating new sankharas, no longer afraid of the truth.
But if the mind remains balanced, it becomes sharper and more sensitive, capable of detecting subtle sensations. - S. N. GOENKA
What more could you possibly need than 10 hrs a day on a cushion with your eyes closed and your legs tucked in to know you are human. Not a god at all, but a feeling, sentient being, just one expression of the infinite forms of god. Divine and pure, and now empowered to know this is a collaboration of co-creation, between the body and the mind, the human and the divine, the people and the land, the elements and seasons, you and me, them and us, in this great mystery. So I danced in gratitude and reverence on my infinity shaped walk-about each morning after breakfast. For the load the land bears is tremendous, and I am willing to do my part to offer acknowledgment, recognition, and gratitude for my privilege to walk and be in my form because it exists in it’s form, and we are in a symbiotic relationship.
The ancestors talked to me so I listened as they told me they don’t understand, and I didn’t know, and so I let it show, how liberating it could be to set yourself free in this way. The birds squawked at me, I thought I felt my ears bleed, but they reminded me of the joyous arrival of each new day, and that we are all here to make a bit of noise, so we can say, I hear you, I too am alive, as you are alive, and confirm this reality. The millipedes fell on me from the ceiling, crawled into bed, spilled at the door, and I remembered that we are all in search of a safe place to be, me/you/us/them. The bees humbled me so I walked slowly, and ate slowly, and drank slowly, and moved slowly, and remembered that time is an illusion and can be stretched for hours on end when I am fully present. Anicca, anicca, anicca.
If you’re into hearing every voice that isn’t your own so you can find yours, there are meditation centers worldwide.
Dhamma Ujala in Clare, Australia
Vipassana Centers World Map
The poem was inspired by that turn of the century, 99’s cult classic Fight Club.
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