vipassana – take six
don’t box me in
for there is no true box to hold me
for when I am contained : contorted : restricted : restrained
I gladly surrender and fill the spaces : the places : the body with dis-ease
until one day the discomfort of the itch : the pain : the despair is so grand
it can no longer be ignored : avoided : dismissed
for darling you and I are meant to dance, your resistance is futile, come now beautiful,
surrender to the ache : the suffering
and spin : twirl : swirl : whirl with me
to clear the citta and see the hope
to live from love and in the bliss of existence
::::::::
The thing about Vipassana is that it offers a direct drop into the profound experience of consciously knowing what it means to be a sentient being. In the witness state, with a heightened focus on the sensations of the body, we learn what it means for the body to become an archive of our lived history. In a dedicated practice like Vipassana, old, outdated sankaras (trapped emotions) surface to be released. This resurfacing of the past can be deeply uncomfortable, and is intensified by the stillness that comes from the removal of other senses, especially sight, but also for the most part sound/noises, taste/flavor, scent/smell, and minimal distractions of touch or movement occurring in the container of a 10 day retreat. As feeling, sentient beings, we are obsessed with the felt sense experience of this thing we call life in these spaces on this place we call the earth.
We are always actively pursuing how things feel, we use it as a measurement, and in doing so we create aversion and craving. This guiding principal creates patterns and habits and this is where the work begins, because in order to continue to learn and grow, to evolve or to ascend, we must be willing to change our beliefs about how and what and why we are feeling the way we do.
The future is merely the past plus what is added in the present. Vipassana teaches how to become master of oneself by developing awareness and equanimity towards sensations. If one develops this mastery in the present moment, the future will automatically be bright. - S. N. GOENKA
A wise woman acquaintance of mine defined healing as – simply asking for change – which I love! If we want to heal, or we are seeking change in some form then we must transmute our emotional baggage to free ourselves.
Some might call this the alchemical process, some might call it the path to enlightenment, some might call it ascension. It is in no way about transcending the emotions so as to become so stoic that we are numb to emotions or feelings, but instead to create a healthy, secure relationship to/with them - it’s the middle path of maintaining and living in and from a witness state.
It’s a confusing process though as it’s not only about the emotions that are arising in the moment, because there can be pleasure in the pain, just as there can be fear in the relief. Emotions don’t always match the felt sensations, and so the practice becomes parsing and separation of the feelings and emotions.
How we feel about the emotions that are surfacing are the storylines that the inner voice feeds us. And sometimes that inner voice isn’t even our own – it is a parent, a boss, societies, anyone or someone that we deemed more knowledgable and therefore an expert, and so we either gave them or they took power over us. We internalize their voice, and begin to believe it is our own.
This indoctrination happens so subtly and lives in the unconscious. But when we’re quiet and still enough to listen, we might begin to notice it doesn’t even sound like “me”, like something I would say, or something I believe. Is the inner voice beating you up? Gaslighting and telling you that you shouldn’t feel this way, or that you deserve to feel this way? Telling you, you can’t do this. How harsh or militaristic is your inner critic, because Vipassana is going to amplify that voice and ask you to face it.
Way down here in the root chakra, the roots are laid bare, exposed and the light is brought to them for inspection. These archives of familial, cultural, communal, societal tendrils of toxicity can suffocate our sense of safety, cutting of our trust in our own truth and with life. It’s the foundation from where the energy and passion and power to effect change in our lives must first be cultivated in order to be sustainable and permanent.
However, enlightened persons discovered that whenever a defilement arises in the mind, simultaneously two things start happening at the physical level: respiration will become abnormal, and a biochemical reaction will start within the body, a sensation. A practical solution was found. It is very difficult to observe abstract defilements in the mind, but with training one can soon learn to observe respiration and sensation, both of which are physical manifestations of the defilements. By observing a defilement in its physical aspect, one allows it to arise and pass away without causing any harm. One becomes free from the defilement. - S. N. GOENKA
Here we learn the truth about who’s been mucking up our fertile life-giving and sustaining soil. We come to know that the original perpetrator is separate from the the seemingly immortal tyrant. Yes, someone or something placed that pain body there, but it is ourselves that hold vigil, perpetuating and continuing to remember that significant moment by assimilating it as part of our identity.
This is very, very subtle and takes practice to weed through, inspecting what is mine and what is yours, what is nourishing and what is toxic. We can’t just “get over” the weeds, and we can only weed as fast as the slowest part of us is willing to work. If we force the labor, we are only perpetuating the harm and sowing new seeds of suffering.
Equanimity, not through ignoring/suppressing or indulging the emotions, but by allowing/acknowledging them, and returning/maintaining your center of peaceful knowing, as the mature, compassionate witness that this too shall pass – anicca, anicca, anicca. Because it is in the equanimity that the mind is calm and the next best choice for how to respond to life can be made. This action is the seeding of new sankaras, and will determine the weight of the baggage carried forward.
The Buddha said that there are four types of people in the world: those who are running from darkness towards darkness, those who are running from brightness towards darkness, those who are running from darkness towards brightness, and those who are running from brightness towards brightness. - S. N. GOENKA
Ascension is only possible when we are willing to be pathetic enough to acknowledge the imperfections and limitations, accept the fear of sacrificing any attachments to what is known, and allow for the discomfort of change to fuel the enlightenment sought.
And so the question becomes, what kind of traveler are you and how much baggage are you brining? Recently, I saw a meme online that I cannot seem to find again that said, why do we call it emotional baggage when it could be called a griefcase - ha! This business of transmuting is after-all mostly grief work. It is the courage to re-write our soul contracts (identities) that have been built around outdated beliefs, and that requires moving through the portals of ego death in order to be reborn again. It requires a lot of mucking it up, but in doing so it builds resilience and self-trust.
It’s the work of establishing a new relationship to and with the inner voice. It’s that inner voice that creates tension in the current moment where the emotional somatic memory being referenced from the past is being evoked by the felt sensations in the present, and the future you are perhaps desperately working towards is being confronted. The tension is mitigated or neutralized only by the non attachment to the emotions – equanimity.
Brightness to brightness does not mean transcending suffering all together, it simply means there is a sense of stability and safety that we interact with the world from. It is the clarity of boundaries, what is mine, yours, ours, theirs to carry. To not fear what is mine, just as it is not my job to fear what is yours. This secure place is the radical acceptance of compassion for all sentient beings.
Vipassana is far from the only methodology to change beliefs, based on my varied experience playing in number of healing modalities it definitely lies on the more structured masculine end of the spectrum, to say trance dance’s feminine flow. But as is advertised and purported, it may just be the most direct way to find the root cause of suffering because it so quickly initiates the witness state. And we must have the neutral witness, who casts no judgement, in order to be the light.
If you’re ready to root around in the archives, there are meditation centers worldwide.
Dhamma Ujala in Clare, Australia
Vipassana Centers World Map
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