vipassana – take five
Note to self
Try best not to over analyze any of it. That monkey mind loves to rattle the cage of the heart, swing from bar to bar, ring to ring around the garden of your soul. Distracting your witness, causing commotion to create satisfaction. In doing something, anything with wild abandon, this monkey has no discernment.
He simply is undisciplined energy - help him settle. Give him a banana of calm, respectful, caring, and ask him to come sit with you, and be still on the cushion.
Ask the monkey:
What he fears \ Where it comes from \ Why he holds it true
Accept without judgment the answers, the knowledge. Don’t worry about changing his mind, simply let his voice be heard, witness it, the madness. But focus not on the complaints, listen for the hope, and anchor there to glean the wisdom.
And most of all thank him, for he works hard, day and night. Offer him rest and reassure him that his experience is valid, and that there is no right and wrong, good and bad, there’s nothing to do but be.
Together close your eyes. Breath deeply into the buddha belly, expand it all the way down into the cosmic womb where everything is healed, anything is possible, and all things are received. Exhale & dissolve, releasing the bars of the cage. Notice where in the body the relief bubbles, give it prana, and begin again.
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Vipassana is a wild jungle gym that offers olympic level training for the monkey mind. Not to mention the nearly as difficult physical training of simply sitting. Specifically up on a square foam block cushion, with your legs crossed in and your arms down and hands relaxed in the lap or on the knees. This demand on the body to be still and upright while experiencing the full spectrum of the mental routines for hours on end without moving is an exhaustive practice in discipline and devotion - eventually it is deliciously satisfying. The best part is that every time you return to sit, it is a new and different experience. Which for me, makes it easy to continue to show up – and that’s all that’s really being asked of us, in life as in vipassana.
Each moment is new, though our brains tell us otherwise. So convincing are these moments of experiences that we string together in a collection over time that become a story, many stories. Then we retell them to ourselves, and we tell them to others over and over again so as to not forget. We hold them tenderly, closely, we curate and cultivate them so as to form some sort of solidity of an ever present sense of impermanence. We build on them, and as we move toward or away from a specific story the tension it holds or we hold to it, with it, shifts. These stories become our identities, and herein lies the danger and the opportunity.
This is bardo space of the in-between is the magical portal of the cosmic womb where everything known and unknown, healed and unhealed, received and possible, all these truths, co- exist. It is an expansive limitless sacred space that all humans have regardless of our societal gendering. This magical place three inches below the belly button and one fingers length into the body, is where the orange watery sacral chakra ebbs and flows. Possibility lives here, awaiting the spark of energy in the form of passion and direction. This is where all creation is seeded, gesticulated, and birthed. A laboratory for the alchemist, a imagination station for the creative, the archival library of our lives and those of our ancestors; it’s a fertile space of ingenuity where who we are, what we are, and how we are in this world is based. Here the stories can be reviewed, edited, and rewritten, sent up to the heart and the mind to be embraced and embodied.
Every mental reaction is a seed which gives a fruit, and everything that one experiences in life is a fruit, a result of one's own actions, that is, one's sankhara past or present. - S. N. GOENKA
Sitting in meditation is the ultimate practice of getting comfortable with the discomfort of being a sentient being. Here, all levels of practitioners surrender to the experience of receiving the onslaught of mental reactions to the emotional memories as they come in and physical sensations associated with the memories as well as posture. The practice of sitting with it can be intense, especially if there is a history of being disembodied. Opening to receiving and being with the emotional experience of stillness and quiet is a highly vulnerable and intimate experience. Choosing to be conscious and bring awareness to the experience of living is an act of bravery. Being curious about it, and enjoying it enough to play with consciousness comes in time once the initial aversion to the pain and discomfort subsides, and judgements and control over the experience is let go. This is why psychedelics can be so profound and a quicker or more direct drop into the surrender.
The stillness and quiet initially references the external experience of sitting. Internally that state also exists, but it must be cultivated and can take significant practice to achieve. The vault, uneven bars, beam and floor, pommel horse, rings, parallel bars and high bar must be cleared. Pommels as in the pommel horse, come from the French word pomel, which means “knob”, or “hilt of a sword.” It traces back to the Latin word pōmum, meaning apple or fruit, the same root in the word pomegranate. Pomegranates are symbolic across many religions, pointing to intuition, and fertility, and the birth/life/death/rebirth–cycle. The monkey mind excels at these games in the fruitful labyrinth of the space between life and death, he is a fantastic storeyteller.
The entire external universe exists for a person only when he or she experiences it, that is, when a sensory object comes into contact with one of the sense doors. As soon as there is a contact, there will be a vibration, a sensation. - S. N. GOENKA
Which is to say, the monkey mind is no menace, though his actions feel menacing. The pommeling of memories and sensations experienced in the witness state of meditation can feel overwhelming. It is the returning to the breath to stay anchored in the present moment, the trust of impermanence, and the surrender of preconceived and conditioned responses that allows for the inner state of stillness and quietude to be cultivated. But what vipassana also teaches, is that there is wisdom to be gleaned in the witnessing of the gymnastics routines. There is medicine in the aversion to, just as there is medicine in the craving of. If we want to end our suffering, and gain liberation, as is the promise of buddhism, we must know the root cause of our suffering. If the root cause is our reaction to the sensations and the labeling of them as good or bad, right or wrong, and those reactions are causing harm, to ourselves or others, then meditation is the opportunity to build our individuated house of knowledge. As Maya Angelou says “Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.”
And so the monkey becomes your guide. Meditation is an active state of being conscious, awake, and aware. But the monkey doesn’t necessarily speak english, he’s a shapeshifter, so he uses your clairvoyants to speak to you through claircognizance, clairaudience, clairalience, clairgustance, clairtangency, clairsentience, and you as the witness become the translator. It’s a relationship that must be endlessly refined to allow for the monkey to be in service to the witness. Because it is the witness who has the maturity and vantage-point to respond rather than the monkey who is reactive to life.
You have to investigate yourself to discover the truth. Accept it as true only when you experience it. Hearing about truth is important, but it must lead to actual practice. All the teachings of the Buddha must be practiced and experienced for oneself so that one may come out of misery. - S. N. GOENKA
I could attempt to write and tell you of the most profound experience during a sit on the ninth day of retreat where I held spirit babies in my cosmic womb. There were seemingly hundreds of them, all precious souls desiring to be birthed into this world. The experience of the profound level of pure divine love that pulsed and flowed to me, through me, in me, around me is ineffable to this day. But there aren’t the words to truly capture the felt sense of it. The teachers in the room witnessed my deep sobbing, and later asked me about it, and called it a divine wailing.
I could attempt to write and tell you of the most profound experience during a sit on the eighth day of retreat where I sat with Quan Yin in front of me, Mother Teresa beside me, Mother Mary and Mary Magdalene and Buddha and Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche above me. But there aren’t the words to truly capture the felt sense of it.
I could attempt to write and tell you of the most profound experience during a sit on the seventh day of retreat where I couldn’t stop giggling at the joyous feelings of overwhelming happiness bubbling up inside me. But there aren’t the words to truly capture the felt sense of it.
I could attempt to write and tell you of the most profound experience during a sit on the sixth day of retreat where a frozen block rose out of my left thigh and melted into a memory of being in a bathroom and being touched inappropriately as a very young child. But there aren’t the words to truly capture the felt sense of it.
I could attempt to write and tell you of the most profound experience during a sit on the fifth day of retreat where someone’s grandfather was trying to give them a bear hug, someone’s ancestors wanted to help them, someone’s aunt knew who caused the pain, someone’s uncles were proud, someone was being guided by horses. But there
aren’t the words to truly capture the felt sense of it.
I could attempt to write and tell you of the most profound experience during a sit on the fourth day of retreat where I saw a wall of bright white beings waiting to speak to me. But there aren’t the words to truly capture the felt sense of it.
I could attempt to write and tell you of the most profound experience during a sit on the third day of retreat where my eyes rolled up and back further than I knew was possible and my spine undulated to the chanting of the morning dhamma. But there aren’t the words to truly capture the felt sense of it.
I could attempt to write and tell you of the most profound experience during a sit on the second day of retreat where my muscles were torn apart in my hips to make space for a new way of being. But there aren’t the words to truly capture the felt sense of it.
I already attempted to write and tell you of the most profound experience during a sit on the first day of retreat where I surgically cut open my third eye. But there aren’t the words to truly capture the felt sense of it.
My monkey mind is highly active, it always has a lot to show me and tell me, I give him copious metals and honors for being my guide. It sounds like indulgence, and it is, but with a cultivated familiarity of translation of the distractions. This dedicated meditation practice allows for there to be time and space for it all - this is my circus and this is my monkey. It’s my favorite way to learn and grow, to see and know, to be me. We each have the opportunity to build our individuated house of knowledge, to discern what is true. And as the adage goes, there are many paths. How do you want to play?
If you’re ready to monkey around, there are meditation centers worldwide.
Dhamma Ujala in Clare, Australia
Vipassana Centers World Map
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