Hi, I am back from the retreat. We were fortunate to have a teacher, Venerable Pannyavaro, who is very deep in his practice. Let me put it this way, he happened to have been seriously practising this method of meditation, Vipassana or Insight Meditation, for as many as I have been alive, since 1974. There is a no-nonsense attitude in his explanations and a deep clarity in his instructions. Before this retreat, I’ve only understood the methods intellectually. However, thanks to yoga practice (which the Ven. agreed had a positive effect on growing your meditation practice), I had developed better awareness skills and so when I practiced the methods on my own, I was able to make some observations on my own. Still, that is nothing compared to how clearly I understand the practice now after the retreat. It is in this short 5-day retreat, I felt like I’ve finally experienced first-hand the essence of the practice and also how to progress from here. This, guys, really points to the importance of having a good teacher!
In fact, that’s just it. Direct Experience. The retreat teacher said that the whole practice can be summed up in one world:
presence. We need to be present in everything that we do. We were told from the onset of the retreat that it is in all the times in between our formal sitting and walking meditation sessions that holds the most promise for practice. Our teacher wanted us to pay close attention to our every action. How we got up from the floor, how we stand, how we walk up and down the stairs, how we lie down to sleep, how eat, open the door, etc. Usually we do all this on auto-pilot mode, literally absent-minded, rather than present, and we let our minds wander as they will when we are doing our daily chores. In the end the mind, becomes scattered and cluttered with all kinds of junk inconsequential thoughts that become serious obstacles to being able to live freely and perceive things as they really are. And we become unhappy when things do not go as we wish.
Moment-to-moment awareness is key to gaining insight. So from the moment we wake in the morning, we are aware of ourselves lying on the floor AND we maintain our stream of awareness through the day till we lie down again in the night. This is the reason we don’t talk, we don’t read, write, listen to music, or daydream during the retreat as these disrupt your attention. Tough practice. Try doing it just for a day! It is exhausting for the beginner.
Why do we need to practice moment-to-moment awareness? I mean, what’s the point? Just to challenge ourselves? No. This is so that we do not let the mind wander on its own accord – focusing only AND fully on the task at hand. What I experienced is a mind that’s become so sharp and clear. So much so that when you sit down in formal meditation practice, you observe so closely your meditation object be it the rising and falling of the breath or the rising and falling of your thoughts . . .
Then it gets very very interesting indeed . . .
What are the insights from insight meditation? I can tell you here but insight is not something explained to you by another person, it needs to be experienced for yourself:
You experience the body as body.
You experience feelings as feelings.
You experience consciousness as consciousness.
You experience mental objects as mental objects.
There are practices for realising each one. But all the practices stem from the same basic skill: all pervasive moment-to-moment attentiveness. What’s the point of realising insights? You see for yourself that the
same qualities are present in all the objects of meditation, whether they of body, feelings, consciousness or mental objects: all phenomena are ever-changeful, they are of no substantial quality and thus they are all, in essence, unsatisfactory. All disturbances in the mind and unhappiness in our lives stem from not comprehending or accepting this. What’s the point of realising this? You clear your mind from obstacles to clear seeing and experience all things in the world directly, experience things just as they are --- changeful, unstable, imperfect -- you accept that this is the normal state of all things. . . . and you become
free. Free from ignorance, delusion, craving and live in a state of graceful equipoise. Simply put, in a state of sustainable peace. There is a deep quiet joy in this state which again, has to be experienced to be understood! This practice of vipassana gives us a taste of freedom and whets an appetite for our utter liberation in nibbana.
Practise. Be aware. Realise. Be happy.
For more information:
on the meditation method, click here:
Insight Meditationon Ven. Pannyavaro and his internet resources click:
Buddhanetyou can also read more about going for retreats on his site.
