When in silence, one realises quickly that people all around us act as mirrors to our innermost being. They are the mirrors of our one sided, one minded observation of the world either as we want it or as we have been misguided and programmed to see it.
Vipasana teaches you to observe the world as it is, not how you’d like it to be. It shows you your own truth. Your mind is projected on those that surround you without the confusion of any words, opinions, should’s or should not’s as you are restricted to yourself, and only you’re mind is working with it’s ‘truth’. There is nothing or no one to distract you from experiencing just how sick your mind really is.
You begin to observe the patterns and experience the imaginary loops you play, over and over. You find yourself living repeatedly between past or future moments you’d like to create, far far away from the present moment. In silence it quickly becomes clear you are living some form of insanity. You find yourself wondering ‘what are the links between these thoughts ?’ Like a monkey you stretch from branch to branch, thought to thought unknowingly unable to ‘exist’ and ‘be’ in this moment, as it is, exactly as it is.
Not as you’d like it to be.
As days progress you begin the vipassana technique and are greeted with your inner most being, the sensations that are behind all that is ‘you’. The ones who know you, your unconscious living breathing truth. It is with this technique you begin to truly feel and experientially understand what is meant by becoming one with the law of nature.
That everything in existence comes and goes, arises and passes away, moment to moment.
There are plenty of books, texts, philosophers that speak of inanimate objects, people, thoughts coming and going but it is with experiential understanding that you learn it deeply. Suddenly thoughts become a funny obscure phenomenon. You realise they have no real importance and it is only by us giving energy and power to them that we experience grief. This grief comes in form of craving, attachment or aversion, and the cosmic irony is…
None of them are even real.
Like a bad movie, we spend most of our lives watching a preroll that we’ve created with no real form or basis in reality because we are directing it. The worst part is we live our lives according to what we consume in our minds, and react to those around us in the same fashion. What’s an even darker truth to unpack is the movie we play in our minds interact with the movies others play in their minds, and thus we spend most of our time communicating with each others illusions of one another never truly getting a chance to get to know one another. Because truth is everything that happens here in the now with no movie or picture to refer to.
Living so, so, far away from the possibility of ever truly experiencing love for one another —
Thus it with this understanding, that one realises that any thought that is able to control your life, feelings, relationships, decisions is a form of total madness. That in those very moments you aren’t living, and probably have spent most of your life not living because Living is here and now. Right now, in this exact moment as you read this e-mail, or this exact word, not thinking about dinner, your ex-boyfriend or that e-mail you have to send after you finish this really long medium article
Observing life as it is, right now.
Not as you would like it to be.
Vipasana teaches you to look within and experience your truth, the only truth there is — by feeling the sensations that occur in your physical being. With every sensation that comes and goes, be them gross, painful, pungent or pleasant, subtle, ticklish in nature for whatever duration, they all rise and fall. And if everything arises and passes away and everything comes and goes then there is little sense in reacting to anything. And so you learn to do nothing. Just observe, equanimous without judgement. You wait, and you observe each vibration and let it just be, exactly as it is, until it drifts magically away.
It is with this understanding that every things importance somehow falls away. Because everything goes, dissipates, carries on. It can not and will not ever be permanent and thus craving any other alternative or occupying our current reality with a picture our minds create is absolutely pointless. For living is fantastic and full of joy when it is realised here and now.
I’ll give you an example. When I arrived I was given beautiful indian food I simply could not eat. Due to a recent medical procedure I had done I have had to maintain a strict diet, and thus immediately here my lifelong fear of judgement was put to the test. For the first two days I consumed what was given and felt too ashamed to approach management with my very specific dietary requirements. I spent those two days suffering, ill, uneasy, unfocused until my body fought back and I found myself vomiting in a not so pretty neglected village toilet, totally jet lagged at 35+c heat. It was in that moment I finally chose chose to be kind to myself and stand tall in front of my fear of judgement.
I approached our incredible calm, serene teacher to ask for changes in my dishes and had anticipated immense judgement from the staff and local women. All these dark, bullying thoughts looped stories of ridicule, jealously and judgement. I thought that these women would think this white outsider here in Bihar, the poorest state of India is ungrateful demanding special treatment and not finishing food off her plate.
With my head tilted downwards and my eyes full of shame, I awaited a response from the teacher after I made my shy request and contrary to my initial assumptions he responded with a gentle smile, love and unbounded kindness.
The illusion I had created was eradicated in that instant.
It was in this first small example that I began to understand my minds programming was unhealthy and held little to no basis in reality. It was also the moment I let go of ‘special’ moments and became grateful for every one I had the pleasure of experiencing.
But even so, my programming still felt the need to cover my plate or hide bits of food in my room in fear of judgement from the other women who would stare at me each day. Indians like to stare here, but I only understood this cultural phenomenon later on. I would get so worried about alerting staff when they’d serve me food I couldn’t eat, sometimes go without eating in fear that by not consuming what I was given would cause irritancy and they’d think me ungrateful.
So I willingly chose to suffer.
Crazy right? Of course all of these beliefs were of my minds complete creation and mirrored no form of reality as it were. But it was my truth and as soon as the 10 days ended all illusions dissipated. Even though we couldn’t communicate in words (no one spoke english) the women all 40+ tried very hard to communicate with the two questions they knew “country? married?” and many of them tried to feed me with more things I couldn’t eat (bless their souls). It was then I understood that these beautiful women thought the staff weren’t feeding me enough and had observed as I lost weight eating only fruits and vegetables for 10 days.
So the reality was they stared at me with love and concern, not judgement or ridicule.
And although this example appears small in nature, it just goes to show that our minds when ill and unaware can cause so much harm to ourselves and of course those close to us. It is so important that we remain aware, observe our mind, our cravings, attachments, aversions and remain equanimous. The only truth that exists is inside ourselves, not outside. We are all as much a part of this as all that surrounds us and there is only love here.
Everything else we make up. Thoughts seperate us, and lock us into a web of fear. But love connects us, and when you realise there is only love here you will feel safe within yourself and find home.
Suffering is a choice, make the right one.
Love.
