A GIRL AND HER BABY

A GIRL AND HER BABY

MY EXPERIENCE OF WITHDRAWAL. LIVE 10 DAYS IN NOBLE SILENCE, MEDITATING 11 HOURS A DAY.

Dhamma Neru Center in Barcelona (15.01.2020-26.02.2020)

It's been two days since I returned home from the Vipassana meditation retreat, and what an extraordinary and challenging experience it has been. Life wasted no time in putting me through significant tests, making it feel like I've been away for much longer than just two days. I faced personal and family dramas, encountered people attacking me, and experienced fluctuations in energies – all to put into practice what my mind learned during those ten days.

The retreat taught me to embrace impermanence, focus on bodily sensations rather than emotions, and avoid reacting to situations. Surprisingly, I am proud of myself for handling these tests with inner calmness. Something has fundamentally shifted within me – I feel more centered, clear-minded, and filled with love and compassion. My chest feels lighter and more open, and some negative mental patterns have dissipated. Now, I continue my practice for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening.

An incredibly deep connection with my baby also emerged during the retreat. Arya seemed to be the one leading us there, as if she desired the experience. Throughout the sessions, we communicated on a profound level, healing each other and addressing complex mind patterns. Additionally, Arya loved the food there, and my belly significantly grew during those ten days.

SO, WHAT EXACTLY IS VIPASSANA MEDITATION?

Vipassana means "seeing things as they really are." It's one of India's oldest meditation techniques, rediscovered by Gotama the Buddha over 2,500 years ago. The practice involves self-purification through self-observation, where one observes bodily sensations without reacting to them. It may sound simple, but it's a transformative process. By not reacting to pain or other sensations, they eventually dissolve, teaching us the impermanence of all sensations.

This technique is open to people of all backgrounds, cultures, and religions. It's not tied to any specific religious beliefs or sects. Instead, it offers a direct experiential journey.

The practice is based on three main precepts:

- Sila: which means ethical behavior. It is the moral basis on which the practice will be based. New students must comply with 5 essential rules:

• Refrain from killing any living being

• Refrain from stealing

• Refrain from all sexual activity

• Refrain from lying

• Refrain from all kinds of intoxicants (smoking, drinking alcohol, taking medication ...)

- Samādhi: it is the concentration or domination of the mind. If we are able to master our mind through the practice of meditation, we reach a state where the mind is calmer, a spiritual state of consciousness.

- Paññā: wisdom or complete vision that purifies the mind. Final goal that allows us the liberation of suffering.

We were altogether 40 women and 40 men, men and women were residing separately, the only time we would mix (still women on one side and men on the other) was in the meditation hall. Here I would like to mention that the centers' Vipassana function on a completely donation-based principle. The course, the food, the accommodation was all for free, all the people who work there are volunteers and this organization exists in many countries all around the world. The food, the centre, the facilities were all amazing. Nothing to remove. Nothing to add, the energy was very warm and clean, especially in the meditation hall.

Schedule:

4AM Morning Wakeup Bells

4.30 - 6.30 AM Meditation in hall/cell

6.30 - 8 AM Breakfast

8.00- 11AM Group Meditation in Hall

11.00-12.00AM Lunch

12.00- 1.00 PM Private interview with the Teacher (Optional)

1.00 - 5.00PM Group Meditation in Hall

5.00 - 6.00PM Tea break

6.00-7.00PM Group Meditation in Hall

7.00-8.00PM Mr Goenka s speech

8.00-9.00PM Last Meditation in the Hall

9.00-10.00PM Rooms and lights out.

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Total 11h Pure Meditation per day

Day 1- Day 3: Learn the technic, focus; get used to the pain and to the self-discipline.

We started the noble silence on Day 0 in the evening and at times it was maybe a little bit strange to live in the same hall

with 40 women that you don’t know and you can’t talk to, you can’t look in the eyes. It is very important to keep the silence because in this way you don’t contaminate your mind with the thoughts of the other people. You are continuously in meditation.

The first day of meditation we started by using the meditation breathing technic (Anapana) which was an observation of your breath, normal breath as it is…in and out. We had to focus only on the small area between the upper lip and the nose. I was trying to focus on the breathing and my mind was jumping constantly from one thought to another, in such a rush manner. I didn’t even finish my thought and I was on another one. Then another voice was saying to me, stop thinking but then I would have even more thoughts coming. So it was an exercise that is very important, and it was to constantly bring your mind in the here and now, accept the reality as it is. Things were getting also physically rough, trying not to move, suffering the position, then move a bit then trying not to fall asleep especially on the morning meditation at 4.30AM when I would use many technics including slapping myself to keep awake. The first days was also getting used to this much disciplined routine from the army, the waking up at 4AM, the lunch at 11AM and the dinner at 5PM. The falling asleep at 9PM was not an issue because I was tired. At night I would also take one or two drops of TCH Marijuana oil to relax and sleep better, and it did work great. So the first 3 days were to learn the technic, focus, get used to the pain and to the self-discipline.

On day 1 I asked for a little bench that is a special bench for practising meditation. You put your legs underneath the bench and you seat on it, this was a great discovery for me and saved me from having big cramps during the rest of the days (see photo of the bench that I would recommend to anyone to get if you want to seat for long hours of meditation).

Day 4-Day 8: Big downhill going into the darkness, observing the darkness.

Day 4 started with some almost tornado winds, I think I never seen wind like this in Spain, something similar to the worst weathers I experienced when I was living in Scotland or in the Netherlands. Then started raining and all day darkness and cold, this lasted till day 8th, so in complete resonance and in parallel to the dark sensations I had inside me. We were all in the dark inside ourselves; all the people in the room, the atmosphere and the energy were so heavy. We were all getting rid of heavy mental patterns; you could cut the air with a knife. People were getting destabilised, some wanted to leave, and others were in emotional states. Very often you could hear people breathing out heavily things out and getting rid of deep Sancaras. We were going from the gross to the more subtle, deeper and deeper. For me it felt like the whole group we need to pull together, that we cannot individually go out of the darkness, we had to each one of us pull out of it so the group can go the next subtle level. Starting day 4 the technic was now to start scan your body from top to bottom, and from bottom to top, and feel all the sensations in your body. The sensation can be anything, from scratching to tingling to prickling…anything. First you would feel the gross sensations on the body, the pain mainly. However the more you would scan your body and the more you would meditate, the more you would feel subtle sensations and the gross pain would disappear. Our minds are very gross machines when they are not trained and they are mainly focused on the gross sensations but if we start observing, then we would train our mind to focus on the subtle. In this way by observing, we heal many psychotic diseases that are reflected in the body as symptoms. A part from scanning the body we can also penetrate it with our minds and then start to observe the sensations inside till eventually the body becomes only vibrations and the gross and material completely dissolves. I didn’t yet experience this state, however I experienced I state of slight levitation, like my body was super light and floating in the air.

On the 8th day, I was working with many of my ancestors asking forgiveness, tears mere running down, feelings of sadness, regrets, guilt, self-judgment appeared. I also had to deal with some fears, like the fear to be abandoned which I didn’t even know I had so strongly present in me, the fear of being a mother, the fear of giving birth. All this came out of me and more, just by observing, pure observation, nothing else. Observing the sensations, observing the voices in your head, not judge them and even love them. We were in such darkness there, and the weather was helping us get even deeper. I was wondering at some point if this weather was not only on top of the Vipassana centre (laugh).

Day 8- Day 10: Here comes the sun little darling, here comes the sun. Please don’t take my sunshine away.

On the 8th day in the morning there was a little improvement of the weather. We could now start to come out in the breaks in the garden and walk a bit. My body was quite sore from the sitting, especially when I had to wake up in the morning at 4am. We would wake up by a Gong that was in the garden, and quite honestly, I couldn’t stand anymore the sound of it. I really started to want this to be over now and to go home. Then I started to experience some light coming, together with the sun outside: “Here comes the sun little darling, here comes the sun”. The atmosphere in the hall started to be lighter and not so dense. You started to see smile on people s faces here and there. Nice feeling of love and acceptance loaded my body, my heart felt open to love and to forgive. I realised on a deeper level that we need to love ourselves first to be able to give and share companionate love with others. Love is a mirror in the other person, so if you don’t love yourself how can you mirror love into someone. I got to feel deeper God inside me and realised that in a relationship, you need to be 3: The other person, you and God. If the 3rd one is missing, there is no possibility of love, only attachment is possible. Many internal understandings that would do a click in my head and heart.

Overall, for me I would suggest that every person should do this at least once in their life to balance themselves, clean the sanscaras deeply curved in our subconscious minds. My head is now cleaner, there are fewer impurities, less judgments and more love. Very Balanced.

As Mr Goenka (the founder of the Vipassana centers) would say: “Work hard, work persistently, work patiently and you are bound to be successful, bound to be succesful”.