I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those Buddhist monks.

I recently got back from a ten day Vipassana silent meditation course at the Northwest Vipassana Center. It was quite the experience. I'm not entirely sure why I went in the first place; it seemed like something different, a challenge, and Sara has been twice and had good things to say about the meditation and the experience, so I decided to give it a shot. The Center is out in the countryside, staffed entirely by volunteers, and is free to take. If you make it all ten days they'll let you make a monetary donation. After getting back and talking to others who have sat for ten days, I've realized how much this experience varies from person-to-person, so instead of going into deep details, I'm keeping this post brief, focusing on my own experience.

If you had asked me if I had ever meditated before day one of the course, I would have said, "Oh, a little bit, this and that." After day one, with eleven hours of meditating behind me, my answer changed to, "No, never." The days are broken up into chunks of one and two-hour meditation sessions, or "sits". After a few days you are encouraged to remain motionless during the one hour session, but you are allowed to get up and go for a walk during the two-hour sessions. Sitting on the floor for an hour without moving is a lot harder than it sounds.

Day one: pain. How on earth can you sit on the floor like this? So many folks were just sitting there like statues, but us rookies were constantly shifting, grabbing more pillows, and being generally miserable. For eleven hours. The instructions had us starting out slowly with Anapana meditation, just watching the breath; no mantras, no forced breaths, no nothing. Just watching the breath. There was no instruction on how to sit comfortably, and we couldn't talk to each other, so I just tried to copy what I saw around me, which was people building pillow nests for themselves, some in the half-lotus position, some on meditation benches.

Day two: pain. I think I could concentrate on my breath if it wasn't for all this pain in my ankles, knees, and hips. More pillows must be the answer, but everyone else had that thought too and there are no more to be borrowed.

Day three: [see day one and two]. During the very last meditation of the day I realized that if I concentrated hard enough on my breathing, the pain faded to the background.

Day four: major progress. My realization from yesterday allowed me to sit for the first time without major discomfort. With a meditation bench, I first sat a one-hour sit without moving, then after a ten minute break, a two-hour sit without moving. After that I moved to the half-lotus position and sat for an hour without moving. Now that we had 33 hours of Anapana practice behind ourselves, observing our breath, it was time to start observing the rest of the body, time to start Vipassana.

Day five: the wheel turns. At the first sit of the day, the phrase, "Goose Laxative" pops into my head, and all the progress that I've made in the past 44 hours of concentrating are shattered and broken. At the time I have no clue what Goose Laxative is, but I am unable to focus until evening when I finally manage to get my composure back. I didn't figure out until I got back to the interwebs that Goose Laxative is written on a bottle in a scene of Futurama, a fantastic show that, other than this one day, gets credit for helping me stay sane during this ten days.

Day six: the boredom started to set in. With the majority of the technique having been introduced by this point, the repetition of doing it so much was wearing me down. Most people, for whatever reason, leave on either day two or day six, and I had the day six blues. During an evening meditation, one of the ones where you are supposed to sit absolutely still, I was analyzing the sensations on my body, trying to cultivate equanimity. A cool breeze on my face; it will eventually go away. A sharp pain in my knees; it will eventually go away. A small furry animal burrowing up my right pant leg; oh gods get it out! I manage to get up without making any noise, and shake a small mouse out of my pants, which scurries over to a woman's pillow pile. I gesture to the assistant teachers who tell the course manager to go after the thing. I sit back down, tuck my pants into my socks, and manage to sit for the rest of the hour, listening to the sound of the manager tiptoeing around, trying to get the mouse. It never did wind up bothering anyone else, and when I brought it up at the end of the course, none of the other students had noticed the commotion. My blues of the day are broken, and I get right back to work.

Days seven through nine: routine. I've adjusted to the routine by now and go about my daily meditations without any problems.

Day ten: discussions. They end the noble silence on day ten to ease people back into real life, which is a great idea. You have so much that you've been processing internally, that heading back into business as usual would be overwhelming without this little cushion.


Other than that, eating twice a day was no problem, and the food was delicious vegetarian food prepared by the volunteers at the center. In my free time I listened to a mental recording of Blood Sugar Sex Magik, walked around the walking paths looking at bugs, and slept. Since getting back a few weeks ago, I haven't meditated once.

I've been asked by a ton of people if I would recommend going to a ten day course, and I think that the experience is very self-selecting. If it sounds at all interesting, you are probably right for the it. You have nothing to lose, except ten days of your time. Some people wind up having deep revelations about their lives, but it all depends how comfortable you are being in your own head.