So I leave Delhi having said an emotional train station farewell to O (reminiscent of a Bollywood film) - but this is no time for melancholy. In a few short days I will start Vipassana meditation in Uttarkhand. Vipassana is an intensive form of meditation and mind purification, stemming from the Dhamma teachings of Lord Buddha. Although taking it's roots in Buddhism, Vipassana is non-denominational and welcomes meditators from all religions, creeds, castes and backgrounds. On enrolling, participants must agree to follow strict guidelines and codes of practice for the 10-day duration. No intoxicants, no stealing, no killing - these are the easy ones to follow. But alongside these, all participants must observe "noble silence" and abstain from uttering a single word for 10 whole days. 10 WHOLE DAYS. This includes cutting all contact with the outside world. No cellphones, no computers, no internet, no notebooks/pens/paper, no novels, no newspapers, no literature at all. Male and female partcipants are kept strictly segreagated, and even eye contact is prohibited.
And the fun doesn't end there. The daily programme is full to say the least. Every day begins at 4am and the majority of the day - around 10 hours - is spent silently meditating, before lights out at 9.30pm. It's set be an intense, challenging and gruelling 10 days, but I'm feeling ready for Vipassana/prison/Guantanamo India style...
And if I can manage to stay silent for 10 full days, then there is every chance that pigs will fly...
I arrive to the meditation centre in Dehradun by jeep on the afternoon of the first day, along with some of the other participants. There is a broad mix of westerners and Indians, and we share our nerves and feelings on the journey. It is strange to know that I will spend every day with these people, and yet this is the last time we will have any real contact for 10 days.
After surrendering our passports and any books, phones, computers or gadgets that we have, we are assigned rooms - simple and very basic 2-bedded cells. My room-mate is a stern-looking (but lovely) older Ukrainian woman. It's really quiet disconcerting to share a room - a tiny room - with someone and yet not know a single thing about them. We must silently adjust to one anothers habits and rituals, and try our best to be sympathetic to one another, which is no easy task at the best of times, and even more problematic without words. But somehow we manage.
So, with the rooms assigned and all of the paperwork taken care of, the Viassana can start....
The first night, we are eased in gently, with some short meditation and the first of the nightly discouse videos by S.N Goenka, the most recent "guru" teaching Vipassana. An elderly Burmese man, Goenka's nightly 90 minute discourses are definitely interesting, if a bit tedious and repetitive at times. And his voice certainly takes a little getting used to. It's croaky, raspy and most of the time he sounds like a frog thats been hit by a rickshaw. Over the course of the 10 days, I begin to despise Goenka's discourses, but by the end of the Vipassana I finally understand the very essence of the Vipassana itself, and the lengthy stories and chants don't bother me as much.
By the time the lights are switched off at 9.30pm, I feel too nervous to sleep. I have no idea what is in store over the next 10 days. What if this isnt for me? What if they find out that I've got a pen and paper stashed inside my pillowcase? What if I have a nervous breakdown? Should I start chipping away at the wall now, and breakout in dramatic, Shawshank-esque fashion? After all, Vipassana is officially tougher than prison...
All apprehensions aside, I finally sleep, acutely aware that for the coming 10 days, the morning wake-up alarm will ring at 4 am. Surprisingly, I discover over the course of the Vipassana that the early morning wake-ups are the least of my worries. In fact, all of the things that I am nervous about - the noble silence, having to sit cross-legged for 10 hours per day, the lack of contact or communication with anyone - prove to be easier than I imagined. The real challenges in Vipassana lie where you least expect them.
After the 4 am alarm, I am sitting shivering in the meditation hall, silently meditating for 2 hours. It's cold - we are pretty high up - and everyone is sitting with blankets, scarves and thermal socks, in a strange hue of blue. Although this session is a group meditation, no-one acknowledges one another. Even eye-contact is forbidden. I'm surrounded by people, but completely alone!
6.30 am is breakfast - usually tea and some unidentifiable gruel-type mixture. It's hit and miss at best, but necessary given the brusque morning chill in Uttarkhand. If you don't eat now,then that's it till luch at 11am. So best fuel up! After breakfast is my favourite time of day in Vipassana. NAP TIME. OK, so it's not officially nap time, but for 1 hour between 7 and 8 am participants are free. There's no way I'm wasting precious sleeping time doing something as tedious as washing (hygiene in Vipassana is becoming increasingly lax...), so instead I climb back in to bed and enjoy the most perfect hour of sleep. Sleeping at nighttime is becoming increasingly difficult (more on that later!), so my morning nap soon becomes and essential part of my day. My dreams are so vivd, powerful and lucid during this time that when I awake at 8am with the next meditation bell ringing, I feel deeply affected by what I've seen in my dreamstate. When the course finishes, I discover that many other participants experienced similarly powerful dreams , also during their morning nap. Perhaps it means something, perhaps not. Vipassana is such a unique experience for every participant - there is no "right" or "wrong" feeling or experience. Often I found my mind wandering, wondering what everyone else was thinking, or if they could feel the same tingling sensation as me, or if they were in as much physical pain as me from sitting still for so long. But soon I came to realise that this is a fruitless task. I will never understand their experience, and they will nver understand mine. The impermanence of evey feeling, every emotion, every sensation means that I may never even fully understand my own experience, let alone anyone elses.
The second meditation sitting of th day is 3 hours, with a couple of short intervals to break up the time. This sitting is also a group sitting, with the opportunity to practice some individual meditation, should you desire. Each participant is assigned their own single meditation cell in the pagoda, where there is really only enough space to sit and quietly contemplate. Ocassionally I meditated in my individual cell, but with my propensity for laziness, I realised that (unsupervised) meditation like this was becoming detrimental to my practice. Instead of serious meditation, I would find myself dozing off, leaning against the wall. So I decide to stick to the group sessions, as much as it pains me, and as tired as I am.
Lunch time is an 11am affair, which I usually find to be surprisingly tasty - an assortment of vegetables, rice, curd, chapatis and dal. As usual, we eat in in silence, consciously not looking at each other. It's quite refreshing actually, to eat a meal that I am full aware that I am eating. Rather than idly chatting, I am concentrating fully on every bite, every morsel. Obviously I'd prefer a glass of Malbec and a chin-wag with my pals over a plate of cheese-drenched pizza anytime, but for the short time I'm here, I
enjoy the singular, solo act of eating.
After lunch, it's free time again. Once or twice, if I've had a terrible sleep the night before, I'll go for a nap again, but ususally my afternoon free time is reserved for washing and laundry. Hygiene times. Hot water is only available by the bucket, and is in short supply, so it's big competition to be clean. Most of the time, I simply don't bother washing. It's too cold, and having to sit naked on a stone floor with one bucket of tepid water to wash with is pretty unpleasant. So three washes over the course of 12 days suddenly seems reasonable. Besides, we're all looking a bit rough and smelly, so it doesn't matter a bit. But my idle hands are kept pleasantly occupied with laundry, which I become a bit obsessed with. Every day I find something new to carefully handwash, and by the end of the Vipassana I realise that I have washed everything that's in my backapack at least once. Even clothes that I've never worn. But it feels good to have something constructive to do, in the absence of all other stimulus. I even manage to sew up a few holy clothes too.
Afternoon meditation begins at 1 and drags on for a whole 5 hours. I find the afternoon session to be the hardest -the passage of time feels glacially slow and drawn out. Regardless of how best I try to focus, I simply find these 4 hours pretty excrutiating. Not every day - because of course every day, my mediation experience is entirely different. But most of the time, the afternoon session is simply a headache for me.
In fact, i would say that the passage of time is what I found to be the hardest thing about Vipassana. It suddenly becomes abstract and confusing, and entirely not what you think. Minutes seem like hours, hours like days and days like weeks. Sometimes I feel like it's going to send me mad - and yet other times I feel complete equalibrium about it all. But it' doesn't matter - nothing matters - because it's all impermanent. If you learn one thing at all from Vipassana, it's that everything's impermanent. As soon as you understand this - and I mean really understand this - then everything will fall in to place. In the course, in life.
Follwing the afternoon session, we are treated to a bizarre "dinner" of what can only be described as curry flavoured dry rice krispies. Yes, really. At first, I really dread this dinner, which must have the nutrional value of dust, but by the end of the course I've grown quite attached to those like puffed rice fancies. I've started to appreciate the simplest and most basic things, and it's a beautiful feeling. We have a almighty thunderstorm one day, and it's almost a spiritual experience, to stand out in the rain and feel every wet drop on your skin. To hear the song of birds during the morning mediation. To make illicit eye-contact with someone across the dining hall. To afford myself the sheer luxury of time! Taking 10 days out of "reality" in order to purify the mind is a luxury, and I'm so appreciative of every second. Even the seconds that feel like hours, or sometimes days.
After "dinner", we have another short hour long mediation before the nightly discourse, and so the day ends. Mediatate, eat, sleep, repeat... But bedtime is a frustrating affair. I am ususally exhausted (believe it or not, sitting for 10 hours per day doing very little genuinely knackering), but for reasons that I initially don't understand, I simply cannot sleep. As bizarre as it sounds, I begin to experience very powerful vibrating sensations throughout my whole body, as soon as I lie down to sleep every night. The sensation is so strong, so pronounced (i can feel it particularly in my jaw), that I find it difficult to sleep. Lights are usually out by 9pm, but it's at least midnight by the time I finally drift off. At first I am frustrated (acutely aware of the 4 am wake up bell...) and a little concerned that I'm coming down with something, but thankfully during one of the nightly discourses, Goenka explains that such sensations are common, and that you should embrace them and continue meditating throughout the night. I'm not sure I'm ready for 24 hour meditation but I feel relieved to have some clarification and explanation as to what's going on. Although I totally understand and adhere to the noble silence policy (sharing our experiences can breed negativity, and negativity is contagious), it can be difficult to only look inwards for answers. So as lengthy as the nightly discourses are, they are essential.
Before I entered the Vipassana, I had done meditation before with different organisations, who have different styles and methods. Some using mantras, some using the universal mantra "om", some focussing on opening the 3rd eye. But Vipassana uses a completely different method, mainly concentrating on breath and physical sensations in the body, which is fully and clearly explained throughout the course. Even if you are a complete novice to meditation, it doesnt matter. There is nothing complicated or confusing about it at all. In fact, it's so startlingly simple that I wonder why the whole world hasn't caught on to it. I mean, imagine suddenly unlocking your mind, finding answers to many questions and experiencing moments of sheer clarity, simply by observing your breath and looking within? Incredible.
And perhaps the best thing about Vipassana, and the Dhamma society, is that they are funded and run entirely on donations. This isn't some dodgy meditation retreat, where they charge you thousands for the promise of enlightenment. Instead, participants can "pay" for their course (plus food, accommodation etc) in the form of a donation. It is completely at the individuals discretion how much they choose to give. To offer the course in this way is remarkable, and a testament to its ability to work for people. Plus should the Dhamma society choose to charge a set fee for the course, then the whole principle of the Vipassana would become redundant. As soon as someone pays for something, be it a hotel room, a curry or a meditation course, then they develop a certain set of expectations. The very essence of Vipassana is to remove expectation and desire. So in every centre, all over the world, particpaants from all walks of life donate what they can. Being the nosy lady that I am, I linger around while others are making their donations, and see a huge range of money being donated. I see one man give 50 rupees for the full 10 days. That's 50p. It works out at less than 5p per day. And conversely another man gives Rs10,000, which is about 100 pounds. You give what you can, and the amount is never questioned or quibbled.
By the time the course comes to an end, I am ready to leave. I've been having filthy and perverted dreams about palak paneer and dosas, and I am in desperate need of a hot shower. Thankfully, on the final day of the course we are permitted to begin speaking to one another, which is an altogether strange experience. Finally we can talk about our individual experiences. Finally I can see whether my "guess the nationality" game has been accurate or not. Finally I can speak to the people who I've formed unspoken bonds with over the length of the course. Every day, at mealtimes I've sat opposite the same girl, and occassionally we've exchanged a glance or shared a (stifled) giggle when some unidentified food is brought out. We have formed a bond, totally without words, and when we finally speak I feel as though I know a lot about her already.
So as I prepare to leave Dehradun, I'm actually a little nervous to reintroduced to society again. After 10 days of silence and solitude, I'm going back to the teeming metropolis that is Delhi. So that will be a crash back to reality! But during the Vipassana, I had some very profound moments of clarity and found it rather easy to simply make decisions, rather than swither. And one such decision was that it was absolutely imperative that I meet O again. So I will travel to Delhi, spend one night and then hop on a train to Jaipur in Rajasthan, where we will meet. Who knows how long for? But I have such a good feeling about this guy that I'm sure we should at least give it a chance.
So it's farewell to the shanti Vipassana existence, and NAMASTE MADAM to the chaos of Delhi. I'd be lying through my teeth if I said that I've "enjoyed" the Vipassana experience (remember, it's harder than prison!), but I've certainly appreciated it, and it has definitely changed my perspective and attitude to life and to people. Meditation is a wonderful tool, and one that I hope will be given on prescription one day, rather than endless pills and medications.
It has the power to change lives, and I would urge anyone to try it - although it's absolutely NOT something to be taken lightly.
But for anyone curious, dhamma.org has all of the details.
Go on, look inside yourself. All the answers that you're looking for are there...
And the fun doesn't end there. The daily programme is full to say the least. Every day begins at 4am and the majority of the day - around 10 hours - is spent silently meditating, before lights out at 9.30pm. It's set be an intense, challenging and gruelling 10 days, but I'm feeling ready for Vipassana/prison/Guantanamo India style...
And if I can manage to stay silent for 10 full days, then there is every chance that pigs will fly...
I arrive to the meditation centre in Dehradun by jeep on the afternoon of the first day, along with some of the other participants. There is a broad mix of westerners and Indians, and we share our nerves and feelings on the journey. It is strange to know that I will spend every day with these people, and yet this is the last time we will have any real contact for 10 days.
After surrendering our passports and any books, phones, computers or gadgets that we have, we are assigned rooms - simple and very basic 2-bedded cells. My room-mate is a stern-looking (but lovely) older Ukrainian woman. It's really quiet disconcerting to share a room - a tiny room - with someone and yet not know a single thing about them. We must silently adjust to one anothers habits and rituals, and try our best to be sympathetic to one another, which is no easy task at the best of times, and even more problematic without words. But somehow we manage.
So, with the rooms assigned and all of the paperwork taken care of, the Viassana can start....
The first night, we are eased in gently, with some short meditation and the first of the nightly discouse videos by S.N Goenka, the most recent "guru" teaching Vipassana. An elderly Burmese man, Goenka's nightly 90 minute discourses are definitely interesting, if a bit tedious and repetitive at times. And his voice certainly takes a little getting used to. It's croaky, raspy and most of the time he sounds like a frog thats been hit by a rickshaw. Over the course of the 10 days, I begin to despise Goenka's discourses, but by the end of the Vipassana I finally understand the very essence of the Vipassana itself, and the lengthy stories and chants don't bother me as much.
By the time the lights are switched off at 9.30pm, I feel too nervous to sleep. I have no idea what is in store over the next 10 days. What if this isnt for me? What if they find out that I've got a pen and paper stashed inside my pillowcase? What if I have a nervous breakdown? Should I start chipping away at the wall now, and breakout in dramatic, Shawshank-esque fashion? After all, Vipassana is officially tougher than prison...
All apprehensions aside, I finally sleep, acutely aware that for the coming 10 days, the morning wake-up alarm will ring at 4 am. Surprisingly, I discover over the course of the Vipassana that the early morning wake-ups are the least of my worries. In fact, all of the things that I am nervous about - the noble silence, having to sit cross-legged for 10 hours per day, the lack of contact or communication with anyone - prove to be easier than I imagined. The real challenges in Vipassana lie where you least expect them.
After the 4 am alarm, I am sitting shivering in the meditation hall, silently meditating for 2 hours. It's cold - we are pretty high up - and everyone is sitting with blankets, scarves and thermal socks, in a strange hue of blue. Although this session is a group meditation, no-one acknowledges one another. Even eye-contact is forbidden. I'm surrounded by people, but completely alone!
6.30 am is breakfast - usually tea and some unidentifiable gruel-type mixture. It's hit and miss at best, but necessary given the brusque morning chill in Uttarkhand. If you don't eat now,then that's it till luch at 11am. So best fuel up! After breakfast is my favourite time of day in Vipassana. NAP TIME. OK, so it's not officially nap time, but for 1 hour between 7 and 8 am participants are free. There's no way I'm wasting precious sleeping time doing something as tedious as washing (hygiene in Vipassana is becoming increasingly lax...), so instead I climb back in to bed and enjoy the most perfect hour of sleep. Sleeping at nighttime is becoming increasingly difficult (more on that later!), so my morning nap soon becomes and essential part of my day. My dreams are so vivd, powerful and lucid during this time that when I awake at 8am with the next meditation bell ringing, I feel deeply affected by what I've seen in my dreamstate. When the course finishes, I discover that many other participants experienced similarly powerful dreams , also during their morning nap. Perhaps it means something, perhaps not. Vipassana is such a unique experience for every participant - there is no "right" or "wrong" feeling or experience. Often I found my mind wandering, wondering what everyone else was thinking, or if they could feel the same tingling sensation as me, or if they were in as much physical pain as me from sitting still for so long. But soon I came to realise that this is a fruitless task. I will never understand their experience, and they will nver understand mine. The impermanence of evey feeling, every emotion, every sensation means that I may never even fully understand my own experience, let alone anyone elses.
The second meditation sitting of th day is 3 hours, with a couple of short intervals to break up the time. This sitting is also a group sitting, with the opportunity to practice some individual meditation, should you desire. Each participant is assigned their own single meditation cell in the pagoda, where there is really only enough space to sit and quietly contemplate. Ocassionally I meditated in my individual cell, but with my propensity for laziness, I realised that (unsupervised) meditation like this was becoming detrimental to my practice. Instead of serious meditation, I would find myself dozing off, leaning against the wall. So I decide to stick to the group sessions, as much as it pains me, and as tired as I am.
Lunch time is an 11am affair, which I usually find to be surprisingly tasty - an assortment of vegetables, rice, curd, chapatis and dal. As usual, we eat in in silence, consciously not looking at each other. It's quite refreshing actually, to eat a meal that I am full aware that I am eating. Rather than idly chatting, I am concentrating fully on every bite, every morsel. Obviously I'd prefer a glass of Malbec and a chin-wag with my pals over a plate of cheese-drenched pizza anytime, but for the short time I'm here, I
enjoy the singular, solo act of eating.
After lunch, it's free time again. Once or twice, if I've had a terrible sleep the night before, I'll go for a nap again, but ususally my afternoon free time is reserved for washing and laundry. Hygiene times. Hot water is only available by the bucket, and is in short supply, so it's big competition to be clean. Most of the time, I simply don't bother washing. It's too cold, and having to sit naked on a stone floor with one bucket of tepid water to wash with is pretty unpleasant. So three washes over the course of 12 days suddenly seems reasonable. Besides, we're all looking a bit rough and smelly, so it doesn't matter a bit. But my idle hands are kept pleasantly occupied with laundry, which I become a bit obsessed with. Every day I find something new to carefully handwash, and by the end of the Vipassana I realise that I have washed everything that's in my backapack at least once. Even clothes that I've never worn. But it feels good to have something constructive to do, in the absence of all other stimulus. I even manage to sew up a few holy clothes too.
Afternoon meditation begins at 1 and drags on for a whole 5 hours. I find the afternoon session to be the hardest -the passage of time feels glacially slow and drawn out. Regardless of how best I try to focus, I simply find these 4 hours pretty excrutiating. Not every day - because of course every day, my mediation experience is entirely different. But most of the time, the afternoon session is simply a headache for me.
In fact, i would say that the passage of time is what I found to be the hardest thing about Vipassana. It suddenly becomes abstract and confusing, and entirely not what you think. Minutes seem like hours, hours like days and days like weeks. Sometimes I feel like it's going to send me mad - and yet other times I feel complete equalibrium about it all. But it' doesn't matter - nothing matters - because it's all impermanent. If you learn one thing at all from Vipassana, it's that everything's impermanent. As soon as you understand this - and I mean really understand this - then everything will fall in to place. In the course, in life.
Follwing the afternoon session, we are treated to a bizarre "dinner" of what can only be described as curry flavoured dry rice krispies. Yes, really. At first, I really dread this dinner, which must have the nutrional value of dust, but by the end of the course I've grown quite attached to those like puffed rice fancies. I've started to appreciate the simplest and most basic things, and it's a beautiful feeling. We have a almighty thunderstorm one day, and it's almost a spiritual experience, to stand out in the rain and feel every wet drop on your skin. To hear the song of birds during the morning mediation. To make illicit eye-contact with someone across the dining hall. To afford myself the sheer luxury of time! Taking 10 days out of "reality" in order to purify the mind is a luxury, and I'm so appreciative of every second. Even the seconds that feel like hours, or sometimes days.
After "dinner", we have another short hour long mediation before the nightly discourse, and so the day ends. Mediatate, eat, sleep, repeat... But bedtime is a frustrating affair. I am ususally exhausted (believe it or not, sitting for 10 hours per day doing very little genuinely knackering), but for reasons that I initially don't understand, I simply cannot sleep. As bizarre as it sounds, I begin to experience very powerful vibrating sensations throughout my whole body, as soon as I lie down to sleep every night. The sensation is so strong, so pronounced (i can feel it particularly in my jaw), that I find it difficult to sleep. Lights are usually out by 9pm, but it's at least midnight by the time I finally drift off. At first I am frustrated (acutely aware of the 4 am wake up bell...) and a little concerned that I'm coming down with something, but thankfully during one of the nightly discourses, Goenka explains that such sensations are common, and that you should embrace them and continue meditating throughout the night. I'm not sure I'm ready for 24 hour meditation but I feel relieved to have some clarification and explanation as to what's going on. Although I totally understand and adhere to the noble silence policy (sharing our experiences can breed negativity, and negativity is contagious), it can be difficult to only look inwards for answers. So as lengthy as the nightly discourses are, they are essential.
Before I entered the Vipassana, I had done meditation before with different organisations, who have different styles and methods. Some using mantras, some using the universal mantra "om", some focussing on opening the 3rd eye. But Vipassana uses a completely different method, mainly concentrating on breath and physical sensations in the body, which is fully and clearly explained throughout the course. Even if you are a complete novice to meditation, it doesnt matter. There is nothing complicated or confusing about it at all. In fact, it's so startlingly simple that I wonder why the whole world hasn't caught on to it. I mean, imagine suddenly unlocking your mind, finding answers to many questions and experiencing moments of sheer clarity, simply by observing your breath and looking within? Incredible.
And perhaps the best thing about Vipassana, and the Dhamma society, is that they are funded and run entirely on donations. This isn't some dodgy meditation retreat, where they charge you thousands for the promise of enlightenment. Instead, participants can "pay" for their course (plus food, accommodation etc) in the form of a donation. It is completely at the individuals discretion how much they choose to give. To offer the course in this way is remarkable, and a testament to its ability to work for people. Plus should the Dhamma society choose to charge a set fee for the course, then the whole principle of the Vipassana would become redundant. As soon as someone pays for something, be it a hotel room, a curry or a meditation course, then they develop a certain set of expectations. The very essence of Vipassana is to remove expectation and desire. So in every centre, all over the world, particpaants from all walks of life donate what they can. Being the nosy lady that I am, I linger around while others are making their donations, and see a huge range of money being donated. I see one man give 50 rupees for the full 10 days. That's 50p. It works out at less than 5p per day. And conversely another man gives Rs10,000, which is about 100 pounds. You give what you can, and the amount is never questioned or quibbled.
By the time the course comes to an end, I am ready to leave. I've been having filthy and perverted dreams about palak paneer and dosas, and I am in desperate need of a hot shower. Thankfully, on the final day of the course we are permitted to begin speaking to one another, which is an altogether strange experience. Finally we can talk about our individual experiences. Finally I can see whether my "guess the nationality" game has been accurate or not. Finally I can speak to the people who I've formed unspoken bonds with over the length of the course. Every day, at mealtimes I've sat opposite the same girl, and occassionally we've exchanged a glance or shared a (stifled) giggle when some unidentified food is brought out. We have formed a bond, totally without words, and when we finally speak I feel as though I know a lot about her already.
So as I prepare to leave Dehradun, I'm actually a little nervous to reintroduced to society again. After 10 days of silence and solitude, I'm going back to the teeming metropolis that is Delhi. So that will be a crash back to reality! But during the Vipassana, I had some very profound moments of clarity and found it rather easy to simply make decisions, rather than swither. And one such decision was that it was absolutely imperative that I meet O again. So I will travel to Delhi, spend one night and then hop on a train to Jaipur in Rajasthan, where we will meet. Who knows how long for? But I have such a good feeling about this guy that I'm sure we should at least give it a chance.
So it's farewell to the shanti Vipassana existence, and NAMASTE MADAM to the chaos of Delhi. I'd be lying through my teeth if I said that I've "enjoyed" the Vipassana experience (remember, it's harder than prison!), but I've certainly appreciated it, and it has definitely changed my perspective and attitude to life and to people. Meditation is a wonderful tool, and one that I hope will be given on prescription one day, rather than endless pills and medications.
It has the power to change lives, and I would urge anyone to try it - although it's absolutely NOT something to be taken lightly.
But for anyone curious, dhamma.org has all of the details.
Go on, look inside yourself. All the answers that you're looking for are there...
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