A peacock called out to his mate as soon as I stepped out of my cab. Looking for it was useless because it seemed to be hidden in the foliage around. I was at the Dhamma Nasika centre located on the outskirts of Nashik city, where I had come for the ten day Vipassana course. I had started on the Pushpak express, passing through the dreamy Igatpuri which looked spectacular as always and via a rainy Nashik city – my all time favourite place. It was day zero of the course. A simple building stood in front of me. The board pointed me to the registration counter. The clock said it was 2 p.m. I was just in time for the registration.
The person behind the counter collected my documents and gave me a quick run down of the rules. I had to observe the noble silence for the next 10 days. There would be no dinner, just some evening snacks, the wake up call would be at 4 a.m. There would be no non-veg, no smoking, no drinking, no drugs, no reading, no writing, no devices, no contact with the outside world – all of it was prohibited.
I nodded as he went through the list. Then he enquired about my health and if I had any medical conditions that they should be aware of. And then he finally looked up from the sheet and said – “Indian or Western?”. He meant the kind of toilet I preferred. He said the course was full but he would try to get me a single occupancy accommodation, normally reserved for the “old students”. Over the next ten days we would frequently hear this term used to distinguish those who have undergone this course previously from the rest of us – first timers. The residential blocks were located at a short distance from the registration building.
At about 5 p.m., I found out that there would be no roommates and I would be the single occupant of the room. The rooms were built in the style of viharas – monk residences commonly seen in the Buddhist cave complexes in the Deccan. The bed was a concrete plinth with a thin mattress laid on it and a small headrest to go with it. A broom, a cleaning brush and some toilet cleaner were kept in case I needed to clean my room. The room overlooked a large neem tree and a bougainvillea bush. I laid down and charged my phone until the gong went off. The gong was to be our signal for everything that we did. It was to signal everything from waking up to the change of schedules and of course, the time for lights out.
As soon as the gong went off, we had to assemble at the dining hall after depositing our phones and valuables. At the hall, the person who signed me in reiterated the rules to the group and another video was played with the same rules. We were assigned our seating places. That corner facing the green hill across the centre, was going to be my seat for the next 10 days where I would take all my meals silently. A steel plate, tumbler and a spoon kept on the table were to be my utensils, which I had to wash after every meal.
Later we were ushered to the Dhamma Hall – where we would be spending the next ten days in meditation, learning Vipassanna and the technique in detail. The “Assistant Teacher” – our guide for the course – was already seated on his seat. We were assigned our spots again and we took position on the blue cushions kept on the floor. And that’s when we first heard the voice.
A deep, sonorous voice which spoke to us with the gentleness of a deep flowing river. It belonged to S N Goenka, the principal teacher or Guruji – the person responsible for bringing Vipassana back to India. The recorded message boomed over the speakers as he took us through the five precepts that we were to follow during the course and before we knew it, the course had begun.
Over the next ten days, the same voice would take us through a very carefully designed curriculum which was meant to gradually introduce the learner to this unique technique. The mornings would begin with meditation from 4:30 a.m. until 6:30 a.m., after which we would go for breakfast. At 8:00 a.m. we would start with the first guided group sitting and that set the tone for the rest of the day. In a day we would have three such sittings and the rest would be meditation sessions on our own. During those sessions, the Assistant Teacher would call upon us to enquire about our progress and understanding of the instructions. We were allowed to only talk to him. He was encouraging when he heard about my back and helped me to practice the technique better. In the evenings at, recorded discourses of Guruji would be played.
At the end of every day, five of us would gather in the mini Dhamma hall to watch these discourses in English on a flatscreen TV. The rest of the batch would view it in Hindi on a projector. These discourses acted as the debrief of the day, of the technique that we had learnt, of the challenges that we had faced. Through his long experience, Guruji would guess the difficulties which we might have encountered and how we could deal with them subsequently. There would be anecdotes from the life and times of the Buddha and from his own experiences which helped all of us to appreciate the nuances of the course better so that we truly understood “The Art of Living”. All the discourses were punctuated with his classic sense of humour (mostly self-deprecating) but at the same time were also thought provoking. He would end the discourse (and most of the sessions) by chanting Bhavatu sabba–maṅgalaṁ which meant may all beings be happy.
The course progressed at a consistent pace. While my back revolted in the first few days, some iodex (beyond its expiry date of May ’23) in my bag helped to calm down the flare ups. On the 4th day, we were introduced to Vipassana technique and with that came adhistana – the firm resolve to sit cross legged with eyes closed for an entire hour. I just couldn’t control the pain that day. It was unbearable, it was excruciating, like someone had set my lower back on fire.
But by the end of the 5th day, after changing my posture a few times, I finally found a way to live with the pain and I started to do the 1 hour long sittings without moving much. The only difference was by then I had fully accepted the pain without judgement. That was the core teaching of the course. Accept everything as is, with perfect equanimity, without aversion or craving – accept that everything is annica (read: anichya) – impermanent.
And that it would pass, and so it would – the pain stayed but my feeling of agony towards it (and pity for myself) faded with every passing day. It was around the same time when we were alloted shunyaghars or individual meditation cells, which also were fashioned on the meditation chambers seen commonly in various Buddhist monasteries. A small 6 x 2 feet rectangular room, with a door and a window high up in the wall and a blue cushion – it was the perfect chamber to practice the technique with my new found determination.
As we travelled deeper into the course, and as a result deeper into our minds, I began encountering the deep rooted thoughts and emotions. Vipassana when literally translated is to see things as they are, not as we wished them to be or as they were in the past. This is achieved by observing one’s breath followed by observing one’s sensations on one’s body and adopting a feeling of equanimity (samata) towards them all. This observation further leads to insight and help us to deal with the deep rooted aspects of our mind, buried over many years.
So, emotions of guilt, regret, shame, and suffering came to the fore, boiling over like milk on the stove at times, other times erupting violently like a dormant volcano which had suddenly become active and was pouring large amounts of lava onto the surface. At such times the aversion to these repressed thoughts was so much that I found it hard to continue to meditate. I would simply walk out of the Dhamma Hall, and away into the fields – surrounded by peacocks and bulbuls, which did not help to calm me down.
I had to control my mind from wandering away but also be equanimous to the boiling over of emotions, without pushing them away. A habit which was hard to break. It was the conditioning of many decades which had to be undone. It was difficult. Good memories were not far away either. In a relaxed state, a montage of fond memories would start to play, lulling me into a gentle addiction which in turn would lead to strong craving for the moments that have flown past. The craving would intensify and then soon turn to agony as soon as one remembered that the past was lost and that there was absolutely no way to retrieve it. And again I found it difficult to meditate and felt like running away from my cushion.
The mind does not like to be controlled. So when you exert control over it, this is how it reacts. By playing tricks of memories and dreams. Good and bad memories, dreams of hope and disappointment. Imagined and real scenarios. The outpour was real. But we had been warned. Guruji’s voice would remind us before every session, to treat everything as impermanent, and that it will pass. And so it would. This was to be a “deep surgical operation of our mind” anyway, so one had to be prepared for some discomfort. Every session of meditation was transformative and even through the pain – I was able to appreciate the true nature of the technique.
Throughout all the sessions, a nice routine had developed. After every meal I would take a walk, like many others. We would keep our eyes downcast and spend the time alone by ourselves. It was beautiful. The silence was welcome. I had craved it for an entire lifetime and I finally found it here. The thoughts – fresh and old were all active and had come to the fore. But I was in perhaps in a better state to deal with them. I had started to become more accepting of the choices which I had made in the last few years. Maybe I would be more compassionate and more forgiving too.
On the 9th day, we were told that the next day would be the day we break our noble silence. I didn’t know how to feel about that. Faces had grown familiar and we had even accepted the quirks of all others around us. The initial oddities such as bodily noises – flatulence, belching, coughing, sighs – had all become part of the course. There was no judgement. But it was the silence which had become an integral part of our lives, it had become second nature to us. What had seemed like a challenge in the beginning seemed necessary and we had begun to understand why it was vital to adopt the vow of noble silence. We would eat a simple lunch everyday before noon. I had particularly come to like the vegetarian fare cooked in the local style (without any garlic or onions) and with fresh ingredients. I also didn’t realise how but I had started to relished the milky tea served twice a day.
On the 10th day, I shaved off my stubble. I put on a kurta (just like many others did). And after a special meditation (metta), we were asked to go and collect our belongings – mostly our wallets and mobile phones. We were instructed to avoid any physical contact with each other. I collected my stuff and tried to get a signal but the network was weak. But in the meanwhile, contact had been established among the group.
All of us were exchanging smiles and introducing each other with folded hands. Common questions and reflections poured with gusto and the group could not stop talking. We were invited to give ‘dana’ or donation, which would fund the next batch. The entire course had been free and ran on donation. But we were cautioned to only donate with the pure volition of helping spread Dhamma to the next set of learners and not for personal gratification. I could not get a strong signal to use UPI but thankfully they had a POS machine.
We didn’t rest that afternoon like we usually did even though we all had had a nice special lunch (with kheer). It was humbling to know about the experiences that we had all shared. In the meanwhile getting in touch with my loved ones was nice. It was good to hear their voices and learn about the many changes that had happened in my absence. I promised to get back and catch up properly to all and then got back to the sessions. In the evenings we were allowed to purchase books. I purchased a few of them and also downloaded the app.
I met a fellow meditator – who had been practicing this technique since 1993. It was amazing to hear about it. But something was gnawing at me. I had applied for this course back in 2012, and my application had been accepted at the Igatpuri centre – Dhamma Giri. But for some reason I had to withdraw my application and it had taken me 12 years to finally make it to the course.
I kept wondering if my life would have turned out to be different in the last 12 years had I gone for the course then?
Would have I made different choices? I shared this with him.
He looked at me and smiled and said – “what does Guruji say about the past?”
“The past is past” he said, answering his own question.
“We only have control over the present and you have controlled it by coming for the course now, that’s all that matters. Just continue to practice it in all earnest”
I thanked him for his wisdom and resolved to practice the technique everyday.
The discourse on the 10th day was very memorable and we came back to the room with a lot of food for thought. We clicked pictures and even made a whatsapp group.
Smaller groups begin to form and discussions moved indoors. In my group everyone shared their experiences with spirituality. As an amateur in these matters, I only heard them and felt inspired. I asked some questions and was pleasantly surprised to see how deeply spiritual most of them were. But the next morning, we still had one final discourse to attend and a group sitting in the morning at 4:30 a.m., so I bid goodbye and went to bed.
That night, like most nights, sleep was evasive. I was also a bit sad to know that the routine from the next day would be very different. But I chose to accept it and tried to sleep. Before I knew it, the gong went off. I got out of bed, brushed my teeth, went to the washroom and walked down to the mini Dhamma Hall for the final discourse.
A renewed sense of energy had set in. A sense of purpose, and a sense of direction had descended upon me. A fellow course mate dropped us off at the bus stop and before I could book an Uber, a local bus came hurtling through. I got in with another friend from Manmad and found a corner to stand with my trolley as the bus breezed through the quiet lanes of Nashik city towards the station. I was on the path to dhamma.
Bhavatu sabba-maṅgalaṁ | May all beings be happy
Some pointers for those who may want to apply for the course (I will write a detailed how to guide later).
- Applications are accepted online and one must apply well in advance. It is important to sort our your leaves and other affairs for the 12 days that you are gone, so that your mind can focus on the course fully.
- Everything about the course: www.dhamma.org
- Advance Prep:
- I had started to gradually decrease my portion size of my evening meals, I had cut out evening snacks entirely and I was down to eating only one roti/bhakri with some subji every evening.
- I should have worked out and strengthened my back and core – this was a miss from my end
- I did not read or study anything about Vipassana and went with an open mind, a blank slate
- I did not speak to too many people about the course, especially those who had done it before. I just spoke to one friend who gave me confidence about my ability to finish the course and one another friend who shared his checklist of things to carry with me.