S.N. Goenka’s excellent system
Monday, March 17th, 2008Home from the ten-day vipassana course, I recompose my molecules and begin again. For ten days I was intimate with fifty strangers, sleeping from 10 p.m. till 4 a.m. in chilly dorms, standing in line to pee, jostling before dawn with toothbrushes in our mouths, staggering back to the meditation hall as if back into the mouth of hell. Intimate as our circumstances were, each of us was engrossed in our own inner filmscape, what Yeats called the rag and bone shop of the heart. Full of memories and secrets, we sat knee to thigh with each other, absolutely still for thirteen hours a day. Sitting times were punctuated by breaks for breakfast and lunch (no dinner), a little time for walking in a spectacular meadow, a little time for personal hygiene, and by occasional five-minute pee-breaks. We sought equanimity, acknowledged impermanence, and watched our minds do what they do. Wander, obsess, fantasize, remember, hash things over and over. Occasionally we left our inner drama long enough to follow instructions. [read on]
Kendall