I had a change of plans today. Originally I intended to go plein air painting but the weather didn’t cooperate, so I stayed home and started a new library painting. I’m painting Molly Pruitt Library, which is located next to Roosevelt High School on the north east side of town. When I first saw the library I wondered what I was going to do with it since there’s no foliage or anything architecturally pleasing about it. Luckily, the day I was there the sky was full of beautiful clouds, so I decided to add more sky than I normally would to the painting. Today I put down the base coat of paint but already I think it looks pretty good.
I’ve got my mind on meditation right now. I leave in two weeks for a 30-Day mediation course. I like to call the type of buddhist meditation I practice ‘Goenka Vipassana’. There are different styles of Vipassana, which focuses on the sensations of the body, but the more I hear and learn about Vipassana the more I think Goenka’s teachings may be slightly different.
S.N. Goenka’s story is what appealed to me the first time I sat a 10-Day course. He was suffering from migraine headaches and spent years traveling the world looking for a treatment or a cure. After exhausting all leads he went home to Burma and resigned himself to a life of migraines and morphine. A close friend suggested he travel to India and try working with Sayagyi U Ba Khin, a renowned Vipassana teacher. Being Hindu Goenka vehemently rejected to idea but after continued suffering eventually came around.
He doesn’t say how many courses he sat before he found relief but eventually his migraines subsided. His teaching focuses on sankharas, which are ‘mental dispositions’. In the west we say things like, ‘We store trauma in the body’, which is how I, personally, define sankharas. Everything we go through effects us physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, and sometimes difficult things get stuck - in our bones, in our cells, in our guts. We can carry pain for our entire lives.
In the Pali language, Vipassana means ‘seeing things as they really are’. At a Vipassana course we focus our awareness by letting go of thoughts and concentrating on the breath. We generate equanimity and as the two increase, the sankharas ‘arise and pass away’, giving us ‘freedom from the bondage of self’. Goenka says Vipassana means ‘seeing things as they really are’ and that through our practice we gain ‘experiential knowledge of the self’. If you’d asked me at my first 10-Day I would have said that my back was in terrible pain, as were my legs as I sat there hour after hour not moving. But at the same time I understood that I was, in fact, gaining experiential knowledge of myself, or my Self. My body was the harbinger of all my life experiences and sitting a course, or keeping up with daily practice, is like letting go of all the hurts and pains of the past. I like to think of it as doing therapy without talking. There is a great sense of relief after a good ‘sit’.
I sat my first 10-Day in December, 2010. I didn’t make any definitive plans to sit a long course but I did decide to go home and start a daily practice. I knew this was going to be something I did with my life from there on. I remember Goenka saying in one of the recorded teachings to sit a 10-Day once a year. Although I have never heard him say that again, it stood out to me at the first course I went to and that’s what I did. I went back in December 2011, January 2013, ’14, ’15, ’16, ’18, ’19, as well as December 2019, and January 2022.
The requirements for sitting a long course (20 or more days) is: sit 5 10-Day courses, a Satipatthana Sutta course, serve a 10-Day course, and keep a daily practice of two hours a day for at least two years. The daily practice he suggests is an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. So in 2017 I sat a 20-Day course. In 2018 I sat a 30-Day course, and now, after COVID closed the center for a while, I am sitting my second 30-Day course. Next year I will be eligible to sit a 45-Day course. Although I would like to sit one, I am taking it one step at time. You also need to get an AT, or assistant teacher, to approve your application for long courses, so I will also speak to an AT before I decide.
My first 30-Day course was an amazing experience. I am so grateful I got to do it. I know it’s possible to show up at a course and really struggle, so there are no guarantees it will go smoothly, but I am really looking forward to it and feel at peace when I think about it. Over the years I have seen changes in myself, especially with regards to anxiety. I used to be a very anxious person, and can still get myself worked up about things, but when I do, I sit down to meditate and watch it arise and pass away. I will report back after my course.
Until then,
Metta (loving kindness)