SOMETHING Happened At My Retreat Last Week. Now I Seek Advice.

[Philip]

It happened on the fourth day of this quiet Vipassana retreat in a small French-Canadian town called Montebello. For 10 days, we were not supposed to talk, to look at each other, to write, to read or to eat anything else than the usual two meals per day that were served to us.

I was meditating on a small pile of 5 cushions, with my legs crossed, my back up straight, my hand united and my eyes closed. The Vipassana practice seems like a well-structured, straightforward technique of body scan practicing our mindfulness and our equanimity in order to simply observe physical sensations throughout the body and eventually generate less and less aversion toward pain and less craving toward pleasure. Nothing fancy. Just try to feel the actual tactile stimuli, without preference for any part of the body.

The first four days were just getting more and more painful, tiresome and discouraging. I vaguely knew what I was going into, and I was pretty determined, but these pains (in my shoulders, back, thighs, calves and feet) were around 6 or 7 out of 10. 10 being the level of pain someone might experience when their leg gets slowly cut off with a saw. It was especially painful after 45 minutes of sitting without readjusting my posture (except straightening my back or releasing muscular tensions from time to time).

I also had these childhood traumas coming up (which rarely came up before, even during my therapy sessions, but I guess the chair is too comfortable for that ?). At least the reliving of those traumas was shortly followed by a somewhat soothing release, but also by new psychoanalytic insights about how I was acting during my childhood and why.

At the end of those hours, the voice in my head was complaining and victimizing, trying to distract itself, trying to cope with all flavors of impatience, rage, sadness, fear, doubt, craving, pride, competitiveness, jealousy and suffering that you could imagine. Most of my muscles were very tense, to the point of my neck and head starting to shake uncontrollably, while my head was presumably turning lobster-red and was displaying the helplessly enraged face of a 2-year-old having a temper tantrum. At least a painful period was followed by a muscular release along with the emotional one, even though the pain was still as vivid and intense.

After four days, our capacity for focus and concentration was solid enough for us to not only feel the sensations of our breath, but now also the sensations all around the body. So we had a 90 minutes long meditation where we were not supposed to reposition ourselves or leave the room, while we were taught this whole-body Vipassana method for the first time. The "event" if I may, happened at the end of this very session.

The emotional and muscular tension was starting to build up even faster and stronger than it ever did before. It was like a rubber band, stretching and stretching until I gave up and released it, producing an insight that resonated as loud as the rubber's whipping sound. But this one final time, I think the rubber band just broke beyond repair...

The voice was not only complaining, resisting or craving, it started literally screaming like that of someone getting tortured to death. It was shaking so much that I got covered in sweat, despite de cool air and slight breeze around me. Screaming, shaking, screaming, shaking, for dozens of seconds, out of my freaking mind until I could not bear it anymore.

And then, it stopped.

In a fraction of a second, my body went from extremely tense to extremely relaxed. My internal speech went from extremely loud to extremely silent. And I will always remember the two sentences that were internally said after that :

"Oh my god, you're exaggerating.

You're taking yourself way too seriously..."

The voice had a confident and straightforward tone, but also a loving and playful one at the same time. It felt like the voice of an ideal father and certainly, my inner child got the message that day.

I was in a state of shock for about an hour or two. I took a cold shower, then looked at myself in the mirror and thought "Oh, that's what a Regard Ténébreux looks like" which is a French expression basically meaning a dark and hard look. One that has lived through a lot.

And after that, the smiles, giggles, and fits of laughter started. ? And my meditations were never the same after that. Instead of making torture faces, I was going from serious but relaxed, to smiling, to wide-grinning, all the way to uncontrollable laughter. One of my biggest challenges during the following days was to laugh silently and make sure I don't disturb anyone around.

Just to be clear, the pain was still there, 6 or 7 out of 10. It was even more defined and my focus was steadier. But instead of resisting, I was laughing. And I don't feel like I've decided to start doing that. I feel like I've decided to meditate seriously for 4 days, and then this peaceful, playful and detached attitude came naturally, by itself.

I also started to experience unprecedented authenticity in my compassion towards people who suffer. For example, I stopped being annoyed by my roommate, wishing he would give up the retreat and secretly feeding off his misery. Instead, I naturally started seeing his pain and wishing that he would understand how to be in a better place. (I'm honestly on the verge of tears just writing that down right now hehe)

Within two hours, my compassion, playfulness, motivation, hope, confidence, calmness and equanimity were pretty much increased by a factor of 100 or 1000. It was definitely more than 10 times, but maybe not a million either. That gives you an idea of the significance of the changes.

People started being very intimidated by my calm, assertive and focused presence. But I don't think it was conscious, most of the time. I just saw it in their nervous tics and involuntary movements, of which I had almost none anymore.

During the first three days, I was looking a lot at one of the two assistants of the Vipassana teacher. He was a bit older than me and seemed very noble, hardworking, but also relaxed, happy and present. I felt inspired by him. But during the following days, he was the one staring at me. I caught him several times and he got seemingly destabilized while looking elsewhere.

At the end of the 10 days, we were allowed to speak again. In the washrooms, I waited for this assistant to pass in front of me so that I could tell him that they were out of brown paper. He didn't seem to care about that for even a second, but he just looked at me and asked: "You're pretty much in Nirvana all the time, aren't you?"

I answered: "I'm not ready to put words on it yet, but pretty much, I guess. Do you want me to tell you the story? It happened on the fourth day". And so we went on, talking about our experiences. As of today, I feel like he was the only one to really understand my state. He gave me the advice of first maintaining my equanimity (which is my lack of reaction to pleasant or unpleasant sensation or feelings), and secondly, my tactile awareness. I'm still rolling and maintaining both, even after speaking to my parents, walking 2 hours and being stuck in Montebello for 10 hours with my heavy bags, going back to work, having my first panic attack in front of my boss, having every stranger intimidated by my presence, spending a wonderful evening with this girl I like, etc.

Since then, I have been laughing, again and again, at was used to be my misery, but which has now become the funniest, inexhaustible joke.

Now I seek clarifications about what happened and also advice for the future of my journey. I hope you liked the story, but it's your turn now! ?

[Nahm]

@Philip Great share. Sounds like you’re making a life worth waking up to, and waking up to it. Really beautiful. That part about your friend got me choked up too. Compassion arising.  The joke is very funny. 

“This place is a dream only a sleeper considers it real
then death comes like dawn and you wake up laughing
at what you thought was your grief.

A man goes to sleep in the town where he has always lived and he dreams he's living in another town
in the dream he doesn't remember the town he's sleeping in his bed in
he believes the reality of the dream town
the world is that kind of sleep.

Humankind is being led along an evolving course, through this migration of intelligences
and though we seem to be sleeping
there is an inner wakefulness, that directs the dream
and that will eventually startle us back to the truth of who we are.”

Rumi

 

[Philip]

31 minutes ago, Outer said:

Keep working on quieting the internal speech.

I wasn't focusing on that, really. I do feel the need to meditate a lot these days and there isn't much room for mental chatter while I'm observing my sensations, so I guess I'm honoring your advice indirectly. But thanks.

19 minutes ago, Nahm said:

you wake up laughing
at what you thought was your grief

Precisely.

[cetus]

 

27 minutes ago, Nahm said:

there is an inner wakefulness, that directs the dream
and that will eventually startle us back to the truth of who we are.”

@NahmNice!  Contemplation time.

[Space]

@Philip Thanks for sharing! I'll be attending my 1st 10-day next week actually. Any words of advice?

[Isaac Ben]

@Philip Wow that was really inspiring. Thanks for sharing.

[Charlotte]

That was deep and beautiful and actually filled me with tears. Thanks for sharing ?

[Philip]

@Space

44 minutes ago, Space said:

@Philip Thanks for sharing! I'll be attending my 1st 10-day next week actually. Any words of advice?

I had to bring 3 things with me in order to succeed at my retreat, and they're pretty much written into the name of the technique: Strong Determination Sitting. The First thing you need is strong determination. Mine comes from genuine curiosity about the nature of sensations. I just don't know what is true, I'm confused and I really wanted to know. I want to help people around me, but even with the best intentions and the best mind, I could still be misled into thinking that I'm helping people when in fact I'm not. The truth or falseness of something is the most fundamental and important characteristics it has. Anything you value can instantly become valueless if it is ever revealed to be false. Any problem can also become valueless if it is revealed to be false. Wonder and find out what is true right now in your direct experience. Actually look.

Also, you need two other things that are included in sitting: your left buttcheek and your right buttcheek.

Good luck!

[Philip]

It was my first retreat. Before that, my only meditation experience was about 200 hours of mindfulness meditation, done in the last 5 years. I had never really experienced advanced meditative states before.

But since last week, it seems that I'm finally able to bring most of the awareness of my body from the Gross realm to the Subtle realm.

The Gross state of consciousness feels like having low-resolution, substantial spots of sensations like big potatoes all over the body, which are separated by blind spots and foggy feelings.

The Subtle state feels more like a high-definition constellation of pleasant and soft tingling. It makes my arm feel like a galaxy's arm instead of a potato bag. 

The weirdest thing is that when I reached that state and stayed there for a few days, I started figuring out where my pineal gland was. I didn't remember if it was in the front, back or middle of the brain, but I didn't have to remember. It seemed to be the only part of my whole body that was still resisting becoming subtle. A jellybean right behind my third eye persisted since then and stayed very gross, very hard, very substantial.

As I'm thinking and studying, I think that I've had my first direct glimpse (Kensho) of the existential nature of suffering on day 4. And then, around day 6, my body has reached the Subtle reality almost entirely, except for my pineal gland.

Clarification and advice would be very helpful. 

[Matt8800]

20 hours ago, Philip said:

It happened on the fourth day of this quiet Vipassana retreat in a small French-Canadian town called Montebello. For 10 days, we were not supposed to talk, to look at each other, to write, to read or to eat anything else than the usual two meals per day that were served to us.

I was meditating on a small pile of 5 cushions, with my legs crossed, my back up straight, my hand united and my eyes closed. The Vipassana practice seems like a well-structured, straightforward technique of body scan practicing our mindfulness and our equanimity in order to simply observe physical sensations throughout the body and eventually generate less and less aversion toward pain and less craving toward pleasure. Nothing fancy. Just try to feel the actual tactile stimuli, without preference for any part of the body.

The first four days were just getting more and more painful, tiresome and discouraging. I vaguely knew what I was going into, and I was pretty determined, but these pains (in my shoulders, back, thighs, calves and feet) were around 6 or 7 out of 10. 10 being the level of pain someone might experience when their leg gets slowly cut off with a saw. It was especially painful after 45 minutes of sitting without readjusting my posture (except straightening my back or releasing muscular tensions from time to time).

I also had these childhood traumas coming up (which rarely came up before, even during my therapy sessions, but I guess the chair is too comfortable for that ?). At least the reliving of those traumas was shortly followed by a somewhat soothing release, but also by new psychoanalytic insights about how I was acting during my childhood and why.

At the end of those hours, the voice in my head was complaining and victimizing, trying to distract itself, trying to cope with all flavors of impatience, rage, sadness, fear, doubt, craving, pride, competitiveness, jealousy and suffering that you could imagine. Most of my muscles were very tense, to the point of my neck and head starting to shake uncontrollably, while my head was presumably turning lobster-red and was displaying the helplessly enraged face of a 2-year-old having a temper tantrum. At least a painful period was followed by a muscular release along with the emotional one, even though the pain was still as vivid and intense.

After four days, our capacity for focus and concentration was solid enough for us to not only feel the sensations of our breath, but now also the sensations all around the body. So we had a 90 minutes long meditation where we were not supposed to reposition ourselves or leave the room, while we were taught this whole-body Vipassana method for the first time. The "event" if I may, happened at the end of this very session.

The emotional and muscular tension was starting to build up even faster and stronger than it ever did before. It was like a rubber band, stretching and stretching until I gave up and released it, producing an insight that resonated as loud as the rubber's whipping sound. But this one final time, I think the rubber band just broke beyond repair...

The voice was not only complaining, resisting or craving, it started literally screaming like that of someone getting tortured to death. It was shaking so much that I got covered in sweat, despite de cool air and slight breeze around me. Screaming, shaking, screaming, shaking, for dozens of seconds, out of my freaking mind until I could not bear it anymore.

And then, it stopped.

In a fraction of a second, my body went from extremely tense to extremely relaxed. My internal speech went from extremely loud to extremely silent. And I will always remember the two sentences that were internally said after that :

"Oh my god, you're exaggerating.

You're taking yourself way too seriously..."

The voice had a confident and straightforward tone, but also a loving and playful one at the same time. It felt like the voice of an ideal father and certainly, my inner child got the message that day.

I was in a state of shock for about an hour or two. I took a cold shower, then looked at myself in the mirror and thought "Oh, that's what a Regard Ténébreux looks like" which is a French expression basically meaning a dark and hard look. One that has lived through a lot.

And after that, the smiles, giggles, and fits of laughter started. ? And my meditations were never the same after that. Instead of making torture faces, I was going from serious but relaxed, to smiling, to wide-grinning, all the way to uncontrollable laughter. One of my biggest challenges during the following days was to laugh silently and make sure I don't disturb anyone around.

Just to be clear, the pain was still there, 6 or 7 out of 10. It was even more defined and my focus was steadier. But instead of resisting, I was laughing. And I don't feel like I've decided to start doing that. I feel like I've decided to meditate seriously for 4 days, and then this peaceful, playful and detached attitude came naturally, by itself.

I also started to experience unprecedented authenticity in my compassion towards people who suffer. For example, I stopped being annoyed by my roommate, wishing he would give up the retreat and secretly feeding off his misery. Instead, I naturally started seeing his pain and wishing that he would understand how to be in a better place. (I'm honestly on the verge of tears just writing that down right now hehe)

Within two hours, my compassion, playfulness, motivation, hope, confidence, calmness and equanimity were pretty much increased by a factor of 100 or 1000. It was definitely more than 10 times, but maybe not a million either. That gives you an idea of the significance of the changes.

People started being very intimidated by my calm, assertive and focused presence. But I don't think it was conscious, most of the time. I just saw it in their nervous tics and involuntary movements, of which I had almost none anymore.

During the first three days, I was looking a lot at one of the two assistants of the Vipassana teacher. He was a bit older than me and seemed very noble, hardworking, but also relaxed, happy and present. I felt inspired by him. But during the following days, he was the one staring at me. I caught him several times and he got seemingly destabilized while looking elsewhere.

At the end of the 10 days, we were allowed to speak again. In the washrooms, I waited for this assistant to pass in front of me so that I could tell him that they were out of brown paper. He didn't seem to care about that for even a second, but he just looked at me and asked: "You're pretty much in Nirvana all the time, aren't you?"

I answered: "I'm not ready to put words on it yet, but pretty much, I guess. Do you want me to tell you the story? It happened on the fourth day". And so we went on, talking about our experiences. As of today, I feel like he was the only one to really understand my state. He gave me the advice of first maintaining my equanimity (which is my lack of reaction to pleasant or unpleasant sensation or feelings), and secondly, my tactile awareness. I'm still rolling and maintaining both, even after speaking to my parents, walking 2 hours and being stuck in Montebello for 10 hours with my heavy bags, going back to work, having my first panic attack in front of my boss, having every stranger intimidated by my presence, spending a wonderful evening with this girl I like, etc.

Since then, I have been laughing, again and again, at was used to be my misery, but which has now become the funniest, inexhaustible joke.

Now I seek clarifications about what happened and also advice for the future of my journey. I hope you liked the story, but it's your turn now! ?

In Daniel Ingram's book, Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, he would call that an Arising and Passing event. He also says that the Dark Night stage is comes next so be prepared

[Philip]

2 hours ago, Matt8800 said:

He would call that an Arising and Passing event.

Yes, that sound about right. I'm not constantly in nirvana or anything. And my ego seems to be slowly building itself back up, but in a much more useful and truthful way.

2 hours ago, Matt8800 said:

He also says that the Dark Night stage is comes next so be prepared

Oh god! I'm not prepared at all. Do I really have to go through that? It sounds bad hehehe. Well, what can I do? Return to unconscious misery? HELL NO!?

[Matt8800]

On 6/15/2018 at 9:46 AM, Philip said:

Yes, that sound about right. I'm not constantly in nirvana or anything. And my ego seems to be slowly building itself back up, but in a much more useful and truthful way.

Oh god! I'm not prepared at all. Do I really have to go through that? It sounds bad hehehe. Well, what can I do? Return to unconscious misery? HELL NO!?

@Philip I highly recommend getting Daniel Ingram's book. If done right, the Dark night phase can be worked through without a ton of difficulty. If not done right, it can last for years and be very detrimental to one's life. 

[Philip]

19 hours ago, Matt8800 said:

@Philip I highly recommend getting Daniel Ingram's book. If done right, the Dark night phase can be worked through without a ton of difficulty. If not done right, it can last for years and be very detrimental to one's life. 

@Matt8800 Nothing detrimental to my life so far. A few people who were subconsciously feeding off my insecurities will now have to find their food somewhere else, but other than that, everything seems to be improving in my life. But I definitely must read about the Dark Night. Thank you!