“HOPE YOU ENJOY it and get from it whatever you’re hoping to get.”
That was the text from my brother the night before I went in. My Dad told me he hoped I found what I was looking for. My girlfriend didn’t think it was a great idea, and a few friends expressed genuine fears that I was going to join a cult.
In general, I was met mostly with bewildered concern when I told people, “I’m off to do a 10-day silent meditation course with absolutely no contact allowed with the outside world. In Ennis. Bye.”
The course in question is Vipassana, an ancient form of Buddhist meditation that teaches “self-transformation through self-observation”. It has become popular in recent decades, with courses held in countries all over the world.
I first learnt about Vipassana when I was in Nepal. It didn’t really appeal to me at the time, but a Polish friend I met along the way recommended it (though he said it was difficult). Last year, I found out the Irish Vipassana Trust holds courses in Ireland every year – between December and January, at Easter, and in August.
I hadn’t fully committed to the idea, but one night in January after I had drank a few pints, a reminder came through on my phone that the sign up for the Easter course had opened. Feeling a bit, eh, carefree, I decided to register on the spot.
The act of putting my name down solidified my interest – I couldn’t back out now – and in no time at all there I was, with 10 days worth of clothes shoved into a backpack, waving goodbye to my girlfriend as she drove away after dropping me off at a petrol station on the outskirts of Ennis.
The course was being held in St Flannan’s College, a nearby secondary school (closed for the Easter holidays). St Flannan’s used to be a boarding school, and so has multiple bedrooms, a big kitchen and everything else needed for 10 days of uninterrupted meditation.
Before the course started, I wandered into Ennis to buy an alarm clock, preferably one that didn’t tick so as not to drive any potential roommates mad. I drank a coffee in a café, sent out some final texts to say goodbye to people, then walked back up to St Flannan’s, to my home for the next 10 days.
What is Vipassana?
Vipassana as it was taught to me was popularised by the late-S.N. Goenka, a former industrialist from Myanmar. In 1955, Goenka – a rich businessman – began to experience crippling migraines. He said he travelled the world for a cure but no doctor could help him.
Eventually, at the end of this tether, he sought out a meditation teacher in his home country and his migraines were cured. Goenka became committed to teaching the technique to others, and in 1969 he gave up his business and moved to India, where he started teaching Vipassana to anyone who wanted to learn.
While Vipassana is a Buddhist practice, Goenka made his practice secular and open to all people, regardless of gender, caste or creed (which was quite revolutionary in the India of that time).
Since then, Vipassana has exploded in popularity worldwide. It is one of the main precursors of the modern mindfulness movement, with its glut of commodified apps, books, lectures and courses.
Worldwide, Vipassana courses are run by dedicated volunteers who have completed a course themselves, benefited from it, and who want to help others. They are completely free (including all the food and accommodation), and run on a donation basis. You are allowed to donate whatever you want, but only after you have completed one 10-day course.
The teaching itself
Goenka died in 2013 at the age of 89, but Vipassana continues to be taught worldwide. There are over 200 centres around the world, and it is still taught by Goenka himself through video and audio recordings.
In short, Vipassana involves observing and not reacting to sensations as they arise and disappear in the body. By doing this, one can observe the changing nature of the body and the mind, and internalise an awareness of what Buddhists believe are the universal truths of impermanence, suffering and egolessness.
There is a lot more to it too which I won’t get into, but you can read more about the technique here. I’m not at all religious, so I decided to take from the course what I could, and to respect the more spiritual elements while I was there (this approach is more or less encouraged by Goenka, who stresses the effectiveness of the technique regardless of personal beliefs).
When undertaking the course, you have to follow a strict set of rules. These are:
As well as these Five Precepts, students have to maintain Noble Silence throughout the course, meaning no talking or any form of gesturing or other communication for nine days.
If you have a problem you can talk to one of the facilitators, however, and there’s also an assistant teacher you can talk to at certain points during the day. The volunteers take the course very seriously, but are friendly and always available to help you if you need it.
You have to give up your phone (an emergency number is given in case you need to be contacted), and no reading or writing materials or musical devices are allowed. You are not allowed to do yoga, jog or work out, smoke or bring any religious objects with you or perform any rituals while you’re there. Men and women are also segregated at all times.
You must also commit to staying for the 10 days once you start, though you are of course free to leave (but they would really rather if you stayed). Despite my friends’ worries, it’s really not a cult, no one is trying to sell you anything or force you into anything.
The layout of the days
Every day followed a strict timetable, with little to no variation (except for the final day). All of the activities were separated by the ringing of a gong, which I can still hear echoing in my head somewhere.
4am The morning gong is rung. Time to get up.
4.30am – 6.30am Meditate in the Hall or in your room
6.30am – 8am Breakfast / rest
8am – 9am Group meditation in the Hall
9am – 11am Meditate in the Hall or in your room
11am – 1pm Lunch (really dinner) / rest
1pm – 2.30pm Meditate in the Hall or in your room
2.30pm – 3.30pm Group meditation in the Hall
3.30pm – 5pm Meditate in the Hall or in your room
5pm – 6pm Tea / Rest
6pm – 7pm Group meditation in the Hall
7pm – 815pm Evening discourse with teacher (a video recording of Goenka)
8.30pm – 9pm Group meditation in the Hall
9pm – 10pm - Rest / chance to ask teacher questions
10pm - Lights out
Between sessions, we were allowed to shower or do laundry, and to wander in a small space in the schoolyard. With very little else to focus on, that bit of concrete and nature became a lifeline – when you could get out into it. Nothing helps you internalise ideas of impermanence like the Irish weather in April; all four seasons seemed to pass over St Flannan’s while we were there, and some days it lashed rain and we were stuck inside, staring out at the world.
The daily meals were the other lifeline. Breakfast consisted of stewed prunes and porridge every day (yum!), with toast, tea, peanut butter, fruit, etc. Dinner was a different hearty vegetarian meal every day. There was always enough food and it was always delicious.
And that’s it, with no variation apart from the dinners and the weather until Day 10, when some new teachings were given and the Noble Silence was broken and most people talked about how powerful the course was, how sore their backs were, and much they were looking forward to going home.
Learning to sit still
I found the course both enlightening and very difficult. At the beginning, especially, it was challenging, and I thought about giving up a number of times.
I had a terrible sleep the first night (of course, I hadn’t adjusted my sleeping pattern to getting up at 4am as I had planned to do) and this made me very tired throughout day one.
For the first three-and-a-half days, the meditation focuses on perceiving your breath as it moves in and out of your nostrils. Again and again in taped audio recordings Goenka’s voice implored me and the others to focus on the area between the top of the lips and the nostrils, to perceive the subtle sensations there. That was it.
Meanwhile, I sat cross legged on the ground, my back and knees ached, and my brain – unleashed from the daily grind of super-sensory overload – kept bringing up increasingly obscure memories and thoughts for me to chew over:
“Hey, remember that time you did the mean thing? What was that about?”
“Hey, remember that time you embarrassed yourself in 4th class? What was that about?”
“Hey have you every noticed how time just keeps flying by? And everyone you know and love will soon be dead and every memory you have will be lost? What’s that about?”
Goenka implored us to continue to focus on our breathing, and when our minds wandered (as they frequently, inevitably did), to simply return to our breath. We were advised not to get angry or frustrated, but to just keep coming back to the breath again and again, for 10 hours a day, three-and-a-half days in a row.
Memories in technicolour
What struck me at first was how strong the feelings and sensations I felt were. Memories – good and bad – came at me fully formed and almost physical, as though I could reach out and touch them.
Away from the endless buzz of Dublin, with no phone or other screen to bury my head in, there was nowhere to hide from myself and my thoughts. I mulled over and dissected events and feelings from various points of my life, things I hadn’t thought of properly in years. When all the noise was sucked away, there they were in the vacuum of the days and nights, waiting for me.
At first this was unnerving and I found it hard to cope. I felt like I was trapped in a prison of my own choosing and a million miles away from all my loved ones, even though I knew this was ridiculous: I was only in Ennis and I could leave whenever I wanted to. Multiple people did throughout the 10 days, for one reason or another.
On day four we were taught the Vipassana meditation technique. This is essentially a series of body scans, where you slowly move your attention from the top of your head down to the tips of your toes, and back again.
The idea is to observe all the sensations as they come and go and to not react to them: pain, tingling sensations, hunger, tickling, whatever; if you just let the sensations arise and go, remaining calm and composed at all times (or “equanimous” as Goenka says), then you start to realise that everything is impermanent, everything passes.
For Buddhists, this impermanence is a universal truth. Along with the truths that craving (pleasure) and aversion (to pain) are the roots of our miseries in life.
Nothing is fixed, everything fades. By internalising this truth in the body, you are more able to face life’s various high and low points with the same calm equanimity: this is all passing, all the time. The stress, the worry, the pain, the happiness, pleasure, love, grief – none of it lasts; none of us last. This works then as a form of self-purification, as you’re able to root out bad patterns of behaviour or trauma buried deep in your psyche. It also engenders a sense of compassion for other living things around you.
The technique is very much focused on work. Enlightenment, or even just small bits of wisdom or inner peace, are hard won, and require a lot of effort. You can’t just say “oh, yes, everything passes” and assume that you’ll accept it within yourself, you have to constantly train so that you can accept these truths in the body.
Completing a daily challenge on an app or reading a book on relaxation probably won’t bring meaningful change to your day-to-day life. If you want that, you’re going to have to work for it.
A simple analogy helps to drive this point home: you can read as many books on swimming as you like, listen to endless lectures on the subject, but unless you get in the water and actually try it out, you’re not going to learn how to swim.
There is a strong focus throughout the course on personal responsibility, too. In the end, no one else can bring you peace of mind. No one else is responsible for your happiness other than you.
I noticed a lot of crossover with Stoic philosophy, particularly with the focus on personal responsibility and the impermanence of everything. Marcus Aurelius and Gautama Buddha would have had much to discuss.
In my head
As the course progressed I settled into it. I found the pain almost completely vanished (I was fortunate, others I talked to weren’t so lucky), and my thoughts settled.
In the latter half of the course, for the group meditations in the hall you are asked to try to not move a muscle for an hour at a time. These hours of “strong determination” were very hard at first, but after a few days I could complete one easily enough.
As the course wore on, the sensations up and down by body became stronger, my awareness sharper. I had few moments of near-epiphany as I felt my pulse in my wrists or the bristles of my moustache against my face. It feels strange relaying this now after everything has faded, but at the time, sitting cross-legged there on the floor, I was overcome with emotion at these sensations, at the reality of life that they seemed to convey.
I still missed the outside world, and was really looking forward to going home, but overall I felt a lot better. As I spent more time with myself, I was able to untangle and work through a lot of the bad feelings and memories that had come at me in the earlier days.
This was the biggest take away for me: the time and space I was given to sort through things in my head that had been piling up there for years. I was able to link past actions to patterns of behaviour that had been with me my whole life; I was able to realise where I had messed up and why, and how I could (hopefully) avoid doing so again in the future. I felt an immense appreciation for my friends, family and loved ones, as well as for just being alive.
I came out with a strong awareness of how quickly everything will pass away in time, and how so much of our time and attention are stolen away by companies trying to monopolise our eyeballs to sell us more thing we don’t need (apologies if you’re reading this really long article while you’re supposed to be doing something else).
Speaking to others after the course, many felt the same way, though pain was a big issue for some people, and others found it very difficult to get their thoughts to settle.
Everything passes
Some people will keep up the meditation (two hours a day is recommended, I’m trying to do 30 minutes), others will forget about it. For many, Vipassana is a way of life, and they take at least one 10-day course a year (you can even do 20-day or 30-day courses as you progress), for others it’s something to try once, another experience to have.
I would recommend it for anyone who thinks they are up for doing it, if that makes sense. It’s hard, for sure, but you don’t need to be superhuman or even to have meditated much before, you just need to want to do it, I think. Don’t force yourself into it, but if it’s something you feel you could handle, then go for it.
I found it really good for my head, in helping me to sort out things that needed sorting out. I plan to do another course some day, but not any time soon.
“Continuation of practice is the secret to success,” as one of Goenka’s many succinct sayings goes. The 10 days isn’t a cure all, it’s supposed to kickstart a lifetime of practice.
“The halo fades fast,” one of my fellow meditators said to me on the last the day. “You don’t think it’s going to, but it does.”
Once the course had ended, we all said our goodbyes, tidied up the school and everyone went back to their lives. In the weeks since, I’ve tried to keep the teaching in mind, but my sense of equanimity and inner peace fades a bit more every day in noise and bustle of my life. It’s to be expected. Everything passes.
Cormac Fitzgerald is a journalist and writer.
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