Readers Write In #693: Can ten days of meditation change your life?

By Hari PR

In this post, I try mostly to make sense of the ten days I spent in a vipassana meditation course of ten days.

I have dabbled in meditation before and have also participated in a few online meditation communities. My pet theory is that ‘serious’ meditation practice (lasting for about an hour everyday or more) self-selects for people dealing with some form of mental hardship, like depression, anxiety, or burnout (Why else would anyone sit for an hour doing ‘nothing’ when that hour could have been used for watching a movie, or doing something productive?) 

This subset of meditators is completely different from the other, larger group of people who meditate for a few minutes everyday to get some calm, or to increase their productivity.

As someone who falls very firmly in the former category, I spent a phase of my life purchasing a ton of books on meditation and Buddhism and gobbling them up, in a desperate hope that they would show me a path away from my suffering.

The biggest appeal of Buddhism to me was its first ‘noble truth’, the truth of dukkha (Pali for suffering.) It got me hooked, because it seemed to be spot on. In the state of mind that I was in, I was elated to find that someone gets it, and relieved that I had company going back 2500 years.

The further ‘noble truths’ of Buddhism go on to explain the reason for suffering, and the way to end it permanently (mostly through intensive meditation, with a morally sound life as a supporting pillar.)

So, I self-taught myself meditation from various books, successfully established a practice and was sitting for 45 to 60 minutes a day. I was not able to rid myself of all sadness, but I believe that having a meditation practice did make me a little calmer.

Fast-forward a few years, life happened, as it always does, and I was no longer meditating. The first Buddhist noble truth showed itself to me once more, leaving me on the verge of despair and despondency. I was, at this time, suggested the vipassana programme run on a dana/donation basis by dhamma.org across India (and as I later learnt, the world too.)

After some initial reluctance, I signed up for the course. On the day I reached the meditation centre, I was asked to hand over my mobile phone to the centre officials, who I was told would keep it in safe custody and return it to me at the end of the ten-day course. This I did with some trepidation (for I have seldom gone an hour without using my phone in recent years,) and yet, after surrendering it and returning to my room, I felt a surge of freedom. It was as if I had unbound myself from a shackle I always willingly wore.

The next ten days pretty much destroyed my earlier perceptions of what intensive meditation is. I used to think that one hour a day is hardcore, but here, we were doing ten hours a day with only the occasional breaks for food and rest. It was tough going, especially in the initial days, because the body gave all sorts of signals of pain, being unaccustomed to sitting so long. It took some determination, especially upon seeing so many other people meditate diligently, most of whom were new to meditation practice. 

It also took determination not to pack my bags and quit the course midway. This temptation was especially overpowering on day four, when I nearly made up my mind that I couldn’t go on in the solitude and silence any longer. But somehow, I pushed through days four and five, and I was glad I did, because I had many enjoyable and rewarding sits in the latter half of the course. On the last day, I felt that I had established myself fairly well in the meditation technique taught, and I also felt able to meditate for prolonged durations without much discomfort or resistance.

It’s only been a couple of weeks since I came back to the ‘real world’, so it is perhaps a bit early to say, but I already feel a lot calmer, more mindful, and less judgmental of other people than I was before beginning the vipassana course. The stated goal of Buddhism is huge – to end suffering. Such an endeavour cannot be completed in a ten day course, or perhaps never at all. What can be accomplished, though, is travelling the path leading away from the stresses that we create for ourselves. To that end, I am very grateful to dhamma.org for organising these courses for free, and the thousands of volunteers all over the world who support the organisation expecting absolutely nothing in return but for some new people to get the benefits from the meditation technique that they have themselves got.