Day 44: 11 Insights From Vipassana Meditation Retreat: Part 2

6. Be aware of pain centre.
At Vipassana, there is about one and a half hour of video discourse by S.N. Goenka. In one of the discourses, he mentions a strategy to deal with pain and be more aware of it. He suggests that we don’t run away from pain or ignore it but rather observe and be equanimous to it. More specifically he suggests that during meditation, observe where the centre of the pain is, how is the pain distributed around that centre, what else is there other than pain; if there is heat, vibration or any other sensations. In one of the sessions, intense pain arose near my right knee. I started observing it and looked for the pain centre. An amazing thing happened. It was nice to know the pain on a deeper level. There was a pain centre in which there was pressure whose intensity was synchronised with my heart beat; then there was distribution of that pain around the centre and there was heat all over in the background. It was quite easy to be equanimous to pain when my awareness of it increased.
Now this insight is applicable not merely to physical pain but also for various life situations. For example I used to mentally bash myself for being shy. But that was a ‘pain’ of which, I wasn’t aware of the centre. The centre point for my shyness was this (apparent) inability to initiate conversations and keep them going. Now that I am aware of the centre point, I can work from there and be more empowered to deal with this situation.

7. Remember the compassion story and be inspired by it.
In one of the discourses, S.N. Goenka suggests that one must strive to develop the qualities of the person one claims to be a devotee of. He says merely ‘following’ and appreciating someone’s teaching is blind devotion; real devotion is to strive to walk on the path showed by that person. He shares this highly inspiring story about Gautam Buddha’s compassion that almost brought tears to my eyes. In that moment I committed to always remember this story and be inspired by it. Here is that story:
Prince Siddhartha set out to find the Ultimate Truth and at the age of 35 He became enlightened. From that moment onwards, He spent every moment of His life compassionately teaching others about the path that leads to liberation. He started with 5 of his fellow seekers. Soon there were 5000 people following his teachings and eventually millions of them. He travelled around spreading the message till the age of 80. At one point He declared to one of His attendants, Ananda, that He will leave His body in three months. The days passed and finally the night when He was about to leave came. Ananda thought to himself, “I must let some people know, else they will feel so unfortunate that the Enlightened One was there in their city during his last breaths but they couldn’t pay their respect to Him.” So he went to the city and told a few people. Soon the news spread like fire and a huge crowd got gathered around the place where the Buddha was breathing His last. Ananda couldn’t figure out how to manage such a huge crowd. He asked the crowd to form a queue and one by one meet the Buddha, pay their respect and leave. In a few moments the Buddha was about to leave His body but still there was a huge queue. There came one man and he started arguing with Ananda, “How can I just pay my respect and leave? I want to learn the path from the Buddha himself. I don’t what His followers will teach when He leaves.” Ananda said, “Brother, there are so many people here, the Buddha will leave at any moment, just pay your respect and leave.” The argument continued and it reached the Buddha’s ears. His heart got filled with compassion, he said, “O Ananda! Let that man come. This man is ready to receive the teachings.”
In his last moments, the Buddha shared His teachings with that man. Every moment of His life, He spent compassionately sharing his message.
This story fills me with inspiration to develop compassion towards my brothers, sisters and all beings.

8. Be aware of sensations before sleeping.
I have had difficulty in sleeping since quite a long time. I lie down on my bed to sleep but thoughts start coming up and I end up spending a lot of time ruminating, fantasising etc. Here’s a very effective way to sleep peacefully that I learnt from one of the discourses at Vipassana.
When you want to sleep, lie down on your bed comfortably and just be aware of sensations in your different body parts. Don’t get anxious if you don’t feel sleepy, just keep lying down and observing sensations. Soon you will fall asleep. Even if that doesn’t happen, your body and mind both will get adequate amount of rest because the body is in a comfortable and relaxed position and the mind isn’t busy in thinking.

9. Relax to use the power of the sub-conscious mind.
All kinds of challenges, issues and problems arise in life. But there is power and ability within us to rise above all those challenges. That power remains hidden. That power becomes inaccessible if we get anxious, worried and start overthinking and overanalysing. If however, we relax and remain equanimous, we can access our hidden power and come up with ideas, insights and action plans to deal with any challenge and rise above it. That power is the power of the sub-conscious mind. Most of our life, around 90% of it, is controlled by the sub-conscious mind.
There is no source of entertainment at Vipassana. All one has to do is meditate and stay quiet. So one is bound to get bored. I used to keep myself amused and motivated by imagining comedy movie scenes. But the challenge was every time I tried to consciously remember any scenes, I couldn’t do that and even if I could remember and imagine a scene, it didn’t make me laugh. That was because I was trying so hard. In one session I decided to relax and intended to laugh and be amused. That’s all I did. I relaxed and set up an intention. The sub-conscious took over and I had a laughter riot for around 30 minutes. I wonder what those around me would have thought, we were supposed to meditate and stay equanimous even if we got bored. Who laughs during meditation anyway? I do. 😀

10. Follow to lead.
This one is a random insight; not related to Vipassana but is important for life and success. I have always wanted to be a leader. Nobody is born with leadership skills, they are developed. For a long time, till I reached my 20s, I didn’t bother to think about leadership and developing leadership skills. But then the need and the desire from within arose. Since then I had been trying very hard to become a leader and develop the necessary skills. What I realised during one session is that one must learn to be a great follower in order to be a great leader. For example, in order to learn the necessary leadership skills, one must follow and observe how great leaders act, behave and execute. One must ‘follow’ the examples of great leaders; their teachings from whatever source one receives them; be it books, videos or direct contact.

Now, these are 10 insights. I originally published 11 insights but I had to remove the eleventh one because I couldn’t stick to my commitment towards it. It was about celibacy. Will write and talk about it when I am ready for it.

See you next time, until then,

Keep Improving, Joyfully! 🙂