Vipassana

I arrived at ashram mid-cyclone. The road was flooded and my rickshaw would go no further, so I rolled up my trousers and started across the small river that had formed over the dirt road.

About half way, my left flip-flop was dislodged and headed down stream. "F---!!" I whispered. . . out loud. . . meditatively. I had no other shoes. So I trudged through the mud with my right flip-flop intact, left foot bare. It was my first act of letting go. . .letting go of the left flip-flop.

Vipassana is based on the Buddhist philosophy of "knowing" as in knowing in the body after intense practice. There's NO blind faith, NOR any ritual type bullsh--. And there's also NO blissed out, ecstatic, rays of light. . . at least not for me.

It's about being with what is (which is usually excruciating pain in your legs) and not reacting to it. Acting with equanimity -neither averse to pain, nor craving pleasure. It's about the laws of the universe such as impermanence and suffering via attachment, and understanding them in your body, not just your mind.

You feel an itch on your nose, and you sit still and let it dissipate, you feel two lightning bolts charge down your hamstrings and you're really hoping it passes away too, and guess what..??

It f---ing DOESN'T!!

But. . . it becomes less severe, and you can feel the waves of pain and of lesser pain vibrating through your body -just like the string theorists tell us. But it is not an intellectual exercise. It is embodiment -the difference between reading a book on baseball and taking 100,000 swings off live pitching.

It is also not all that fun. It's kind of like prison but with no talking, no eye contact, no reading, no writing, no cigarettes, and no gang rape, just 10+ hours of sitting meditation starting at the 4:00 AM bell and ending at 9:00 PM.

You have breaks of course, where you eat silently like monks from steel bowls, and walk the grounds like a mental patient. Because, quite frankly, for 10 days you are a monk and you are mental patient.

So would I recommend it. . .?

Absolutely, it will change you life. I realized this after making the trek back to Pondi, 3 hours by Indian bus and rickshaw. . .

Barefoot.

It was my last act of letting go. . . the right flip-flop.

Anicca, Anicca,
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