Lost and Found in Silence

On 1 October 2022, I enter Dhamma Shikhara, a serene Vipassana meditation camp in Dharamshala, India. A hill station 1,457 meters above sea level. Dreamy clouds touch my face. I’m traveling solo to do this - have made up my mind to surrender to this intense 10-day meditation.

I’m oblivious to the details/structure of what is to come. I only know: you have to maintain complete silence for these 10 days. Cannot communicate even in gestures. No mobiles. No notebooks. I see countless unknown faces here too, each with a different story…

First 3 days: Anapana - Observe your natural breath as it comes in and goes out from the small triangular region under your nose. Each day here you meditate for 11 hours. So with practice, your focus becomes sword sharp, and now you’re ready to cut and peel everything with it. 

From day 4 onwards, you use your focus to pay attention to each part of your body, every sensation. From head to toe. Repeatedly, diligently. As you keep doing it, the pain body comes up and shows itself. For me, an unbearable back pain revealed itself…

It’s extremely difficult to sit with my back straight, without support. For 2 days, I keep looking at my back pain. It worsens. I feel agitated and every instinct in my body wants me to get up and walk out of the hall. I want to run away. I stay. 

Around day 5, a few hours in, my inner eye sees the point in my body that’s the origin of my pain: a tiny point almost the size of a mustard seed. But it stores this sharp, pointy sensation of intense pain that is scattered like a cloud across my back and spine. 

As I keep looking at it, I realize I’ve reached a point where I’m almost enjoying how painful it is! A direct embracing of the burdensome pain that had become a part of my life for so long - I’m now in direct touch with it, unwavering. And then…it dissolves.

During breaks I walk around the campus - it feels as if I’m seeing more than I used to. The life in me recognizes the life around me - Living, breathing, the aliveness of it palpable to me. I realize: the words I was using to understand the world were blinding me to the world.

In the end, what did I really find? A more grounded body. Getting in touch with my moment-to-moment truth. Walking with the truth. An ability to experience reality, as it is happening, with extreme clarity - and from an objective distance from my own entanglement with it.

At the core, one profound law reverberates - “Sab Anitya hai!” (Everything is constantly changing). However, intellectually knowing the law of impermanence is one thing, and knowing this truth in experience is different. So go, try Vipassana! Enjoyed this memo? Leave a comment!