Pichle Saat Dino Mein... :D

I had recently attended a Vipassana course for teenagers. Vipassana is a type of meditation which teaches you to concentrate on your breathing and the various sensations felt in your body. The significance of this is that these two things (breathing and sensations) are with us all the time, from our birth to our death. This form of meditation was originally discovered by Gautama Buddha in India, but was lost until S.N. Goenka brought it back to India from Myanmar. He has been teaching it here ever since.
It was a 7-day residential course. The first 6 days, it is necessary to maintain the Noble Silence, which basically means not talking to the other students. Talking to the teachers and the Dhamma Sevikas (course servers) is allowed, so I'm afraid I ended up boring them a lot :D
As with anything else, there were good and not-so-good aspects of this course...

The Fun Stuff

1. Most importantly, I actually managed to keep quiet for a whole six days, surrounded by 69 other teenage girls who kept talking and giggling the entire time. It was really tough, and I never thought I would be able to do it, but I did. :D



2. The smug glow I could flaunt after six days when people asked me if I had actually kept the Noble Silence made it completely worthwhile :D



3. I realised that food is best eaten in contemplative silence and thinking, "Do I really need this?" Believe me, it's true.



4. I had really nice, understanding teachers who didn't mind even if we went to them and started crying for mommy :D



5. Goenkaji's discourses were always the high point of my day. He's an amazing orator, very funny, and manages to get the moral across perfectly while making it fun at the same time. He tells stories of Buddha's life that leave you convulsing with laughter. And yeah, it really is that funny :D



6. I managed to learn certain super-complicated Hindi words that I will never ever ever forget cos of their being burned into my mind due to excessive repetition.



7. Day 7 was amazingly fun because we all sat together and spoke the tape they played during each sitting of Goenkaji speaking and chanting. We had all memorised it, pretty much :D



8. Since I didn't break the Silence, I didn't know anyone's names until the last day. I had a blast inventing names for different girls based on their looks. For example, there was this girl who walked totally purposefully around the whole centre and scared me into thinking that she was actually going somewhere. I later learnt she did that for exercise, so she became the CrazyWalker. Some others were bitch-with-long-straight-hair, bitch-with-amazing-long-black-curly-hair-and-smug-face, she-with-the-blue-oshos, sits-next-to-me-in-dhamma-hall etc etc :D



9. I made a few great friends in the process, from all over Maharashtra and even some from Goa, which is definitely a good thing :D

The Sad Stuff

1. This form of meditation is supposed to automatically remove all the hatred and envy from your heart and make you feel love towards all living beings. The sad thing is, it was really hard to feel any sort of love and affection towards some of the girls there... they were so annoying!



2. I think it is a law of nature that when you put 70 girls together in an enclosed campus with no contact with the outside world, they will gravitate into groups and fight. Believe me, I saw enough politics on the last day to make me feel profoundly happy that I had actually kept the Noble Silence. Very depressing.



3. I was so homesick. By the first evening itself I was almost in tears. I think that's a testimony to the power of Vipassana meditation, because I am never homesick :D



4. The boredom kills you! All you do is eat, meditate and walk around aimlessly in the middle time. That's what I meant when I said the discourses were the high point of each day. Otherwise it was mundane.



5. Sleepiness is a HUGE problem. I mean, you sit down to meditate and before you know it, your head's on your knees and you're dozing off! The sessions immediately after bath time were the worst, cos the hot water would make me drowsy :D I later took to going to my room in every break and splashing my eyes with water to wake me up.



6. We. Got. Watermelon. Almost. Every. Single. Freaking. Day. I am now officially SICK of watermelon.

So, in conclusion, I would definitely recommend everyone to attend at least one Vipassana course in their lives. Just manage 10 days from your busy schedule and GO. One course can make you want to do them again and again. Please, please, just try it out, and be happy! :D