Towards the end of my journey and life in New Zealand, I decided to enrich my life with something that had been attracting me for a whole year. Something deep and transformative that would round off my entire story in that part of the world until the next time.
Vipassana meditation. I first heard about Vipassana from a landlady in a beautiful house on the sandy Tahunanui Beach in Nelson. Although the house was by far the most beautiful I had ever lived in, it was uncomfortable and challenging due to the landlords, so my time there was quite short (that’s when Luke appeared). Life always sends us messengers; it’s important to notice and hear the messages they send. Although our relationship did not flourish, I am truly grateful for the bridge and direction that person gave me. The landlady shared her path of healing from alcoholism through Vipassana. Although she had been going to rehab for years, nothing helped her in the long term. Until Vipassana meditation.
I heard a message for myself and started deeper researching it. Enough to decide to apply. I was put on a waiting list, confirmed my English, and got into the Vipassana center located in the rainforest above Auckland. The center is always far from civilization and noise. 10 days of noble silence, 10 days of a monastic life. Waking up at 4 am, sleeping at 9 pm. Waking up with a gong. No eye contact, no screens or any form of expression, living in silence. Men and women are in separate accommodations. 10 hours a day of meditation = 100 hours of meditation in 10 days. During the 10 days of being with yourself, a lot of processes go through your head and body. I will share some key parts of my experience.
I want to highlight the power of being with yourself in complete silence and my insights. When was the last time you were completely alone in silence for 10 days? The first 4 days of becoming aware of the nostrils and the warmth of the breath descending on them, my thoughts loudly shouted: my head is full of rubbish, my head is full of rubbish! It was absolutely impossible to quiet those thoughts. Various life situations went through my head, mostly bad experiences, shame, anger, attempts to fix the past, looking for a way out, justifications, missing, sadness, loneliness… 80 people in the same space sitting in silence, and my thoughts scream loudly and strongly as if they want to fly out of the body at the speed of light. Through the days of silence and returning focus to the nostrils, my thoughts quieted down a bit and more concrete tasks started. It took 4 whole days and nights for the thoughts to quiet down! Can you imagine how many sensations are on our brain throughout life? In the following days, we focused on recognizing sensations on the body. Itching, pain, numbness, tickling, pinching… Any kind of sensation that the body naturally produces. When a sensation on the body appears, we observe its process of appearing and leaving. From head to toe.
Thoughts, feelings, insights, realizations, they appear and pass. I sit in a motionless meditative position on the floor and return awareness to the moment when the head turned on and wandered off. I diligently return focus to specific parts of the body and the transience of sensations. I am in the role of an observer. Everything goes in a circle, the circle of life. Change is constant and the only permanence. See it as it is. That’s all. Without your opinion and without your map through which you view the world. Without romanticizing and embellishing, minimizing and magnifying. See things as they are. In Vipassana, we learn the permanence of change directly through the body. Sensations come and go, from the top of the head to the toes and back. That’s how life energy flows through us, strong and lively. When we stop, we can almost touch it, clearly hear the messages of the body and our intuition.
During the day we have an hour for a thinking walk through the jungle. How easy it is to connect with nature. The brain finds everything interesting and funny, I felt like a child again in so many aspects. With each day more relaxed and playful while I was in the forest. Autumn colorful leaves full of life veins, details of tree bark abstractly shaped with a woody scent mixed with moss. Every millimeter of smoothness and protrusion I distinctly felt on my fingertips. Initials and messages that previous students had engraved were on several trees. Fresh forest air caressed my skin. Every sensation is very pronounced, everything is deeply felt and calls for slowing down. The quality of all senses gives a sense of fullness of life in my body. Such a beauty! Underneath a bridge in the forest, there is a small stream where, in the evening when it gets dark, blue glow worms come out to be seen. Although I had the opportunity to see them in many different locations in New Zealand, this experience was enchanting. The overall feeling of immense progress from day to day with the support of beautiful New Zealand nature is indescribably powerful. Since then I hold my body with more awareness and love it as a sacred force as it is.
See it as it is.
Do you know the story of the elephant and the six blind men? Each blind man touched a part of the elephant and came to his conclusion about it – the one who touched the leg said the elephant is like a tree, another touched the tusk and said it is like a spear, the third touched the side and says he experiences the elephant as a wall, the fourth touched the tail and said it is like a rope, the fifth touched the ear and said it is like a fan, and the sixth touched the trunk and said it is like a snake. They were all partly right, but in total, they were wrong.
How many times in your life have you failed to fully see, feel the whole of something, but you have already decided your viewpoint?
Vipassana was for me the most challenging and most significant life learning so far. Right after coming out of the meditation center, I decided on new educations and changed my professional direction to Neuro-linguistic programming. In the fall of the same year, I found myself in the first module. NLP immediately impressed me because I noticed a great similarity with the teachings of Vipassana, especially when it comes to the role of the observer, opening the heart, recognizing and balancing emotions, broadening horizons, accepting and surrendering to changes, and changing perceptions.
During the session with me, we work with everything mentioned in combination with mindfulness techniques. NLP treatment can be a powerful and transformative experience enriched with tools that I teach you to use every day.
It provides clarity and direction for our restless and sweet heads.
