After I lost my father in a brutal terrorist attack in Pakistan in June 2015, the clock of my life started ticking reversely. I started rolling from one problem to another problem. I opened a chapter of my life where one story began before the ending of the other story which has led me to the middle of nothing but miseries. At a young age, I started feeling stress, anxiety and sleep disorder. I began reading numerous books on happiness which have been very helpful to me to some extent but the techniques taught in the books developed my dependency on external objects and activities (such as sports, gatherings with friends, expectation of love and care from others). Furthermore, I never share my problems with anyone. Several times continuous mental pressure manifested itself as physical pain on my body.
Gradually, I started enjoying pain and loneliness. Last year when I heard about Vipassana meditation, its principle of ‘being 10 days away from your mobile, laptop, colleague, friends, families, responsibilities and expectations’ attracted my interest and motivated me to give it a try. Thoughtlessly, I signed up for the complete 10 days (which is practically 12 days including the days of arrival and departure) for the month of September 2018.
The meditation center is located in the beautiful cool hills of Puncak which is a popular location for many yoga, meditation centers and tourism. The one and only activity during the course is meditation, a confident ten and half hours per day. If it sounds simple, there are dozens of strict rules you need to adhere, including: no talking, no discussion, no eye contact, no physical contact, no sex, no reading, no writing, no photography, no mobile phone, no internet, no TV, no movies, no money, no religious rituals, no meat eating allowed during the whole course. Before the course starts, the management team asks each students for several times if their commitment is strong, that they will not run away in the middle of the course and they will obey all the rules.
I thought it could not be more difficult and complicated than my ongoing life challenges. It seemed nothing to me. Following other students, I nodded my head to show my determination and I signed the application!
After the registration, on 26 September 2018, an orientation was given and noble silence was announced with a jingle sound of a temple bell at 7 pm.
To put it briefly, to my surprise, I successfully completed my first 10-day course and graduated as an ‘old student’. Yet, I have to confess that I broke many rules. I meditated only three hours out of 10 and half hours per day (I spent rest of the time sleeping in my room), I secretly took inside a diary and a pen, and I broke my noble silence for few times.
Despite my defiance, I was still able to feel the difference in my life. I learnt that the root cause of our every single problem is nothing and no one else except ourselves. But, how? That is the most important part of the course that I missed.
Therefore, on first January 2019, I decided to attend another 10-day course in May to understand the missing part of the technique with strong determination of complying with all the rules. This time, I gave the technique a fair attempt. I maintained my noble silence; I neither smuggled book and notebook nor a pen; and I seriously meditated for all the 10 and half hours each day. Yes, you heard me correct! I meditated for all the 10 and half hours each day!
I understood the value of presence, realized the trap of past and future, the nature of impermanence in everything, improved my wisdom, I sharpened my mind and developed control over my life. Besides all these benefits, most importantly, I learnt the mechanism of our mind and body- how we unconsciously react towards the sensations of our body and how our reactions are the root cause of our all miseries.
The four major parts of human mind!
Twenty centuries ago Siddhattha Gotama, known as Buddha, found out a universal truth that everything and every being in the universe are impermanent- has the same nature of Anicca- and with awakened mind he noticed the four parts of our mind and its process- Consciousness, perception, sensations and reaction.
Each six sense doors of human body (eyes, ears, nose, mouth, touch and mind) has its own consciousness, for instance a shape, a form, a color or light, come in contact with eye, eye consciousness arises. Similarly, when a fragrance enters through the nostrills, nose consciousness arises. Each consciousness’ job is to cognize the objects coming through all the six sense doors. Then, immediately the second part of the mind arises, perception. Its job is to recognize and evaluate the objects coming through these six sense doors. Soon after that, the third part wakes up, sensation. Its job is to generate a sensation in the whole body according the evaluation result. Then, finally, the fourth part of the mind arises, reaction. Its job is to react towards the sensation. If the result of the evaluation is good, a pleasant sensation emerges in your body and you start craving, and likewise, if the result of the evaluation is bad, an unpleasant sensation springs up in your body and you start aversion.
Confusing, right? Read the example below to understand it better.
Let’s assume that you have applied for your dream job in a big company. You have already passed all the initial stages of selection and now you are waiting for the final decision. It is a sunny Tuesday morning. You are scrolling down on Facebook when you receive an email notification from the company.
Part 1: Cognizing
You read the subject line in the notification on your phone. The conscious part of your brain receives a text through your eyes’ sense door.
Part 2: Perception
Then the perception part of your brain recognizes and evaluates the text, what the text is about, what language is it and what is it saying. Then, it evaluates it as ‘Congratulations’.
Part 3: Sensation
Because in this context, ‘congratulations’ means confirmation of acceptance, your mind suddenly and automatically injects a pleasant sensation of happiness, excitement and achievement throughout your body. Due to your mind’s old habit pattern, you start craving for this sensation.
Part 4: Reaction
Then you impatiently desire to open the email to read the complete information. You open the email. You start reading the first paragraph. As you read the good words of appreciation, you keep generating the pleasant sensation and meanwhile you are also continuously generating a tremendous amount of attachment towards this pleasant sensation.
With the same habit of craving, you move to the second paragraph where you read that you are accepted for a different and lower position than the position that you had applied for.
Now, this is the most important part. Because you were craving for the pleasant sensation and you generated an attachment towards that happy moment, and eventually, when you found that the decision is not as per your desire, again going through the same process of brain, you automatically feel a sensation of sadness, disappointment and demotivated. According to your old habit pattern of your mind, YOU start multiplying this sadness by thinking ‘why I am not accepted for the position that I applied for, am I not eligible, am I not skilled enough, why I am such an unfortunate person….’ And that unpleasant sensation will go on for hours, days, weeks, months and years. In some cases, this stress could result in depression and wrong decision of your life.
Lessons learnt:
At our unconscious level of our mind, we are continuously reacting towards these pleasant and unpleasant sensations 24 hours and we never stop multiplying our problems.
In the ten days of Vipassana meditation, you re-engineer your mind and you mainly develop three abilities and understandings.
1: Ability of awareness: By observing the sensation in your body from the second day of the meditation until the tenth day, your mind becomes extremely sharp that you will be aware of all the sensations, regardless of how subtle or gross it is, in your body.
2: Ability of Equanimity: throughout the ten days you will be instructed to equanimously observe all the sensations that you feel in your body and you will be reminded again and again to not react towards these sensations doesn’t matter how pleasant or unpleasant they are.
3: Understanding of Impermanence: During your meditation, you will clearly understand that different sensations, including the pain of sitting for an hour without changing your posture, have the same nature- the nature of impermanence. You will slowly understand every pleasant sensation (happy moment) and unpleasant sensation (sad moment or problem) are bound to pass away sooner or later.
By these abilities and understandings, you will bend your life by building a control over the third and fourth part of the brain-- sensation and reaction parts. You will experience the universal truth that whenever you feel a pleasant or unpleasant sensation, with equanimous observation of the sensation, it automatically passes away. You will stop generating craving and aversion which means you will stop generating and multiplying your own problems.
When you master this technique, you will master the art of living. When you step into the real world after ten days of the meditation, you will see the world through a different lens. The constant chain of action and reaction will become very obvious to you. Then you will understand why I believe that we and our minds are the root causes of our problems not the external objects.