It's become a yearly ritual for me.
Wherever I'm in the world,
Whether it's Thailand or the United States,
A quiet village or a buzzing city,
I carve out time for a 10-day Vipassana retreat.
It's a promise I keep to myself because I know when I return to the sanctuary within,
The sanctuary also returns to me.
It's been six years now since I began this journey with Goenkaji's teachings.
And as he says,
Start the journey and everything will change.
And he was right.
Silence,
No talking,
Two simple meals a day,
A long 20-hour fast.
From noon until the next morning,
Over 10 hours of seated meditation every day.
From sleeping on cold monastery floors in Thailand to resting on small comfortable beds in U.
S.
Retreat centers,
This path has humbled me,
Peeled back my illusions,
And helped me break free from the limits of my own mind.
But it wasn't easy.
Every time I wanted to run,
That little girl within me wanted to scream and shout.
She wanted to scream and run.
On day one,
I thought this was a mistake.
On day three,
My mind screamed,
I can't do this.
I don't want to do this.
And day six,
Even after settling in,
I still longed for an escape.
And yet,
Through all the chaos of the mind,
My body remained still.
I remained true to myself,
To my intention to be there and to see this through.
My breath steady,
Some deeper part of me knew that this stillness is safety.
It made me wonder,
Where does all this inner chaos even begin?
And how do we return home to ourselves,
To that deep place of safety inside?
This reminds me of a story of the Buddha.
There's a moment when the blessed one,
Siddhartha Gautama,
Is walking with his disciples through a forest just before the monsoon season.
They're tired,
Searching for shelter.
One monk complains about the discomfort,
How it's too muddy,
The ground too hard,
The bugs unbearable.
Another monk remains quiet,
Eyes lowered,
Breath steady.
The Buddha pauses and turns to them,
Asking gently,
Where do you take refuge,
Dear ones?
One monk responds,
In the teachings,
Lord.
Another says,
In the Sangha,
Our community.
And the Buddha smiles softly and says,
Yes,
But even these are outer supports.
The true refuge is the Dhamma within,
The unshakable peace discovered through direct observation,
Through stillness.
It is not in the absence of discomfort that we find safety.
It is in the clarity of seeing things as they are.
That teaching lands deeply within me every time.
Inner safety is not something we chase or create.
It's something we remember.
It's not about eliminating discomfort or escaping our thoughts.
It's about being with what it is,
Without running,
Without fixing.
In Vipassana,
I learned that my mind can be wild and noisy,
But there's always a still place beneath it all.
And in that stillness,
I'm safe.
Not because the world outside changed,
But because I did.
So,
If you're listening today and longing for inner safety,
If the noise inside feels louder than peace,
Know that your sanctuary is still here.
Beneath the thoughts,
Beneath the discomfort,
Beneath the stories of I can't and I don't want to,
There's a place within you that already knows how to be still.
Return to it.
It is waiting with open arms.
Take this time reflecting and just being with yourself,
Remaining still and accessing that inner safety within you.
