What I Learnt On A 10 Day Silent Retreat

No talking. No writing. No touching. Just 10+ hours a day meditating for 10 days straight…

In this episode of the Reality Check Podcast I share my experiences on a 10 day silent retreat at Dhamma Aloka, under the instruction of S. N. Goenka where I learnt the technique of Vipassana meditation. Here I share the lessons learnt, the insights acquired, and give my analysis of the experience.

Simply put, it was one of the most profound (and painful) experiences of my life.

Transcript

So I've just returned from a 10-day silent Vipassana training retreat.

This is,

Or was,

One of the most profoundly painful,

Yet insightful,

And one of the best things I've ever done in my life,

To be honest.

And I wanted to give you guys a bit of a summary as to,

You know,

What it was like,

What I learned,

And,

You know,

The key takeaways,

And potentially some of the risks,

And all these things,

Because it was,

Yeah,

It was,

Wow.

So to put some context,

This 10-day silent Vipassana retreat was sort of founded by,

Or led by,

S.

N.

Goenka.

And this is a person who's now passed,

But the course content,

So to speak,

Was delivered through audio and video recordings.

And you can find a YouTube channel that has all of the nightly Dharma discourses and a bunch more content up,

So you can sort of get an idea of what was being taught to us.

So every night,

We would listen to a Dharma talk,

But for the rest of the time that we were there,

It was just silent.

We were living effectively the life of monks.

We would wake up at four,

And by 4.

30,

We were in the meditation hall until 6.

30.

Then there would be a breakfast,

And a bit of a rest,

And then we'd be back in for another four hours.

Then lunch,

A little bit of a rest,

And we're back in for another four hours or so.

I can't remember the exact timings,

But lights out was at 9.

30.

And we were effectively,

Like I said,

Living the life of a monk,

Meditating for 10 to 12 hours in the day,

Including the discourse,

Followed by,

Or in a compliment to just looking after our bodies,

No talking.

And we would not communicate,

Not touch,

Just meditate.

That was the goal,

Observe the sensations of the breath,

Observe the sensations of the body.

And yeah,

Look,

I've been a meditator for years and years now,

But I've never done something so intense.

The reframe that we kept getting was that the knowledge that we get here,

The idea,

The understanding that we get here,

The experiential knowledge is the wisdom,

Is the thing that we should latch onto,

Your experience.

Obviously,

It's got a Buddhist background,

Talking about the understandings of the Buddha and all of these sorts of things,

But the reframe kept coming.

The Buddha's enlightenment was the Buddha's enlightenment.

Anyone that's teaching you or come before you,

That's all sort of theoretical knowledge.

That's all scriptural knowledge.

All of that is important,

So to speak,

But the real importance is the discoveries you find within yourself,

What you feel in your body,

What you are experiencing on your own path.

And I really liked that because it's very easy to read a whole bunch of books on a topic.

It's very easy to have a conceptual knowledge and pick it apart and sort of dissect it and philosophize it and play these sort of meditation games,

But until you're in there and doing it,

It doesn't quite land as strongly.

So,

For example,

We're always taught,

You're always told that the mind is a chattering monkey,

But I sat with my mind for 10 days and during the meditation sessions and not during the meditation sessions,

It did not shut up.

It felt like by the end of it,

Because I became so aware that it was like there was four or five radios continuously playing.

And not only that,

Adding to that,

The sensations of the body,

The practice of Vipassana effectively is,

And I'll get into this in a little bit,

Feeling the sensations of the body.

And you develop an awareness and you grow it,

And then all of a sudden you're feeling all of the sensations of your body.

And it's just like,

Oh,

Silence doesn't actually exist.

Yeah,

I couldn't talk to people,

But my God,

There was just constant chatter,

Constant chatter,

Constant chatter in my mind,

In my body,

And then the sounds of nature and all of these things became hyper-inflated in my awareness.

And I'm noticing nature and noticing little ants.

It was just this heightened senses.

And I literally wasn't bored for one moment.

There was a lot.

So that sets the context.

Lots and lots and lots of meditation,

A nightly discourse.

During the day,

We had an opportunity for a five-minute discussion with the assistant teacher,

And that's it.

That's what we did.

Over these 10 days,

We learned the technique of Vipassana meditation.

And yeah,

It was a lot.

And when I say that there's these life lessons that arise,

I'll give an idea of the technique,

Of the practice.

The first three days,

We were doing something known as Anapana meditation,

The idea of drawing attention to the breath at the nose.

And the first day was literally just at the nose,

Noting the touch of the breath as you breathe in and as you breathe out.

Then we extended that sensations to the triangle of the nose.

And then on the third day,

It was just at that inner point,

The middle point of the tip,

Just above the upper lip.

Can you feel sensations there?

Draw attention to that space.

And at the end of three days of doing this,

I'm like,

Yeah,

I've got this.

We're going for it.

This is great.

Challenging,

Hard,

Lots of physical pain.

We'll get into that.

And then we're told,

Okay,

Now you're ready to start the practice of Vipassana meditation.

I almost fell over.

I'm like,

What do you mean,

Buddy?

I thought we were doing it already,

But no,

That was all of the pre-work,

The pre-work to be able to do the actual practice of Vipassana.

And it was necessary,

It's necessary pre-work,

But to say I was a little bit shocked and disappointed,

I was like,

Okay,

Let's actually do it now.

Turns out the practice of Vipassana meditation,

There's depth to it,

But really you sit and you've got this awareness now after all of that breath work,

Of all of that focus on the sensations in the upper lip,

You ought to basically systematically go from head to your neck,

To your arms,

To your front body,

Your chest and your belly,

To your back body,

To your legs,

Head to toe,

Toe to head,

Feeling all of the sensations that are arising big and small,

Good and bad.

And then you go into the body.

Once again,

Head to toe,

Toe to head,

Scanning,

Scanning as an overall flow and scanning part by part,

Piece by piece to feel the sensations that are arising.

And through that,

Through that practice,

You develop awareness and equanimity,

Awareness because you're focusing on all of the sensations and equanimity because you're not judging it because you're waiting.

Now,

Here's where the pain comes.

You are sitting,

You are sitting in something known as strong determination.

In the morning,

In the afternoon,

In the evening,

There's one hour dedicated to a sitting of strong determination.

And that means you do not move.

You don't open your legs,

Your arms,

Or open your eyes.

You sit and you just deal with it.

And when I tell you there is pain,

I have not felt pain like this in like ever.

And I was complaining,

I complained to the teacher.

I'm like,

Hey,

You know,

I'm in a lot of pain and,

You know,

Gave me a meditation seat that helped a little bit,

But it did not help much.

The next day,

I'm in a lot of pain.

I'm in a lot of pain.

And he basically said,

This is the pain of the practice.

This is the psychological,

Spiritual pain.

I'm like,

All right,

Buddy.

But turns out he was right.

In my back,

There was tremendous amounts of pain,

Burning fire,

Sort of felt like hot irons.

But following the practice,

You know,

We're scanning down from the head to the toes,

Toes to the head.

When you're not in that place,

You acknowledge that that pain exists,

But you just keep focusing.

And that teaches you equanimity.

You are not sort of jumping to the first thing that arises.

You're focusing on the subtle sensations and you're really sort of getting into what your body is actually feeling.

And then when you get to places of sort of numbness or places of,

You know,

Gross sensation,

Pain,

You investigate it.

How big is that spot?

How deep does it go?

Where does it end?

Does it taper off?

What is it?

What is it's consisting of?

What is the components of the pain?

Because pain is effectively just aversion.

It's aversion manifest.

It's burning sensations.

It's tension.

It's itchiness.

It's a variety of different things.

And you sort of map it out and you sort of feel where it all is.

And that's the practice.

We did that for nine days.

And then the last day was a meta meditation or a loving kindness meditation.

I'll get to that a little bit later.

But ostensibly,

I like to look at all of these things as everything I do from the agnostic perspective.

What are we doing if we take away all of the Buddhist or Vipassana?

If we take away their sort of philosophy,

Take away their sort of tradition,

Take away their sort of ideas about the back end of the practice,

What are we actually doing here that is sort of backed up by modern science or is sort of found in other traditions?

Because if I'm looking at doing this myself,

There's doubt.

But if I'm also looking at sharing it with other people and they're not Buddhist or they don't believe in the philosophy,

There can be a block there.

Now,

Those blocks are addressed in the practice by basically experience it and see what works for you.

Your experience is your experience.

And if you don't buy a part of the mythology,

So to speak,

You don't.

Because one of their sort of things is,

Or their whole idea,

Their whole practice is that craving,

There is suffering,

First noble truth.

Suffering is caused by craving,

Second noble truth.

You can end craving,

Third noble truth,

How do you do that?

By the fourth noble truth,

The eightfold noble path.

They have this whole process.

But the basic premise is this.

If you live a good life,

Do good,

Don't do bad and purify your mind through the practice of Vipassana meditation,

You will lead yourself out of suffering.

But what does the purification of the mind do?

They believe the mind and the body are connected.

So as you sit and meditate,

You're feeling your body and that is effectively purifying the mind.

The mind reacts to the bodily sensations with craving or aversion,

Unless you train it.

And this is true.

Something arises in the body,

You push away from it or you pull towards it.

Addiction arises in the body and you want more,

More,

More.

Sensual feelings,

Pleasurable feelings,

Pain.

But what are we doing from an agnostic perspective?

We're sitting with and we're feeling our body.

They would believe that as you sit and you follow the practices of morality that they dictate,

You know,

Don't kill,

Don't lie,

Be a good person effectively,

You're not adding more sort of karmic debt.

They call it Sankaras.

You're not adding more Sankaras to yourself.

You're not multiplying them.

Instead,

You're allowing the ones that have already been there to come to the surface and pass.

And that's why there's pain or pleasure that arises.

And as they arise,

You can either just feel them and let them pass or you can respond to them and that will cause them to multiply.

But what's happening on an agnostic level?

I think it's basically the discovery that the body keeps the score.

You know that idea that if you suffer from deep trauma,

Your body holds onto it and then in your belly,

In your back,

In your body,

It's sort of held there and you develop these chronic injuries and triggers from that part of the body.

I think it's like that concept,

But on steroids.

You sit now through this practice and just scan the body for an hour or more and you allow the feelings to come up and rather than pulling away from them,

Rather than running from them,

You just observe them with equanimity and then they pass.

And it's almost like you're choosing to release them.

And my God,

Does that feel apt?

And yes,

There's big things that get released,

But also small things.

And it's like every sensation that's arising,

They believe is another Sankara just sort of passing.

And the idea is that once you don't add any more Sankaras and once you've cleared all your past Sankaras,

You are now liberated.

You are now no longer bound by craving and desire and aversion and all of these things.

I don't know the truth to that,

But what I do know is that when I sat and when I felt these feelings arise and fall away,

The transience of the feelings,

Once you sat with them and you don't crave or you don't feel aversion to them,

You just sort of sit with them with equanimity,

They do pass.

But with that passing comes deep insights into the nature of your own experience,

Your own reality,

Your own sort of the past.

Like I said,

It does feel like the body keeps the score and my God was my body keeping the score.

I had a bunch of awarenesses of my past.

I'm aware that I had a deep feeling of fear to war.

One of my first memories is crying in the sand of my backyard over fear of back then of the first Gulf War.

I was a young,

Naive child and I thought that we were in danger,

Me living in Victoria,

Australia,

Because I was seeing it on the news.

I sort of embodied that.

And ever since then,

I've had this fascination is the wrong word,

But just sort of interest in it.

And I've realized that I've developed a deep fear,

Justifiable fear,

But well beyond the fear to my own person.

It is a horrendous thing,

But I'm not in personal danger,

But I've got this ongoing fear of war breaking out and of me being drafted to war and me being impacted by all of these things.

Even though my lived experience is one where that has not ever happened and hopefully never will,

But that was arising strongly.

Other things that were arising was like issues of love and lust just memory after memory after memory of past relationships,

Past opportunities to engage in relationships,

Past rejections,

Just over and over and over again.

I had vivid imagery of a raw burning pain in my back with bugs crawling over it.

And I sort of investigated it further and I'm like,

Oh,

That's the weight of my father.

The issues that I've had with my father and my stepfathers and all of these things,

That's there,

Learning life lessons about that.

I would have memories of ideas of how I put things on me.

People are sort of looking around and like,

Oh,

I'm in trouble.

It's me.

It's my fault.

I would realize how much I have in the past at least been acting rather than doing and just being myself.

It's like,

What would a person like me do and do that?

Sort of like this weird sort of abstraction.

And it just,

Things coming over again and again and again and again.

A big one was,

You're sitting there and you're meditating and you're feeling the pain and all of this sort of stuff in your body.

And it's like,

Oh,

Look at all these abusers and all of these things and all these problems that have happened in my life.

Whoa,

It's me.

And yeah,

You're processing that.

Tears coming,

Revelations coming.

But then karma is such,

So to speak,

That you get imagery after imagery of the times that you were the abuser.

You were in the room where you did or said things that if it was the other way,

You'd be holding onto it yourself and blaming the world,

That person for their cruelty.

I'm not a perfect person,

Obviously.

I have done things that have hurt people.

I have said things that have been painful.

I have done things intentionally,

Unintentionally without thought that has caused people harm.

And there was a few sessions there where that just kept coming back,

Kept coming back,

Kept coming back.

It was a lot.

And it was sort of profound.

And we had the daily discourses and it's almost like as you have these sort of inner revelations,

The course was so well-structured that the nightly discourse sort of discussed and sort of answered these questions that arose.

And it was sort of like,

We got to the end on the 10th day and we were practicing the metta meditation,

The loving kindness.

And one of the refrains was,

May I forgive people who have hurt me in the past by their words,

Actions,

Or thoughts.

Went down the forgiveness path of may I forgive.

Because let's let go of,

If we can,

Things that happened 30 years ago.

An offhanded comment,

You know,

We're still holding onto it.

They might not have even meant it,

You know,

All of these sort of things.

And even if there was deep,

You know,

Traumas and abuse,

It'd still be better to let go of it,

To not keep reliving it,

Not keep being aversion to it,

Not keep developing those sankara,

So to speak.

I'm like,

Yeah,

That feels right.

That feels good.

I should try and let go.

And then the refrain goes,

It's like,

May I be forgiven for the things that I've said and done and thought that have caused harm to others.

I'm like,

Oof,

You're right.

You're right.

It's a lot.

Now I'm trying to summarize what I'm doing here with this sort of talk.

So it's going to be a little bit of,

You know,

Me just sort of expressing myself.

I am putting together a course for Insight Time,

Where I sort of go through the 10 days and sort of dissect the lessons and all these things in a bit more depth,

A bit more clarity.

But here I just wanted to sort of express what was on my mind about it.

Oh,

Some of the main key takeaways.

It was interesting.

I arrived there on the first day,

And I did not know what to expect.

I knew we were going to be living the life of a monk,

But it's like,

Okay,

The food you're eating,

The place you're staying,

All of these things are gifts of charity.

The only reason you have these things is because they were gifts.

They were donated to us.

They were,

You know,

Past students who've given time,

You know,

They're working in the kitchen for you,

They're cleaning,

And they've given money to buy the food and pay and they've given money to buy the food and pay for the grounds and all these things.

This is cool.

Literally living the life of a monk on charity,

You know.

We're not going out and begging,

But we're still living,

You know,

On the kindness of others to get through this course.

That's cool.

And I arrived,

You know,

They take your phone,

They take your keys,

They take your wallet.

You can get them back if you want to leave,

But they,

You know,

Make you swear an oath to stay.

People did leave,

But yeah,

Fair enough.

I'm here for it.

And then you put you into your room,

But you're in a dormitory,

You know,

Me with four other men in a room,

Three,

Four other men,

Not sure.

And we get into it.

And that night we start,

You know,

I go to sleep,

Try to sleep,

And I'm a light sleeper.

And then all of a sudden I hear this snoring next to me,

Really loud.

And it's paper thin walls.

This is not good.

And then on the other side of the room,

Another snorer,

Two snorers in my room,

And I can't sleep with snoring.

And I'm sitting there,

Oh my God,

I can't do this.

I'm already getting,

You know,

Maximum five and a half hours sleep by the time I lay down and get ready for bed.

This is not good.

What am I doing here?

How am I going to deal with this?

And I put earbuds in,

I put my pillow over my head.

I can still hear them.

I'm not going to be able to sleep.

And I go,

Oh my God,

I have to deal with this for 10 days.

And then the thought came,

No,

I don't have to deal with this.

I get to deal with this.

This was a sort of like this reframe,

This Jocko Willink good,

This silver lining.

What's the silver lining here?

Okay.

I get to learn how to deal with snoring.

I get to practice my meditation in response.

I get to be equanimous.

And then I'm like,

Let's extend this to all things.

You have to pay?

No,

No,

You get to pay.

What does it mean to get to pay for things?

You know,

You're going out,

You're the one that gets to pay.

That means that the fruit of your labor is producing the joy of this purchase.

You get to pay for the house and the rent and all of these things.

You get to do things.

Something happens that requires you to redo a project.

You get to redo a project.

You get to learn.

There's a deep,

Profound reframe there that you no longer have to.

You get to.

Your kid's crying.

It's like,

Oh,

I have to deal with this.

No,

You get to.

You get to help your kid through and you get to learn something more about them and you get to teach them a new way to live.

Oh,

There's a change in work circumstances.

I have to find a new job.

No,

You get to.

There's something profound there.

That was really cool.

And then the next day,

I'm like talking to the teacher and I'm like,

Oh,

You know,

I struggle to sleep,

Yada,

Yada.

I didn't sleep basically.

And yeah,

I get to reframe it.

I get to do it.

That's great.

But I still didn't like the idea of it.

Of course,

You can reframe,

You still hope for change.

And anyway,

I get this little card,

This little thing that says your new room is M5.

And I'm like,

Oh,

Went to the new room.

This is great.

It's a solo room,

Just me.

It's a bed with barely enough room beside it to walk past,

But it's my own room.

Heart filled with joy.

This is glorious.

And I'm like,

Okay,

Little changes can lead to big joys.

There is beauty here.

This is amazing,

Right?

And that sort of taught me,

It's like,

Okay,

Little changes,

Little things can lead to big feelings,

Big internal love connection,

Glorious feelings.

And that was sort of reaffirmed on day seven.

I've got FODMAP food issues.

I can't eat that much stuff.

So I was eating plain rice and with a little bit of stuff on the side for seven days straight for breakfast and for lunch.

And dinner was basically two pieces of fruit.

So suffice to say,

My diet was pretty limited.

It was good.

They did a great job of catering for my needs,

But it was still,

I was craving something more.

And on day seven,

I'm like,

Oh,

I just want potatoes.

Give me potatoes.

And I arrive at lunch and lo and behold,

A plate of gloriously roasted potatoes.

Thank you,

Universe.

Yes.

And once again,

These feelings of a small change leads to big joys was reaffirmed.

And I'm like,

This is good.

And it's sort of reaffirmed to be something that happened at the end,

The last day.

We didn't talk to people at all until the very last day of the course on the day 10.

And the day 10 was like a bit of a sort of a soft landing to reality,

Which noble silence has given way to noble communication.

You can start speaking to all the people that were there.

And we're talking,

We're chatting,

And all of this sort of stuff.

And this is great.

And I'll share some of the things that we all discovered.

Everyone's in pain.

Everyone's reliving the good and the bad of the past.

There's feelings of sense pleasures that we're all sort of immersed in that was like,

Overwhelming us for a couple of times.

There's like all the pains of the past,

The abuse,

The victimization,

All these things,

Very common experiences,

Tears.

And it's amazing.

It's incredible.

But yeah,

There were some people there that I sort of connected with or spoke to a bunch and other people that I didn't really speak to at all.

I knew they were there,

But I didn't really connect with them.

And as I was about to leave,

This guy comes up to me,

This older guy whose English wasn't his first language.

He used some translations and stuff to sort of get by with the Dharma talks at night.

But he came up to me and he said to me,

He's like,

You know,

I have to thank you.

I'm like,

What do you mean?

He's like,

I have to thank you for something you did for me on the first day.

Now,

I knew this guy was here,

But I'd never spoken to him.

I didn't think we interacted.

I'm like,

What are you talking about,

Buddy?

And he's basically,

He said to me,

You know,

On the first day you did something for me.

You looked at me when I came in the door and you smiled.

And in that moment,

I knew I would be safe.

I knew I could get through.

I knew I'd be fine here.

You just smiled.

And I'm like,

Wow,

I have a transference here.

There's an energetic transference.

There's this peace here that is coming.

You know,

I didn't know just a simple smile allowed this person to get through this amazing 10 days.

I was grateful.

Thank you for sharing it with me.

Wow.

You know,

How small things that we do can have big impacts on other people.

I'm like,

That's great.

And that was contrasted with the discussion that I had with a couple of the other people where one person and then it was confirmed by a second person revealed that during some of the meditations,

I was breathing loudly.

And I was trying to be,

You know,

Very conscientious of other meditators there.

But,

You know,

Sometimes I put my earbuds in and when my earbuds are in,

Well,

I was probably breathing too loudly.

I wasn't aware because I couldn't hear my own breath.

And that was quite embarrassing.

Quite.

I'm like,

Oh,

Shocking.

I know.

I was being annoying to other people without realizing it.

Something I didn't even know I was doing.

And that sort of showed me,

It's like,

Okay,

When other people are being,

You know,

Quite and quite annoying,

They're not necessarily meaning it,

Right?

Point is,

Is small things you do can have big impacts upon other people,

Whether or not you know it or not.

And like I said,

There are many,

Many,

Many of these sort of insights and revelations and all these things.

Another one was that,

You know,

There was a cost to craving.

We weren't,

We were to sort of not touch,

Not feel,

Not speak to,

Not do anything,

Not to engage with sense pleasures.

But,

You know,

And if a thought arose of good or bad,

You were to sort of just acknowledge it,

But let it pass,

So to speak.

But,

You know,

We're experimenting and I sort of looked at different aspects of craving in my mind.

And then I noticed that my mind would crave one thing and then it would sort of spread.

It's like this multiplication of craving.

It would sort of grow.

It's like,

I'm craving this thing and then that craves this next thing and it just sort of spread.

Now I'm craving,

I'm in craving mode.

I'm like,

Okay,

If you allow yourself to crave a little bit,

If you allow yourself to be in aversion a little bit,

It spreads,

It multiplies.

What they're saying here is true.

And then talking later with one of the other guys,

It's sort of like,

You know,

You engage in the dopamine hit of social media or chocolate or addiction or whatever.

And dopamine just wants more,

More,

More,

More,

More.

So,

There is some truth to this.

But if you instead allow thoughts and feelings in your body just to arise,

Observe them with equanimity,

As in not judgment,

Not pushing away,

Not pulling towards,

Just curious,

Like a scientist observing a phenomena,

They pass.

And,

You know,

Like I said,

The body keeps the score and some of that score is released and there's some amazing insights like we've discussed here.

A couple more things I want to address are this realization that there is peace to be found within pain.

I was in one of these hard meditations,

It sits strong determination,

And I discovered a massive point of pain.

And one of the guidances we were given was to investigate it.

Well,

How big is the pain?

What is it consisting of?

Go to the center point of the pain,

The hardest part of the pain,

And really pierce it with your awareness what is inside.

So,

I did that and I was sitting with it and I'm like,

Oh,

You're noting the depth of it,

Noting it feels like burning,

It feels like this,

It feels like that.

Then all of a sudden at the center of the pain,

The pain opened up and there was bliss and there was peace and there was like just a sense of utter relaxation within the pain.

And that showed me two things.

Number one,

No matter what pain I'm feeling,

There will be peace to be found inside it.

And number two,

Pain and everything is impermanent.

It will end,

It will go away,

Particularly if I just observe it with curiosity.

Boom,

Amazing.

And the second thing I realized,

Or the second sort of amazing experience was that this body can feel peace.

There was another stronger set where I was doing this,

My back's in pain,

My knee's in pain,

I'm feeling subtle sensations all over the body and I'm just there for it,

Trying to be as equanimous about it as possible,

Scanning the body part by part,

Piece by piece,

Head to toe,

Toe to head again and again and again.

And then I discovered all these places of pain and I'm investigating them and all of these things.

But then all of a sudden,

There was just this profound feeling of peace and quiet.

Do you know when you're in your house and your fridge or your heater turns off and you didn't realize there was noise in the background until the noise stopped and you're like,

Oh my God,

That noise was so annoying,

I didn't even realize it.

That's what it was like.

My mind went silent,

My body went silent and I had this profound feeling of peace.

I've never felt something as incredible as this.

There have been no experiences before when I've been asleep,

When I've had a bodily massage,

When I've had other sense pleasures,

When I've been inebriated on any sort of drug in which such a feeling of peace has resonated.

And I'm like,

Okay,

My body is capable of peace.

I am able to feel at peace in my body.

This body is capable of peace.

And I was there for five to 20 minutes and just sort of floating.

It felt like my awareness had spread to the entire meditation hall and beyond.

It felt like although my eyes were closed and I could see everything,

It was just,

I don't know what it is.

I don't know what this experience was,

But I'm like,

I want everyone to know that it is possible for your body to feel peace if you just practice meditation.

But then of course,

That causes things to arise.

And what arose was a couple of things.

It's like,

I want this to happen again.

So I'm craving this feeling now,

Aka a sankara is being developed,

Aka the body is keeping the score.

I'm like,

Oh,

I want this.

And of course,

I couldn't force that sensation to happen again.

I tried,

But I know it will come if I don't force it.

There's this sort of irony to it.

But the other thing that got me out of that meditation was this thought arose over the,

Sort of penetrated my beautiful silent bubble.

And the thought was,

You don't deserve to feel such peace.

Boom,

I'm out of it.

Back to the body paint,

Back to the awareness of everything,

Back to hearing,

Back to the brain shattering.

But that thought,

I don't deserve to feel this such pleasure.

I'm like,

Okay,

There's a deep rooted self worth,

Self acceptance sort of thing that I need to address.

Why don't I deserve to feel such peace?

Why not?

And then it's like,

Back to the other awarenesses of the times that I've been mean,

Rude,

Abusive,

Uncaring to other people.

It's like holding onto all of this guilt for things that I've done out of ignorance,

Out of sin,

Out of insert,

Whatever going on.

But realistically,

I'm just a human.

And on the crux of things,

I try to live a good caring life.

I don't do it perfectly,

But no one does.

But it was just this highlight of,

Well,

There's some deep things,

There's some deep seated insecurities,

Some deep seated self worth things that I need to unpack here.

Hey,

Because that was incredible.

There's just all of these amazing.

.

.

And this happened again and again and again.

I want to highlight a couple of things.

The question becomes,

How did I remember all of this?

Because we weren't allowed to write.

We couldn't take in reading and material.

We couldn't take in writing material.

We didn't have a phone.

Now I've got a page in front of me with 20 points and hundreds and hundreds of words.

And I wrote that down on the 10th day when we got access to pen and paper.

But what I did is,

I used a technique that I learned through my psychology in school or in uni called the peg method.

And what I did,

I've got a container in front of me.

And in that container,

When there was a significant learning,

I implemented the peg method.

I would pick up a rock or a stick or a twig or an earbud,

A piece of a panadol or medicine,

Some sort of thing.

And I would hold that thing in my hand and I would peg the thought,

The idea,

The concept,

The lesson to that object.

And I'll put it in the box.

And then each night,

I would go through my box as it grew,

Stuff in the box.

And I would recall all of the words,

All of the sort of lessons learned.

So that first thing that I told you about,

Told you about the,

I have to becomes I get to in all things.

I'm holding a rock in front of my hand.

It's like,

Okay,

I have to because I get to in all things.

That goes into my box.

I pick up a leaf.

Now this leaf that I'm picking up,

I picked up on the second day.

And this leaf represents the idea that I am capable of processing internal triggers and anxieties.

And this is the last story that I want to share.

And it's good that I picked up the leaf because I would have forgotten to share it with you,

Right?

But on the second day,

I wanted to leave.

I wanted to leave the course so badly because there was a small little bit of anxiety.

And that seed of anxiety grew bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.

It started with the idea that it's like,

Okay,

Have I paid the bill,

My online bill that's due to be direct debited for my website?

Don't know.

Don't remember.

Okay.

But do I have enough money in my account?

I don't know.

I know that previously there wasn't enough money.

So I had to top it up.

Did I top it up fully?

I'm not sure.

Oh no.

Okay.

If I don't pay this bill,

If it bounces,

Is my website going to be canceled?

Oh God.

If my website gets canceled,

Then that's my online income.

That's my business.

And then that spread bigger and bigger and bigger into the idea of like,

Okay,

I'm away here.

The only person who knows where I am is my wife.

Has she told anyone where I am?

My mom knows I'm away.

My friends and family and followers know I'm away,

But they don't know where I am.

So if something happens to my partner,

My kids are now,

What's going to happen to them?

Oh God.

Does my son know my mom,

His grandma's phone number?

He knows her name.

Could they find that just this profound anxiety about all this stuff could happen.

And I just basically went into this full blown anxiety attack,

But I can't speak to anyone.

We're in noble silence.

I don't have access to my phone,

So I can't address it.

It's just me.

I wanted to leave,

But then I'm like,

Okay,

Let's just sit with the practice,

Focus on the breath.

And I did add some calm breathing and bodily awareness stuff to it.

So I focus on the sensation of breath at the nose,

Doing some box breathing.

That's in for four,

Hold for four,

Out for four,

Hold for four,

In for four,

Hold for four,

Out for four,

Hold for four.

Feel this heartbeat,

Feel the tension in the body and just sit with it and practice some CBT on myself.

Just process and logic out whether or not it's going to be fine.

I'm like,

Okay,

Chances are my mom spoke to my partner about where I am.

They've worked that out.

Chances are nothing's going to happen to them because what's the chances of that?

Okay.

Chances are that I have money in the account.

Chances are that the bill has been paid or it will be paid after this time.

And even if it's not,

Companies want money and they will try again and they will reinstate it.

There is no problem effectively.

Anxiety isn't real.

It is real,

But there's 10,

000 things that could go wrong.

And if something goes wrong,

It's not likely to be all of those things.

It's most likely to be one thing and it's probably going to be fine because you can take action and address the problems.

It took an hour,

Took two hours rather.

But then I learned,

I'm like,

Okay,

With time,

With practice,

With attention,

With equanimity,

With practice,

I can address anxiety attacks internally without going to my phone and checking and fixing the problem,

Without speaking to other people.

I can fix this problem internally.

Boom,

Life lesson.

I will keep that forever.

And there is one more story actually that I'm holding this little object that represented.

The object is like a seed pod basically.

But what happened was,

And the lesson is don't make imagined problems real by drawing attention to them,

By drawing unnecessary attention to them.

I live in Australia and in Australia we have wildlife and that wildlife can sometimes be dangerous.

Snakes,

Right?

And I was sitting and meditating and there's a sign by this little creek or whatever it is,

This little sort of water hole effectively.

There's snakes have been sighted,

But I've been in Australia my whole life and I've never seen a wild snake ever.

But I'm sitting and meditating and I look up and boom,

There's a snake and it's looking at me.

It's eyes on me and it's downwind from me and it's licking.

It's little tongue is like hissing sort of thing.

It's just laying there though.

It's got its eye on me.

It knows I'm there.

It's smelling the air.

It's like a meter long snake coiled up.

I'm like,

Oof,

Okay.

Now I'm freaking out a little bit.

I'm like,

What do I do?

The snake's there.

It's on the edge.

It's on the edge of the bank that's close to the washing line.

All right.

I'm safe because it's all the way over there.

I'll see it moving and it's not going to attack me.

But if someone disturbs it,

It might be defensively bite them.

All right.

No one's here.

I'll just look at the snake.

This is interesting.

Cool.

But then someone walks past and they're going to walk directly past this snake,

A meter away from it.

But I'm in noble silence.

I can't speak out,

But he's getting closer and closer and closer.

I'm like,

Oh no.

What if the snake bites this guy?

So I break noble silence.

The only time I break noble silence there and I call out,

I'm like,

Hey,

There's a snake.

And I should've added be careful,

But I hadn't spoken for ages at this time.

I'm like,

Hey,

There's a snake there.

And this guy looks over.

I see the flash of annoyance that I've broken noble silence.

And he's like,

Huh,

There's a snake there.

And he walks over to it.

He gets closer to it.

He leans right over.

He puts his head over it.

He's half a meter away from this snake.

And I'm like,

Oh no.

If I hadn't have said anything,

He would've kept walking.

If I'd have said anything,

He would've kept walking.

Have I just caused this person to get bitten?

Have I drawn unnecessary attention to an imagined problem and now caused it to become real?

Now,

Don't get me wrong.

I don't regret calling out and I should have done a better job of being like,

Oh,

Hey,

Be careful of that snake.

And sometimes it is important to make people aware.

But the lesson here is this.

There are so many times in which you draw unnecessary attention to a problem that isn't even there and it causes the problem to arise.

And I'm sure you can think of many times in your life where you've drawn attention to something,

But the act of drawing attention to it has made that problem real or it's made you aware of it.

Whereas if you didn't draw attention to it,

It wouldn't have been a problem.

And therefore,

Even all of the effort that it would've taken to fix the problem was mute.

That lesson has hit home.

It's like,

Okay,

Let's just take a bit more of a breath and just observe and watch.

And like I said,

I would've done the same thing regardless.

I think it was the right thing to sort of draw attention to it,

But it could have made it significantly worse.

I could have caused the problem to arise.

Ooh,

Issue.

One of the other stories.

So on the 10th day,

We all start talking and one of the guys shared a story of how he had to fart.

And he was standing next to someone.

He walked over to someone to get his shoes and he farted.

We're in noble silence.

You can't say,

Excuse me,

Yadda yadda.

But then he's like,

Oh God,

I farted.

So he walked away.

Then he's like,

He realized he walked over to someone and farted and then walked away.

So that caused him to laugh because he's like,

Oh God,

That's a bit schadenfreude.

That's a bit ridiculous.

But then he realized that to that guy,

That guy's experience was to have someone walk over to them and fart and then walk away and laugh.

So that caused him to break into hysterical laughter.

Even more so.

So there's this sort of like,

To one guy's experience,

It's this sort of like this,

You know,

Cacophony of just hilarity.

And the other guy,

What's that other guy's experience?

Someone walked over to him,

Farted,

Walked away and laughed about it.

These are the things that happen when you're on silent retreat.

Anyway,

So there's good,

Bad,

Hilarious,

Painful,

Confronting,

All of these things happen.

The discovery that we learned about the nature of the mind was interesting to me.

We learned that the mind is always in the past or the present and it is always in craving or aversion.

We are always moving towards or moving away from things.

We're always in the past or the present.

So one of the things that I learned when we're in meditation or when we're feeling like,

You know,

In overwhelming everyday life,

It's like,

Okay,

Label it.

Oh,

My mind is in the past.

Oh,

My mind is in the past and aversion.

I'm remembering something bad.

Oh,

My mind is in the future.

My mind is in the future craving something.

I want something.

Back to what I'm doing.

Back to the breath if I'm meditating,

Back to the feeling of the body,

Back to just being with me where I am.

Cool.

Oh,

My mind has gone into future aversion,

Anxiety,

So to speak.

Oh,

My mind has gone to past aversion,

Depression,

So to speak,

Rumination.

That's a good reframe.

And the final one,

I keep saying the final thing,

There's lots to sort of share.

I'm very,

You know,

It was a great experience.

One of the things that they say is that all of your suffering is internally caused.

All of your suffering is internally caused.

And yeah,

There's nitpicks to this,

But basically,

If you blame the external for your internal suffering,

It's the wrong response.

You know,

You choose how you respond.

And this is sort of similar to Viktor Frankl's work.

Viktor Frankl was a psychologist who lived through the Holocaust.

And one of his,

You know,

He had a whole branch of counseling effectively after the fact.

And his basic thing was you don't get to choose what happens in life,

But you can choose how you respond to it.

So there's some parallels there.

Did your partner do something that made you angry?

Or did your partner do something,

And then that produced a feeling in the body,

And then you responded negatively to that feeling,

Causing yourself to fall into craving,

Into aversion rather.

There's this Buddhist concept known as the second arrow.

The first arrow is what happens in life,

Good or bad.

Life will cause you pain,

Real pain.

You know,

You break a leg,

Someone passes away,

Something bad happens.

First arrow,

Real pain.

But then how you respond to that first arrow is the second arrow.

Is,

You know,

Something that you have more control over,

Is what we're working on here,

Is the development of the sankaras,

Is the body keeping the score.

You break your leg,

Okay,

But how you respond to that broken leg,

How you handle the implications of that broken leg.

Do you handle it by going,

Oh,

It was me,

And sort of really being lamenting all of the things that are going to happen because of it?

Or do you just sort of take it in stride and just continue?

There's lots to sort of dissect down that path,

But it's an interesting reframe because once you start putting it all on yourself,

You can actually make change.

I can't change the external,

But I can change my internal.

I can practice this vipassana.

I can do good,

Not do bad,

And purify my mind.

I can sit with focus on the breath,

Sit with focus on the sensations of the body as they arise in order,

Part by part,

Piece by piece,

In a flow from head to toe,

Toe to head,

And just be with what arises and learn equanimity,

Learn awareness,

So that when something happens in the external,

I can see my internal response and just observe it arising rather than falling into it.

There is absolute power there.

Now,

Do I think you should do,

Dear listener,

If you've listened this far,

Do I think you should do a silent 10-day vipassana retreat?

Yes,

With a caveat.

I think everyone should do it if they feel like they can and they're prepared,

But there is some issue potentially with people who have issues with triggers and past traumas.

Now,

They will say that the sort of spiritualism,

Traditional aspect of it will be like,

Yes,

You can process anything through this technique.

It is the technique,

And whilst that is sort of true,

I know that had I have not done TMS,

Transmagnetic cranial stimulation,

Had I have not done a history of meditation,

Had I have not had a bunch of therapy,

Many,

Many,

Many instances would have broken me.

I can unequivocally tell you that,

And I would have had to leave and had to take Valium and other interventions because I would have been triggered and overwhelmed,

And I couldn't have done it.

That's me.

So,

Be aware of that,

But if that isn't,

If you don't have that sort of history,

Yes,

You could probably do it.

You have to obviously get your life sorted.

You have to get your whole thing sorted,

But there's just a little bit of a caveat,

But trust me when I say this is an experiential thing that is just profound.

And the final takeaway that I want to leave you with was this.

It's like,

I was able to put my life down for 10 days and come back to it and everything was fine.

My business was fine.

My family was fine.

The world was fine.

Everything was fine.

AKA,

I don't have to have such a tight grasp on everything that I'm doing.

Now,

I can hear my family staring in the background,

So me recording a podcast isn't necessarily the best,

But I will definitely come back to this,

You know,

Breaking down different things.

I'll be releasing a bunch of meditation tracks and guided meditation tracks and short talks and all the things that I've learned here.

But I wanted to give you a little bit of a sort of a lead into sort of what I've been doing in the past 10 days,

Where I've been and a lot of the discussions and talks and other insights,

Because there's far more,

You know,

You're sitting in silence for 10 days,

Just focusing on the body.

And it is beautiful.

I'm going to take this practice into my everyday life.

I'm going to take it into my work.

I'm going to take it into my work as a coach,

As you know,

With my one-on-one work,

Working with people,

It's like I've done the 10-day retreat,

So you don't have to,

Even though you probably should.

But you know,

How many people can afford either with time or with money or with,

You know,

With their life,

You know,

Commitments to be able to do a 10-day retreat.

I am blessed to be able to have that opportunity,

To be able to afford it in all of those categories.

And I hope to bring to the world the lessons learned and,

You know,

Plant the seed of meditation.

So to be clear,

If you want to practice Vipassana,

You know,

Learn through,

You know,

Go deep in the practice,

But start now.

Start by drawing your attention to the breath at the nose and try and do 10 breaths,

10 breaths without losing focus.

That's a good start.

Then set a timer for say five minutes and just sit and scan,

You know,

Sensations you can feel on all the parts of your head,

Then your neck,

Then your left arm down to your fingers,

Then your right arm down to your fingers,

Then your front body,

Your chest,

Your belly,

Your lower belly,

Your groin,

Then your back body,

Your upper back,

Mid back,

Lower back,

Your seat,

Then your left leg down to the toes,

Your right leg down to the toes.

And then all of that again in reverse order.

Then go into your body,

You know,

Scanning down,

Scanning up,

Scanning across,

Scanning the other way across,

Scanning backwards and forwards,

And just feel what your body is feeling.

If there are good feelings,

Note those good feelings.

Bad feelings,

Note those bad feelings.

Numb spaces,

Note those numb spaces with awareness and with equanimity,

Equanimity,

Not pushing towards them,

Not pushing away from them,

Just noting what is arising,

Feeling what you are feeling.

And I said,

Start with five minutes,

But do an amount of time that feels like a bit of a challenge,

Sitting in strong determination,

Not moving the legs,

Not moving the arms,

Not opening the eyes,

And just sit.

If five minutes feels easy,

Do 10,

10 minutes feels easy,

Do 20,

Do an hour.

Do something that feels like a bit of a challenge,

Because trust me when I say that sort of last quarter of the sit is where the goal is,

So do it.

And then end your sessions if you're in a good mental state with some loving kindness.

Send some love to the world.

May I be free of ill will,

Free of suffering,

Full of loving kindness.

May I be happy.

May all beings be free of ill will,

Free of suffering,

Full of loving kindness.

May they all be happy.

That's the practice.

Do it morning and night,

Boom,

You're on the way.

And,

You know,

There is,

You know,

Deep philosophical,

Traditional,

Conceptual ideas that talk about,

You know,

The Buddhist,

Or the vipassanistic,

For lack of a better expression,

Theories behind it.

Like I said,

I'm agnostic to that,

But they are too.

They're like,

Do the practice.

The practice is the path.

And,

You know,

You can accept the teachings,

You can accept the Dharma on the back end,

But the practice is the path.

And they will suggest that the more you practice,

The more you'll see the truth of that path,

Because they believe that if you go down that path of purifying the mind,

You will sort of,

It will be revealed to you.

Maybe it will,

Maybe it won't,

But there is definitely some truth to a lot of what they're saying.

There's some truth to sort of reframing what their sort of theories are into the modern idea,

Modern science,

Modern psychology,

And sort of looking at the correlates between their theories,

And,

You know,

The body keeping the score,

And all of these things.

And I definitely see some truth to that.

I know that when bad things arise in the body,

And I just sit and feel with it,

I process it,

Boom.

I like the idea,

I like this technique of meditation a lot.

I'm sort of referring to it as the Jiu Jitsu of meditation.

I practice,

Presume Jiu Jitsu as a martial art,

And I think that everyone should.

It works,

It works.

And,

You know,

I think that everyone's focus should be,

You know,

80% Jiu Jitsu from a self-defense perspective,

15% striking,

And 5% mental state,

And sort of that sort of,

You know,

Self-defense thinking,

So to speak.

And similarly,

I think that,

Well,

Our practice should be 80% Vipassana,

15% breath work,

And then 5% sort of theory,

And,

You know,

Prayer,

And sort of faith-based stuff.

There's,

You know,

Meta.

There's a bit more of a split to it,

But yeah,

A lot of the practice,

I think,

Should be Vipassana,

Because yeah,

Your body's been keeping the score your whole life,

And this is a methodology that works.

You sit,

Systematically feel the body,

And just go deep.

And that systematic approach trains you to be aware of the subtle sensations when there's not deep pains and deep pleasures,

And it teaches you to be broad and equanimous,

Because you're going systematically.

You're not jumping to the pain or the pleasure,

And you're just sort of working through it,

And you're systematically just observing what is arising as it's arising with curiosity.

It's like,

How big is this feeling?

What's the component parts?

Oof.

So like I said,

I'll be making a lot more content on this topic,

Particularly on Insight Timer,

And I've got some other sort of little things to be putting out there that you will like,

But yeah,

Thank you.

And if you have any questions,

Reach out to me,

And hit me up on social,

Hit me up on the website,

And I can talk you through some of the things that we discovered here.

Either way,

Have a great day.

Catch ya.

Reviews

This was amazing.I find that it is something that I would love to do .I am happy you got so much out of your 10 days.Much Love and Peace ❤️✌️