vipassana

i've been back a few days now from my vipassana meditation retreat. naturally people want to know what it's like when you go away for ten days of silence. "oh, you can talk," was a common refrain this week. what happens when meditating is not easy to describe, actually, because the mundane details of sitting don't begin to reflect the profundity of the technique. what i did was sit for about ten hours a day for ten days, watching my breath and observing my mind and body. from the outside meditation is somewhat comic. the faces of meditators look more or less like the faces of people asleep on a subway. but inside the play of pain and pleasure force one to confront oneself more intensely than any therapy, course or program i've experienced.

here's what the website says: "Vipassana is one of India's most ancient meditation techniques. Long lost to humanity, it was rediscovered by Gotama the Buddha more than 2500 years ago. The word Vipassana means seeing things as they really are. It is the process of self- purification by self-observation. One begins by observing the natural breath to concentrate the mind. With a sharpened awareness one proceeds to observe the changing nature of body and mind and experiences the universal truths of impermanence, suffering and egolessness. This truth-realization by direct experience is the process of purification. The entire path (Dhamma) is a universal remedy for universal problems and has nothing to do with any organized religion or sectarianism. For this reason, it can be freely practiced by everyone, at any time, in any place, without conflict due to race, community or religion, and will prove equally beneficial to one and all."