Meditation Camp Part I

My student told me to go. And I was ready for a teacher.
It was located in the Sierra Foothills. A modest cluster of cabins where the students lodge, and three central buildings: the men’s dining hall, the women’s dining hall, and the meditation hall, which I eventually came to think of as the spaceship.

The method is called Vipassana. It’s a form of meditation (the word means insight) that the Buddha Gautama is supposed to have himself practiced. Vipassana is practiced more in South East Asia, in countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos and Burma. The teacher of this course is named S.N. Goenka and he hails from Burma.

We were there to learn vipassana but you do not plunge straight into Vipassana. No. There are a lot of steps you need to go through. First, you get settled into your routine at the camp. The program lasts 10 days and is conducted in Noble Silence which means no speaking at all and no touching anyone and no looking in their eyes either. No gesticulations, no communication. The purpose of all these prohibitions is to make you get as close as you can to a Solitary retreat.

Of course, in practice, this is not so. You still stand in line with people for breakfast and lunch, you still recognize their shoes on the wooden racks outside the meditation hall, you still assign them names and life stories and generally manage to have relationships with them. Or, at least, I did. I had a crush on about 3 girls at any given time, one small feud that happened midway through, and numerous in-jokes about everyone else. Yes, my friends, the active, monkey, outward mind will glom on to whatever miniscule amount of information it has and squeeze the most out of it.

Actually, I was just talking about this with Heather. She was saying we’re social creatures and it’s normal for us to want to be with other people and therefore, to be outwardly inclined. I agree. And this is one thing I have trouble with-- reconciling Buddhism’s teachings with a non-monastic lifestyle. I know I’m not alone in this; Danielle has told me she has similar concerns, and my pops, some years ago, when I declared that I was thinking about becoming a nun said, very thoughtfully, while taking a spoonful of flan at the Divan Patisserie in Istanbul’s Baghdad Avenue: Yalnizlik Allah’a mahsustur. Which translates into: Solitude is God’s alone. He seemed to be repeating something he had learned, maybe long ago, but the fact that he said it so simply, without looking at me or trying to convince me in any way, made more of an impression on me than anything else.

Anyhows, so the camp is meant to create a monastic atmosphere, in fact, more of a hermetic atmosphere. Monastic it is, no matter the silence. The first night you get there you vow to take the 5 precepts which are simple enough: no killing, no stealing, no lying (easy when you don’t talk!), no sexual misconduct (easy when you don’t have sex!) and no intoxicants. This, Goenkaji explains to us over the video, is what’s called sila in Pali (an ancient and dead language that the Buddha spoke that we use in our lessons). It means morality. Any solid practice of vipassana needs to be based on flawless sila. So a monastic lifestyle makes this easy for the practitioners and, in fact, the vows are called “taking refuge” in the five precepts. So, like an umbrella, or a tent, you take shelter in perfect morality, at least in the action-sense. Your thoughts could still be awful and terrible, but at least you’re not acting them out.

I really like this taking refuge business, I must say. I just love that it’s an idea, so that means it’s always available. Maybe this is the essence of any religious longing-- the need for a constant refuge. Unlike a person or any circumstance or anything outside of you, the idea is always there. God is always there. Something-- something is always there. Always ready. Whatever happens you can take refuge in there, in this ever present place (of course, even then, it’s hard to put into practice. Just because something or someone is always available doesn’t mean you’re always willing to go to it, even though you might be in dire need). But anyway, I like that the phrase "taking refuge" physicalizes this very vague but strong psychic urge.

So we took our refuge on our first night, after a brief dinner and an "orientation" which seemed like just announcements and logistics. This made me terribly impatient. I wanted to know what we were going to do, I wanted to get started on my task. After orientation we had a little break and then met up outside the meditation hall-- the girls on one side of the building, the boys on the other. We were waiting to be called in and shown to our assigned spots. At first everyone was chatting and then we all quieted down. I'll never forget that feeling of standing around among the madrone trees, bundled up in the Sierra chill, with the stars fresh above us, waiting to be admitted into this building, this mysterious practice. Friends who had come together were saying goodbye to each other and hugging. It was so strange and so exciting. And once someone's name was called they would take their shoes off and just disappear inside. I took a deep breath of air, itching to find out for myself what was inside.