Life as it is now...

These days are tough. Especially Mondays and Thursdays are packed with heavy teaching schedules. I teach in 2 Universities--University at Buffalo & Uni-SIM. I begin teaching at 12 noon--first Statistics for 2 hours, and then Social Psychology for another 2 hours and on Monday evenings Organizational Psychology for 3 hours. On Thursday evenings it is Developmental Psychology for 3 hours.

Teaching includes hours spent on preparation and marking/grading . So though the other days of the week are non-teaching days they are taken up for preparation & marking.

So where does my practice (Vipassana meditation) figure in this kind of schedule? Fortunately I have had time for it. Morning practice is regular as usual, but on Mondays and Thursdays as I am out of the house from 11am to 10pm, my evening sitting meditation gets affected. So I usually sit for a few minutes in the staff lounge of SIM just focusing on my breath (natural respiration). Challenges keep coming up during the day, and I am able to meet them calmly, and with equanimity.

Recently, my phone fell in water and stopped working for sometime. I dried it and waited for a day; it started working the next day. When it stopped working, I was a trifle disappointed, because it was my lack of awareness that caused it to fall in water. Then I was reminded of Goenkaji's story he narrates in 10 day courses--about a wrist watch. It goes like this:

I own an expensive wrist watch and due to some negligence on my part, it falls and breaks. I feel very very sad and lament that it was such an expensive watch, I can't get it repaired here in this country as its spare parts are not available here...My wrist watch...my wrist watch... such a wonderful watch... how proud I was of this watch...now its gone...how sad...

However, let's say, that my friend had an expensive wrist watch and again due to some negligence on his/her part it falls and breaks....do I feel the same way as I did when mine broke? No...on the contrary I am gleeful..and I offer advice, I sermonize to him---Oh you should have been careful---such a watch--you cannot fix it here in this country because you won't get spare parts for such a watch.. ..

I am not sad --in fact happy--such a foolish, careless man/woman--doesn't know how to take care of his expensive watch...he didn't deserve to have that watch!

No body is unhappy over the breaking of a watch..... It is only our attachment towards the watch (especially if it belongs to us) that makes us unhappy. Such deep attachments we have towards our belongings--our watch, our phones, our cars, our possessions......

They are only things after all...they come, they also go..and can be replaced too. The faster we understand this, the less problematic our lives will become. What we have is this present moment and in this moment life gives us so much that we can be grateful for. For me on that day when my phone stopped working, Raja was there to pick me up from SIM and transport me to Singapore Polytechnic where I had my evening class. I was fortunate that my life was made that much easier.. grateful for these moments, grateful for having him there in my life.

20 Days in New Zealand

"Meditation is taking you places" said a colleague and friend when I first went to US to take part in the Mind & Life Summer

Research Institute Conference in 2006. That seemed to become a convincing reality when I decided to go to New Zealand in 2009 for my 20 day course of Vipassana meditation. It was certainly taking me places in more ways than one!

New Zealand wasn't planned intentionally. That was the only center running a 20 day course in the time period convenient to me. I was looking for a breakthrough from my attachment to the Vipassana center in Hyderabad. Barring one 10day course in Chennai, all other courses that I attended were in Hyderabad. 20 day courses are less frequent compared to 10 day courses and the eligibility requirements are more stringent. New Zealand happened also because I wanted to know if I could survive on non-Indian food for 20 days. That year was very well planned in terms of work--I chose to teach only two semesters--Spring and Fall and so kept May to August free for Vipassana courses.

After some minor hurdles at the Quantas check-in desk at Singapore airport which refused to fly me as I did not have an Australian visa ( I had not known that Indian passport holders are required to have transit visa if they stop over anywhere in Austalia) I bought new tickets on SIA direct flight to New Zealand.

Auckland was cold in July, but something which I was prepared for. After checking into a hotel for a day, a van picked a bunch of us from different countries at the city center and we headed for Kaukapakkapa, a lovely valley, little away from Auckland.

We were a total of 16 people taking the course, 10 females and 6 males. All rules were the same as for a 10 day course, but with one major difference. We were given the freedom of choosing where we wanted to meditate--in the Dhamma Hall, or in our meditation rooms. The environment was serene, calm and beautiful in fact a haven! As one co-meditator remarked it was quiet even by western standards! We each had a room to stay in and an additional room for meditation. Normally, established centers have a pagoda with meditation cells in them for solitary practice, but as it is still in its planning stage we got an additional meditation room instead.

What a course it was! I loved the location, I loved my hot-water bag (to beat the chilly weather) I loved the continuous meditation practice, I loved the experience of it all.

7 days of Ananpana meditation (awareness of natural respiration) and 13 days of Vipassana meditation. The first few days my past came to me in torrents---long forgotten childhood memories--which I never knew existed, all came back to me, including painful memories of my sister's accident and death. I spoke to my teacher conducting the course, a kind gentleman, Mr. Ross, who advised me to just let go of the thoughts and get back to focusing on my respiration. With total silence around me, with just the instructions of Goenkaji in my head, I was gradually able to fully focus on my breath and progressed to remarkable stages of inner quiet.

A quiet stillness which was so peaceful, so tranquil and so harmonious descended on me. In this wonderful state, I started the practice of Vipassana. Then slowly trouble began-- first an excruciating pain in my right ankle as I sat in my normal meditation posture. At first, I took this to be a pain like others that come on the body from time to time--but no, this was here to stay for quite sometime. Just as I was learning to accept this as a part of my "dukkha" my old migraine-like headaches started. Now I didn't know which hurt more--my ankle or my head.

Well, after a few days I decided to change my posture so as to ease the pressure on my ankle when I sat cross-legged. It helped a lot and I continued my practice with balance of mind restored. My headaches wouldn't go--they continued unabated--and in this case there was no question of shifting positions! The pain was not as bad as the nausea accompanying it. Finally, I thought I should speak to the teacher and get myself a painkiller perhaps? With this thought and with perfect equanimity towards all that I was experiencing inside, outside, I sat for the 6 o'clock group sitting. Just an hour more and I will go and speak with the teacher and ask for a pain killer, I thought to myself.

The hour was gone, and so was my headache. Just like that...

Many things I learned on that course- An internal quiet and an ability to access that internal sanctuary at will.

"Make an island of yourself,

make yourself your refuge

there is no other refuge

Make truth your island

make truth your refuge

there is no other refuge"

This assumed a meaning and significance so clear, so distinct.

Additionally, a deep realization on how much energy I give towards likes and dislikes. The mind constantly keeps evaluating in terms of likes and dislikes. This was significant because I noticed that I would frequently get irritated with Raja whenever we had a conversation--this irritation stemmed from the fact that he could not hear/listen to me well ( does that sound a typical wifely complaint?). The course helped me awaken to the reality of the fact that he couldn't hear me--so why can't I accept that? why do I have to resist it?

That brought about a huge transformation in my day-to-day life even after I returned. There was a willingness to accept reality as it manifested itself. The tendency to engage in negative thinking greatly reduced, and has almost become non-existent.

I also became more and more aware in my interactions with people, suffusing it with warmth and genuineness which brought greater peace and harmony.

"Happiness is a function of acceptance of what is" This is no longer a quote to me--it is my reality.

Mind Matters Most!

One of the main reasons for my attraction to courses in Vipassana meditation is that the teaching provides me a method, a way, to directly experience the reality of mind and matter. The process of knowing what is happening within is through direct experience, it is not a belief nor do I have to follow a ritual.

The instructions are clear and precise and to the point. The theoretical explanations given during discourses in the evening throw light on one's practice during the day and is very meaningful. In fact Goenkaji is very spot on in his teaching--he has a good comprehension of students' experiences on each day of the course.

Because of the importance given to practice of meditation, the theoretical aspects become easier to comprehend and don't remain just a philosophy. What becomes clear in the course of the practice is that we all have a consciousness and more specifically, this consciousness is linked to our sense organs. Therefore we have an "eye consciousness", "ear consciousness", "touch consciousness", "taste consciousness", "smell consciousness" -- the 5 sense organs. In addition, we have our "mind-consciousness" (example, a thought that arises).

We know we have this consciousness because we are able to perceive the external world through our sense organs. With this important faculty of perception we are able to give meaning to what we see, hear, taste, smell, touch, and think. Giving meaning is possible because of past experience with the external object. Therefore if somebody praises you, your ear-consciousness hears the praise and is able to interpret the words as something good, something wonderful.

The instant we are able to perceive the stimulus in our environment, there is a sensation that is aroused in the body which is in line with our perception. The words of praise that reaches our ears gives us a corresponding sensation of pleasure --such as a tingling feeling, or a sense of pleasantness, a wave of exhilaration. This sensation makes us want more and more of the stimulus that set it off--the words of praise, so we start craving for more words of praise--a reaction.

Described thus far, there seems to be consciousness, perception, sensation and finally reactions. It is because of these four faculties that we experience our world and it is worth while to understand these processes clearly and help ourselves out of the mess we land ourselves in very often.

The fact that we have a consciousness cannot be altered, and as long as our sense organs are working, we will keep becoming aware of the stimuli at various sense doors. We can neither stop ourselves from giving meaning to the objects in our environment so the process of perception goes on, based on our past experiences. However, what is not very apparent to us is that there is a gap between our perception and our reaction to this perception and that is our sensation on our body. The moment we perceive, we evaluate the external object (or an internal phenomenon such as a thought in the mind) as being good or bad, favourable or unfavourable and depending on this we experience a sensation. Reactions are based on the sensations we experience--if it is pleasant we crave for it --if unpleasant we want to avoid it.

When we stop reacting to our sensations, we find that the sensation passes away on its own without us having to do anything about it. This helps us understand their impermanent nature.

Therefore meditation helps us in 2 significant ways:

1. it helps sharpen our minds so that we learn to detect these sensations on our body, and pay attention to them

2. it helps us remain objective (equanimous) about our sensations and understand the truth about their nature-- that they are impermanent.

This is the main and most significant role of meditation. It trains us to become more and more aware of our sensations and helps us to understand their true nature of impermanence and thus helps us become objective about them (equanimity).

Time and again many enlightened people have asserted, that we have no control over the objects in the external world--we only have control over our reactions to them. The process of meditation provides us a method of gaining that control over our reactions. It helps us find the gap between stimulus and our response. It enables us choose our response wisely not out of blind, automatic reaction.

An intellectual understanding alone rarely helps us in life, it can probably inspire us. Turning this into a belief or accepting it as a philosophy doesn't help as well.

It is only with continuous practice that one begins to see the truth of these processes; it is with practice that one is able to comprehend the impermanence of our sensations and develop equanimity towards them. By doing so we put a stop to blind reactions to sensations.

Importance of Daily Practice

After taking the 10 day course it is important to maintain the continuity of practice everyday. What Goenkaji advises is to sit for one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening. On the face of it this is quite a challenge and many people tend to stop after a few days. The effect of the course (as in any other course) tends to wear off if there is no practice.

If you don't use it, you lose it.

After my first course I found it difficult to maintain my daily practice--I found it difficult to sit even for an hour. I was working (teaching in college)and had two young children and although I had a strong desire to continue on this path, I did not know how to re-organize my life to fit in the hours of practice. So the first year, I was happy if I could get even a few minutes a day to sit and meditate. In these few minutes I tried my best to practice anapana (focusing on the natural respiration). I couldn't really practice Vipassana.

Association with Sabrina really helped in those initial years. She was so dedicated and so inspiring! She would call me to assist her in the children's program--some of which I went for. More importantly, whenever I had a problem or a daily hassle, I could discuss it with her and she would explain the Dhamma to me which helped me stay on the path. She had this ability to apply the teaching to real life. So what I learned in the courses became more and more practically relevant.

After my second 10 day course my one hour of morning meditation became regular. I did put in a lot of effort to make it regular. I would wake up at 4 am mediate for an hour and then get ready for the day--that is, cooking for the family, packing and dropping off my kids in school & getting to work. Life was hectic but I was able to fit in one hour of daily practice. People marveled at my energy, my ability to wake up at 4 am no matter when I went to sleep in the night. But I still feel it was mainly because of my one hour sitting, that I got the energy to carry on with a hectic day.

I had plans to do my course in Satipattana (Establishment of Mindfulness). For this, my practice had to become more regular. Serving at the center in Madras, attending one hour of group meditation on Sundays, involving myself in children's courses, helped me in my daily practice.

As all courses are run on donations by old students, there is a constant need for people serve on the course. Whenever I had time, I would drive to the center and offer my services. This is called Dhamma seva. When you help others on the path, you get helped in turn---it gave me the energy to practice everyday.

By this time, my two daughters had attended the children's course and they could understand my meditation practice at home. When I did my 3 rd course, my husband agreed to come for the course. Although he found the course useful, he lost practice soon after.

There were brief periods of time when my practice was not very regular after my course in Satipattana. When I say "not very regular", I mean the 2 hours of daily meditation. I had, by this time stabilized on one hour of daily practice except on very rare unusually busy days.

It made sense to maintain regular practice. This is because, in the courses you go to deep levels of your mind and change certain unhelpful patterns of behaviour and gain deep insights into your life. If there is no daily practice, these gains are not maintained, and very soon one goes back to original patterns of behavior. With daily practice, one gets the opportunity to learn new things about oneself and remove further obstacles in experiencing life fully, in every course one takes.

One analogy that would help understand this is learning to swim. After a few days of learning to swim, one needs to maintain regular practice to swim well. In fact, the mind itself can be analogous to an ocean, and the first course is like taking the first dip in that huge ocean. Subsequent courses help you to explore the ocean of the mind by diving deeper--but lack of regular daily practice, would only keep you on the surface level of the ocean (mind).

After my fifth course finally I began sitting the second hour fairly regularly, and have tried to maintain that till now--there are a few days when I do not achieve this regularity--but I try my best to do so.

The regular practice also helped me understand the theoretical aspects of Dhamma, the teaching. For instance, I could clearly understand the 4 parts of the mind as explained in the discourses by Goenkaji. Earlier my understanding was very superficial, but regular practice and doing the course seriously, following every rule, every instruction scrupulously, I was able to achieve new levels of understanding and this again helped me change my way of thinking and behavior.

I will be elaborating on this new understanding in my next post.

Igatpuri & Mumbai

Connecting with oneself ........A typical 10 day course

As Goenkaji says, right from the time we are are born, we are encouraged to be extroverted. We are taught to speak, respond to people and interact with them. In contrast to this, the 10-day courses helps us learn to connect with ourselves and understand our innate tendencies towards behaving in certain ways.

A typical 10-day course has 3 parts to it : Sila, samadhi and pannya:

Sila or moral code involves taking the following 5 vows (also called precepts):

1. Abstain from stealing

2. Abstain from killing

3. Abstain from speaking lies, harsh words, back biting etc.

4. Abstain from taking intoxicants

5. Abstain from sexual misconduct

These vows are taken because to engage in any one of theses actions creates a lot of negativity or disturbance in the mind. For instance, it is impossible to kill without generating anger and hatred; it is impossible to speak lies without generating greed of some sort or jealousy or similar negative emotion. As the objective is to investigate the mind, these actions are abstained from, in order to set the stage for deep exploration of the mind.

Samadhi--concentration of mind:

Exploration of the mind is quite a difficult task in itself but there is a way out of this. Observing the natural respiration is one way; that is. the breath, as it enters and leaves the nostrils. There are many reasons for choosing the breath to explore the mind, make it an object of meditation.

1. It serves as a link between the mind and body--whenever the mind becomes disturbed--as when we are angry or sad, the breath loses its natural rhythm--we begin to breathe rapidly or very slowly, disrupting the oxygen flow into our body. Focusing on the breath helps to set imbalances at rest, as by doing so we breathe evenly and normally.

2. It is the truth at any given moment. The fact that one is alive, one is breathing--this is truth--it is not an imagination or a visualization, or a belief, it is the truth of the moment.

3. Lastly, it is always there with us--you don't have to remember a mantra or carry an object of meditation.

Focusing on the natural respiration--the breath as it comes through the nostrils and as it goes out sounds very simple but it is in fact quite a challenge. This is because our attention does not remain there, it keeps rolling away in thoughts especially about the past, the future. Whenever one notices his/her attention rolling off into other directions, one patiently brings it back to the entrance of the nostrils. With time and sustained practice, the attention wanders less and less and stays for longer duration at the nostrils. The mind thus becomes more and more focused, and one-pointed as it is also called.

Vipassana--purification of mind:

When the mind is thus reasonable attentive, after 3 days of persistent, continuous practice, one is instructed in the practice of Vipassana. This means getting this concentrated mind to survey the entire body, beginning at the top of the head and slowly and gradually scanning the entire body, to the tips of the toes. While doing so, one learns to develop equanimity towards all sensations experienced. Equanimity is observing the sensations as objectively as possible--not identifying with any of them, but just taking note of them.

Generally speaking there are usually 3 broad classification of sensations--pleasant sensations, unpleasant sensations and sensations which are neither pleasant or unpleasant--the so-called neutral sensations. In the initial courses it is the unpleasant sensations that seem to dominate, especially as one sits in the same position for long periods of time. Noting these sensations, without reacting to them is again a huge challenge as the normal instinctual tendency is to shift one's position in the hope that the unpleasantness may decrease. One slowly understands that the only way to deal with the unpleasantness, the pain, is to experience it without judging it as bad, without wishing it would go away. In fact, I even learned to 'experience' the pain by observing it part by part, dividing and dissecting separately noting sense of pressure, solidity, heat etc. This helps to observe the sensation in an objective manner, thus developing the faculty of equanimity.

Gradually one realizes that these sensations which were so intense, change and cease to exist, go away on their own even without having to move one's seating position. This is true not only for painful sensations but whatever kind of sensation that experienced as one scans the body. This is one of the important truths that is experienced and understood--the phenomenon of annicca or impermanence.

This practice goes on up to day 9. Experiences may differ from person to person, but by this day one gets a general idea of the teaching, and some insights into one's dominant behavioral tendencies. The 10th day, is a special day as the meditators are taught to radiate the peace they experience into the outside world along with unconditional love and harmony to all beings. This day is also a day when the silence comes to an end--a relief to many!

While the courses help us explore deep into our minds, training it to be less reactive and impulsive, this can be sustained only with regular daily practice outside of these courses. I will be writing about this in my next post.

"Why I sit..."

Part V (Forgiveness)

Forgiveness...that's what I wrote in my last post (Part IV). People usually have mixed feelings about forgiveness. Some understand that it heals but have difficulty in putting it to practice. Others--quite a number of them, feel that forgiving people who have hurt you, harmed you is a sign of weakness. It is a like condoning and excusing the bad behaviour or actions of the other person. Some feel that their anger towards the person harming/hurting them is justified and therefore there is nothing wrong in "righteous indignation" or righteous anger.

I understand how that feels having gone through such experiences myself. Tales of other's acts of forgiveness of their tormentors evokes mixed feelings of admiration and disbelief and some times makes you want to be able to do likewise, but yet seems an unthinkable path to follow.

"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned"

said The Buddha, and how true it is! However righteous or justified one might think our anger is, this is so true! So how do we behave with a person who has wronged us? Before we act, we need to understand ourselves first, calm ourselves down and reach a state of balance. It is a choice--and a sane and rational one.

Viktor Frankl said "Between a stimulus and a response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

We need to understand the pointlessness of reacting with anger in the face of an unpleasant situation, take a step back, calm ourselves down and the deal with the situation. This is where I found my meditation practice very useful. It helped me find the gap between the stimulus and response, it made me aware of the choices I had.

When a person says unkind things to me the initial reaction is one of anger and the training in observation of natural respiration helps me focus on my breath till I calm down. Sometimes I do nothing else but just calm down--if it is not an appropriate situation to say something back to the person, I just don't say anything.

I also realized that the person who acts in an unkind and angry manner could be doing so for many reasons. Maybe he has problems himself which I am unaware of ? His outburst of abuse may or may not be directly linked to me who was at the receiving end. If you feel/think you have done something to warrant the other's anger, the best thing would be to apologize for it. If you feel/think you have done nothing to cause his anger, the best thing would be to forgive him, because then his anger is not due to something you did, but something he is not able to handle and therefore is in need of some compassion.

Also, are we not guilty of behaving in a similar manner at some time in life ? Sometimes overcome with our cares and stresses do we not burst out in anger ? Do we not wish to be treated with compassion ourselves at such times, for mistakes we have committed?

Unfortunately, we are so immersed in our own lives and needs that we rarely think that each one is going through their own private hell. What externally appears to be a happy, successful life may not in reality be exactly that all the time. Each one of us need some love, some compassion.

The practice of Vipassana meditation opened up such avenues of thought. The discourses of Goenkaji combined with the practice enabled me to appreciate a different perspective and find value in doing so. Because by learning to forgive, I was only helping myself--I was refusing to engage in negative thoughts of the other and instead cultivating positive thoughts of compassion and unconditional love.