My unusual 10 Day Vipassana Experience

The Silent Treatment - The answer to life's big questions could just be 10 days away - as long as you can bite your tongue. I will experience a Vipassana Buddhist Meditation Course. Driving deep into the mountains in the cold, dying days of autumn, there is a short sentence stuck in my head. It was taught to me by Mr Chatfield, my year nine history teacher, who must have loved this sentence very much, for he would often make me write it 50, 100,200 times on the blackboard a la Bart Simpson. Around and around it goes, like a mantra:

"Silence is Golden and I like Gold"
"Silence is Golden and I like Gold"

I can only hope that line doesn't stay with me for the next 10 days.But I fear it might, because for the entirety of these 10 day I shall be in silence. Complete, not-a-word-to-be-uttered, mind-screwing silence.And the mantra-like nature of Mr Chatfield's refrain is apt, because the reason these words are with me is that I'm driving to undertake a Vipassana Buddhist Meditation Course. Mates have taken bets on how many days I'll last. The most common wager is two.

It's not just that there seems nothing more risible than seeing a bloke as talkative as me banished into monastic silence; its that most know that I've never meditated in my life.
I've admitted to them that I have no idea what I'm getting my self into. Beyond knowing that I'll be waking at 4am, meditating for 12 hours daily and eating only a piece of fruit after midday; beyond these things I know nothing - nothing of Vipassana, nothing of the technique. I haven't wanted to know. I want this to unfold before me, without holding a single expectation. Besides, if I know too much, I belive I'll chicken out.

Actually, there is one other think I know; nothing I've ever done has polarized opinion as like this. Half my friends tell me that this will change my life; it will be beautiful. There jealous it me and not them. But then theres the other half who are damn glad it me and not them. For ever having agreed to such a thing, I must be, they tell me, stark raving bloody loony.

Curiously, no one sits on the fence. It is absolutely black or white, opinions intensely for or against. The only person to admit ambivalence is me. I see it going either way, and that, in fact, is what interests me most.

More than anything else, I want to know what happens when I subtract the craziness, the noise and the commotion of everyday existence. I want to ditch the deadlines and the disease of busyness, lose my loved ones ( TV Books ) and instead, for just once in my life concentrate on nothing but my mind.

I'm not looking for specific answers, I'm not stressed, depressed or searching for life's meaning. What I am though is curious. Where does 10 days of monastic silence, 10 days of nothing but meditation take the mind? To a limpid clarity of self-understanding? To babbling barminess? Or to some place I never could have envisaged? I do a crazy amount of outdoor adventures; this is simply an adventure of the mind, an adventure with an unpredictable outcome.

The PA system crackles and a pre-recorded message begins, monotone, Big Brotherly, High-Pitched. Softly spoken yet possessing vague menace. We are warned that under no circumstances should we leave the center. We are warned that silence extends to making no physical gestures to , or even making eye contact with, other participants. We are warned not to write. "The Rules" the voice says flatly "are for your benefit" I'm worried I have entered a cult. I had been feeling awfully brave smuggling in a pen and paper for the sake of you my dear reader's but such bravery melts as i wonder what sort of penalty cults exact if rules are broken.

One the tape stops, silence starts. We are ushered over to the Meditation Hall. On the floor sits a neat arrangement of square, flat cushions. Men to the left Women to the right. We sit in silence. I wait for instructions but none come. What am I meant to do? I start by trying to clear my mind, but the stream of random, cascading thoughts is constant. My head begins screaming. Come on someone, anyone tell me what the hell I'm meant to do.

I've been hear only 10 minutes Then the teacher - until now he could have been a statue - speaks. He announces he is merely the assistant teacher. For the course's duration, we will listen to the actual teacher, Mr S.N. Goenka, by tape. The recording starts with Goenka chanting, in what language I know not. His is not the beautiful rhythmic chanting of the Buddhist Monks from Laos, Tibet or Japan. It drones for an eternity, studded with so many long and guttural gasps that I think I am hearing the very-soon-to-be-late Mr S.N. Goenka.

When he breaks into English, though Goenka's accented voice is rich and melodious. It is reassuring, avuncular. And familiar, though I can't immediately place it. I find myself instantly willing to trust it. Focus on the nostrils, Goenka tells us, on the in and out, on the inhalation and exhalation. This helps, Well, at least for 15 seconds at a time. It's crazy that I consider this a vast improvement.

Find out what happens on DAY 1 Read On