Te noho puku: What 9 days of silence taught me.

Day 0:

Nervously, I pulled up to the carpark of Dhamma Medini, the Vipassana Meditation Centre, located deep in the native bush of Kaukapakapa, north of Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland). The sun was setting and a cold drizzle had set it.

My mind was still whirring away, busy processing all the tasks I had and hadn’t completed leading up to my 10 day retreat. Waikawa (baskets) of freshly dried laundry in the back testament to the non-stop nature of my life leading up to the course.

Walking up the gravel drive to the main dining hall, there were some awkward, non-verbal exchanges with other students, as I wasn’t sure if our silence had already started. I passed a couple of young hippies in a campervan who were showing their mask exemptions to the volunteer at the gate.

Quick to judge, I immediately wrote them off as Covid-denying non-conformists, and was thankful for the silence rule to save me from being rude to them. I would continue to silently judge them for 10 days, annoyed at the injustice of everyone else meditating in masks while they could breathe freely. On the 11th day, everything changed…

But on that very first night, I was grateful to find two young, mask-wearing wāhine sitting at my designated dining table. We hit it off immediately, and I discovered that this was their second rodeo. “We’ve just got to get through the first 4 days”, they warned me. “After day 4, it gets much better”.

I choked down my lentil soup as I tried to make sense of this ‘heads up’. They sensed my fear and reassured me that it’s better not to know anything about the course, just to experience it as I go. I’m not sure that helped calm my apprehension.

My nervousness compounded as I handed over all contraband, including my phone, pens, paper, wallet and keys. Had I remembered to reply to everyone I was supposed to? Had I set up enough vacation auto-replies? Too late now.

I felt like I was standing at the edge of a giant chasm, ready to take the leap but not knowing what was down there. I was terrified.

Noble silence began after dinner, but to be honest, this was the part I was looking forward to the most. As a kaiako, I talk for a living. Be it reo Māori or reo Pākehā, I get to the end of the day and my throat is usually sore. Not talking for 9 days felt like sweet bliss.

We all made our way to the meditation hall for our first sitting, women to the right, men to the left. Not sure where the non-binary folk went?

Square meditation cushions were lined up in a beautiful grid arrangement, and mood-lighting created a calming atmosphere. We silently filed in and found our designated cushion. By the end of the course, that spot became a comforting oasis, but at the very beginning, it represented a prison of my own mind.

5 minutes into the first sitting, and I could feel my mid-back screaming at me. I wriggled around a bit, changed my leg position, and it got better. 5 minutes later the pain was back. “You’ve supposed to be medita

ting, Laura.” No-one told us we couldn’t talk to ourselves.

“Become aware of the small triangular area between your nostrils and your upper lip”,

Goenka’s soothing monotone reassured me that it really was very simple and easy.

5 seconds later, I was back to analysing my business and working on a serious side-hustle.

Thus ensued a restless session of silent business-planning and telling myself off for being really bad at meditating. As soon as the chanting started to close the session, I breathed a sigh of relief and allowed myself to wriggle with more vigour.

Later in my single bedroom, my mind was still whirring away as I set my alarm for 3.55am.

Day 1:

Weather: Pouring down all day.

4.30-6.30am: meditation session was relatively unsuccessful, unless you count

making serious headway on the financial planning of my imaginary side-hustle a success.

6.30am breakfast: Slow-cooked scotch oats with stewed raisins and prunes (delicious), and rosemary tea (first time).

I’d recently recovered from a head-cold, and had an emerging sinus infection that was worrying me. I justified sleeping through one of the meditation sessions in the morning to allow my body to rest. Felt a bit guilty about it.

11am lunch: Brown rice (or pasta) with pasta sauce, steamed broccoli and salad with balsamic vinaigrette. I wolfed everything down and even went for seconds, knowing this would be my last proper meal till 6.30am tomorrow.

I slept through another session in my room, surprised at how tired I was given my lack of activity. When I resumed meditation, I’d have to lie down every 20 minutes for 5 minutes to relieve my back-pain. Any longer than 5, and I’d be back to sleep. I was up and down like a yo-yo, trying not to look at the clock, trying to focus on my breath, and trying to extend my periods of sitting.

2.30pm group sitting: This afternoon session quickly became my most dreaded sitting. My back started out ok in the morning, but as the day went on the pains came thick and fast, each time I moved a new one would sprout up like a horrible weed. One minute here felt like one hour.

5pm fruit dinner: Yes, you read that right. We received fruit for dinner. And only the new students. The old students got lemon-ginger tea for their sins. As I tucked into my delicious fruit salad of apples, bananas, oranges, pears and kiwifruit, I looked across at my table buddies who were not eating, and felt guilty. I quickly gobbled it all up and went for my daily treat, a 3 minute hot shower.

7pm discourse: Every evening we had an hour-long pre-recorded discourse, filmed in the 90’s, somewhere in the States. I discovered that Goenka is really a likeable, relatable fellow, who tells good jokes. While we couldn’t talk, there was no laughing ban, and we all laughed heartily whenever we could. Mask-exemption lady laughed especially loud, which I resented as I imagined all those droplets spreading around the room.

Day 2:

Weather: Freezing cold and raining again.

Breakfast: Same as yesterday, but with thyme tea (another revelation). Think mixed herbs meets boiling water.

Lunch: Most delicious tofu vermicelli stir fry I’ve ever had (felt very happy). Silverbeet salad with lemon tahini dressing. Chocolate cake for the gluten eaters (felt sorry for myself).

Meditation progress: Only cheated (slept) through one meditation session in my room, but slept after brekkie and lunch, my new routine that I’d continue till day 10. I still felt tired, like I was catching up on sleep after a super-hectic school term. My back still felt sore, but I could sit for 25 minutes before needing to lie down.

Fruit dinner: Perhaps due to a lack of talking or other distractions, this was the best fruit salad I’d ever tasted in my life. I savoured it slowly and mindfully, but not without a little guilt for my buddies.

Day 3:

Weather: Showers easing.

4.25am: Still in bed. Contemplating sleeping through my session. After all, I’ve got to recover so I can meditate diligently. Pushed past this whakaaro, got up and struggled through another session. At the end, I was craving my asana (yoga) practice, I felt so creaky. I did some sneaky cat/cows and sun salutations and felt guilty, as we’d agreed to not practice yoga or any other meditation technique.

Breakfast: Porridge with stewed apples. Not as sweet as stewed raisins (felt disappointed). Coriander tea (also a let down).

Lunch: Gluten free spinach pie with mushroom sauce, steamed carrots, fresh salad with balsamic vinaigrette. I was overjoyed with today’s lunch, and went back for seconds.

Meditation progress: Not too great, but my business plans are really shaping up. I met with the teacher to ask him a question: “What do we do with our body? This technique is really too subtle for me, my mind is going everywhere except my breath.”

“Tomorrow we will learn Vipassana meditation, which involves focusing on sensations in the body. Keep practising patiently and diligently”. Okay.

Fruit dinner: Still enjoyable, but not as enjoyable as my daily shower.

Dreaded Day 4:

Weather: Ironically, the sun came out.

Breakfast: Back to stewed raisins and prunes (good).

Lunch: The Best Chickpea Curry I’ve Ever Had In My Life (very happy).

Here we were. We'd made it to Dreaded Day 4.

I was still wondering what my buddies meant by “we’ve just got to make it past day 4”, but I’m glad I didn’t look at the timetable in the morning. If I had, I’d have seen that instead of the usual 1 hour sitting in the hall, today it was 2 hours long! Had I known that, I may have made a run for it. But it was too late…

We arrived in the hall and silently filed in, like lambs to the slaughter. Sitting down, we were calmly but authoritatively told by Goenka (via recording) that today, we would learn Vipassana meditation, and for 2 hours, we were not to change our posture. No matter what pains came up, we were not to open our eyes, arms or legs.

Inside, I was screaming, “Get me outta here!” My cushion immediately became a prison, my mind the gatekeeper. What if I went crazy? What if I had to move? Would they kick me out?

Thus ensued the most excruciating 2 hours of my life.

There was physical pain, sure. But worse than that was the mental torture of sitting with my discomfort. My back was killing me. My left foot had gone to sleep in that horrible painful way. My sciatica had come back mysteriously. And I had a headache.

Minutes felt like hours. Hours felt like days. I lost track of time. My mind alternated between hating the experience and wishing for the end of it. Aversion and craving. As Goekna kept repeating, these two experiences are the source of all misery. I started to have a tangible understanding of this concept.

“Be completely aware of sensations in the body, moving part by part, piece by piece from the top of the head to the tips of the toes”.

All I could focus on was the gross physical sensations like pain and numbness, whenever I’d try scanning down the body, my mind would jump back to the painful spots.

Judging myself the whole 2 hours for being in so much pain was only adding to the misery. “You are a yoga teacher, this should be easy for you Laura”. “Shut up. Not helping”.

Sweet, sweet relief washed over me as Goenka’s melodious chanting filled the room, signaling the end of our torture session. Suffering suddenly transformed into joy and pride.

“I did it!” I wanted to high five my fellow meditators but obviously couldn’t.

I laughed extra loud in tonight’s discourse to express some of my joy at making it through Dreaded Day 4.

Day 5 through 7

Weather: Passing showers.

Lunch highlights: Day 6’s potato cauliflower curry and day 7’s lentil shepherd's pie.

Meditation progress: Each day, it got progressively easier to meditate and stay focussed on the physical sensations, as I’d worked through the clutter of my mind in the first four days. I even started to experience some pleasant sensations, like subtle flows of vibrations or energy all through my body, which sometimes made it hard to sleep as I felt all buzzed up.

Then Goenka, as if reading our minds, warned us against craving these subtle sensations, and hating the gross sensations. As he said, we were there to train our mind to observe the reality as it was. Not as we wanted it to be. Profound practice.

And as I was more able to concentrate my mind on the sensations, gross or subtle, buried memories started to pop up and surprise me. Things I hadn’t thought about for decades. Experiences I’d forgotten about. With no one to talk to, I started to process them on my own, almost becoming my own therapist.

Past relationships were a recurring theme, and I went through each and every one of them with an equanimous (composed) mind. I felt so peaceful, and my love and compassion increased for myself, and all these people in my life over the remaining days of the course.

Physically, I felt myself growing stronger, and was able to sit for longer without needing to lie down in-between. The pains that had been so unbearable at first started to shift around, eventually dissolving by the end of the sitting and turning into pleasant vibrations.

It was then that I got the lesson about impermanence. The perennial changing nature of all sensations. That all pain, either physical or mental, will eventually pass away. And all pleasant sensations will too. Therefore, grasping or craving what we don’t have, or hating what we do have, is a sure-fire way to bring suffering to ourselves.

If we can learn to observe our cravings and aversions, we have a chance at experiencing real peace and happiness.

Day 8-9: It’s all connected

Weather: Heavy rain.

Food update: Day 8 brought (apparently the best) Anzac biscuits which I surprisingly didn’t crave, but I was hating the fruit dinners and wishing these to be gone.

Meditation progress: Goenka introduced a new layer to our practice. No more rest time in-between meditation.

So this meant that instead of having free time to think about whatever we wanted to think about (my business planning or past/future relationships), we were to be aware of the sensations in any given moment. When we were walking, to feel the legs moving and touching down on the earth. When we were eating, to feel the food in our mouth.

This new practice was profound. It really elevated my sense of mindfulness, peace and joy. Food tasted even better than before, even the simplest of food.

I found my cravings and aversions were weakening. I no longer woke up in the morning wanting to go back to sleep, or dreading long sittings, but curious about what I would discover within.

And I found myself being super connected to vibrations in the taiao (environment).

When looking at the waterfall on the 5 minute nature walk, I’d immediately feel waves of vibrations flow from the water through me. When it started raining, vibrations would flow from my head down to my feet in one quick sweep. And when the sun came out, I’d sit and bask in its warm rays, as if drinking pure nourishment through my skin.

I understood why people used this course to overcome addictions, by dealing with their cravings at the root level. I saw my addictions of workaholism, and seeking love in relationships start to fade. I left the course having no desire to hit up my business social media, or jump on Tinder/Hinge, contrary to my pre-course plans.

And as I continue with my daily meditation practice, the cravings have remained at bay.

Day 10: The shock absorber

Weather: Appropriately sunny.

Food update: We all received lentil soup for dinner and it was the best lentil soup we’ve ever tasted.

Today Noble Silence came to an end, and with it the floodgates were released. We chatted non-stop for the whole day with both men and women, and it was incredible just how similar others' experiences had been to my own. Here I was, thinking it was just me struggling so much with obsessive trains of thoughts, but no, that was universal.

We analysed the food menu, day by day. We discussed our challenges, our insights, and how we were going to integrate what we’d learnt in the ‘real world’.

We laughed about our silly little routines we’d created, just to ‘survive’ the experience. Like silently digging up stones and throwing them into the river, listening to them go ‘plop’. Or watching the ‘tv’ (the sunset through the window) while tucked up in bed with a hottie. Or creating a Jaws movie out of a lemon ginger tea with a spoonful of honey, with the spoon disappearing then reappearing “duh da, duh da…’.

We realised how alike we all are in our quirky behaviours. And we shared just how grateful we were to be able to receive this rongoā (medicine/therapy).

Day 11:

After Metta Bhavana (loving kindness meditation) I realised that I’d stopped judging Mask Exemption couple. In fact, I was filled with a deep love and compassion for everyone. People I knew, and people I didn’t know. The love in the centre was palpable.

None of us really wanted to return to the real world. Receiving our phones again felt a bit scary and I kept mine on aeroplane mode as long as I could.

I personally felt extremely well rested, like I'd caught up on years of sleep. My sinus infection was all gone, and my body felt nourished from all the lovingly prepared vegetarian meals.

And armed with my very own meditation practice, I left feeling confident that I’d be able to take this deep peace and happiness with me into my daily life. So far, it really has made a profound difference to my ability to weather the storms of life and to remain calm no matter what comes up. Long may it last.

“May all beings be happy” S N Goenka.

If you’d like to learn more about Vipassana meditation courses, head to https://medini.dhamma.org/ or check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkxSyv5R1sg