Vipassana Diary - Day 0

So I made it out alive (as you already know), but obviously a lot of other stuff happened over the past 10 days, so I thought I'd start filling you in on a few of my Vipassana experiences.

Since reading and writing were banned, I wasn't able top keep an actual diary, but using my mega memory (which is actually far far from mega), I will attempt to give you a reasonably accurate, blow-by-blow account of my time in solitary.

I'm going to split up this recollection into individual days. Partly because I'm too lazy to type the whole thing out now, but mostly because I'm certain that none of you, no matter how much you may care for me, could sit through 10 pages of drivel on what is essentially the 10 least eventful days of my trip.

So here we go...

Day 0.

Dear Diary,

I made it! After a very early start and an epic 2 bus, 12 hour trip, I arrived in Dehradun with just 2 minutes to spare. All of us soon-to-be mediators met at the city office, and in lots of 10 we were ferried by 4WD to the meditation centre about a half-hour out of town. The site is gorgeous! (satellite pic). It sits on the side of a shallow but fast-flowing river, far away from, well, everything. No car horns here, just the sweet sounds of whistling birds and the occasional monkey's screech.

There are about 50 mediators all up. About 3 quarters are male and roughly the same percentage are Indian.

Everyone was quite chatty on the way over, but after we arrived we all became strangely quiet. The course didn't officially start until 8pm, but hardly anyone uttered a word during dinner.

8pm. Course starts. Noble Silence begins.



Noble Silence means: "silence of body, speech, and mind. Any form of communication with fellow student, whether by gestures, sign language, written notes, etc. is prohibited".

There are also had 5 other precepts which I will have to obey for the duration of the course:

1. abstain from killing any being
2. abstain from stealing
3. abstain from all sexual activity (no touching yourself to get in touch with yourself - my other favourite Vipassana paradox)
4. abstain from telling lies
5. abstain from all intoxicants

If you love rules, and if my ramblings haven't already completely destroyed any potential interest you ever had in meditating, then you can read all about the rules and regs here.

So, the first day was over pretty quickly. Following a short welcome/introduction speech from one of the assistant teachers, we walked up to the meditation hall where we were assigned our cushions. Mine is #24. I'm in the 2nd-back row, where all the meditation bad boys hang.

Our real teacher, the head honcho, greeted us very briefly and then simply said "now we meditate". So we did. By meditate I mean I sat there for an hour with my eyes shut and did nothing. My first ever hour of meditation(?).

Day 0 fin.

Feeling a little nervous now. All of a sudden 10 days seems like a very long time.