When my friend, Shevaun, told me about a 10-day silent meditation retreat she was planning to go on, I was immediately excited and decided it was something I was going to do too.

I’ve been meditating since 2009 ever since I read The Master Key System by Charles Haanel. Though that book wasn’t specifically about meditation, it did include meditation exercises at the end of each chapter to sharpen visualisation skills to achieve goals. I thought I became quite adept at it too, especially during my year-long hiatus in Beijing, where I had lived the relatively stress-free life of a student. I would sit quietly every evening before going to bed and at my “peak” could sit still for 45 minutes at a time without moving. Back then, that already seemed like a long time.

Over the years after moving back to Singapore and plugging back into “The Matrix”, I could only manage sporadic attempts at daily meditation – 15 to 20 minutes in the morning before leaving for work. I got into Eckhart Tolle and signed up for a number of “free” meditation courses offered by Oprah’s website. Again, these were just short 15 to 20-minute bursts of silence as they gave you concepts to “ruminate” on every morning and evening.

So I suppose I felt fairly confident of my ability to sit through a 10-day retreat since I already “sort of” do it regularly and found that I enjoyed the silence and stillness of just trying to develop awareness all around. Reading about the grueling schedule on the Dhamma website – which stated daily meditations that started at 4AM and ended at 9:30PM – didn’t even intimidate me that I immediately started looking for dates that would suit my schedule. I had a couple of months off while I changed jobs and wanted to take the opportunity to go to a country I had never been to before. I contemplated on Burma, birthplace of the vipassana technique itself, but finally settled on Sri Lanka after the only positive reviews I’d heard from friends about how beautiful and easy it was to travel around that country.

Everyone who heard I was going on a “silent” retreat expressed skepticism in some form as I am not exactly someone who is known for not talking. That was definitely the bit that was going to intrigue me, and I suppose everyone else, the most.

Day 1

I arrived at the Dhamma Kuta Vipassana Meditation Centre high in the hills of Mahakanda

in the  Kandy district of Sri Lanka, about 15 minutes late for the prescribed registration time of 4:30 in the afternoon. I had been hiking in the Knuckles Mountain Range all day and was still in a tank top and shorts – which was a big no-no on the premises. Perhaps it was my flushed, sweaty face or my incredibly embarrassed demeanor, but the lady taking registrations (I later learned she was to be our head teacher, Asha) took one look at me and soothingly told me they would give me one of their “best” rooms: a single cottage with my own toilet and bath. I guess I must’ve looked like a basket case to her and thought the more comfortable accommodations would help me. Then she sent me to the opposite room where I was to deposit my valuables. Smartphone, camera, wallet, even my travel diary

were confiscated and placed into a cheesecloth sack

and placed inside the office safe. That was it, bye-bye outside world for a while. Luckily, they let me keep my Beyond the Breath book, written by an avid meditator which outlined the theory and technique of vipassana. That book became a lifesaver for me, especially during those times when I got frustrated with my progress. More on that later…

Another meditator, Dilrukshi, accompanied me to my room since she had the cottage next to mine, on the left side. I immediately showered and changed into more suitable clothing (loose jogging pants and a large T-shirt and sweater as it was evening and getting quite chilly) and trotted off to the orientation which was to be held in the dining hall. I wasn’t sure if we were still allowed to talk so I hesitated chatting with other people unless they chatted to me first.

Men and women had separate dining halls and the tables were all arranged classroom-style. That is, all facing forward, and with some facing the wall or windows. Clearly this had been set up to discourage socialising.

As it was after 5pm, we were given only tea, fruit juice, crackers and bananas. There would be no dinners from hereon.

The recording of SN Goenka (or Goenkaji) was played over the PA system while we had our tea break. He explained the house rules as well as expectations of us during the retreat. The CD was broken so the male head teacher had to come in and explain some things in person to us. Then we were asked to write our names on the white board in the dining hall to indicate if we were old students or new students, as old students were supposed to have a more rigorous regimen of meditation (and also not allowed any food during tea break).

At exactly 7pm that same evening, we had our first meditation session. I don’t remember much from that first evening, except that we were assigned our seats in the hall which would be our spot for the entire duration of the course. I thought I had gotten a good seat – right on the aisle in the centre of the hall and towards the back. I had never sat on a meditation cushion before and 15 minutes into it I was feeling restless without the back support. (At home, I meditated sitting up on my bed with my back resting on the headboard and my legs stretched out in front). So this felt quite uncomfortable.

The next day was the start of the official count. I set my alarm for 4 am but found myself already awake by 3:45. That was because I barely slept, waking and rolling over every two hours as I tried to get used to the thin cushion over the concrete slab that served as my bed. I quickly showered and bundled up in my jogging pants and sweater and trundled in the darkness towards the meditation hall.

The first few days were tough. I think I changed my posture and sitting position 3 to 5 times per session. And before each one started, I would dig for additional cushions from the store room of the meditation hall to support my knees, my back, my bum. I could hear the others in the meditation hall struggling with their discomfort as well from the rustling noises I heard as they shifted positions. Even those who brought their own special yoga blocks or portable back rests (was so jealous of them at first) didn’t seem to be having a better time. That first day was all about finding my most comfortable position, until mercifully, by the time the evening session rolled in, I suddenly found myself sinking into an Indian-style position: legs folded, elbows resting lightly on my thighs, hands folded but relaxed on my shins. I lasted 1.5 hours in this pose and so decided this would be how I would sit for the rest of the retreat.

Day 1 to 3 was all about breathing, or what’s called the anapana technique. First we were asked to concentrate on the triangle from the top of our nose to the top of our upper lip. We kept doing this and each time, Gonekaji’s recorded instructions would tell us when the triangle would get smaller and smaller, until by Day 3, we would just be observing our breathing from the point of view of that small indentation of skin on our upper lip, right beneath the nostril. The objective was to strengthen concentration by being aware of how the breath feels from this tiny portion of skin. That’s all. Nothing else.

Obviously, this was easier said than done. Despite having found my comfortable posture, there would still be moments when I felt the need to stretch out one leg or the other (which I did), or to stand up and leave the hall and do a “walking meditation” (an option many of the older meditators took) to stretch out my back and bum. And then there was the challenge of calming the mind itself. During those first 3 days, I don’t think I went for more than two to three minutes of actual silence and concentration without my mind spiraling into its usual constant monologue about various aspects of my life. Keeping at bay the constant barrage of past memories and future plans… monologues that wouldn’t keep and dialogues with others that would never happen… they occupied perhaps 85% of my meditation time during those first few days. When I recognised that I had been breathing with my brain “empty” for a few minutes I would feel proud and happy, but then the mere act of recognising this meant I had just broken my streak! So then I had to start all over again.

It was exhausting. A really strange thing given that we were just sitting and doing “nothing”, but I ate like I was training for a marathon all over again during the first 4 to 5 days. I gobbled up the brown rice, potatoes, curry and sambal… any of the yummy Singhala vegetarian cuisine that was served in the dining hall… But then on Day 4, Goenkaji’s recording told us that the recommended food intake for meditators was to leave 1/4 of the stomach empty to facilitate meditation. That explained why I found myself swaying like a bamboo during the longer sessions as sleep threatened to overtake me and my full stomach.

Vipassana and the vow of “Noble Silence”

I soon realised that the “noble silence” wasn’t an absolute rule. First of all, the teachers would call us in for one-to-one interviews every other day to check on our progress and answer any questions we might have. Secondly, we also had the staff to talk to should we encounter any problems during our stay – which I did, as I had accidentally locked myself out of my room on Day 3(?) and had to go to the management office to ask for a spare key. And finally, it seemed not many of the other meditators took the “noble silence” seriously (or at least were unaware of its importance). On Day 1, the girl who lived in the cottage next to me, asked me if I thought her “blouse” was too transparent for meditation. Then a few days later, a French girl asked for my help to get rid of a spider in her room which she said was as big as a saucer (it was not). Another time, Dilrukshi asked to borrow an adapter for her electric kettle as she liked to boil her own water everyday. It was also disappointing to see many of the Western students gathering in the more hidden parts of the compound to chat about how they were doing. It was bad enough that they were talking, but what made it worse was that they were guys and girls talking together. You see, all throughout the retreat we were forbidden from mingling at all with the opposite gender. Or with any of the other meditators, male or female. That’s why signs discouraging even making eye contact were all around. I was genuinely curious to see how I would fare under an “absolutely no talking” rule, something I had only done once before in my life (back in 2005 on the overnight train from Shanghai to Guilin in southern China… but that’s another blog entry all together!).

Which is why I worked hard to keep to myself in between sessions, quickly locking myself inside my cottage should Dilrukshi or the other girls near me happen to be outside their own rooms. But alas, if someone talked to you, you can’t just ignore them now, can you? For our entire lives, we have been programmed to be helpful and not be rude, so ignoring someone who talked to me just felt so wrong and I automatically found myself replying when someone spoke to me (though one might say that in itself is a challenge to my awareness and self-control, but oh well…).

On Day 4 we were finally introduced to vipassana: focusing our concentration on our entire body, starting with the top of the head, and scanning ourselves all the way to the tips of our toes and feeling all sensations that arose from our heightened attention. I absolutely loved it. Well, I both loved it and found it frustrating at the same time.

I loved it because it was a great opportunity to pay attention to myself in ways I’ve never really done before. How does my nose feel? How about the back of my ears? Or the back of my neck or head? How does my elbow feel? It was also cool because years before when I first started meditating, I had started feeling sensations on one side of skull, as well as on my stomach and bum. And I could never figure out what that meant – if it meant anything – at all. Back then I would feel tingling and burning sensations on one side or at the back of my head, and I had wondered if that was my brain growing new neural connections or rewiring itself for new cognitive abilities. But how would that explain the butterflies in my stomach or the tingling in my bum? It seemed vipassana might offer an answer.

So I did the work and did it methodically as Goenkaji instructed. Of course, this is where I also ran into frustration because I discovered I had a number of “blind spots” where I couldn’t feel anything at all. And they were places that are never part of my daily attention: the back of my elbows, my armpits, the inside of my arms, the underside of my thighs, etc… I was frustrated because we were instructed that we couldn’t move on to the next body part for at least a minute until a sensation came up in that region. Which meant I slowed down a lot and couldn’t do a full body scan of myself even during the 2 hour sessions. I confided these troubles to the other teacher, Dr Kalyane, and in true Zen Buddhism fashion, she advised me to just exercise patience and let things be. I also complained to her that my left knee and leg were giving me a lot of problems. And again she challenged me to use it as a tool to sharpen my ability to be “equanimous”, while my blind spots were ways to heighten my “awareness”, the two qualities the Buddha espoused to overcome suffering in an impermanent world. I resolved to try harder and after tea break, we entered our evening session of Day 4.

I  guess this was my second breakthrough during the retreat. As soon as we started the session, I felt my face, both cheeks specifically, burn and tingle. This was different from earlier sessions.  The burning feeling was really intense, so intense that it was hard for me to concentrate on other parts of my body. And it didn’t go away. It stayed strong and hot all throughout, even if I was already scanning my shins and ankles and feet. It didn’t go away that I really struggled to maintain “equanimity” when my concentration was being absorbed by my burning face. I wondered what sort of sankara I had amassed in that area and what it meant. I just let it happen and continued scanning my other body parts. Strangely enough, that burning sensation in my face never returned in the subsequent days.

From Day 5 to Day 7, my body started giving off all sorts of strong sensations. The most disturbing, or rather, fascinating feelings I got were located on my head, where I got mostly pleasant, tingling, “insect-crawling” sensations; my abdomen and lower stomach, where strong burning feelings overtook me every time; and my left leg, from which pain screamed at me from my knee, up the thigh and down to my ankle. What also added to my frustration was developing blind spots where I used to have feelings before, such as the back of my head and my neck. Again, Goenkaji’s counsel was simply to observe and remember that everything was impermanent: just as my pleasant feelings would drift away, so would my pain. Hence, on the evening of Day 6, I endured the searing pain in my left leg and simply watched it, while calmly repeating to myself, “Anichya… anichya…” which is the Hindi word for the concept of impermanence: everything arises and passes – and is at the core of vipassana and the Buddha’s teaching.

And then suddenly, the pain evaporated. Just as I had surrendered myself to sitting in pain for the next hour or so, it evaporated. I sat there in silence and “watched” my leg from within as it felt calm and still. And just like that, I had a very good meditation session where I remained alert and calm for more than an hour and was able to continue feeling my body with absolute objectivity.

That was on the evening of Day 6. And I felt buoyed by my progress. Until Day 7 when my struggles stopped being physical and became mental.

Day 7 and exhaustion

A day before I was to go into the retreat, the owner of the homestay I had been living in in Kandy, introduced me to a neighbour of theirs who had done vipassana many times before at the same Dhamma Kuta centre I was going to the next day. She was a lovely woman who was a lawyer by profession and she and her husband generously invited me to their home for tea. She got excited when she heard that a foreigner, and a non-Buddhist at that, had come all the way to Sri Lanka to learn vipassana. She generously shared what the retreat itself was going to be like and about her experiences with me. One of the stories she shared was how she had had an “out of body” experience during one of the sessions, which so frightened her, that she immediately stopped. It was this story that I found myself suddenly ruminating on during Day 7…

I had been having good sessions since magically “curing” the pain in my left leg. It also helped that I had asked to be moved to a new seat after my seatmate had hit me twice with a cushion during one her many position adjustments. In my new space, I found myself progressing nicely, having sessions of uninterrupted calm and intense concentration (and burping a lot!… A natural way to release sankara apparently…) that I was finally able to do full body scans (both up to down, and down to up) in one go.

I also started feeling light-headed. And perhaps the many days of sitting for 10 hours a day was taking its toll on my body. It possibly also didn’t help that I had stopped feeling hungry. Beginning Day 6, I was barely consuming more than a few mouthfuls of food per dining session. In fact, I felt like I could go on without eating at all and that the only reason I ate was because we had nothing else to do during the dining hours. But I really felt like my stomach had shrunk to the size of a walnut. I had even started having leftovers on my plate despite the small portions I already took.

Perhaps it was all these factors combined that made my exhaustion more apparent. During the last afternoon session on Day 7, I suddenly remembered the astral projection story of my friend and found myself suddenly panicking that the same thing might happen to me. Not in the meditation hall, where it would’ve been fine since I was surrounded by people and can shout for help. But what if it happened at night when I was back in my cell alone? The fact that I was sworn to noble silence and couldn’t, shouldn’t scream or shout for help only compounded my anxiety. I literally found myself having a mini-anxiety attack during the afternoon session that I had to approach Dr Kalyane for advice.

Her words were as soothing as always: “Your mind can’t separate from your body if your mind is concentrated on the body.”

I felt like a lightbulb had gone off in my head. Of course! If I kept my mind on what I was supposed to do, that is, paying attention to each body part, my mind cannot go anywhere. Her words made sense. I went to tea break comforted at first, but also not entirely convinced. Perhaps I was still feeling afraid so while I worked hard and listened intently to that evening’s discourse, I found myself breaking my own vow of noble silence, and started chatting to Divya, my neighbour who lived in the next to my right. I thought that in the event I had nightmares or had the dreaded OOBE, I would at least have established some personal rapport with her and can ask for help. All sorts of scary thoughts and images started flooding my head, especially in the evenings. Our cottages were located at the edge of the forest away from the rest of the dorms. This hadn’t bothered me in my first week there, but suddenly on Day 7, our location started looking spooky to me. Every possible horror show character emerged from my imagination at every corner or tree illuminated by my powerful dive torch: zombies, ghosts and monsters from Philippine mythology… and I kept having disturbing images of feet hanging from the ceiling of my cell. I guess all the media I had absorbed my entire life was also being released by my mind. It was really starting to get tough. Even my early morning walks to the meditation hall in the darkness became scary and spooky. I used to enjoy taking the longer route to the meditation hall. Along the way I would turn off my torch and allowed the darkness to envelop me so that I could gaze up at the clear mountain sky where the Milky Way was always visible. So many stars! Alas, because of my paranoid thoughts, not only did I start waking up later and later, but I also woke up tired and found myself taking the shorter route because I was already late.

It wasn’t all bad, of course. The strides forward I had made on Day 6 allowed me to stop having all the silly inner monologues and dialogues in my head. I guess that’s why I suddenly had the mental room for all kinds of other rubbish in my head. Releasing sankara wasn’t just limited to the body it seemed.

Entering the homestretch

By Day 8, you could feel that people were starting to look forward to going home. One

evening (not the only one during our stay though), we had a power blackout after some heavy rains and thunderstorm. The entire compound was in darkness, so during one of our short toilet breaks in between sessions, I helped light the pathway for some of the older ladies who didn’t have torches with them. An elderly French-Canadian woman gratefully walked next to me and chatted me up. She was delighted to hear that I was from the Philippines because she had spent many weeks rebuilding in Leyte after Typhoon Haiyan. I couldn’t stop myself and asked, “Are we allowed to talk yet?” It seems everyone’s resolve was starting to weaken after more than a week at meditation camp.

But this was also when started having these great synchronised  “lulls” or rather, “peaks” during the sessions when you could sense everyone was “in the zone” – both the men and women. The entire meditation hall would be silent.  No one stirred, not even this annoying guy across the hall who was constantly shifting in his wooden chair causing it to creak noisily. You just felt the calm energy of the entire room and I myself felt light… like I wasn’t even there in my body. It was such a joy to feel and exciting to “watch” (even though I didn’t have my eyes open).

By this time also, we’ve had a number of dropouts. Yes, apparently, people can leave if they have a compelling enough reason to do so. On Day 4, French girl who was spooked by the spider, didn’t show up anymore. By Day 6, the first of the Western girls left. She was the one I had seen chatting to her boyfriend in the driveway, away she thought, from the eyes of the teachers. On Day 7, her friend and her boyfriend followed. And on Day 8 (Day 8!!! Only 2 days to go!), the last of their friends disappeared as well. From a group of 22 women, we were down to around 15.  And the men were down to about a dozen from an original number of 16 or so.

On the evening of Day 9, the vow of noble silence was lifted and we were finally allowed to talk to our fellow meditators and to claim our valuables from the office. You could sense everyone’s relief, as well as the sense of accomplishment. It had been a tough 9 days and while we still had one full day to go, it would be relatively easier now that we could share our experiences and verbally encourage one another along. The very first thing Dilrukshi, the generous lady who had shown me my room, said to me as soon as she saw me was, “Thank you for being such an inspiration to me!” I was surprised until she explained that she had felt rebuffed by me on our first day of noble silence because of how I immediately retreated to my room when I saw her come out on her patio. She felt offended but then realised I had done both of us a favour by not encouraging small talk – which she said would’ve been inevitable given how sociable she was. She also said she learned from my example of “calmness” as she had been watching me walk slowly to class everyday at 4am and after lunch. Her sister turned out to be Asha, our head teacher who had facilitated my registration, and she had told Dilrukshi to watch and learn from me as I was clearly someone who was taking the course seriously. It felt good to have been recognised for my dedication… and funny how none of the agitation I felt inside ever showed on my face.

Dialogue with a holy man

That night, our last one in the compound, they brought in a Buddhist monk for our evening’s discourse instead of playing the usual video of SN Goenka. He was there to answer any concerns or questions we had about the meditation technique and the lifestyle practice of sila, samadhi and panya (morality, meditation and wisdom). But of course, things got philosophical as well. I couldn’t help but ask about the strictness of the very first precept, “Thou shall not kill”:

Me: “How absolute is the first precept? I mean, for someone like myself who grew up in the city, tolerating insects can be a challenge. Let’s say a scorpion is in your room. Are you allowed to harm it? What about a cobra?”

Monk: (through Asha who was translating for him): All life is sacred. You must absolutely never harm another creature. Besides, if you start radiating with the energy of loving-compassion, as what vipassana should achieve for you, no animal will ever be compelled to harm you.”

Yes, I too felt the same skepticism… clearly the Buddha never had to worry about dengue-infected mosquitos and bubonic plague carrying rodents before…

On Day 10, I must confess my meditation sessions weren’t going as smoothly anymore. Perhaps because of the added “distraction” of socialising with my classmates, I found my mind drifting away again. One of the biggest concerns I had was how to incorporate my meditation practice into my daily life once I was back in Singapore and working full time again. Goenkaji recommends one hour of meditation in the morning and one hour in the evening. Where on earth was I going to find the time for that once I was back in the land of Facebook, YouTube and HBO? I was barely concentrating anymore that doing mehta, or ‘loving kindness’ meditation at the conclusion of each session proved challenging. I felt guilty about being unable to send out my blessings of love and kindness to the world…

On the morning of Day 11, we all gathered at the stupa at the top of the meditation grounds. I went barefooted and didn’t know we were going to be walking on raw earth that

I had a dandy time getting up there. But the view was amazing and we each participated in a simple ceremony of placing flowers on the stupa as an offering to the Buddha. The Buddhists in the group (mostly Singhalese) also did some ritual at the bodhi tree a few metres away. The rest of us – some Muslims from Kuwait, Russians, Indians and yours truly, spent the time taking in the view and congratulating ourselves on completing the course.

After this ceremony, the course was declared officially over. There was a mad rush as we cleared up the meditation hall, sorting out the cushions, rolling up the mats and sweeping the floor (for some reason, the folks who had volunteered to clean up every morning never did). We gathered in the dining hall for our last breakfast together and the noise was just immense as people exchanged contact information and talked about forwarding travel plans. I had lots of invitations for a place to stay should I ever visit Galle or Colombo (which I definitely took up later!).

Overall, I was quite pleased and happy with myself for accomplishing what to many (myself included) seemed like a truly daunting endeavour.

So what are my tips for those who are keen to try out this alternative kind of “holiday”?

1. Take it in morsels.

Just concentrate on the session you are in at the moment. Because if you start counting the days down,  you will have a hard time. I really forced myself not to think ahead to how many days we had left and just kept my mind on the upcoming session. If you have to, think about it in small bits. “Ok, just get through the next 20 minutes…” Then 30 minutes… then the next one hour. Before you know it, you will find yourself sitting still for two hours without you even realising it… and find yourself already on Day 6. You’re over the hump and entering the home stretch!

2. Buy the book, Beyond the Breath by Michael Glickman

As I mentioned earlier, I was lucky the staff didn’t take away my copy. In the evening or during the breaks, I would go back over the chapters where he described the techniques and mentions his tips for how to overcome obstacles and frustration. They became a lifeline for me as he was able to reinforce Goenkaji’s instructions in a more down-to-earth manner. And as someone who has taken the course many times, the author is able to anticipate the concerns of the reader. I found many questions I had wondered about were answered by his book. I had read him weeks earlier, but now that I was in the thick of the retreat, his descriptions took on deeper meaning and relevance.

3. Develop a tolerance for all creatures. And I mean, all.  

Perhaps my biggest challenge, if I am being really honest, was not the silence, not the food, not the sitting, not even the scary thoughts I had had. But it was the insects that I found living with me in my cell. (To learn more about why this was a problem, click here)

Aside from ants (which was more or less tolerable even if I imagined them crawling up my shorts in the evening), I found tiny worms in my shower. You know, the kind you sometimes see in your bathroom because of the mold and moisture? One day,

I even found a tiny worm (a small caterpillar I think) under my pillow beneath the folds of my bedsheet. And during one meditation session, a beetle landed on my left shoulder and decided to nestle in my hair (!!!) which gave me strong goosebumps all throughout. So even if that gave me so many sensations to work on, I had to give it a “compassionate” flick away and watched it bop towards another meditator before I felt I was safe. And despite the monk’s strict instructions about no killing, I drew the line with the cockroach I saw clinging to my mosquito net when I woke up on the morning of the 10th day. Obviously, I had gotten into the habit of giving my beddings a thorough shakedown every morning and evening and ended up whacking the little bugger as it attempted to scarper into the shadows. As we had another evening left, I couldn’t bear the thought of it still around and nestling in my sheets. (Sorry, Buddha, and to my Buddhist friends, but I really cannot tolerate the disgusting little creature. And sorry to whoever’s reincarnated soul it may be. For all I know, it could very well be Pol Pot’s or Hitler’s or someone who equally deserves it, so I’m not going to feel too bad about it…)

The courage to face yourself

There are so many other things I left out in this already lengthy sharing, but I suppose those will just come out as we chat about this in the future.

I really recommend this meditation retreat to everyone. It’s a different kind of holiday, as

it’s a break from everything that we are immersed in on a daily, if not minute by minute basis. I really believe this should be on everyone’s bucket list. Fine. List down hiking the Great Wall of China, or travelling to Paris, running a marathon or going skydiving. But how often will you have the opportunity to just really be with yourself? So many people train for endurance sports like ultra-marathons and Ironmans, or going on Bear Grylls’- kinds of holidays, like camping in the desert or living in the jungle with just a pen knife and believe that’s the ultimate test of endurance. But that’s all still just a distraction as far as the Buddha is concerned. Doing a vipassana retreat requires another kind of endurance, a different kind of stamina, as you attempt to learn intense concentration on yourself – not on a physical challenge such as 42 kilometres on a run or building a treehouse. But just experiencing yourself without the outside stimulus and distraction of daily life.

In a life where everything is impermanent, wouldn’t it be worth it to truly experience your body as it is before you lose it to aging and death? What you may learn from your body may surprise you and even benefit  you in ways untold. If you can muster up the courage to listen to it.

Now that’s a bucket list item that should challenge everyone. And it’s cheaper too!

For more information about vipassana and a schedule of 10-day courses around the world, visit www.dhamma.org.

To see a video of the Dhamma Centre I went to, click here.