The last school holiday was spent very meaningfully. There's the CFA exam, swim trainings, and the meditation retreat.
It's been a long long time since I did something as intense as the CFA exam offers, 3+3 hours of exam. The kind of concentration required! Oh my god, even failing, to be able to finish it gave a great sense of satisfaction! It's great! I'm sure I can pass level 1 and on to 2 and 3 eventually!
Meditation retreat is the highlight of June 2008. On Vesak Day, Darling's Dad brought us to Santisukarama at Kota Tinggi. Events followed that Sayadaw U Rajinda will be holding a meditation retreat there from 19 June. Sayadaw U Rajinda was the one who instructed Brandon, Zf, Raymond, and me on Vipassana meditation more than 2 years ago at KMSPKS. This is really fate, that all the years that I wanted to be a samanera was never realised; but a place I've never been will be the place my fate with Sayadaw will cross again. No, I did not become a samanera, but a yogi to practice Vipassana meditation.
I feel inclined to relate my 6-day experience so that everybody will be able to understand my elation and have a chance of benefitting.
My prior proper experience of meditation was 儒家静坐. That was based on qigong. It was not that difficult to keep the mind concentrated on the acupoints and shift my focus, hence the ‘气’, from one acupoint to another. In contrast, I didn't really understand Vipassana even though we had the weekly sometimes irregularly attended classes at KMS.
In the retreat, I spent the first 2 days trying to 'note' during meditation by controlling my movements, eg. noting 'left'= move left leg; noting 'right'= move right leg. It was all very controlled and I felt like a robot. In order to be as 'mindful' as possible, I examined the mechanics of how our legs step forward and how we maintain our balance. I broke down the 1 full step to a few classification and started 'noting', or actually ordering, my legs to move. After a while, I can do that quite fast. Somehow I know I'm wrong, this can't be what meditation should be like. It's not aligned to any principle of meditation I know, although I had no idea how to do vipassana meditation properly. The meditation alternated between walking and sitting. When sitting, one should note the rising and falling of the abdomen. I could do that very well all along too, watching the dan tian. But, like my walking, I'm actually ordering/commanding the rising and falling. There was no peace of mind. I felt perturbed. To make things worse, there's a pain at my back everytime I started to sit. So bad, noting it was futile, let alone noting it away. That prevented me from sitting straight and kept needing to bend. So I cannot 'walk' properly, neither can I 'sit' properly to note. Very bad.
While I'm doing all these 'meditation', I'm surprised at the volunteers' care for us. Food will be prepared, we just had to eat and we don't even have to clear up the table, much less wash the plates. And the food was aplenty! Good, tasty food! I'm really surprised. In the evening, Sayadaw would say that doing Vipassana meditation is meritorious, and that we should also try to be mindful in our movements during daily activties.
- I totally don't understand-
How can sitting down and meditating be an act of merit? And now we should even try to be mindful in our daily acticities. I think we are not deserving of the food kindly served to us. At one point, when the bell sounded for food, I lamented. I have to suck on Earth's resources again.. without any contribution..
I thanked the people who dana our food, the aunties who prepared the wonderful food to lay the whole table, the people who transported the food, the people who invented the machines to process the food, the farmers, the plants, the animals who allowed us their body for sustenance. As a poster put it, the whole universe came together to support our sustenance. O, how great is the spoonful of food! I try to be mindful in chewing and swallowing. But come my meditation, I know I have wasted their efforts and the spoonful of good food.
I told Sayadaw about the pain during the first interview, he asked me to try. I did so for another 2 days. Frustrations started to brew. I totally don't get it, yet I should try to understand and practice it! Everybody is doing it. In my frustration, I wonder how many of the fellow yogis really meditate mindfully and diligently. People seems to be moving slowly just because everybody else were.
I went up to the dhamma hall and sat facing the buddha. I thought through my whole experience with meditation and why I wanted to be there for meditation. Every evening, the Sayadaw would say that only through meditation can one see the realities and attain nibhana. I thought to myself, I don't want any nibhana, I just want to meditate peacefully and seek the clarity of mind I used to have.
Later, I went downstairs and sat down to try meditating again. It was the same gradual bending of back and I couldn't sense the rising and falling of abdomen properly. Sitting cross-legged, my body was bent, head dropped, half asleep in my wandering mind state.
Ah.. this the is the 3rd session of drafting this post. Yes, I didn't understand nibhana, and I'm not meditating to attain nibhana. But then, I didn't know what I'm meditating for, anyway. So I went up to the dhamma hall on the Tuesday afternoon and prostrated myself in front of the Buddha. My mind was not in a clear state, so I tried to clear the clouds and willed myself to think back to all my experience associated with meditation. I decided that the aim of this meditation trip shall be to regain the focus that I had in my younger age. I remembered Zf telling me that after Inspirafluenza, he felt that he was able to concentrate his mind better. I understands what he meant, but I couldn't find that experience for myself to achieve the same. I some times wonder how people can focus themselves so intensely, so much so that they can handle so much work within the same 24hours. I can't. So it was, I went down to the meditation hall to try to condense my concentration. I sat down straight away, forgoing the walking. The pain at the back came on again, slowly, I lost track of my breathing, back arched, I'm nowhere. Neither sleeping nor awake, just nowhere. Suddenly, the rising and falling of my abdomen came very strongly, very strongly. I regained my consciousness and began to focus on it. I directed this focus on the pain at my back. I examined the pain, as the sensation rises with my inhale and falls with my exhales. It reduced, but never away. Soon, and finally, my leg became numb. It was a feeling not had in the past few days. I never sat till the onset of numbness.It was easy to 'note' the numbness away. It rose and fell. Then I realaised. Everything is just rising and falling. Everything. Things rise, things fall; thoughts rise, thoughts fall. Nothing more, nothing less. It is just a matter of taking different lengths of time to rise and fall. And so it is.
The thought of the sitting meditation ending has arisen, and so it manifests. As soon as it manifests, the thought falls, for it has completed it's effect. The thought of thanking the Buddha arose, and three respectful prostrations were made. Next, the sensation of thirst, and as soon as the mouth touched water, the sensation of thirst falls. It is the same observation, all the way to and back from the toilet. I was very happy. I contemplated going to see Sayadaw to tell him about it, but I thought I'll save it for the next day,w hen we'll have the interview. I continued to observe this phenomenon, appreciating it. Some time after, this observation faded away. There's no way, nor need to force it to lengthen. It is Buddha's compassion and way of letting me understand nature. The pain in my back did not go away as night falls. I sat in the dhamma hall again, awaiting Sayadaw's dhamma talk and chanting to transfer our merits. It was a rewarding day and I retreated into the room.
The next morning, I began with enthusiasm to replicate the previous day's experience. With alot of effort, my mind could not calm down. I still did not know how to do walking meditation, the pain still haggers.Breakfast was quite an agony as my frustration grew. Again I'm sucking on Earth's resources while being noble about it. Everybody is trying to be mindful and I doubt again if half of them really are, or just slowing down in an act, annealing to the prevailing social norm.
The time came for the interview. I have not decided what to tell the Sayadaw when he gently ask 'How's your meditation?' I decided that I shall just report my experience as it is. When it came to my turn, my emotions swelled up. I started to choke on my words as I described the pain on my back and inability to sit straight.The lying down on the floor to ease off the pain, but it never goes away. The observation of the rising and falling but not again comes the next day. Sayadaw watched me as his face also crumpled up, as if following my frustration and agony. After a pause of 30 seconds, he spoke, 'Relax your minnd. Try to sit upright, but no need to be very stiff. Relax.' As if his words were carried by the breeze, the breeze sat me upright but took the pain away.As if magically, I could now sit upright, not the stiffness that I was trying to sit myself. And my mind opened up. No more shrouded in frustation.I felt relieved. I guess the other yogis in the room must have felt quite stunned, but I'm grateful that I spoke my experience as it was. There was finally some peace.
Yogis are not supposed to talk, we had to observe noble silence. But there were two uncles who were quite 'talkative'. They had invited me to join them over evening juice the previous day. One of them said, as we walked down from the dhamma hall, 'Oh, new one, don't worry. Come, we'll have a talk after lunch. I'll explain some Dhamma to you. I'll tell you the difference between Mahayanan and Theravadan. See you at the Sima hall later'. I had asked the difference the previous day. He had a really cheerful disposition. I thanked him. It started to rain.
I still did not know how to do walking meditation, but I guess it is really time to relax my mind, so walked up and down the corridor, not knowing how to 'walk', but I walked my own pace.
Aftger lunch, the fellow yogi uncle suggested that we talk in my room instead, since it's raining. I stayed in a separate room from the rest. The room is usually reserved for bikkhus, but Sister Sam let me have it. The rest sleeps on the floor in the other room, me on a bed. I realised that the 'highness' of resting place is accorded to practioner of different seniority. I've been greatly flattered. The uncle introduced that since we got to know each other through Buddhism, we shall be known as dhamma friends. He gave a brief history of Buddhism and the spread of it through time and land. As time passes, two broad sects appeared. Practices in the Northen region of Asia- China, Japan, Korea largely practises the Mahayanan; while the South- Burma, Thailand largely practices the Theravadan (also called 'the way of the elders'). Mahayanan is influenced more greatly by Confucianism and politics; while Theravadan practises Buddhism more in accordance to the teachings instructed by the Buddha to his disciples. Mahayanan focuses more on chanting; Theravadan on meditation to attain nibhana. According to the Buddha, all of us are in Samsara, cycling in the 6 realms in sufferings. The Buddha realises through deep meditation that the only way out of Samsara is to practice the noble eightfold path so that we can realise the four noble truth and attain nibhana.In order to gain the realisation of the four noble truth, Buddha says that the only way is to practice meditation. He also explained the four levels of sainthood- 7 returner, 1 returner, and so forth.
Everything makes sense to me now. To practice meditation in a retreat is a great merit. And people who assist or dana bikkhus and yogis are also creating very wholesome karma. Indeed, to be or assist others in the path towards nibhana is a wholesome deed. Together with the Dhamma uncle's explanation the day before about past kamma affecting our affinity with Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha in our present lifetime, I realised that this is a time to make full use of and to cherish to practice meditation.It is not in conflict with my thought that I don't wish to attain nibhana. I have my parents, I have my love ones whom I do not want to renounce. But I can still practice meditation and work towards nibhana, because I can practice to be a 7-returner or 1-returner. My other lives will take care of itself when the time is ripe. With these, my mind is at ease as the questions are answered. I asked Dhamma uncle how to note the rising and falling of abdomen. He demonstrated his observation of the rising and falling as he is talking to me. It is an observation.
The only question left is how to do walking meditation.
That afternoon, during juice time, the other Dhamma uncle tried to explain walking meditation to me, after seeing me walking my own pace. He tried to explain walking mindfully this way: Imagine my baby is sleeping very soundly in the room and the floor makes creaky noises when one walks upon them. In order not to wake my baby up, I'll have to walk mindfully to minimise the noise. I see.. 'So should I control my walking?' 'You shouldn't control, you observe, but you also have to control abit, so that you will slow down enough to 'note'.' Ah, I fully understood now.
After juice, I applied myself to walking meditation, lengthening the periods, practicing patience and effort, concentration, mindfully. The noble eightfold path makes sense to me now. From 1 step to 2-step, 3-step, 4-step, even 5-step walking meditation. Every step of the walk is very clear to me as I noted them. Then standing meditation, sitting meditation. Sitting wasn't very good in concentration yet, but I could be mindful of the wandering mind.
That night's dhamma talk, Sayadaw spoke about feeling foundation of mindfulness. The topic was not as stern as the previous nights. Sayadaw shared light-hearted anecdotes. I am really grateful to Sayadaw. The last dhamma talk of my retreat was on how to note feelings during meditation- pleasant, neutral, unpleasant. These are the only kinds of feelings.
The next day, I practiced meditation.
Very soon, it's time to leave. I knocked on Sayadaw's door 4 times and waited patiently. I prostrated respectfully and mindfully to Sayadaw. I'm leaving. Somehow, Sayadaw can tell that I had meditated.
My 6-day meditation drew to a close on a Thursday noon. The outcome is that I learnt Vipassana meditation. Feeling elated, I left Santisukarama. Pleasant feeling.
But meditation does not always give pleasant or neutral feelings. Sometimes, our condition is not right. We need to accept both sides. We need to be mindful. Afterall, it is just a feeling.
This is Dhamma.
Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Sammasambuddhasa
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