10 days of silence

10 days of silent meditation. No contact with the outside world. No communication of any sort within the meditation center, including hand gestures or eye contact. No reading or writing. Certainly no alcohol or cigarettes. The latter made me pause briefly given that I’d be coming off several days of continuous body abuse and sensory overload in the form of a Ko Phang An full moon party. No matter – a few days after leaving Thailand, my best friend and his Myanmar cohorts in the beer business bade me peace as a send-off to this inner retreat.

“Peace I shall have, if nothing else!” I joked. The locals laughed a little too exuberantly for my comfort.

Clothed in a T-shirt and pair of loose pants, I walked 15 minutes through the bustle of Yangon before veering into a quiet lane. There were no foreigners on foot in this part of Yangon, and only white-collar workers commonly donned pants. I’d packed a longgyi together with basic toiletries, a towel, a plastic bottle for water refills, insect repellant and some medicines. This would be all I needed for 10 days.

“Noble silence will begin once we enter into this evening’s meditation,” a young assistant translated in English for the handful of us non-Burmese speakers. “After that, you will only be able to speak to your teacher and only during lesson. The only exception to that is if you have a problem, such as a medical emergency or accommodation issue. So before we begin the meditation tonight, please approach me with any questions you might have.” It turned out the young translator was a Singaporean who dabbled in a small IT business and discovered Goenka’s teachings and schools. Since then, he’d committed himself to volunteering at the center whenever he could. He looked barely 20 years old.

We stood in the small courtyard outside the main meditation hall, awaiting our names to be called and filing into the hall in order. We were shown to our individual sitting spot, to remain unchanged throughout our stay here. There were roughly 7 rows of 7 men, and an equal number of women segregated in the other half of the hall. The more experienced “sitters” were assembled closer to the teacher. Even though it was my first time, I had a position near the head of the first-timers by virtue of my foreign status. I looked around and tried to mimic the postures of my fellow meditators. There was no overt instruction here.

Goenka’s Pali and Sanskrit chants echoed through the hall’s PA system. Meditation guidance in English was supplied by him. A lady’s voice followed with the Myanmar translation. The focus tonight would be on breathing. Easy effortless breathing through the nose, while sitting straight and relaxed with eyes closed. In and out. In and out. To be aware of the passage of air through the nostrils and the sensations it conjured. This first sitting was a mere half hour though it seemed quite a bit longer than that. That the end of the 30 minutes was over was signaled by a characteristic drone-like chant that began coming over the speakers, easing aside the interminable silence in the air and the turmoil in the mind. This chant would end up being the most savored sound over the course of the next 10 days, no matter how incessantly the concept of “Anitcha” - where all sensations, pleasant or otherwise, are impermanent and do not warrant any attachment whatsoever - was invoked.

One of the easier adjustments turned out to be the 4am daily wake-up gong. Like the chant that signaled the end of our sittings, the gong that started each day wooed us gently into being over the course of several minutes, each strike resonating more urgently till we were all silently pacing round the courtyard in the dark,limbering up before the 2-hour sitting that started each morning. All told, each day involved 10-11 hours of sitting meditation, 1-2 hours of instructional discourse, 3-4 hours for meal breaks and a 1-hour rest period after lunch. Despite the relative physical inactivity of this retreat, I relished the midday shut-eye as a chance to take my mind off my mind.

Like everything about the center, meals were simple and adequate. As the only time in my life where I’ve had 10 consecutive days of bland vegetarian food, meals became an element of necessity and nutrition rather than a focal point of enjoyment. Eating in cocooned silence compelled me to focus on every mouthful and every chew, acknowledging the cycle of life and recognizing our reliance on the sustenance granted by each act of swallowing. The simplicity of our environment coupled with the rigor of our concentration made for a heightening awareness of our surroundings. One of the basic precepts (“Sheela”) we had to follow was “abstention from killing”. As the center was swarming with ants, mosquitos and other insects, constant vigilance was required in making sure each footstep avoided stepping on an ant. I was mortified when round about my seventh day, in trying to shoo an errant mosquito out from beneath my netting, I inadvertently killed it. This act plagued my meditative concentration for several sittings.

Another incident that pierced my bubble of isolation was the only infraction of noble silence that I experienced over the 10 days. I had been experimenting with slight changes in sitting postures as well as floor cushion arrangements in an effort to keep the inevitable lower back pain at bay. Having noticed out of the corner of my eye an interesting cushion folding technique employed by my neighbor, I attempted to imitate likewise. To my surprise, he inched over and in verbal silence but obvious disregard for the no-communication rule, indicated to me how the cushion fold was performed. I was confused, frustrated, grateful and speechless all at once. Before I was able to resolve these internal conflicts, an eagle-eyed assistant, noticing the momentary interaction, hastened over and asked if there was a problem and reminded us that such exchanges were impermissible. I shrunk away slightly shaken at the unexpected perturbation and like the mosquito incident, this disturbance manifested itself in subsequent sittings.

Though we couldn’t express our appreciation of them, moments of humor abounded as well within the walls of the center. For me personally, it was the observation of other Burmese though I shudder to think what I might have been doing with regularity that made for symmetrical examination in this silent petri dish. For one, Burmese men, like Indians, are exuberant with the discharge of their nasal and throat irritations. Some of them also burp like dolphins calling out to each other. The first time I heard this, I was walking along a dark corridor, alone save for this one Burmese. I thought it was a bullfrog calling from the nearby swampy pond, in which many locals living along its shoreline bathed and laundered their longgyis. The second time I was sitting under a tree in the courtyard, watching my co-meditators in pensive perambulation when the deep plaintive belch sounded again. This time I saw that it emanated from one of the walking men and the realization that it wasn’t a swamp thing almost made me hack and cackle in spontaneous delight. Then I saw a second man make the same melodius sonic saw. And no one around me seemed alarmed – it was as routine as a buzzing mozzie. And then there were the peacocks.

Though it might seem that we spent endless hours in meditation (we did!), there was also much time in open-eyed wakefulness that was spent idling. Most of us only utilized half our meal breaks actually eating and the rest of it was spent pacing or sitting in the courtyard, our eyes eager to latch onto anything that broke the monotony of the simple setting. The peacocks could be relied upon to fulfill that objective time and time again. There were two of them and they would walk around the center, pecking at dead leaves or ground grub. Occasionally they would fly up one of the two large sprawling trees in the courtyard and prance around from branch to branch, each trying to outdo the other in terms of perch altitude. They however weren’t very sure-footed on the higher and flimsier twigs and would inevitably misstep and tumble – their plumage flapping away wildly in defiance of gravity and creating a crackling ruckus of falling foliage and bemused Burmese. We all laughed at the peacocks and there was a slight dissatisfaction at having to resist sharing the mirth in unison, beyond the confines of noble silence.

When people ask me what “noble silence” was like – I always liken it to salt. It was one of the singular ingredients key to the whole experience , but like salt, was such a fundamental component that I hardly noticed its presence after a while. Having no outlet for my thoughts and receiving no input from others, I was left to cogitate in solitary perpetuity. Thoughts of all kinds would from nothing germinate and ruminate and assimilate back into nothing again. And again. I would with some success set them aside for most of my sitting time but they would always resurface. And the strange thing was, it typically involved others – other people, other places, other times – all except where I was at the moment. Just internalizing that with all its clarity set things on a different tack. I developed a new sense of work – that for the enhancement of others – outside the realm of self-gratification that I never previously conceptualized. I resolved at a simplistic level the duality of determination and unattachment.

3am on my final night, I was a restless insomniac and I couldn’t figure out why. The anxiety in advance of the retreat was a thing of the past and I was pleased at having learnt a new meditation technique. I tossed and turned in a heady sweat and decided ultimately to sit in meditation. Within minutes, I sensed this was going to be unlike any sitting I’d had before. Thoughts came rapidly but despite that, I was able to concentrate simultaneously on the technique taught me over the past 10 days. My whole body tingled in a fit of sensation awareness as centers of focused light and heat pulsed first from my head and then down towards my solar plexus. These were accompanied by unexpected jolts of lightning searing through my lower back, all the while my inexorable stream of thoughts swam by. These were thoughts of sheer sadness and hopelessness, both for myself and the human condition. As I continued to concentrate on applying the technique, I found myself crying uncontrollably amidst waves of pleasant sensations flowing through my body. The tears from my thoughts and the sensations from my meditation.

When I emerged from my hour-long sitting, I was sufficiently confused. Was this how meditation was supposed to ease suffering? By masking pain in distracting waves of pleasure? I began formulating a careful question for the teacher on our last day together.

Noble silence was lifted mid-morning of the penultimate day at the center. We were given a full evening to get acquainted conversationally with our silent partners over the past 10 days – an easing back into urban Yangon rife with stimuli. On the last morning of my stay at the center, I went looking for our teacher. He was busy involved in a major clean-up effort, directing workers about and climbing up tall ladders himself to sweep the rafters. I asked him if he might entertain a question and he kindly obliged. We went aside to a quiet corner and he sat me down.

I told him how I’d woken up in the middle of the night, my mind busy with thoughts and keeping my body tense and a restful night at bay. I told him over the course of several minutes about the meditation I’d had, the sad thoughts and the pleasant sensations, the painful jolts, everything. When I finished, I made a quick mental scan lest I forgot an important detail – and eagerly awaited his answer. He looked at me for an instant, then set his gaze downwards with a smile, as if to acknowledge a sense of déjà vu.

“Anitcha,” he said. “Remember only Anitcha.”

I knew immediately, of course.

“All this is impermanent. Your thoughts. Your sensations. Sad thoughts, tingling sensations. Do not become attached to them. Only remember to concentrate, stay aware and of course,……..Anitcha!”

I packed my things together, left my donation at the front desk and walked home – the dusty afternoon breeze wafting through my longgyi.