9.5 Days Of Silence - What Is Meditation & Do You Need It?

If you cringe at the word 'meditation' - this is for you. If you think you know what 'meditation', this is for you too.

It had been three days since I last spoke to a human being, used a writing utensil (a pen), or woke up later than 04:00 AM, when I felt that all my life problems had been entirely solved. This was day three of a ten-day Vipassana meditation course.

🧘 Meditation & Car Maintenance

I thought I knew what meditation was. Well, turns out that I had no idea. Listening to Alan Watts, Jon Kabat-Zinn, and others - did not help. The only way to know anything is to go out and actually practice it. Deliberately (Link: A book on Deliberate practice).

No, 15-minute meditation apps, doing it once a month, or staring at a wall mindlessly – these ARE NOT IT.

Imagine you are driving a car from Estonia to Italy (which I have recently done). Suddenly, the CHECK-ENGINE light comes on (which it did).

You get a little bit worried and stop by a mechanic, who simply resets the car and sends you on your merry way. At some point, you feel that the gas pedal is giving you slightly less power than normal. The difference is barely noticeable. Within another 30 minutes, a mysterious sign comes on: “DPF Filter Soot Level Too High”, and the car goes into ‘safety mode’ - limiting your power output severely. Within another hour - the dashboard displays: “DPF Malfunction”. This can’t be good.

You barely make it to the hotel, where you spend hours talking to ChatGPT. By morning, you are an expert in DPF Filters, diesel cars, and Mazda computer error codes.

Still, when you go to a range of mechanics somewhere in Europe (I don’t even recall the name of the city), everyone has a different solution: “Cut away the filter, this will help” says one. “The problem is too big, your engine is broken. We can help in three months." - states the official dealership. “Just drive at 4k RPM for an hour” - says another.

In the end, one shop used software to regenerate (force the car to clean it) the DPF filter, and around 5000km later - you are home. Where thanks to a friend, you learn that the problem was a tiny malfunctioning MAF sensor (which regulates how much air goes to the engine), which is a very easy fix.

Now, consider if your body is the car, your dashboard is your mind, and the driver is some sort of an observer, which for the sake of simplicity will be you. Some call it the higher self, or the true self.

In our metaphor, mediation would be the practice and the science of car maintenance.

First, you need to know what are all the different parts of the car that you possess. If you know very little about cars, it’s like someone much more knowledgeable coming up to you, popping up the hood, and explaining where is the engine, the turbine, the air filter, etc.

When it comes to your body, it's about your ability to sense all your organs, to understand, for example, how food affects your mood or breathing patterns, and what sensations and vibrations you experience throughout the day.

You know that thing that people ask: “How are you feeling?”

Well, the real answer of a meditator would not be: “Good”. It’s like answering “Red ones” to the question of “What cars do you like?”.

After Vipassana, my answer would be: “Today, I have very little sensation in my stomach area, and my back vibrations are stronger than before. My brain seems a little heavy, especially in the frontal lobe area, which might indicate the onset of allergies or lack of sleep. It is easier today to stay with my breath and to scan my whole body without interruptions, although I somehow get distracted by gross sensations near my eye. Overall, my skill of equanimity seems to be growing and I am not following my thoughts, feelings and emotions on a whim today. Unlike yesterday, when I spent 3 hours playing chess at the first thought.”

After ten days of meditation, I was able to sense minuscule changes to my body temperature, to detect an upcoming emotion before it fully manifested itself, to feel the air of my breath gently moving a single hair on my beard, to feel perspiration, and to dissect pain to dozens of different emotions.

It also taught me to look at the “dashboard” of my body more carefully. For instance, I thought that I am a very ‘Zen’ person. Sure, my Sifu (Wing Tchun Coach) always says “You are too emotional when you fight”, but I never agreed. In reality, I was suppressing the error codes and ignoring the emotions. Thanks to Vipassana - I can now see my dashboard more clearly, and I even know what a few error codes mean.

Finally, what is remarkable about meditation is that it helps you to identify and eliminate the true cause of suffering. It helps you to change the tiny sensor, instead of doing something radical like changing the engine (undergoing surgery) or cutting away the DPF filter (eating a lot of pills), or perhaps cleaning the filter (hoping a new morning routine will fix your whole life).

I never knew I had so many sensors that are guiding me on my path, nor did I know how to work with them.

This is what meditation is, a process by which you can ACTUALLY get to know yourself. When I heard the phrase “get to know yourself” before, I thought it meant that I must do ayahuasca, read books or connect to astral planes.

Now I know that it is as simple as actually knowing your body and your mind to the minuscule details - the way a real car mechanic knows cars. Meditation is the practice of learning to do so.

It's very much akin to going to the gym or practicing martial arts. However, bear in mind, it remains a practice. What you are aiming to achieve is to get your skill level to a point, where you can do it in your daily life.

You want to be able to drive your car and feel the tiniest vibrations that the car sends to you through the sole of your feet. To feel a small change in your breath and an ever-so-mild electric pulse crossing the back of your head. When this happens, you will notice all of those sensations and realize that something is not quite right and perhaps slow down, and avoid a potential disaster.

🪷 How Do You Do It?

The key difference between my understanding of meditation before Vipassana and after Vipassana is that it is the most serious practice one can undertake, but you also can’t take it too seriously. Prior, I was only focusing on the “can’t take it too seriously part”.

It is true, that if you do meditation and expect results out of it - the mere act of expectations will stop all of your efforts in their tracks. The reason for it is that you will be too attached to the result, which will be one of the dominant emotions, and thus you will be missing all of the other ones. The whole point is to learn to treat your desires and aversions indifferently, and if you go in with a strong desire - you are setting yourself up for failure.

So, if you truly want to get to know yourself, my recommendation is to do it seriously. Go to a ten-day Vipassana course, study Zazen, or start meditating at home.

Don’t do it because every CEO seems to post Instagram pictures, while ‘meditating’ in Bali. Don’t do it because you think it will help you pay for your mortgage. Don’t do it because you think it will help you get rid of your stress.

Do it, if after reading this, you have an actual sensation or a desire to give it a try. That is enough. If you do choose to give it a try, do it seriously. At least give it a serious chance.

Try to make longer sessions, 45 minutes or more. Try to avoid guided meditation and apps. Try to actually pay attention to your sensations. Give it time. Do so once a day (ideally twice a day) for a year.

Of course, there is no sense to force yourself too much. We have a Vipassana chat group, and in it, we (well, technically it was John) came up with the term “Not Perfect, But Good Enough” - NPBGE for short. Do NPBGE, but do it daily.

⚡Actions To Take After This

Although I have changed the format from #WeeklyAction to “Paths To Freedom”, I am still a deep believer in taking action, not just reading stuff for intellectual stimulation. Therefore every newsletter will have a list of actions one can take based on the topic. Here they are:

• Start a daily meditation ritual of at least one hour a day. Use Zazen or Vipassana sitting practices. Avoid meditation apps, and guided meditation. Try to move as little as possible during this period.

• Schedule a solo retreat for yourself, at least once a year, where you go completely alone for at least 2 days, and go inward. Bonus: 10-Day Vipassana Course.

• Read the book: The Surrender Experiment by Michael A.Singer. It gives you some practical tips on starting with your surrender.

• Read the book: Zen & The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance. This post was partially inspired by it.

• If you have questions or comments, reach out to me on Telegram.

  
  P.S. If you have read this far, I love you and appreciate you. Thank you for your support and I hope this was of use. Now go and do something useful :)