Contemplations during 10 days in silence
Recently, I finished a 10-day Vipassana course, which is in short, an intense, immersive course in the ancient meditation practice that has supposedly been passed down from the Buddha himself. To appreciate how intense and immersive the 10-day retreat was, let me tell you that it involved giving up all the “distractions” of modern life including cell phones, reading and writing instruments and even all kinds of communication with fellow meditators. It aims to simulate a few days in absolute solitude, practicing meditation and spending all your waking minutes with your own thoughts and consciousness. This mental exploration was quite grueling and extremely difficult at times, but it also came with its share of revelations and realizations and finally, a sense of discovery into an omnipresent yet vast, unexplored realm of one’s own existence, the realm of the mind. One of the remarkable realizations for me was the level of learning I could attain while following a disciplined trai...