VIPASSANA RETREATS AT BRAHMA VIHARA ARAMA MONASTERY
In a Vipassana meditation retreat held at the Brahma Vihara Arama Buddhist Monastery in North Bali, a student asked the guiding meditation teacher, Sayadaw U Tejaniya: “What is your advice if we are in a love relationship? What is the right attitude?”
“Laugh! Whatever happens. Laugh. Keep laughing. It is such a powerful practice to be in relationship. Laugh.”
Sayadaw U Tejaniya’s heartfelt transmissions of the teachings of Vipassana served to create an atmosphere of relaxation and fun during the eight day retreat. As a result, participants experienced emotional safety to publicly share personal experiences and ask intimate questions on how to skillfully navigate life’s disturbances using the principles of Vipassana. A former businessman and householder, Sayadaw began his Buddhist training in Burma as a teenager. He became a permanent monk in 1996 and currently lives and teaches at Shwe Oo Min Dhamma Sukha Forest Meditation Center in Yangon, Myanmar. (Burma) Sayadaw travels worldwide to spread the goodness of Vipassana.
Vipassana is a non-sectarian meditation practice conceived by Gautama Buddha 25,000 years ago. This user-friendly practice is commonly referred to as ‘insight meditation’. Vipassana cultivates an awareness of the direct relationship between body and mind, moment to moment. The technique is simple: Place attention on the breath, rest in the belly, welcome and watch all thoughts, feelings and sensations that arise. Vipassana, as it is taught at Meditasi Mengenal Diri sponsored retreats such as this one, is a relaxed practice. There is nothing to concentrate upon, nothing to achieve, no right or wrong way to practice. We are instructed to accept and allow whatever arises to simply be just as it is, no matter what it is. Vipassana meditation cultivates awareness, understanding, wisdom and knowledge of the self and our world.
Sayadaw U Tejaniya feels the purpose of meditation is to understand defilements: cravings, aversions and delusions in their many forms. When sensations of pain, a repetitive thought, and pictures from the past, feelings, pleasure, and despair arise the Vipassana practitioner directs awareness to this object of disturbance to simply watch it. For example, if sadness arises, let it be. Refrain from taking a mind journey into the story of the sadness. “Your job is to recognize any feeling as just a feeling. It is only a problem when you take this feeling as yours. We all have feelings. They belong to all of us.” Sayadaw reminds us.
Hirok Ghosh, a businessman living in Singapore attended the retreat as an interpreter and advanced student of Sayadaw’s. Hirok is a 15 year Vipassana practitioner and spent 5 years in Burma, 3 as a monk. The first night of the retreat Hirok shared a story about his experience with anger.
“I was teaching a university class. I saw this woman that I was attracted to speaking to a man. Anger arose. I allowed this feeling to be present and I kept on teaching. Throughout the class I maintained a watchful awareness on my anger.”
Hirok watched and inquired about this anger for four days. Eventually his insights led him to the origin of his suffering. He was not aware that he held expectations about giving and receiving. Once he understood the origins of the anger- expectations- he could then act with knowledge and wisdom.
When we remain with the disturbance as a mother sits with a hurt child, we cultivate a compassionate detached view. Curiosity arises. We begin to wonder and inquire: “What is this? Or “What is happening?” These questions lead us into insights about the origins of the disturbance. From insight arises wisdom, knowledge and thus understanding, leading towards preventing the disturbance from re-occurring. We may encounter and welcome the disturbance many, many times, with various insights, before true understanding arises. The practice of Vipassana can become a life-long companion.
I asked Hirok: “How has Vipassana changed your life from one of suffering to living in equanimity?” Hirok laughed and said: “That’s the easy way of looking at things, but no. The more you are aware the more you become aware that life is suffering, being aware is also a form of suffering; not being aware is a worse form of suffering.”
“Once you start your journey on the path of awareness there’s no turning back and saying you wish not to be aware anymore. Awareness is automatically there. That’s when I chose awareness to not being aware, because awareness gave me respite from things which caused me suffering when I was unaware.”
Vipassana supports us in changing directions with our life: We stop running away from our cravings, aversions and delusions and begin accepting them into the folds of our awareness. Vipassana initiates an adventure of self-transformation.
MANY MINDS IN ONE BODY
I came to be at this retreat when I received a SMS from my friend: “There is a Vipassana retreat at the Buddhist Monastery near Lovina. Want to join?”
At that exact moment in my life I was acutely aware that I have many minds in one body. I was looking for a simple, direct meditation technique that would enable me to sustain the dynamic, radiant ease of living here and now within all conditions of life. I also wanted a technique that would engender a loving relationship with those parts of me that I want to reject. After a short excavation into Google-Land I learned that Vipassana was just such a technique.
The retreat was billed as an eight day silent retreat of sitting and walking meditation. As a lifelong yoga practitioner, dancer, actor and singer this information stirred up resistance inside of me. As Sayadaw says in his book that arrived in my Yahoo inbox upon registration: “You have to stir things up a little for wisdom to arise.” I hung out with the stirrings for at least ten days before they settled and wisdom loudly spoke: ‘Hey, get with the program Tara!”
Fifty people attended the retreat. The first night of the retreat we were given the parameters: Morning bell at 4 AM; breakfast bell at 6:30AM. Group sitting meditation every morning at 9AM. Two hours a day group discussions with Sayadaw. Silence during mealtimes. The remaining hours until lights out at 10PM we are given the freedom to structure our time in whatever way we feel moved to practice Vipassana-walk, sit, and stay in our beds, dance, do yoga, write, read and even talk. The main instruction was: Do it all with mindful awareness.
Great news. No sitting on my bum for 10 hours. However, the freedom to create my own structure at first felt daunting. Dr. Hudoyo Hupudio, MPH, who leads Krishnamurti Vipassana meditation retreats at Brahma Vihara Arama served as a translator as well as logistics coordinator for this retreat. He said that “Full freedom also brings about full responsibility on your part to make the most out of the freedom. You have to learn to live with that, because eventually it is what matters most.”
I soon discovered that with the support of the shared intent of 49 other humans to practice with freedom allied with the deliciously designed voluptuous gardens, stupas, and water features of the monastery compound, agitation dissolved into a relaxed rhythm of moment to moment discovery.
There are many places within this large terraced complex for participants to grow their awareness. A large lotus pond with fountains greets visitors upon entry. This lotus pond is in front of a stupa containing a golden Buddha and a Kuan Yin sanctuary. The next tier holds dorm rooms, another pond with a turtle and an open space. The third tier is a Tibetan style stupa next to an imported Bo tree(the tree under which the Buddha gained enlightenment)with a statue of Buddha sitting underneath. The upper tier is a magnificent green open space with stunning views of the sea and surrounding mountains. This green space sits in front of a replica of the famous stupa of Borobudur on Java. Below this stupa are more dorms, the cafeteria and a jungle ravine area lined with small meditation huts and mosquito netting. A practitioner can sit for hours cocooned in the netting and commune with the life of the forest.
Brahma Vihara Arama, built in 1970 is the only Buddhist monastery on Bali. It remains open during the day and early evening for visitors during the retreat. At one point in the afternoon I found it challenging to find a quiet place to meditate what with the snapping of cameras, the crying of babies and the enthusiastic talking of tourists. As guided by the practice of Vipassana I remained with this disturbance until the insightful dawn of understanding: “Ahha! I am looking outside of myself for a quiet place. The tranquility I seek is inside of me!” That insight enabled me to understand that even in the midst of crying children I can cultivate equanimity.
Mealtimes proved to be the most practical application of mindful meditation. “I just ate the slowest meal of my life…and it was amazing.” One man confessed during a group interview. Sayadaw guides a mealtime meditator to observe what is happening while eating: “Greediness tends to come in as soon as a meal begins. Observe the mind first. What state of mind are you eating with? How is the mind feeling? Is it relaxed? Is it intent on eating?” We all agreed that at meals we are given the most obvious experience of the craving mind that yells: “I want more, I want more!” when our bellies are full. Our first impulse is simply to make this gnawing voice go away.
“You can get to know this talking mind,” Sayadaw informs us. “Without trying to stop the talking or thinking, you can see the mind’s internal dialogue from morning until night. You are trying to understand the mind as it is. You are observing to understand, not to make anything disappear.”
The last morning of the retreat we gathered in the replica of the Borobudur stupa for our final group mediation. Later we had a closing ceremony and a few participants shared their experiences of the retreat. Many of us found ourselves sitting with sadness and the teaching of the non-permanent nature of life. Dr. Hupudio left us with something to contemplate upon our departure: “Being in the present moment continuously, in which the me/self and thoughts cease altogether, is the door which opens up towards freedom, according to the Buddha in the Mulapariyaya-sutta. When Buddha met the vicious killer Angulimala on the road the Buddha said to him: “I have stopped a long time ago. It is you who still keep running. Stop!”
Before Vipassana: Running away from disturbances. After Vipassana: Sitting with them with awareness, inquiring with curiosity and wonder to gain understanding of their true nature.
Besides other visiting teachers from around the world teaching their respective techniques of Vipassana meditation, Meditasi Mengenal Diri (MMD or “Awareness of the Self Meditation”) is taught in a weeklong retreats three times throughout the year: in March, July and November. Participants stay in a shared simple room and are given vegetarian meals. The retreat is offered on a donation basis. On the last morning of the retreat participants anonymously place their offering in a plain white envelope then deposit the envelope into a cardboard box.
To contact the monastery and for a schedule of future retreats: http://www.brahmaviharaarama.com/
Sayaday U Tejaniya’s website: http://www.sayadawutejaniya.org
To find out more about Meditasi Mengenal Diri: http://www.meditasi-mengenal-diri.org/
Contact the writer at: tarakhadro@yahoo.com
