"Anicca"

The stillness of Vipassana
by Michael Bouris

I'm sitting, with my eyes closed, breathing normally and observing the sensations in my body, moving my awareness from head to foot and foot to head. I'm chasing ecstatic, electric waves that race through my limbs and torso. My minds eye sees bright coloured lights coursing, swirling, and eddying. And then suddenly there's no need to move my awareness at all. I feel everything all at once. I'm light and truth, a vibration in perfect harmony with the universe. Anicca.

One hour later...

I'm sitting, with my eyes closed, breathing normally and observing the sensations in my body, moving my awareness from head to foot and foot to head. An invisible blowtorch is intensely burning my right testicle. I'm having trouble focussing, and moving my awareness is like pushing loaded dump trucks through a succession of black holes of pain. Anicca.

anicca (ahh-nee-chaa), This Too Shall Pass, the universal law of impermanence. These impersonal sensations are constantly changing. What's the point of developing addictions to the pleasant ones? Where's the sense in hating the unpleasant ones? To do so is to self-inflict more suffering. Life has plenty of suffering as it is.

That's one of the great lessons of Vipassana. Most of us know this intellectually. It's no secret. The rain follows the sun. The dark winter arrives. Beauty fades with age. Friends grow old and die. Through Vipassana, the meditation technique that the Buddha re-discovered 2500 years ago, you go beyond the vapid intellect, to KNOW anicca through the solid truth and wisdom of the body. And through it all you develop equanimity, peaceful balance of the mind, the essence of enlightenment.

Vipassana, the art of living, is not a religion, cult nor a sect. Its a meditation technique learned in a ten-day retreat. Actually, it's more attack than retreat, an all-out assault on your worst fears, hatreds, and addictions. An unloading of the heaviest complexes, acquired in this life and previous ones, that are keeping you from being a loving, happy, and compassionate being.

Over ten days, ten hours a day, you become established in the technique. You sit and meditate an hour at a time, with breaks in between, starting at 4:30 am and finishing at 8:30 pm. You maintain noble silence, not talking or making eye contact with other students. You are free to ask an experienced teacher about the technique. Simple vegetarian meals are prepared and served by volunteers. The cost is $0. You donate what you can after your first course. There are supportive people to help you if things get ugly and for many people, they do. Heavy stuff comes to the surface.

Oh yeah, and while you do your Vipassana immersion (and hopefully beyond), there are a few rules to follow:

1. I will not kill a living being.
2. I will not steal.
3. I will not lie.
4. I will not have inappropriate sexual activity.
5. I will not become intoxicated.

This is sila, the moral foundation of Vipassana. Look on the bright side; the Bible has twice as many rules. The point is you can't do bad stuff and expect to become enlightened.

The actual technique of the ten-day experience is very simple. It goes like this:

For the first three days, you focus your awareness on your breath. Coming in, going out, ten hours a day. You'll find no chanting, mantras, oms, visualizations, crystals, candles, incense, or contorted body positions; just natural breath, the one bodily function which is both conscious and sub-conscious. Three days, to quiet and focus the mind.

Day four you start moving your finely honed awareness from head to foot and foot to head observing with equanimity whatever the "body/mind continuum" is experiencing. Your crown chakra is no more important than your middle toe of your left foot. Burning testicles, arrows piercing your heart, tigers gnawing your shoulder, sore knees, tingly toes, hot palms, all nature of itches and twitches, pleasant subtle vibrations, full body bliss, any other sensation you could possibly imagine simply, experienced.

Where does all this stuff come from? Don't try to answer that. Just observe it. You aren't going anywhere. No astral travel, shape-shifting, downloading the latest alien broadcast, nor magic spells just your own body and mind. You stay with it, watching it with equanimity. Watch it change. It gets damn interesting. Amazing. You are goddess and god after all. A universe within the universe. Perfect.

On the last day, day ten, you practice metta. Metta is loving, compassionate kindness for all beings, yourself especially. If you've never felt love before that sublime vibration that lights you up, heals you, and feels so fantastically delicious that you absolutely know it's what we're made to do you're gonna feel it on day ten with a room full of perfect beings radiating love with the dial turned way up to the max. Mmmmm metta.

Oh yeah. I got the love fire hose, with the sprinkler attachment, going full blast and I'm spraying everyone around me.

May all beings be happy.

Article originally published in Momentum Magazine, issue # 5, December/January 2001-2002. Reprinted with permission.