Rangeen Kagaz

Vipassana - A little dhyaan and a lot of silence

2014-11-07T19:54:00.000+05:30

How does it feel to be silent for 9 days? To meditate, or try to, for 10 hours each for 10 days.

To me, the silence felt good. The attempts at meditation were not particularly successful but worthwhile nevertheless. Goenka's philosophy of salvation, however, was what I was least receptive to. Like any life-guiding philosophy, Vipassana affects each individual differently, and here's my personal experience of it.

During the long ten days, we maintained silence from the night of Day 0 to the morning of Day 10. The silence could be broken only to talk to the teacher to ask or answer questions about the meditation technique or, to raise any issues with the management. Besides an average of 2-3 sentences every 2 days, I was silent for the rest. Some folks gave up on the silence around the fifth day, but since this was the easiest task for me, I stuck. It was especially easy since our phones had been deposited with the management on Day 0.

The silence clears your mind of a lot of clutter. With no WhatsApp and Gmail, it's easy to focus on one train of thought and go deep. It helped me reach decisions on some life issues and think about the path I've chosen.

While the silence came easily to me, meditation was a different kettle of fish altogether. My silence did not extend to my mind. It was full of thoughts. Keeping it focused on my breath and body sensations was a constant battle. I did get better as the days passed but my interest waned after Vipassana discourses.

S. N. Goenka (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This was surprising as I'd enjoyed the discourses till then. In the daily video discourse, Goenka speaks of the theory behind practising Vipassana in the style he teaches. In the first few days, he's quite areligious and irreverent. Faith without the trappings of religion made absolute sense to me. However, in the later days, he talks more about how Vipassana is 'the path' to salvation where religion has failed. He also tried to explain how each religion talks about Vipassana in different words. Surprisingly, I had no problem with that, maybe because I've always appreciated politics. However, the repeated focus on how engaging in Vipassana would cure the sins of my past births and take me towards salvation, was a turn off.

Overall, the ten day course was definitely an enriching experience. It pushed me to crystallize my thoughts on life and what faith means to me. But, would I do it again? Probably not. Unless I need the silence enough to ignore the salvation mantra.

When do you stop being a newbie?

2014-02-23T23:35:00.000+05:30

Credit:
The Partially Examined Life

In a week’s time, I will be completing my first quarter as a Field Manger at Dimagi. Given the myriad of things that I do as an FM, sometimes I feel like an old hand. And then there are times, when I ask questions about the simplest of tasks, like how to load multimedia for a CommCare app on a Java phone. When will I see that milestone that says ‘You are now exiting newbie zone’?

In these three months, I have travelled to Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Three states were for work. Gujarat trip was to meet friends and utilise the ‘work from anywhere’ policy. I planned that just after my maiden field visit. Did the newness wash away in waters of river Narmada?

On that first visit, I experienced the joy of helping an elderly field worker, learn how to type on a smartphone. The process of teaching has deepened my well of patience but, I am yet to be as engaging or creative a trainer as I could be.

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