Und dann war Stille.

“Silence is the language of God. Everything else is just a bad translation . “

We made it. 10 days Vipassana Meditation. 10 days of silence. 10 days of only looking at each other from distance. 10 days of not wiping away each other´s tears. No sleeping next to each other. No talking about each other´s problems and finding a way out of the pain together as we always do.
In Vipassana your are not even allowed to write or read.
The first days I felt like running away. Waking up at 4 o clock in the morning (people who know me know that I get slightly grumpy when being forced to embrace the early bird – not mentioning that 4 o clock has nothing to do with morning, it´s basically in the middle of the night HELLO ) to then sitting ELEVEN HOURS in a hall meditating and completely giving up control.
The silence was no problem at all. I love talking but I love silence more and I need it in my life (in my opinion we all do) and I feel we don´t get it enough. In silence we can go so deep, we feel our body, we feel our soul. We suddenly hear our own heartbeat, the birds around us, the wind in the trees. The monkeys and peacocks in the Vipassana centre started to come so extremely close to us, something they would never do if people talked. When we were allowed to talk again after ten days, I felt sad. People started to chat right away just for the sake of chatting and to me it sounded like annoying noise in my ears who had become so sensitive and peaceful.
No, the silence wasn´t hard at all, it was like coming home to the one true universal language that exists and I could easily do it for longer periods.
What was hard and made me suffer a lot was my intense backpain which I carry around my whole life since I can remember. And my crazy mind. Think about it – suddenly you allow yourself to be still, to feel, to remember – I often complain about the fact that I have very bad memory but I realized we also need to give ourself time and space to remember things as this is an active process ! So suddenly long forgotten memories started to come up to the surface and I was forced to sit and face them with no possibility to run away from them or – as we are so so used to – to get busy and intentionally distracted by doing something, anything. Same with the thoughts – a waterfall of thoughts, emotions, regrets, realizations – and no chance to run away. After some days the real process started and successfuly surpressed thoughts from years ago started to come up and overran me like a hurricane. I just wanted to run into Daniel´s arms who was sitting at the other side of the hall and ask him for forgiveness for so so many things that I had done to him – again: no chance.
Then, after a few days, things changed. I was able to surrender. To surrender and let go of my ego, of my victim mentality – the first days I was fulll power in it, having so many thoughts like ” Oh poor me sitting here. Poor me having more serious backpain than all of the others. What am I doing here, what do I have to prove again and again to myself? Why can I not just enjoy some time at the pool and take a break from all the self work and all the spiritual discipline? “
I started to let go, to see and feel the beauty in this experiment, to finally give my mind, body and soul a well needed rest after all this hectic time in India. We had been working so much in the last months and people who know me know that I am addcited to being on the move, constantly being busy with something and just having thi full active spirit.
I started to feel the magic of the technique called Vipassana It´s too much to explain at this moment but basically I learned a way to deal with all my suffering – my backpain but also my mental pain, all the accumulated madness of suffering attracted into my life by being caught in my emotional and reactive behaviour patterns. I understood how I had been creating this pain and how I was now able to see that there is a way out of it – out of all the misery! This technique taught by Buddha 2500 years ago in the exact same way (!!) has been and is still helping millions of people . Vipassana means seeing the things as they really are and NOT as we want them to be – to just be an observing witness, to accept the good and the bad as two sides of the same coin and to understand through DIRECT experience on one´s own body ( in opposition of just having blind faith or believe in something because one has read it or learned it from a teacher or Guru or Saint) that absolutely everything in the entire universe is constantly changing, arising and passing away, arising and passing away…
Nothing is permanent, everything including our body is no solid matter but frequency changing all the time . This helps us to detach from our misery, our identity, our fixed ideas of who we are, our ego, our attachments and aversions…
If we oberve everything that happens inside and outside of us with calm equanimity, we witness how even the deepest pain eventually fades way… this too shall pass!
And we can find a way out of the old behaviour pattern of CONSTANTLY reacting to everything either by liking it -which then leads to attachment and clinging to it and then eventually creates suffering because also the pleasant things apss away in the end- or by reacting to it by disliking it, by creating aversion which then leads to more suffering. So the wicious cycle keeps on spinning and spinning!
I can guarantee you all hereby – again: because I experienced it, not because I just believe in it!- that it works. After ten days I went out so much lighter, calmer, more happy, more free, free from so much physical and mental pain… for the first time in my life I had no back pain and I could see my patterns and traumas in a complete new light and perspective.
I understood once more that we should look at our inside to see where and how pain arises instead of always blaming outside causes for them. Our anger towards someone else has always something to do with our inside and with not being in balance with ouself. Further: Mind Matters Most ! Be aware of your thoughts for this is where everything starts – every word you speak, every unwholesome action you do , has as a source an unwholesome impure thought – Train your monkey mind so that you don´t become a slave of it. It´s not about completely controlling and surpressing our thoughts but rather embracing them in loving acceptance and with detachment – no need to identify with them too much. Don´t believe everything you think 🙂
We made it. I am so so proud of us, it was really not easy for me and really really not easy for my beloved Daniel. He as well has big time physical pain and a crazy mind and many traumas to work on. Not to mention his cravings and his addiction that came to a rest for these ten days and my respect an admiration for this is beyond words.
Vipassana made us stronger, lighter, more grateful, more grounded and more equanimous. Time will tell if we manage to integrate it into our lives as only with continuous practice one can truly see the fruits of this attempt. We are optimistic. And so so grateful for Goenka Ji who brought this amazing buddhist technique back to Mama India where it had been forgotten over the years.
We can only recommend Vipassana to you Brothers and Sisters Give it a fair try and let yourself be surprised by your own strength.
And last but not least thank you dear beloved ones who encouraged and inspired us to sit in Vipassana.
Sila Samadhi Banya – Buddhaya Dhammayah Sangayah .