Wat Mahathat in Thailand
Vipassana, is a type of meditation. It means insight into the true nature of reality
I was introduced to Vipassana at Wat Mahathat in Thailand. I felt nervous as I took my first tentative steps along the red clay tiled floor and up the white marble steps, stepping out of the piercing 33 degree heat and into the cool air of the temple. I was nervous because I was stepping into an unknown world where I didn’t feel like I belonged.
What lead me to take the leap and step out of my comfort zone was a deep feeling of dissatisfaction with life. I was so tired of being sloshed around by my emotions and driven crazy by my all powerful mind. It was time to make a change.
My mind was the problem.
The Buddha talks about attachment as the route of suffering and aint that the truth! I had attachments to objects and people, I need him or her, I need this or that, I need that job, car, house or holiday or I just won’t be happy!!
I had attachment to my identity. I should be happier, fitter, richer more confident! I was attached to what other people thought of me and to what I thought each moment in my life should be. It should be quieter, warmer, more entertaining etc.
The Buddha also taught impermanence. Your world around you is ever changing and nothing ever stays the same or nothing lasts forever. Thoughts, feelings, sensations and everything that makes up your external world is subject to change. This is the true nature of reality. Suffering comes when try to control that which we cannot control.
All of our dissatisfaction can be tracked back to mentally attaching to and outcome. We make an enemy of our moments, rejecting them and create fear of losing or not getting. Vipassana meditation is a way to transcend this.
“When you realize how perfect everything is, you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.” – Buddha
How does this tie into meditation you ask?? At Wat Mahathat I took a Vipassana meditation class. I was guided by a smiley older monk in his orange robe to sit, close my eyes and note everything that I observed. If I heard noise I was to note internally 3 times “hearing, hearing, hearing” and then allow that awareness to go. I was to note thinking, sensations, sound, everything that I occured.
I Woke Up
After a few minutes something amazing happened. Before I had been completely identified with my mind – it was me. Now as I watched my internal world, I became conscious of these thoughts and I realised I am not the thoughts I am the one behind them. The one watching them!
Feelings and sensations came and went endlessly. I didn’t grab hold of any of them. As I sat observing my internal world I was able to let go, I didn’t need to change or control any of it I could just let it swirl on around me..
It didn’t have any power and because it was always changing form and it didn’t matter so much.
From that day in a big way I changed. With practice my anxiety reduced, I became less stressed, less at the mercy of my mind. I suffered less from my thoughts and feelings. Ironically by letting go of attachment and the need to control I felt more in control then ever before. There was peace in surrender.
I remember walking back from the temple that day feeling so aware of my body, my breath, every thought and fluctuating feeling. I was no longer asleep I had woken up and I was never going back!
“Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own thoughts, unguarded.” – Buddha
Take Away
When you are awake in this way, you have the power to let go. To let what comes come and then let what goes go. There is no peace in trying to resist and control your mind, body and external world. There is stillness to be had when you learn to observe and allow without the need to control, react or become involved.
Meditation is thoughtless presence. You are the presence and not the mind. When you observe your reality from this place you see the perfection in all that comes.