The decision to go on a 3 day Vipassana refresher course was a bit rash and impulsive but still so right. I was itching to go on an adventure, it had been over a year since the last one to Thailand and a trip was long overdue. Bali was calling my name and I was listening intently, my heart and soul were already en route to the magical land but physically I was still in SF. I was ready to jump on the next plane, well actually it would have been more like 5 planes and a few detours but ... I was ready to jump on the next plane out there. The universe however had a different plan in mind. When the traveling plans fell through, it was clear that I needed to take a different kind of trip...a mind trip... with the Buddha and the breath.
It has been 2 years since my first and last Vipassana retreat and about the same amount of time since my last seated meditation, wait... I stand corrected. 1 year 11 months and 20 some days since my last meditation. The 1 hour b-day meditation I did definitely counts. Point being, it's been a long time. Who ever said it would be a piece of cake to go from meditating 10 hours a day to 2 hours a day…lied! I admit I believed I could do it and thought it would be easy but it was far from it. And the whole equanimity thing that you learn during a 10 day Vipassana retreat, yah that thing went out the door when shit hit the fan and change took over. It was probably when I needed to practice the technique more than ever but I couldn’t and instead I gave the monkey in my mind full reign. One thing was certainly made clear at that time… CHANGE is constant and it is powerful and can be chaotic… if you are not rooted then you can just say “timbeeeeeerrrrrrr” because the tree inside of you will not stay upright. However, judging by my experience, it won’t completely fall either. The tree might bend a bit and get slightly uprooted but the core… the core of you is much much stronger than the mind. Over the last 2 years another thing has also been made clear, what goes down, must also go up, it has to because that is the universal law of nature. There lies within everything equal and opposite force. My tree recovered from the crash of 2009 and roots have gotten stronger, the leaves greener, and the tree wiser (at least I like to think so). It was time to revisit my mind in silence.
mettaLOVE
ritu riyat
