Vipassana Meditation, Part 1

Part 2: Vipassana Meditation, Part 2: Six Months Later  

A few months ago I became interested in meditation.

Today, I returned from a ten-day silent retreat in the desert city of Twentynine Palms, California where we learned the Vipassana silent meditation technique. This technique involves a remarkably impressive method of visualization.

For the last 10+ days, a group of about 80 of us literally lived like Buddhist monks & nuns that involved the following code of discipline:

1. No talking (Noble Silence, in other words we took a vow of silence where we, the students, never spoke amongst ourselves. This included no hand gestures, signaling, or eye contact. I only spoke about two sentences, each day, to my instructors and some days I literally didn’t speak a single sentence.)

2. No contact with the outside world. (No phones, no electronics, etc. We turned over our phones and car keys at the beginning of the course and didn’t get them back until the end of the tenth day.)

3. No reading

4. No writing

5. No exercising 

6. No rituals

7. No stealing

8. No lying

9. No sexual activity 

10. No intoxicants

For ten hours a day, for ten days, we meditated. A gong woke us up at 4 am, each morning, and we began the day with two straight hours of meditation at 4:30 am. The final daily meditation ended at 9 pm. 

For ten days, no one left the training center compound (unless they quit or were expelled). Fortunately, there were walking paths through the desert within the grounds.

Why did I attend? Simply to learn this technique of meditation.

The course is 100% free including full room and board (breakfast, lunch, and a late afternoon tea break). It’s strictly donation-based. And donations are only accepted from students who have completed the course. Vipassana has close ties to Buddhism. Keep in mind that Buddhism is a philosophy practice, not a religion, making the Vipassana meditation technique highly compatible with most any other religion, including atheism.

What do I think of the experience? It far exceeded my expectations.

It was grueling to sit for hours and mind-numbing to only focus on your breath and body, but it was so well worth it. It became easier and more rewarding as the days went by. Every single person was glowing at the end of the course, when Noble Silence ended (jokingly called “noble chatter”). I have no plans to become a Buddhist but I’m definitely eager to continue the Vipassana meditation technique. 

 

Now please excuse me while I take some time to catch up on my 294 unread e-mails, along with 68 text messages and a host of other social media notifications and voicemails.

More about Vipassana here: https://www.dhamma.org/en/about/code

A new Twentynine Palms course begins about every two weeks: https://www.dhamma.org/en-US/schedules/schvaddhana 

Unhealthy Mental Health

A silver-painted woman with mental health issues

The Past

Over the past few years, I watched a friend's mental health deteriorate to the point he could no longer live with his wife and kids. He ended up living on the streets, trying to get by. This is the second time, in a decade where this has happened to him. Both times, his paranoid schizophrenia improved, significantly, after he was arrested and institutionalized at a mental health facility for months of treatment.

After his most recent recovery, I bumped into him in Cupertino where we spoke for about ten minutes. He's never acknowledged any hint of his mental health issues – in other words, denial.

The Present

One key symptom that seems to make mental health worse, for the individual, is denial – a failure to even acknowledge there's an issue. A person's private life should remain as private as the individual wants it to be. However, relationships imply responsibilities. If a person is unable to maintain a friendship, then the friendship will fade away.

The part that frustrates me is I have to guess why people, with unacknowledged mental health issues, act the way that they do. From my point of view, it begins when they can't speak on the phone, even though they used to. Although texting helps, it can be hours or days until even a simple text message is answered.

I count myself as very fortunate that I don't "stress out." Knock on wood, but I have yet to experience depression, anxiety, a panic attack, etc. Many years ago, I would have attributed this to my Marine Corps experiences where I had to learn to handle many different situations that my civilian peer age group did not. Today, I realize that I'm simply very lucky.

How could Robin Williams succumb to depression? Replace the word 'depression' with 'cancer' and no one would even ask. But, mental health issues have so much stigma that individuals don't want to acknowledge it, let alone discuss it with others.

When I was faced with a life threating illness, I told as many of my friends and relatives that I could. My thinking was, "If I was a friend or relative, I would want to know that Joe's sick."

The Future

I currently have several very close relatives and friends, that I've know my entire adult life, who have some type of debilitating mental health issue which is completely unacknowledged. In two cases, it's worsened by alcoholism, which is another disease that is too frequently ignored. I now recognize the pattern. They lose touch, usually completely, and can't communicate. It seems to begin with a social anxiety. Very frequently, plans – even plans they've initiated – get abruptly cancelled with no explanation.

Now, I try to figure out what to do to help and my conclusion is that I can do very little, especially when they refuse to engage in any type of even light social conversation. For those I know who have admitted their mental health issues to me, it's much easier for me to lend a sympathetic ear. For the others, it's easy for me to mistakenly think that their condition is their fault and it's hard for me to sit back and watch the downward spiral.

Mental Health in America

How does someone end up on the streets? There are many different reasons such as abuse, drugs, loss of a job, and mental health issues. Over the past few months, I've watched the mental health of a  friend and former coworker from Apple, decline until he ended up living in his office, car, and then ended up on the streets. Help and love from family, friends, his church, and coworkers did no good since he wouldn't accept any aid.

Last time this happened to him, he ended up being arrested and committed. Unfortunately, until someone exhibits some harmful behavior – what authorities refer to as "fitting the profile" – there's not much that can be done by others. Sure, we tried talking to him, in good faith, but when one's brain can't accept reality, logic does no good. From his point of view, the entire world doesn't understand his genius and he things we're all squelching his creativity.

Today, a few of us, including his wife and mother, had to pack up his office, which he had been squatting at, for a couple of months, until his sympathetic landlord had no other choice. We wondered what street he was living on as we boxed up his computers, routers, books, marketing collateral, and training materials.

But, that's life in America. We're free until we harm.