Meditation Camp: 11 Days to an Enlightened You

It’s 4:30 a.m. I’m with 100 others, sitting still. I try to focus, but my mind constantly wanders. In or out of the meditation hall, there’s silence and isolation. It’s maddeningly difficult. I’m not sure I can make it through the rest of the 10 days. Why would any sane person want to?

For me, the answer involves some personal history.

A generation ago, I spent a year in India. When Indians asked me if I was a spiritual aspirant, my stock answer was: “I’m a spiritual buff- erant. I want to get there twice as fast.”

This wasn’t altogether a joke. My goal was to reproduce, through spiritual practices, the psychedelic experiences I had had. At times, I came close: When breath control and visualization techniques worked right, I could put myself into a hypnotic trance and feel my consciousness floating in air, looking down at my inert body.

Eventually, I became husband and father, with responsibilities and mortgages. In India this is called the “householder” stage. Still, during the past 20-some years, the period in which my two sons have grown to manhood, I have held on to the notion that someday I will go back to India and be a spiritual aspirant again. Clinging to this idea--while living the life of a householder--has become, over the years, increasingly burdensome, and led to deep funks.

A friend, sensing my malaise, directed me to the Web site for the California Vipassana Center. I was intrigued. It promised no mysticism, no dogma, no belief--just experience. Vipassana, it said, means to see things “as they really are.” It is a technique--of meditation and silence--that “will eradicate suffering” and purify the mind. The goal is nothing less than “total liberation and full enlightenment.” And the fee? That’s up to each student, after finishing the course. Donations enable others to attend. If you can’t afford anything, that’s OK, too.

The Web site material did not hide the difficulty of the technique. But it seemed worth a try. In the grand scheme of things, it was only 11 days of my life. I signed up.

On my way to the retreat center in the Yosemite foothills, I pick up two women who had contacted me because they needed a ride, and off we go. Both are in their mid-40s and have been to the center many times. One is a stock trader in Chicago, finishing a year’s sabbatical. The other is a playwright living in L.A. Both are excited about doing the course again. This bodes well. If these two assured, articulate women are happy to go back, how bad could it be?

We arrive at the center late in the afternoon. It looks like a pleasant, isolated summer camp: more than 100 rolling acres of pines, manzanitas, oaks. Dirt trails lead from the dining and meeting halls to dormitory areas. Almost all the buildings are simple but functional wooden structures. The roundish meditation hall, located on the property’s highest spot and built with heavy beams, easily accommodates the 50 men and 50 women who are here for the 10-day course. With its indoor wood paneling and high ceiling, the hall is more homey than majestic. During the arrival formalities, we are reminded of the rules: no talking, no eye contact or gestures, no reading or writing, no contact with the outside world, no sunbathing, no drugs, no liquor, no smoking. And complete segregation between men and women: separate dining rooms and living quarters, even separate routes to the meditation hall. Everything is designed so that opposite sexes never cross paths.

Some summer camp.

By the time I get to my room, a bare monk’s cell with two beds and a bathroom, silence has been imposed. For the next 10 days, my roommate and I don’t exchange one word. We don’t even know each other’s names. It’s hard to avoid looking at a person you share a small room with, but we manage. Almost. On the second morning, when I come out of the bathroom, our eyes meet. We quickly look away. And on the sixth afternoon, he catches my eye and signals that our hanger-rack has fallen to the floor with our jackets.

The stated purpose of this silence is to allow each student to go through the course as if he or she were alone. There are other reasons. For one thing, it keeps you from presenting yourself by way of your social roles. It’s a way of saying: Leave your ego at the gate. It also keeps you from talking about your progress. Of course, I compare myself with others anyway. I notice one man, about my age, who sits ramrod-straight 12 hours a day. He humbles us all. I think of him as the Marine.

After a couple of days of silence, I start moving more and more slowly, zombie-like, acutely aware of what’s going on inside and outside my body. Along the paths, there are signs that read “Course Boundary,” stopping us from going into side-routes. I follow the rules, not venturing past the signs. But I gaze longingly at the forbidden zone, which is hilly, green and thickly dotted with manzanitas, reddish-barked and gnarled. It looks inviting. What is out there?

I have odd thoughts: If you see someone break the rules, do you rat on him? What if you break the rules ... do you get called before the teacher? (“You’ve been seen in the forbidden zone with a cell phone. Any explanation?”)

Maybe this isn’t a meditation camp at all, but a psychological experiment, with hidden cameras, to see how people react to self-imposed torture. (“Hmmm, this group is particularly submissive.”)

What about the outside world? Will it still be there when we get out? If the world were to blow up, would we even know about it? Or would we just go on meditating?

Each day’s first meditation is from 4:30 to 6:30 a.m. At 6:30, breakfast: oatmeal, bread, tea. Then more meditating from 8 to 11. At 11, lunch: vegetarian and not bad--curries, pasta, tofu, salad bar, desserts. During meals, everyone keeps to himself, looking down. Then from 1 to 5 p.m. more meditation. (There are periodic breaks.) At 5 p.m., tea. (That’s right, no supper.) Meditation from 6 to 7. A videotaped lecture from Goenka--the man who’s spread this ancient technique throughout the world--from 7 to 8, then more meditation until 9. Then bedtime. At 4 a.m. the gong sounds again.

Later I would learn that the cooks, servers, helpers, teachers--everyone here who is not a student--is doing this voluntarily, in a spirit of service. It gives the center the feel of an uncorrupted 1960s commune. For the students, though, there’s strict discipline when it comes to rules and practice--every session begins on time.

For the first couple of days, because of sciatica, I have trouble finding a comfortable posture. I meet with an assistant teacher, who suggests that I sit against the wall. Instead, I use a backrest, with pillows jammed behind me and under my knees. On day two, when I try to concentrate on the breath, my mind drifts, and I revert to a visualization technique I learned in India. It works. I have that familiar high, out-of-body sensation. I’m pleased, certain that I’ll go back to that mental space every time I meditate.

In his video lectures, Goenka tells us about himself. Born in Burma to a family originally from India, he was a wealthy businessman who learned this technique when he was in his 20s. He practiced it for many years before devoting himself to teaching others.

Goenka, now 77 years old, explains the philosophical basis of Vipassana, based on classic Buddhist teachings. Most people, he says, try to hold on to that which is bound to change. And they try desperately to avoid the inevitable. Buffeted between craving and aversion, they react to circumstances with “agitation, frustration and disharmony.” And they suffer. Failing to be at peace inside themselves, they spread misery to others. The object, he says, is to “free the mind from the deep-seated causes of suffering” so that one reacts to events with “awareness and equanimity.”

Intellectually, I understand this, but the next day my meditations are unbearable. A chunky man with gray ponytail and flushed face plants himself in a chair behind me. He belches, yawns: Mr. Toxic Breath. I throw a sheet over my head, but I can smell his wheezing. Goenka’s voice urges me to observe with equanimity the reality of what’s going on in my nostrils. Yeah, right. I put it off for a day, then ask to change location.

Each day the focus of meditation progresses. We go from observing the breath, to focusing on the nostrils, then the area surrounding that, until finally we’re observing sensations throughout the body, from head to feet, always keeping in mind that these sensations constantly change. But in my new location in the hall--doing meditations I’m not used to--I can’t seem to get my rhythm back. Occasionally, I feel high for short periods, but too often my mind wanders.

By the eighth day, I’ve reached my limit. My mind is all over the place. I sneak glances at my watch. I’m full of aches and itches, and I have trouble sitting still. I want to go home, but I’m too stubborn to throw in the towel. Not with just two days left.

And then on the ninth day, during a meditation, I suddenly get it. The moment of clarity.

For these last nine days I’ve been trying to soar above my motionless body. But now, I realize, that’s not the point at all. If it happens, fine. If it doesn’t, that’s fine too. The point is to sit still and observe reality, whatever it is. Without wanting to hold on to a good meditation when it works right, and without being disappointed when it doesn’t. Just observe. See everything for what it is.

And I realize something else: The meditations are not only forcing us to concentrate on the here-and-now, they’re also an experiential model for the underlying vision--in life, there is nothing but change. If I can focus on my changing physical sensations, pleasant or unpleasant, with awareness and equanimity, then I can learn to live that way. No craving, no aversion. Just reality.

Given this realization, I see the source of my recent unhappiness. Too often, lately, I’ve dreamed about a future based on the past. If I stop doing that, I can live in the present. I can be a householder and still aspire to a spiritual life. Now. Where I am.

It sounds so obvious. But I would never have understood this if it had been merely an intellectual exercise. It’s only by having gone through the course that I get it. Inside. In my gut.

Still ... as soon as I have this epiphany, I’m suspicious of it. This revelation ... is it real, or is it a product of the total-immersion, isolation-tank atmosphere I’ve been in for 10 days? Will it disappear, in time, like a drug-high? Or will it stay with me and change the way I live? Is this the first step of a long journey

On the 10th day, after morning meditation, we break silence. I finally find out my roommate’s name. Oddly, I’ve heard of him: He’s the legendary Missouri lawyer who opened Boston’s first rock club, started a weekly newspaper, launched a radio network. We chat for hours. It’s fascinating, but in some ways I feel that we knew each other better without words and without names.

At dawn, I come out of the last meditation to see the hillside pines dusted with snow. I go toward the men’s dining room for my last meal here. For 11 days I’ve walked this path. I’ve seen animal spoor but no animals. Now, finally, I see a doe and a fawn grazing nearby. Everything is sparkling. The beauty of it overwhelms me.

Yes, indeed. Seeing things as they are--reality--can be a very powerful high.

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Roberto Loiederman, co-author of “The Eagle Mutiny,” now meditates regularly and intends to go back to California Vipassana Center next year.