Day 177: The Vipassana Experience – Craving vs. Aversion…The Root Of Our Misery

Yesterday I wrote about the “Sitting of Strong Determination”; how to do it and what it was like, but I didn’t tell you the purpose of it. Yes, there actually is one. The exercise was more than just mind chatter and body pains; although I did come to the humble realization that my mind wanders like a five-year-old with ADD. I would meditate for maybe five minutes and then wander for twenty-five…on repeat. This mastery of the mind is tougher than it looks.

So what is the purpose?

Ultimately the final goal is enlightenment. However, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither is the path to enlightenment. It requires time, patience, persistence…and baby steps. So for Days 5 and 6 we underwent an experiential learning about “craving” and “aversion” as it relates to the body, which in theory would automatically translate to the real world experiences because you would now possess the tool set. Reminds me of what one of my teachers past told me, “Nicole, how you do one thing is how you do everything.” Wise teacher.

So what is this “craving” and “aversion” that I speak of? Simple. Basically every outside stimulus we encounter creates one of two feelings; either we want more of it or we want less of it depending on how it makes us feel. This is where our misery starts; we let our outside world influence our inside world. So for our Vipassana experience we do it backwards and we concentrate on the only thing we can control…ourselves. We focused on our inside world, noticing each and every physical sensation in and on our body (whether that be hot, cold, tingles, pain, etc.), and our exercise was to neither judge these sensations as either good or bad, pleasurable or painful.  Our job was to simply observe; to notice, to understand that nothing, no moment in time, no feeling, no sensation, no stimulus lasts. Everything changes from moment to moment.

So as I sat there in meditation pose I did exactly this. I felt every part of my being, part by part, piece by piece. Sometimes I noticed the pain in my knees and watched it come and go rather than wish it to go away; and other times I felt the euphoric pressure of tingling energy build up in my body and simply observed it with a curious mind rather than wish and hope for more or for it to stay. Both became equal to me, none better than the other…it just was. And when you come to the point of being with the “just is” a wash of peace seems to find you there. Misery can no longer be where judgment is not, and melts away with each passing breath.

But let’s get real about it for a minute, the process of enlightenment isn’t an overnight process and it is not about to happen in a mere 10 days. It takes time. I mean if you think about it, it took me 31 years to get to where I am at…so there is a lot of unraveling to do. To get to the end goal requires patience and persistence. And this path requires a lot of silent observation. Just simply watch. Do nothing…not judge, not label, not make it good, bad, right or wrong…just observe whatever it is as it comes and as it goes.

Remember, at the end of the day, there is no permanence to anything. Even the solid rock is weathered by the wind and the seas. Which means “this too shall pass”…and so too will our misery if we but choose.