Potency: On Journeying Inward
This post has proved the most difficult for me to write thus far. There were so many threads I wanted to bring together and offer you in a cohesive manner.
However, trying to bring everything together was too much for a single post and kept me from actually sharing something with you.
So I decided to go back to basics.
What is the essence of what I’m trying to share with you?
And
How might it be useful for you?
The essence of what I’m trying to share with you is my experience with Vipassana meditation and why I believe it was an impactful experience for me.
My hope is that my story might spark something in you that you can take with you into your own life.
So here we go :)
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The Conditions
I came to know about Vipassana meditation several years ago through two seemingly unrelated data points. Yuval Noah Harari and a fellow student from my coaching program. I intuitively sensed this was something I should partake in but should do on motherland soil.
The conditions for this finally came about last year. So I participated in my first 10-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat in fall 2023 in South Korea.
Vipassana means “to see things as they really are” in the Pali language. Vipassana retreats have been intentionally designed to elicit clear-sightedness within their participants. Several design considerations stand out to me of what made the experience so effective.
Volunteer & Donation Basis: Vipassana retreats provided through dhamma.org are run on a strictly volunteer and donation basis. This is to protect students from exploitation and guard against commercialism.
In a world that increasingly draws from the philosophies of capitalism and consumerism, this ethos really stood out to me. I’m naturally a trusting person, but I’ve developed a sense of skepticism to navigate some parts of our modern world.
However, the volunteer and donation-based running of the organization made me feel like I could truly sink into the experience without the fear of being sold a product, service, or religion before, during, or after the retreat.
Withdrawal: As the word “retreat” implies, you make an intentional choice to withdraw from society for the duration of your retreat. This severs you from what you would normally have as input and/or distraction from the outside world. Additionally, you are not allowed to write or read during the retreat.
For me, withdrawal eliminated my habits of seeking knowledge from external sources like books, numbing agents such as Netflix, and social networks. This withdrawal steered me to turn inward instead of outward in the face of discomfort.
Structure and Containment: For the entirety of your experience you are led through a set schedule, have your meals prepared for you, and are meant to stay within the boundaries of the retreat property.
The set schedule eliminated the stress and ambiguity of generating my own schedule and vision.
All meals were prepared by volunteers who had themselves completed Vipassana retreats. These meals eliminated the effort required to gather and prepare meals, provided high-quality nutrition, and also served as a tangible reminder of the loving kindness of others.
Being confined to one physical area allowed me to quickly familiarize myself with the space which led to feeling safe even while in a new environment.
Silence: You are to maintain noble silence throughout the retreat. You are not allowed to speak or gesture to other participants. You may speak to staff in the event of emergency or to the teacher for questions on the meditation techniques.
This allowed me to completely focus on my experience and avoid unintentional social interactions that could take me out of myself and into the experience of others.
Stillness: You are sitting for meditation for approximately 10 hours a day.
I liken this part of my experience to water in a boiler.
Have you ever watched a see-through water boiler?
You fill it up with water and turn on the switch.
First the clear water appears completely still.
Then you start noticing small bubbles seemingly appear out of nowhere on the bottom of the boiler.
The bubbles start moving in little fits and spurts but stay stuck to the bottom.
Then when some invisible heat threshold has been passed, these little bubbles start to lift off from the bottom and launch upwards, bursting as they make contact with the surface.
This is how I imagine my internal experience during the meditations.
There were unaddressed feelings, memories, and experiences stored in my being that had lain dormant in my disconnected body and distracted mind.
Placing myself in contained stillness was the boiler switch being turned on.
Sitting for 10 hours a day for 10 days created the heat.
And when a threshold had been passed, the feelings, memories, experiences I had ignored started to be shaken loose, rising to the surface to be noticed and then released out of my system.
When something has been latent for so long, it won’t necessarily come out without some catalyst.
For me, 100 hours in 10 days of stillness was the heat threshold I needed to cross in order to launch the latent feelings, memories, and experiences that had been consciously and unconsciously affecting me to the surface.
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Takeaways
Potency
Prior to the retreat, I had done self-guided introspection, therapy, coaching, journaling, self-medicating, Headspace, etc.
However, they all lacked what this retreat provided.
Potency.
Medicines have differing levels of efficacy based on their dosage. Vipassana was a contemplative medicine that required a potent introduction in the form of a 10-day silent retreat for its effects to work within me.
My hunch is my conscious, subconscious, and unconscious, while all part of one system, were largely operating in a disjointed manner before I started introspecting in a concentrated format.
Contemplative potency in the form of Vipassana introduced cohesion to my system by clearing out blockages and creating pathways of access and communication between these parts.
It’s You
I also deeply experienced the lesson that there’s no magic potion that will rid you of your problems. No guru, prince, savior, to save you from your circumstances. It’s you. It’s been you and will continue to be you. The source of your suffering—the interpretation of events involving thoughts, beliefs, or judgments— and your power.
This is not to discount nor ignore the harm and pain caused by systems, histories, and circumstances affecting us that are outside of our immediate control. And we all have different starting places in terms of material resources, innate gifts, and support networks. But each one of us is the source of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. So each one of us have the materials to start changing our lives from the inside out.
I share this particular takeaway because I myself was unconsciously living with a desire that one day someone would lift me out of my circumstances. I only realized this through the opened channels of communication I had access to thanks to my Vipassana retreat experience. Through the clarity of this realization I could see how this unconscious hope had been guiding my thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. And now that I knew about this pattern I could change it.
I no longer expect that some expert, public figure, or keynote speaker has the answers to unlocking my intended life. I can now tap outside sources for guidance and inspiration but not rely on them for certainty and security. Instead, I show up for my daily individual practice, immerse in like-spirited communities, and continue gathering the ingredients I need to live out my version of a good life.
“Until you make the unconscious conscious,
it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.”
- Carl Jung
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Questions for you
What is your relationship to introspection, contemplation, journeying inward?
What, if any, potent medicines have you received in your life?
What, if any, reactions did this recounting of my experience elicit in you?
What is something you sense within you that you wish you had more direct access to?