From July 17th to July 28th, 2019, I participated in the meditation practice at the Prajna Vipassana Center in Dujiangyan, Chengdu, and lived a very self-disciplined life isolated from the world for 10 days. During these 10 days, I meditated for 1 hours every day, got up at 4 a.m. and went to bed at 9 p.m., banned talking, followed a vegetarian diet, and handed over all electronic products, paper and pens.

Many friends are curious about what kind of experience Vipassana meditation is like and how they can sign up to participate.

These questions will be answered one by one below, and I also want to record this special experience through words, so that I can remind myself to be happy every time I see it in the future~

First of all Here is a list of 10 questions. You can choose the ones you are concerned about to read?

Vipassana is an ancient meditation method in India. It is interpreted as "insight" in ancient Indian language. It advocates observation Breathing and feeling various parts of the body train to be aware of the present moment, so as to obtain true inner peace, harmony and happiness.

Human beings have benefited from Vipassana for more than 2,500 years. The first person to discover Vipassana was Sakyamuni. Although Vipassana comes from Buddhism, it is not the same as Buddhism. It is a practice method without religious distinction.

Yuval Harari, the author of "A Brief History of Humanity", has persisted in Vipassana meditation for nearly 20 years. He started meditation for the first time in his life at the age of 24, and frankly said that because Vipassana gave him a high degree of concentration and clear vision, and he wrote "A Brief History of Humanity" and "A Brief History of the Future".

In the last chapter of "A Brief History of Today", "Reunderstanding Yourself: The Mystery of the Human Mind", he talked about the gains that Vipassana brought him, as follows:

In addition to Yuval Harari, the well-known spiritual writer Zhang Defen (author of "Meeting the Unknown Self") and angel investor Li Xiaolai (author of "The Road to Financial Freedom") are also Vipassana. beneficiary.

In April 2018, I saw the word "Vipassana" on activist Qiqi's Weibo. At that time, I learned about Vipassana for the first time, and I also had the idea of ????wanting to go there, but then Did you know that there are Vipassana centers in China?

It was not until January 2019 that the treasure girl Hongxia posted in her circle of friends that she was going to participate in Vipassana, which opened the door for me to enter Vipassana, so I am particularly grateful to her. At the same time, this also It shows how valuable sharing is.

So I paid attention to the official Weibo and official website of Vipassana meditation (there are some stories of people who have experienced it on Weibo, you can check it out if you are interested), but I never went there because I didn’t have time until this year. There was no time to participate until July.

When I decided to go in mid-June, the registration channel for the July 17 session was not yet open. I was worried that the class would be canceled because there was no teacher to take over. The next day I immediately called the Vipassana Center to inquire. The staff said that they did not know the specific opening hours and would be subject to the website announcement. Unexpectedly, I could sign up that afternoon. I was so happy that my dream came true.

However, I have always believed that it takes fate to be connected with something: maybe some people have heard of Vipassana before, but will never go there; some people like me just post it on Weibo A beautiful seed was planted after seeing it on the Internet; some people came to experience it because they saw the changes in friends around them who had participated in Vipassana; and some people learned about Vipassana from a certain book and after some After searching online, I found it myself.

If this article makes you connect with Vipassana, maybe it is also a kind of fate.

1. Block out distractions and cultivate your mind deeply

Frankly speaking, the first thing that attracted me to Vipassana was the ban on the use of electronic devices. After all, in today's society, it is very difficult to use mobile phones less, let alone not use any electronic devices for 10 days.

I once watched a video by Mr. He, which mainly talked about how he only used his mobile phone for half an hour a day and the changes that occurred after a week (if you are interested, you can watch it on the official account Yitiankai TOWN) :

In short, there are rules to follow to develop the habit of using mobile phones less, but it is almost impossible to cut off the use of all electronic devices and leave time and energy entirely to yourself.

We receive a large amount of information every day, either actively or passively. Most of the time, our attention is irresistibly harvested by the online world, making it difficult to calm down even in the dead of night. Vipassana happens to have a rigid requirement of "no contact with the outside world". Taking advantage of this opportunity, it gives a legitimate reason to stay away from electronic devices. Although there is no contact with the outside world, if there is an emergency at home, everyone can be contacted through a central phone number.

In addition to "no contact with the outside world", there is another requirement of Vipassana that may make people who love to talk especially collapse, and that is "forbidden speech".

When many friends learned that I was going to participate in this practice where I couldn’t use mobile phones, speak, listen to music, or read books, most of their reactions were:

Can’t talk? ! Wouldn't that mean suffocating people to death? !

I would definitely not be able to bear it. .

You won’t be able to speak when you come back, right?

?Every day is so boring, I am willing to help everyone wash clothes to kill time!

As an introvert, my main source of energy is my inner world, so I have never worried about being unable to speak. It is in this extremely quiet environment and blank time that the clear self and the true inner heart that were previously ignored due to busyness and impetuosity will emerge bit by bit.

After participating, I also learned that the reason for not being able to contact the outside world and being silent is not only to create a quiet environment, but also to avoid habitual reactions in the heart as much as possible. When encountering pleasant things, the body will have pleasant feelings; when encountering unpleasant things, the body will have unpleasant feelings. Vipassana requires equanimity, that is, neither craving for pleasant feelings nor hating unpleasant feelings. .

Contact with the outside world and language conversations can easily be affected. For example, students can communicate with each other about their experiences of this day’s meditation. Because everyone’s situation is different, the experience will be different. There is no There is no question of who is more advanced than who, but it is easy for everyone to make comparisons, and once they compare, they may stray into the game of pursuing feelings.

2. Regular work and rest, go to bed early and get up early

The 10-day course has a very strict work and rest schedule. I get up at 4 o'clock every day and go to bed at 9 o'clock in the evening. This is difficult for me to achieve at home. of. It is difficult for one person to persevere, but it is different for a group of people.

At 4 o'clock in the morning, the bell of the Vipassana Center will ring on time, and someone will ring the bell and walk to the door of each dormitory. Although I go to bed at around 9pm every night, most of the time I still feel sleepy during morning meditation, and I don’t really wake up until after my lunch break.

With a regular schedule and a healthy diet, my skin has really gotten better and better during this period, and my overall mental state is also great.

3. Self-awareness and exploring the causes of happiness and pain

I am a person who does not have any religious beliefs for the time being, but I am very interested in physical, mental and spiritual things. Everything can be done I am willing to learn about anything that makes people better and happier. I strongly agree that "the external world is just a reflection of the inner world", and that "life is full of hardships" and "the journey of mental maturity is arduous".

In the long road of life, we continue to pursue and seek outwards. However, no matter whether we live a glorious life or an ordinary and bleak life, everyone cannot escape the ultimate proposition of how to face death. Perhaps it is easier for people with religious beliefs to achieve liberation, but you cannot let others answer this question for you, you can only deal with it yourself.

Vipassana provides the possibility of inward self-examination, why people are happy, why people are suffering, and why we cannot obtain true peace, harmony and happiness in our hearts. It is possible for us to learn from our own Find the answer physically.

When I came back, I saw in Li Xiaolai's "The Road to Financial Freedom" that he listed several benefits of Vipassana supported by literature:

But here we need to It shows that, in fact, improving concentration is not the fundamental purpose of Vipassana. The fundamental purpose of Vipassana is to purify the mind, and the improvement of concentration is a subsidiary effect of meditation.

The detailed work and rest schedule of the 10 days of Vipassana is shown in the picture below. The most time-consuming thing every day is meditation. In total, it takes 1 hours of meditation a day. During the first three days of meditation, I practiced observing my breathing, that is, observing the flow of air in and out of my nostrils.

On the fourth day, I started to learn Vipassana, which is to observe the feelings of each part of the body from head to toe.

Although before I went, I heard from my friends that due to the physical discomfort in the past few days, various parts of the body would be very painful after sitting for a long time. But after I went there, I realized that the bigger challenge would be later, because the next 5 or 6 days There are 3 hours of firm meditation every day (divided into 3 times, 1 hour each time). The so-called firm meditation means doing your best not to open your eyes, loosen your hands, or change your sitting posture within an hour.

There is a 5-minute rest period between each period of meditation. People will use these few minutes to get out of the meditation hall to do exercises and look at the scenery. Bathing, laundry and other matters can be arranged in a large rest period. Completed within time. The reason why the course is set to 10 days is because introductory Vipassana requires at least 10 days. The real beginning is after 10 days, and the real test is in life.

The course I attended was all female students, with about 50 people in total. Some courses have all male students, and some courses have both male and female students, but the dormitories, living areas and meditation areas for male and female students will be segregated.

Before setting off, I thought there were not many people my age, but it turned out that there were quite a few people my age or younger (the youngest one in this issue forgot whether he was 18 or younger) ). There are energetic college students, and there are also elderly people with gray hair on their temples. There are mothers who bring their daughters to participate, and there are also daughters who bring their elderly mothers to participate.

Everyone is engaged in a variety of professions: mathematics teachers, physics teachers, psychology teachers, psychological counselors, entrepreneurs, Internet workers, Zen photographers, lawyers, college students...

< p> The reasons why everyone comes to participate are also different: some are because they see their friends no longer obsessing about many things after participating, and financial resources are rolling in; some want to cultivate their minds and adjust their personal status; some want to cultivate strong Concentration.

As for what kind of people are suitable to participate in Vipassana, I think there is no final answer. It mainly depends on whether you are interested and want to learn. Some people may think that it is better to come when you are older and have experience, but Vipassana has a children’s class. My friend who lives in the bunk below me said that she really wanted her son to come too. She felt that the sooner he could get involved, the better; Some people would think that successful people need to come, but facing death, pursuing happiness, and achieving harmony are problems that everyone must face, regardless of fame and wealth.

This may be a problem that most people worry about. When my friends learned that I was going to participate in Vipassana, the first reaction of several friends was also:

This Could it be a pyramid scheme? You won't be brainwashed, right? There won't be any danger, right?

I might also be skeptical if I had friends I never knew who went there and came back safely and lived a normal life. Before I decided to go, I checked a lot of experiences, stories and gains shared by others online, and I felt reassured when I saw the management details described by others.

The Vipassana Center was founded by Goenkaji (also the teacher of Yuval Harari, author of "A Brief History of Mankind") as a place dedicated to learning Vipassana. There are more than 200 Vipassana centers in the world, and there are currently 6 known in mainland China, including Nanchan Temple Vipassana Center (Fujian Province), Dandong Shuangling Vipassana Center (Liaoning Province), Dujiangyan Prajna Vipassana Center (Sichuan) Province), Qingdao Vipassana Center (Shandong Province), Beijing Yongqing Vipassana Center, Shijiazhuang Jingxing Lingyan Temple Vipassana Center (Hebei Province), foreign countries such as India, the United States, Nepal, Australia, Myanmar, France, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Thailand , Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Malaysia, etc. are also opened.

I don’t know much about other centers, but Dujiangyan Prajna Vipassana Center is not in a temple, it is an independent place. There are no monks here, only students and staff who come here for Vipassana.

The first international Vipassana center was established in 1976, and the operations of each center are already very mature. According to my experience of participating this time, all the links involved in the 10 days have been standardized. Even the emails and text messages notifying the registration and the text information pasted on the exhibition board each day have fixed templates, so even if each issue is different Teachers, different pursers, different volunteers, the whole process is well organized.

Let’s talk about a few details in detail so that everyone can feel it:

■? Keep valuables

When reporting in and handing in your mobile phone on the first day, everyone will take Get a cloth bag and a sticker. We put our mobile phones and valuables into the bag, and wrote our names on stickers and stuck them on the mouth of the bag.

The staff will lock all the bags into the large safe in the room where they are located (locking into the safe is what other people who participated said, I did not see how they dispose of the bags ), I will not open the stickers until the 10th day when the bag is distributed.

■? Assign exclusive numbers

Everyone has a number. This number is not only the table number in the canteen, the seat number in the meditation hall, but also the number of the shoe rack outside the meditation hall. It is issued and recycled There is a unified method for number plates.

In addition, I saw on the Internet that someone asked the Sichuan Provincial Party Committee for verification of the compliance issues of the Dujiangyan Prajna Vipassana Center in 2017. The official reply was that it was indeed a registered and open formal place.

However, it is worth noting that there are indeed many meditation classes on the market outside of Vipassana centers. I have not learned about them in detail, so I can’t draw any conclusions, but I still hold some opinions based on some details. Be very skeptical.

The friend who lives in my lower bunk was originally going to attend a meditation class in Xi'an. That meditation class requires tuition. This alone is different from the meditation class at the Vipassana Center. There is a big difference. Because the meditation study at the Vipassana Center is free. As for why it is free, we will talk about it in Q7. If you really want to experience Vipassana, it is recommended that it is safer and more reliable to attend a Vipassana center.

■ Mainland Vipassana Center

1. Log in to the Chinese Vipassana website

/

2. Click on the left menu bar

Choose any Vipassana center and fill out the registration form

PS: Generally, registration opens two months in advance. Older Vipassana centers such as Nanzen Temple are quite popular. So it requires timely attention.

■ Other Vipassana Centers

1. Log in to the International Vipassana Center Network

http://www.dhamma.org/zh-HANS/locations /directory

2. Select any Vipassana center

Click on the directory to select a Vipassana center

3. Submit an application

On the registration page, click the application button next to the specific course to fill in the form and register

PS: The website says that due to the large number of applications, it may take two weeks to receive a reply.

■ Notes

After the Mainland Vipassana Center notifies you by email that the registration has been approved, it needs to conduct two rounds of confirmation: the first round is confirmed by the online system, and the second round requires a personal reply via text message. Arrival transportation information. If any one is missing, registration will be cancelled. The time points for the two rounds are different, so don’t forget to confirm. I’ve heard before that some people didn’t register because of this. I have not experienced other Vipassana centers, but I feel it should be similar.

The meditation in the Vipassana Center is free. At the end of the 10th day, you can donate money according to your personal wishes. You can donate more or less. There is no mandatory requirement.

It is said that when India was free, someone advised Goenka, saying that India is a very poor country. If it is free here, many people will come to participate, and they will not be able to afford it. The expense of so many people. The teacher said, it doesn't matter, as long as they can persist in studying. It is not easy to meditate for more than 10 hours a day, and the food here is not that delicious. Later, some people couldn't hold on and left midway.

When free things were implemented in the West, some people warned Goenkaji, saying that people here would not believe it, and that free things must be a scam in their eyes. The teacher said, it doesn't matter, everyone will accept such a good thing. Later, one Vipassana center after another opened.

When I first saw it was free, I thought it was simply using donations from predecessors to provide benefits to those who come to study. Later I learned that there was a reason why it was set to be free.

Because once the tuition is paid, people will have demands and will constantly emphasize "I" and "mine", such as "I paid for it, why are I fed so poorly", "I paid for it, "My room should be how it should be", but if everything comes from donations from others, people will not take it for granted, but will be grateful.

In addition, meditation emphasizes "selflessness". We must purely observe the body's feelings, do not arise from greed and hatred, and downplay "I" and "mine." Not letting everything be personal is also a manifestation of echoing "selflessness".

■ Accommodation

The facilities of each Vipassana center are different. I heard that the conditions of Dujiangyan Vipassana Center are not very good. Some Vipassana centers have standard rooms or single rooms. , but the venue here is very concentrated, with dormitories, canteens, and meditation halls integrated into one, so it will not be affected by wind, rain, or sun.

The accommodation in Dujiangyan is that each dormitory has 2 rooms, and each room has 2 bunk beds. The toilets and shower rooms are public, with hot water supplied 24 hours a day. Public items include hair dryers, water dispensers, dehydrators, dryers, hangers, basins, and some laundry supplies left by predecessors (this part (You still need to bring your own (you still need to bring your own)). Disinfected bedding and tableware will be distributed after check-in.

Dujiangyan is relatively humid, and some friends may not be used to it. If it is a sunny day, you can take the quilt and pillow to the large platform to bask in the sun.

■ Food

Breakfast and lunch are all vegetarian, and only fruits and juices are served for dinner. Although it is a vegetarian dish, there are quite a lot of varieties. For example, there are porridge, whole grains, pasta, hot dishes, nuts, fruits, and pickles for breakfast. It is really delicious~ In the next few days, I also made it a habit to drink a bowl of lemonade for dinner. I think it’s a habit that makes my skin better~

■ Transportation

The notification email will explain the specific route. Since the location is relatively remote, for safety reasons, please do not check in on the day of check-in. Didn't go there until very late.

In addition, at the end of the return trip, there were no vacant tricycles at the door (although the Vipassana Center will provide a master’s phone number, but the supply exceeds demand, it is safer to be prepared yourself), so when you go there It is best to leave the phone number of the tricycle driver you are riding (this is what I did); if you really forget to leave it and you really can’t find the tricycle, you can look for the mobile phone number left by others on the pillar of the shop opposite the gate or on various pillars. , we saw a master’s phone number on the pillar of the shop.

The email sent by the Vipassana Center will state the items you need to bring. Here are three items that are not mentioned:

■ Shawl

In the summer, the air conditioner is turned on in the meditation hall. Prolonged air conditioning is very bad for the joints, so if you go in the summer, remember to bring a shawl.

■ Toilet water

There are many mosquitoes in summer, so bring plenty of toilet water and essential oil.

■ Lunch box

If you don’t like to use your own bowls and chopsticks like me, you can just ignore this article. I specially bought a three-compartment lunch box. The box is equipped with chopsticks and spoons. It is also easy to clean. I am very happy to use it myself. But I don’t know what magical power my lunch box has. It is especially loved by small animals. Almost every day, small animals come to visit at breakfast~

First of all, I do not support not telling or talking to my family at all. Going to attend under the explained circumstances, losing contact for 10 days is a terrible thing for family members who don’t know the situation. This way of handling it seems a bit irresponsible to me. I saw on the Internet that some friends traveled in the name of tourism or did not tell their families until one second before handing over their mobile phones, causing the whole family to be anxious.

Secondly, do your best to communicate with your family while ensuring everything is safe and formal.

When I first told my family, my husband understood it, but my parents thought I was crazy.

No matter how I explained it on the first day, they all decided it was a dangerous place. After all, we live in a different era and environment. Of course, I understand their incomprehension and worries.

After calming down, I communicated for the second and third time, letting them know that there was no problem there, that if there was an emergency, they could contact the center with a number to find me, and that friends around me had also been there. Do Vipassana and so on there.

Until the night before I left, my mother still couldn't understand.

But in the end I went because I felt that as an independent adult, one should make decisions independently and be true to one’s heart to do meaningful and growing things while ensuring one’s own safety. Something wrong.

Later, I communicated with my colleagues at the same time and found that everyone would encounter the same problem more or less. The method adopted was to communicate more and share more to let parents know what we did in these 10 days.

Of course, the above is just my personal experience. This also needs to be considered based on everyone's different situations. If you really want to participate but can't go for some reason, it doesn't matter. The time may not have come yet. I believe everything. These are all the best arrangements.

The number of words in this article has reached a new high, and the layout makes me doubt my life. However, if I can use this to let more people understand Vipassana, just like last year, I let more people understand the international volunteer travel. It’s worth it if you think about it!

Before I participated in Vipassana, I checked a lot of information online, and the information I obtained was basically pieced together, so this time I integrated everything I knew and experienced. , I hope you can grasp the more comprehensive content as much as possible by reading only one article!

If you have any other questions, you can leave a separate message! I hope everyone can achieve true happiness and harmony!

*The above unmarked pictures were taken by individuals or obtained from copyright-free websites