4 Ways to Acclimate Back to Normal Life After a 10-Day Silent Vipassana Retreat

I had a challenging time reacclimating back to normal life after my Vipassana meditation retreat. I transitioned from complete silence, without anything to worry about except sitting, back to my hectic work days and long hours. I went from 0-100 MPH/KM, so to speak. I wish someone had warned me of this challenge in advance, but after speaking with the teacher, she explained that everyone reacts differently, and so it is difficult to forewarn anyone. I decided to consult with my fellow Vipassana meditators to see what helped them during this transitional process from silence to the noise of life. Through their recommendations, as well as my own success and challenges, I came up with this list to help someone successfully acclimate back to the real world after a Vipassana sitting.

1.     Take a day or two off from work before returning back to emotionally process

I really wish I had known to prepare some time off for my return. I went straight back to my job as a social worker, which is energetically hard work, to say the least. It took me almost two days to even start calling and texting back friends and family. In retrospect, I could have used a day to gather my thoughts before returning back to work and life.

“The days after the course everything was too intense. I was glad to have one day off in a quiet hotel close to the center, to give myself the time to review my impressions and to get back to [normal] step by step.”- Verena Z., Germany

“Being able to be by myself for the following two days – and journaling.”- Kim H., California

“I had several days before I needed to do anything, so I could ease back into the world slowly.” Anon.

“Not going straight back to work.” – Janine P., Los Angeles

“Going on a solo hike in Joshua Tree right after helped tremendously. And journaling.” Patty L., San Francisco

2.     Processing the experience with the right people

Other than for my partner and parents who picked me up, the only people I felt comfortable talking about the experience to, at first, were friends who had completed the course themselves, as well as the teacher. They were able to emphasize and understand my cultural/energetic shock in ways others couldn’t. It becomes hard to explain to people who do not know what Vipassana is, making the transition back to normalcy more challenging. It is also good to know that you are able to e-mail with and even talk on the phone with the teacher if you have any questions or concerns that come up after the retreat.

“I didn’t really want to talk to anyone about the experience, other than my fiancé.” Anon

“Talking with a close friend who did the retreat with me helped a lot with reintegration.” Anon

“I did learn after my first experience to not try to explain.  It seems people are either drawn to it or not.  Once someone is stratified in the “I cannot”, “I’m too busy”, etc… and they won’t let that go, the have made an unconscious decision to let their habit, reactions, cravings, aversions, etc… drive their lives which is totally ok, just not my bag.” Anon

“It also felt good to talk to friends from the retreat and hear how they were doing.”- Allison S., San Diego

3.     Meditate, Meditate, Meditate.

When I was back home, I continued strictly following Goenka’s two-hour a day protocol for meditation. However, I noticed that I wasn’t feeling grounded, as though I couldn’t quite snap back to reality. The teacher recommended temporarily taking a step back, and perhaps only meditating for a half-hour, or really focusing on Metta meditation. When I mentioned that I felt like I was floating during meditations, she recommended that I open my eyes when this was happening to re-ground myself in my surroundings. I am glad I spoke to her when needed, as it really provided me with some strong guidance allowing me to continue my meditation at a pace that suited my busy schedule.

—I later met with a different teacher while serving a course, who I expressed times in my life when I didn’t have the space to meditate for long periods. She said, even if you are only able to sit for a couple of minutes, this is still Vipassana meditation. That made me feel so much better.

“Sticking with the meditations and remembering that everything I was experiencing was impermanent helped a lot. I also held on to two beliefs: 1- that all the amazing experiences from the retreat would stay with me and 2- that even my struggles were learning opportunities. With these practices and understandings, the reality of what was going on for me always felt okay— whether I perceived it to be good or not.”- Allison S., San Diego

“To be honest I haven’t been practicing the meditation according to Goenkas instructions (2 hrs/day) but have instead taken parts of it to incorporate into my existing practice. I’m benefitting greatly from it and am happy to have another technique to add to my toolbox.” Patty L., San Francisco

4. Use the Vipassana (Dhamma.org) Website or App as a Resource! 

There is an app/website for old students to access complete (Goenka recorded) group sitting meditations, guidelines for practicing, discourse summaries and other great resources. Contact your center for the username and password.

Be happy, and as always,

Buen Camino!

Day 12: Sensory Overload! (a 12-day Journal of my Vipassana Silent Meditation Retreat Experience)

I woke up thinking it was all a dream. Being able to talk again, and leaving today. We had to be up at 4 AM for our 4:45 AM final chanting. While getting ready in the bathroom, we kept celebrating that this was our last sitting together. When we got to the hall, it was pure silence for about 15-20 minutes before the chanting even began, which was another 15-20 minutes.

After that, we had our final video discourse. Goenka spoke of the importance of continuing and nurturing our practice. That’s a… lot? He spoke of protecting the tree we’ve just begun to sprout, by placing a fence around it. Protecting the mastery and purification of the mind, and nurturing it with compassion. No one can harm your tree, because none of these beliefs can offend any person, religion or practice.

When we were free to go, we spent time cleaning our rooms and I finally texted my parents and partner that I was excited to see them. Apparently, my partner woke up at 3:30 AM to take the train from San Diego to Orange County to drive my parents since my car was at their place. Both my hallmate and I were late to get to breakfast because we shared the same sentiments on the food. Actually, it turns out she never went to breakfast. Didn’t know that was an option?

When we finally showed up to breakfast, I expressed my gratitude to the kitchen server, since she did so much and always with a smile on her face. I spoke with some of the students before it was time for us to clean the communal areas. I got to clean the meditation hall, which was maybe one of the easier jobs? I enjoyed it. After that, we took pictures of the center and of each other.

I feel truly honored and privileged to have sat with the women I sat with. I am hoping to keep in touch with them. I was so excited to be reunited with my family. They said I seemed slower (in a good way) and much skinnier (well, duh). All day, I was too afraid to really look at my phone, or answer texts or e-mails. It all seemed too much. I felt overwhelmed, dehydrated and confused. We stopped at Highland Springs to eat on the way home, but it was too much food for me to eat. My mom then says I am acting and look like I just got out of surgery, or like I am not fully out of amnesia. I said that’s exactly what happened. I just went through surgery of the mind. We dropped my parents off at home and got some fresh juice (something I really missed).

While my partner went to dinner with his family, I had a moment to acclimate and put things away. I chatted with one of my Dhamma sisters, and it turns out she was feeling similarly. When I tell her about the UTI, she said that the water she gave me is the only thing that really helps with preventing UTIs for her, and she felt the need to give them to me. Woah! I’m not sure that’s what did it, but I am sure it helped. I am thinking of all of the articles I can write on this. I think everyone should do a retreat. Later in the evening, I find the strength to start texting others back and then enter my first at-home meditate.

May all beings be happy,

Christina K.

Excerpt from Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

In 1908, A Harvard philosopher named Josiah Royce wrote a book with the title The Philosophy of Loyalty. Royce was not concerned with the trials of aging. But he was concerned with a puzzle that is fundamental to anyone contemplating his or her mortality. Royce wanted to understand why simply existing– why being merely housed and fed and safe and alive– seems empty and meaningless to us. What more is it that we need in order to feel that life is worthwhile?

 

The answer, he believed, is that we all seek a cause beyond ourselves. This was, to him, an intrinsic human need. The cause could be large (family, country, principle) or small (a building project, the care of a pet). The important thing was that, in ascribing value to the cause and seeing it as worth making sacrifices for, we give our lives meaning.

 

Royce called the dedication to a cause beyond oneself loyalty. He regarded it as the opposite of individualism. The individualist puts self-interest first, seeing his own pain, pleasure, and existence as his greatest concern. For an individualist, loyalty to causes that have nothing to do with self-interest is strange. When such loyalty encourages self-sacrifice, it can even be alarming– a mistaken and irrational tendency that leaves people open to the exploitation of tyrants. Nothing could matter more than self-interest, and because when you die you are gone, self-sacrifice makes no sense.

 

Royce had no sympathy for the individualist view. “The selfish we had always with us,” he wrote. “But the divine right to be selfish was never more ingeniously defended.” In fact, he argued, human beings need loyalty. It does not necessarily produce happiness, and can even be painful, but we all require devotion to something more than ourselves for our lives to be endurable. Without it, we have only our desires to guide us, and they are fleeting, capricious and insatiable. They provide, ultimately, only torment. “By nature, I am a sort of meeting place of countless streams of ancestry tendency. From moment to moment… I am a collection of impulses,” Royce observed. “We cannot see the inner light. Let us try to the outer one.”

 

And we do. Consider the fact that we care deeply about what happens to the world after we die. If self-interest were the primary source of meaning in life, then it wouldn’t matter to people if an hour after their death everyone they know were to be wiped from the face of the earth. Yet it matters greatly to most people. We feel that such an occurrence would make our lives meaningless.

 

The only way death is not meaningless is to see yourself as part of something greater: a family, a community, a society. If you don’t, mortality is only a horror. But if you do, it is not. Loyalty, said Royce, “solves the paradox of our ordinary existence by showing us outside of ourselves the cause which is to be served, and inside of ourselves the will which delights to do this service, and which is not thwarted but enriched and expressed in such service.” In more recent times, psychologists have used the term “transcendence” for a version of this idea. Above the level of self-actualization in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, they suggest the existence in people of a transcendent desire to see and help other beings achieve their potential.

 

[emphasis mine]

Just a Quick Note

We’re still experiencing some minor technical difficulties on the back end. It turns out when Amanda first created this website, she utilized a platform intended for persons well-versed in coding, hosting, and site… creating? See I don’t even know what I’m saying. In any case, I’ve been frantically throwing money at every little thing that crops up, and likely getting bamboozled on occasion in the process. But oh well, we all have to make a living somehow.

 

I’m popping in to say that I’ve signed up for QPR– which is life-saving intervention training for suicide prevention– and you should too! I signed up for just the online seminar for now as I’m in the middle of wedding preparations. Once the wedding is done, I’ll be looking for a local in-person seminar. The difference between the 60-minute online course and 90-minute seminar is a what I consider vital 30-minute simulation with your fellow trainees at the end. It amounts to role-playing with one person acting as the person in crisis, and the other party addressing that crisis in hopefully a helpful manner.

 

This is a Shape article with more information.

This is the QPR Institute’s website, which you can use to find an instructor in your area, or sign up for an online course like I did.

 

Happy Wednesday, loves.

Vipassana Day 11: She speaks! (a 12-day Journal of my Vipassana Silent Meditation Retreat Experience)

I woke up nervous about today is the day we would all finally get to speak to each other. I woke up at 4 AM and ate a few bites at breakfast. Morning meditation was good and then we spent a second hour learning the art of Metta meditation. This is something you practice for about five or so minutes after meditation. It’s compassionate meditation since you send love, guidance, and compassion to all living beings. I absolutely love it.

Ok, so we are done… now what? I nervously walk straight to my room and frantically slam the door shut. I can talk now, but what can I say? One of my hallmates walks in and asks if I want to go on a walk, and gives me Cucaracha, a tree pod that makes the same noise. I shake it as we walk. We discuss our crazy experience, she tells me she’s named the rocks on the trail after her friends. We were met by an old student who is doing this for a second time with her husband. We walk to the hall together and meet another old student, a Thai woman, who I doing this for the 10th time. Wow! We talk with her for a while and head into the dining all, which has been transformed into a library. So overwhelming. Everyone is verbally embracing each other, some physically hugging. One of the Indian ladies tells me we knew each other in a past life, and invites me to say in her home in Arizona, whenever. It’s so sweet. The mother-daughter duo chats with me, and the daughter calls me an angel and said she gave me strength throughout the retreat. Wow.

A German girl from my dorm approaches me and tell me she has been watching me. I think we have all been watching each other. Another girl asked if I was from Hollywood, and said I gave out that vibe. As I try to run back to my room to grab my cards and money to donate, I am approached by more people. So intense. I am late for lunch, but I catch up with everyone and discuss the experience and who they are. My favorite hallmate said she didn’t know if the face mask was for her which is why she didn’t use it. But she will now haha. My other hallmate thanked me again for the face mask. She said she was dreaming of a Korean spa that same day when she surprisingly received the mask (manifestation!). I make my donation and ask if I can also donate myfancy schmancy meditation chair,to help someone else survive this. They agree.

The manager then approaches me and asks if I had forgotten that I signed up to meet with the teacher. I accidentally pat her and apologize. She reminds me we can’t touch, is not such a nice way. I realize I also have a migraine. This is sensory overload! I apologize to the teacher, and she said it happens. I explain the array of emotions I am feeling, which is normal. She reminds me to find balance and equanimity in it all. After afternoon meditation, where we still can’t talk in the hall, we head to the dining room to discuss rides, cleaning and the time change, which is happening the next day. We are shown a Goenka video on stressing the importance in doing our time with future volunteer service. The time change discussion goes on forever, but we finally come to a consensus that we won’t change our clocks, we will wake up at 5:30 AM which will really be 4:30 AM. An extra hour, kind of! For dinner, we get leftovers. Yaaasss. I ask this gal form Siberia (first Siberian I’ve ever met/the same gal that doesn’t sit on anything but her bottom) where she got her amazing floral embroidered scarf, and she responds, from India. Guess I need to go to India…

I chat it up with an amazing artist who is interested in completing the Camino, another woman I was originally going to carpool with, and others. My migraine is worse… Too much energy. The evening meditation wasn’t bad, but I feel exhausted. The discourse is an overview of everything, and we don’t have a second meditation. We get back and I shower and pack and talk for hours with my dormmates. One of which who had never meditated prior to this! Tomorrow is just two hours of chanting with Goenka. The now-waning moon is a celebration for the end of the course.