Tag: Vipassana

By Irene Ngare

I put out a request for people to share their experiences with meditation, and I am getting more individuals that are open to sharing, even briefly, about their odyssey. Once again, How joyful! Irene, a Vipassana meditator shares her experience of integrating back to the lay life after her first retreat, and how trust and faith have carried her. May we find inspiration in her story!

Peace, Kamande.

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… it has been a journey. A journey towards understanding suffering, humanity, and forgiveness. A journey of being, healing, acceptance, and self-love. A journey of brevity, confidence, spiritual growth, and an exploration spirit. A journey of happiness.

212 days ago, I walked out of the 10 days Vipassana meditation course (August 2024 cohort) feeling like I had unlocked a secret to life. I felt light, free, and reborn. I had found clarity; I felt intentional and purposeful in life. But as life would have it, the real world wasn’t about to let me off that easily. Old habits die hard, right? Upon reintegrating into society, my old habits came calling loudly! At first, it was just little things—a craving for distractions, the urge to escape instead of sitting still …  It was the things that had been part of my life for the last decade that were sources of my unhappiness and anxiety, calling me back to my comfort. And slowly, the pull grew stronger, and before I knew it, I was back in the arms of habits I thought I had left behind, after the meditation course. Don’t get me wrong, though; I wasn’t an extremist, but little or major unhappiness is still unhappiness, true or true? The strangest part? This time round the escapism didn’t taste nor feel the same anymore.

Those ten days of silent meditation had shifted something in me. Even after leaving the retreat, my heart still felt the need to meditate—at least an hour a day, five to six days a week. Have I followed Goenka’s advice to meditate for two hours daily, morning and evening? Hell no! Do I strictly follow the five precepts? Unfortunately, not all! Do I attend my weekly group sitting every Saturday? HA! But I try! I try, I try to meditate daily, I try to follow the five precepts, I try to attend my weekly group sitting, and I know for sure I do try! And that’s what I took away from Goenka’s teachings—one day at a time, baby; after all, Rome was not built in a day. For the last 212 days, I have consistently tried. That effort alone has improved my life in ways I never imagined.

Looking back at the person I was on 8 August 2024, before the course, and the person I became after leaving the course on 19 August 2024, to the person I am as I write this today—it has been a journey. A journey towards understanding suffering, humanity, and forgiveness. A journey of being, healing, acceptance, and self-love. A journey of brevity, confidence, spiritual growth, and an exploration spirit. A journey of happiness. A journey toward enlightenment. A journey towards awakening that the world is my oyster. A soul-searching journey. And the list is endless! The ride has been nothing short of an adventure! 

A few days after leaving the course, Kamande asked us to write about our experiences voluntarily. There was so much to write, but my heart wasn’t ready. I hesitated because I wanted to live the teachings first, to experience them in my daily life before giving an authentic and experienced account of the living-proof of the teachings. Over time, the thought of writing faded—until two weeks ago, when something unexpected happened.

Our department at work had a team-building retreat, and I had a deep conversation with a colleague. She spoke passionately about the goodness of God in her life, sharing stories of Jesus’ faithfulness and the tremendous changes she had experienced. As I listened, I found myself nodding—not just out of politeness, but because I could relate. Surprisingly, I had felt the same transformation through meditation.

I, too, felt reborn, guided, and grounded. I even lost a few pounds (hurray!). I started living in the present. I became braver—no longer afraid of the dark. Fun fact: washing my face in the bathroom was a struggle before I began my meditation journey because I always felt like someone was watching me (dark days those were!). But now? I am at peace. As my colleague described her encounter with Jesus, I had encountered something profound through meditation.

That’s when the idea of spirituality truly dawned on me—the goodness of trust. My colleague had a strong conviction in Jesus’ salvation, and true to her faith, she had witnessed its power in her life. I had trust in the benefits of meditation, and true to my practice, I had seen it transform me. This made me wonder: “Does the human soul, if it exists, have to be anchored to a faith—or even a lack thereof?”

Even the absence of faith is a faith in itself. For the past two weeks, I have pondered this question—the necessity of faith and trust for the human soul. Personally, I feel my soul anchored with meditation. I love that meditation can exist independently, without being tied to any religion—just like a relationship with God.

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Ultimately, the need for faith—or the lack thereof—remains a mystery to me. Perhaps it always will. But one thing is clear: the human tendency to trust is deeply wired into our being. Whether it is trust in a higher power, silence, science, or even ourselves, that longing may define the soul—quite a mystery to me. Perhaps faith isn’t about religion, meditation, or even spirituality. Whether it’s faith in God/god, in stillness, in love, or simply in ourselves, maybe that’s the essence of the human soul. Whatever it is, I’m glad I found meditation and trust in its benefits, which are living proof in my life.

By Tracy Wanja

I put out a request for people to share their experiences with meditation, and I am getting more individuals that are open to sharing, even briefly, about their odyssey. How joyful! Tracy, a Vipassana meditator—just like all of us, finding her way back to her true and clear nature—has written about her experience so far. May we find inspiration in her story!

Peace, Kamande.

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Like gold being refined, it is a process and in the end we become pure and achieve

My writing process is now in phase two—putting it on paper, or rather, my word document. There is a whole other process before it gets to you.

When I agreed to this, I had just come from my first 10-day Vipassana, and I was glowing in the beauty of everything, being equanimous and enjoying meditation with the voice of Goenkaji in my head, calling me to meditate. Now, as I write this, I have faced the world a little longer, and all I can say is, I am not as I was. “I was raised Christian” is my current answer to anyone who asks about my religion. I have searched high and low for the spiritual meaning that was once so strong inside me, but I seemed to have only short-lived glimpses of it, whether intellectually, physically, or spiritually. None lasted long. I found myself demotivated and looking for the next exciting thing.

While I was searching for this thing (and luckily, I’m quite an open-minded person), a friend suggested Vipassana. Of course! I wanted to try it, I’m open! Unfortunately, or rather fortunately, it took me a whole year to finally find an open slot. By the time I got the slot, I was in a much better place than I was when it was first suggested. So you can imagine committing to something for 10 days when your life is going fairly well. The necessary things sorted themselves out, and by the time I was sharing that I’d be gone for 10 days, it was only two weeks away because, you know, anxiety. I finally got to the center, eager to learn, knowing well that whatever it was I had come to do, my mind would fight me. I was ready for whatever would arise, or so I thought. Being a (luckily) fairly sensible person, every time I desired to leave, I would always ask my mind to give me one good reason, and we would leave. I never got a good reason. Some days, we were inches away from the teacher, intending to tell them we wanted to leave. However, curiosity, a quality that I have always appreciated about myself, got the best of me and held me there until the last day.

I wanted to briefly share how the immediate results let me know I had found the right thing for me. I’ll start with my back and knees. Now, I am quite young, but I’ve always had discomfort in my lower back and my right knee, which never liked any extra weight on it. The gym and yoga helped, but procrastination was also my middle name. So the discomfort was constantly there. It wasn’t enough to warrant a doctor’s attention, but also not fun to constantly have. The 10 days were over, and I was back to the world. I first realized that a lot of my reality is just in my mind, and the importance I placed on it was just fluff. The first thing I noticed was that I didn’t have the strong emotions I used to have—well, only until recently did I notice one that still hangs on strongly. I’d see people get angry and wonder, “Hmm, this is what anger looks like, wow!” The grudges I held against people were dissolved. My cat was the biggest indicator that something had shifted within me. He is a ginger cat full of energy and had gone to my mother’s for the time I’d be at the center. He loved biting me as his favorite choice of play, and unfortunately, my family was not spared either when I was away. I brought my cat home, and he was very calm, to the point he was finally sleeping on my bed and not his. This was a beautiful sight to see. And the love! It had increased tenfold, and I realized that my expression of love was very external compared to now, as demonstrated by my cat’s reception to this new expression of love.

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Love for others also increased and I just found myself being so thankful to people I initially would have not bothered to acknowledge. I also noticed that my relationships are improving, and I am letting in those that I had locked out previously. The love is overflowing. I still meditate for 2 hours everyday unless it is circumstantial, but I always find myself trying to find ways I can hide and meditate.  I have also discovered that Goenkaji’s discourses have the answers to my questions and the funny thing is, things I’d see as difficult are quite simple to solve. Guess who lost her middle name? Yes, me! I find myself getting things done, things previously I had to negotiate and coddle myself into doing. Finally, the journey to freedom (nibbana) may seem long, but everyday we make effort and work towards clearing our Saṅkhāra, we see our new selves emerging. Like gold being refined, it is a process and in the end we become pure and achieve liberation.

By Ann Zinnette

I met Ann, our guest writer, at a recent meditation retreat, and she was also kind enough to write about her experience – when our hearts and minds start shifting radically towards true awareness and peace, we ought to share it with the world. Ann specializes in Research and Evaluation, Qualitative research, and Behavioral science. And above all (for this context), she is a Vipassana meditator who just like all of us, is facing the vicissitudes and unsatisfactoriness of this incarnation and trying to find her ground. May we find inspiration in her story.

Peace, Kamande.

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Life is full of joy and full of sorrow. Both will come and both will go. The key is to remain open, curious, and willing to experience it all without holding too tightly.

A few years ago,  my world felt as if it had been shattered beyond repair.  It wasn’t dramatic or loud; just a quiet, hollow moment. I lost someone dear to me. A person I had  shaped myself around, someone whose presence had anchored me in ways I hadn’t even realized until they were gone. The grief wasn’t just sorrow, it was a kind of disorientation, like I’d lost my bearing. It was thick and unrelenting, yet so quiet. I felt like I had lost a part of myself, as though a piece of my soul had been misplaced, stolen away by time and circumstance. It wasn’t just the absence of them. It was the absence of me; the “me” I knew in connection to them. It felt like standing in a house where every window and door had been left open, and all the warmth had escaped. And I was left cold and alone, just me, myself and I. I would stand in the shower and cry, not just with sadness but with frustration at how trapped I felt in this endless loop of sorrow.

In those days, I kept myself busy, filling my days with tasks and distractions. I told myself I was moving on, but grief is a sneaky bastard. It showed up in unexpected moments– while I was making tea, or listening to a song.  A memory would rise like a wave, and I would be swept up in it, unable to breathe. I clung to books like lifelines, trying to understand the mess I was in. That’s when I stumbled upon Joyful Wisdom by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. The title caught me off guard. “Joyful? Wisdom?” It seemed impossible to even say those words in the same breath as the pain I was feeling. But there it was, a book that promised something about joy, something about wisdom, something about navigating the messy, confusing nature of being human.

I read the book, one page after the next, each one pulling me deeper into an understanding of suffering I hadn’t encountered before. Mingyur Rinpoche talked about suffering not as something to be avoided, but as something to ‘meet’. “Suffering is part of the human condition,” he said, “and trying to escape it only makes it worse.” That hit me hard. I realized I had been fighting my pain for so long. I never let it in, never understood it.  Mingyur Rinpoche talked about how his childhood was filled with anxiety, how he would wake up each morning feeling dread as though something terrible was about to happen. And yet, through years of meditation, he learned to make friends with his anxiety, to greet it with curiosity and kindness. It sounds odd, but it really resonated with me at that moment. 

One chapter changed everything for me, the one about impermanence. “Everything changes,” Mingyur Rinpoche wrote. “The trick is not to cling.” I sat with that thought for days. Could it really be that simple? Could I really just stop clinging to the pain, to the memories, to the ache that had become such a part of me? Impermanence became an idea I couldn’t shake. I started looking for it everywhere–in the flowers that bloomed and then fell, in the clouds that formed, shifted and dispersed, in my breath that moved in and out without my control. And that’s when I did something a little impulsive, as people often do when they think they’ve stumbled upon some grand wisdom–I got a tattoo, yes, ink on skin! 

The tattoo was a simple one: the Tibetan character for “impermanence (སྐད་ཅིག་མ་),” engraved on my wrist as a reminder that nothing stays the same, not even this overwhelming grief. I thought I understood impermanence, thought it was a lesson I could wear on my skin and carry with me like a shield. But, as you’ll see, real wisdom can’t be captured in ink. It’s lived.

Fast forward a couple of years, and I found myself signing up for a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat. I had heard about it from a friend—a silent retreat where you learn to observe your breath and body without reacting. It sounded intense, even a little terrifying, but something about it felt right. I was ready for more. I was ready to experience impermanence, not just think about it.

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The retreat was…let’s just say it wasn’t what I expected.

Imagine this: you’re sitting for hours, in complete silence, surrounded by strangers who are also sitting, doing nothing but breathing. I’m not going to lie, those first few days, my mind was like a wild animal locked in a cage, “the monkey mind”. Every thought I’d ever had about anything came to mind. My back hurt, my knees ached, my mind wouldn’t stop racing. And to top it off, the silence wasn’t peaceful, it was deafening. I thought I was going to lose it.

But then, something strange started to happen. Slowly, I began to settle. Not because I forced my mind to be still, but because I started to see the thoughts, sensations, and emotions rise and fall, like waves in the ocean. I didn’t push them away. I didn’t chase after them. I just noticed. “This is impermanence”, I thought. Every moment was a lesson in change. Each breath came and went. Each pain in my knee flared up, burned, and then faded. Each emotion I had, whether boredom, frustration, or even flashes of joy, was temporary. I began to observe my grief in the same way I had been observing my breath. I noticed its texture, the way it would rise and fall in intensity, how it shifted from sadness to longing to anger and back again. It was always moving, never still. Just like the breath, my grief wasn’t a solid, immovable thing. It was more like air passing through me, moment by moment. Always changing.

And the more I noticed, the lighter I felt. The technique of Vipassana teaches you to observe without reacting, to remain equanimous, and in that process, you understand impermanence on a whole new level. It’s not just an idea, not just a tattoo on your skin. It’s the very fabric of reality. The truth of every passing moment. 

Through continued meditation practice, I’ve come to realize that the more I can open my heart to my own suffering, the more compassion I have for others.

By day seven, something incredible happened. I remembered my loss, the one that had brought me to my knees all those years ago, but it was like watching an old movie. I knew it had hurt – oh, how it had hurt– but I couldn’t recall how it felt. The pain had softened, and what was left was just the memory. I realized I had healed, not because I had tried to fix myself, but because I had finally allowed myself to see that nothing stays the same, not even grief.

And isn’t that liberating? The very thing we hold onto, whether it’s pain or pleasure, is constantly slipping through our fingers. But instead of despairing at this truth, we can find freedom in it. We don’t have to cling. We don’t have to resist. We can just be, and in that being, we can find peace.

So here I am, after the retreat, looking at this tattoo of impermanence on my wrist. It’s funny, really. I thought I got the tattoo to remind myself of something, but the retreat taught me the real lesson. Impermanence doesn’t need to be reminded. It’s happening every second, in every breath. It’s there, in the changing sensations of your body, in the fleeting thoughts in your mind, in the shifting landscapes of your heart. All you have to do is pay attention.

I’m no longer that person weighed down by grief, but I don’t regret the pain I went through. It taught me something that no book or tattoo could ever fully capture. I learned that suffering isn’t something to run from. It’s something to embrace, to learn from, to transform. Through continued meditation practice, I’ve come to realize that the more I can open my heart to my own suffering, the more compassion I have for others. Mingyur Rinpoche says that suffering can be a doorway to love and compassion. And it’s true. My experience has made me softer, more tender, and more understanding of others’ pain.

Life is full of joy and full of sorrow. Both will come and both will go. The key is to remain open, curious, and willing to experience it all without holding too tightly. That’s what it means to live with wisdom. And maybe even a little bit of joy.