My Experience on a Vipassanā Meditation Retreat (2/4)

In his article, Mindfulness Meditation and Trauma: Proceed with Caution , psychotherapist, Manual Manotas describes the experience of Roger, for whom the deep concentration of a Vipassana retreat resurfaced an old trauma (Day 6) that he wasn’t even aware he was carrying. This terrifying episode seriously impacted Roger’s well being and it took many years, and a bucket-load of therapy for him to come to terms with it.

Vipassanā retreats are staffed by volunteers, the only prerequisite being that they have done such retreats before. Since the course is taught via audio and video recordings of the method’s founder, the Burmese-Indian meditation teacher, S.N. Goenka, who provides instruction, the retreat leader’s main role is to start and stop the instructional cassettes (this was 1999 after all!), wheel in the TV for our evening Dhamma talks and supervise the fair distribution of tofu.

Our leader looked like a quantity surveyor. He wore a distant and slightly disdainful expression on his face and a sense he was above the travails of us jibbering novices. He also wore a sleeveless khaki fleece.

Depending on the tradition and the teachers, retreat leaders may or may not have psychological experience or expertise with trauma.

Manuel Manotas

Whilst the stated aim of these retreats was to see into the nature of reality, our stated aim was to avoid the searing pain of sitting in sweaty silence for hours. To this end, retreatants would improvise all sorts of make-shift arrangements using cushions, blankets, stools, chairs, bolsters and more cushions.

By Day 4, one student had built a veritable throne. Going for the chair option, he’d parked a bolster under his feet, cushions beneath and behind him and the whole mess was swathed in layers of blankets so only his mop-top head was visible, gurning for England.

At the sight of his endeavours a titter began in the room.

“Just settle down,” the quantity surveyor cautioned. “Observe your breath. Observe the sensations.”

The titter quickly grew to chuckles and, in the pressure cooker environment of the retreat, we were all soon crying with laughter.

“Stop it!” the leader screamed at us, his face contorted with rage. “Stop right now!”

Gosh. Didn’t seem like he was observing his sensations.

When the retreat was over, I approached the surveyor whilst he was loading shoe-boxes of cassettes into his Honda Civic. He seemed in a hurry to leave.

“The fear and panic you’re feeling is part of the process of self-purification by observation,” he droned, his back to me as wrestled the cassette boxes into the footwell. “Just observe the sensations. It’ll subside once the retreat ends”

But the retreat had ended and, if anything, I felt much worse.

And I would continue to do so.

For a long time to come.