Vipassana

I finally did something I’d been putting off for years, my first Vipassana retreat.

10 days. No talking, no phone, no writing, no reading. Just observing my breath, my body, and my mind - moment to moment. Most importantly an open mind.

I went in with 3 expectations:

  1. Time to think, reflect, and nurture my intuition

  2. Rebuild my attention span

  3. Test my limits through a tough challenge

What I found was something way beyond that.

I saw, for the first time, that the mind can be completely silent. No thoughts. Just stillness. And I saw how every thought that does arise comes with a physical sensation. The body and mind are never separate, they’re constantly talking.

We’re reacting 24/7 to sensations, itching, craving, resisting - most of it unconsciously. But when I stopped reacting and simply observed, those sensations literally dissolved. Energy got released. The storm passed without me fighting it.

I understood how we mistake sensations for experiences, and how we get attached not to things, but to how they make us feel. Coffee, compliments, power - they’re all proxies for a sensation. And when that sensation doesn’t come, we panic. We crave. We suffer.

Vipassana taught me that we don’t have to chase or avoid sensations. We can just watch. And when we do that with awareness and equanimity, something shifts. You stop multiplying your misery. You start dissolving it.