I’ve been kicked out of better places than this. ~ Linda Karl
OK, I really wasn’t kicked out. I just wasn’t let in.
In 2006 I did my first 10 day silent vipassana retreat in Pecatonica, Illinois in the strict Goenka tradition. A requirement of the Mindfulness Yoga and Meditation Training that I did at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California was that one had to sit a 5 day or longer vipassana retreat.
The vipassana retreat was my first long silent retreat and it was the hardest thing I have ever done, but the most transformative. I went through 6 days of hell, but on the 7th was reborn, so to speak. I ended up loving my experience. In fact, if I had my own yoga teacher training program, a vipassana retreat would be one of the requirements for certification. That’s how important I think it is. If you want that piece of paper from me, you’re going to have to sit in silence 10 hours a day for 10 days, no excuses.
Ever since, I’ve wanted to return. When I came back from a trip to India I felt the need to sit intensely, vipassana-style, and desired the structure of the retreat. Don’t ask me why. I wanted to do a 3 day retreat instead of a 10 day so I applied for a sit in August. If you go to the Illinois website you can see what the lengthy application is all about. They ask you lots of questions about your practice, if you have done any other meditation styles, if you teach any other meditation styles, plus the usual questions about your mental health, as strict vipassana is a very intense practice. After writing the application you are then called for a telephone interview.
So being the good yogini that I am I was honest. You know, that whole satya thing. I wrote about my retreats and training at Spirit Rock, who the teachers were, that I am a yoga teacher, that I incorporate meditation into my classes and that I teach mindfulness meditation.
A very nice woman called to interview me and she was very impressed with my application, commenting on everything I have done. She said I could do the retreat as long as I understood I was not to “mix” my mindfulness meditation with the vipassana practice. I said that I totally understood, and she said I could go on the retreat.
But then she called me back with the bad news: I could not attend the retreat after all. Instead of becoming angry or disappointed, feelings of amusement arose. I REALLY wanted to do this retreat (and some of you might think I’m nuts for REALLY wanting to sit 10 hours a day), but for some reason I thought it was hilarious. Maybe it was the woman’s voice. Ginger had the stereotypical voice of a grandmother that you might hear in cartoons. It was classic and precious. How could I get angry at her and besides, what would be the point? She was just following Goenka’s rules. Don’t kill the messenger.
She told me that she looked at my website and was very impressed with my “accomplishments” in yoga: teaching, my training at Spirit Rock and my trip to India to study yoga. But I don’t consider myself “special,” I just do what I do. I thought, so just because I’ve done the training that I’ve done, that means I can’t do a 3 day vipassana retreat, something that I really want to do? I mean, I don’t know very many people who would subject themselves to a strict vipassana retreat. In fact, most yogis I know would probably prefer to hang upside down over a fire. WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN’T GO?!?
I tried not to chuckle. Ginger sounded so sincere in her compliments about my yoga and meditation practices, how could I dare laugh? She said it was BECAUSE I teach mindfulness meditation that I can’t go. She said that Goenka was very strict about the mixing of any other practice with vipassana (which I already knew) and her supervisor was afraid that I would mix everything up and get “confused” (and go nuts—the teachers are afraid people will freak out because of the intensity of vipassana.) “Please stay home,” she told me.
The bottom line is that one has to make a choice. It’s either a strict vipassana practice or the highway. None of this take one from column A and one from column B.
I told Ginger, “Yeah, but the roots of mindfulness meditation are in vipassana.”
“Yes, dear, we know,” she said, “but unless you make a choice of what practice you want to do, you can never come back here. Go to Barre instead.”
Goenka, via Ginger, banished me to the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts. I hung my head. Oh, the shame of it all.
Damn it. I’m banned from every vipassana center in the known and unknown Universe! Sigh. I was really looking forward to all those kriya nightmares ridding me of my samskaras. Mara won’t be visiting me in my dreams now.
So much for “honesty is the best policy.” If I had failed to mention everything I have done since my first retreat, I would have gotten in. I should have kept my mouth shut.
Well, you know what, Goenka? According to your rules, one is not supposed to do any yoga on a vipassana retreat. But listen up, dude—you know that 4 AM wake up call to sit? I blew that off every day and DID MY YOGA IN MY ROOM!! Yeah, that’s right, I broke the rules!
Gee…ya think they found out about that?
A general pain in the asana, Linda-Sama Karl’s first OM was in 1973 with Beat Poet and Buddhist, Allen Ginsberg, at a reading of his poem HOWL. A fiercely independent ageless hippie chick and snarky feminist Buddhist impatient with hypocrisy and convention, she facilitates personal transformations via yoga and meditation in the Chicago area.
Incorrect source, offensive, or found a typo? Or do you want to write for Elephant?
Love it Linda! Love you Linda!
woo-hoo! one comment!! thanks chris!
Linda You naughty girl, you. Imagine sneaking in a little banned Yoga at a Buddhist meditation retreat! What's the world coming to? I never realized what a radical you are until now.
For anyone interested in diving deeper into the Indian/Burmese Goenka's theory and practice of Vipassana, how it differs from other types of Buddhist meditation, like "mindfulness", I highly recommend Beyond the Breath by Marshall Glickman.
Goenka believed that much Buddhist meditation practice has become much more intellectual the much simpler and more sensation based / non-verbal way Goenka believes the Buddha himself meditated and practiced. This is, of course, a controversial point of view, one that I hope all our esteemed Buddhist commentators will comment on.
Linda, I'm so very glad to see you here at Elephant. I hope this will be the first of many wonderful blogs. I happen to know the treats everyone has in store because I've been following you for quite a while on Linda's Yoga Journey. I just wrote the following comment on Jay Winston's latest Elephant blog The Other People. It all applies equally to you:
A wonderful article, and just proves my premise in trying to get you over here to Elephant in the first place–the suspicion that you had gobs of excellent material hidden by the immediate and automatic burying of great blogs with newer blogs that is the very nature of blogging–great for the new, but terrible for the profound and enduring, like this blog here, for example.
I'm so glad you dug into your mountainous blog pile and pulled out this gem for a whole new audience. Just goes to show that even a raving fan like myself doesn't take the time to dig through all your past blogs, even though they're all right there. That would be called a "book" (which you should seriously consider.) If they're called "blogs" you have to dig them out for us, which, like I started, is one of the reasons I wanted you here at Elephant in the first place.
Bob Weisenberg
YogaDemystified.com
I really enjoyed this post! Looking forward to more. "Pain in the asana" hee hee. Right on.
That was awesome, Linda. I'm surprised that the requirements are so strict. Unfortunately, I would truly "go nuts" while doing this much meditation unless I was on a prescription of Ritalin and Oxycontin. I can see setting up criteria to keep riffraff like me out, but you? It doesn't make sense.
I look forward to reading more of your writing.
wow, thanks for the welcome, y'all! HUGS!
check out one reader's response to my post…he is wise, insightful, and right-on:
http://lindasyoga.blogspot.com/2010/04/fundies-ar…
Dear Linda,
As you may be aware, the rules and the Code of Discipline in a Vipassana course are for the benefit and safety of students, and not to do someone else a favour. It’s like we go to a deep-rooted surgery, there are hospital rules to follow – for our own good. If we give wrong information about ourselves, or be dishonest with the doctor and the hospital, does the doctor and hospital suffer? So let’s not tthink we have done someone else a favour by sticking to the truth in a Vipassana course application. If we give wrong information, we cheat and harm ourselves – not anyone else.
Likewise, if we break the rules in the privacy of our room – we just harm ourselves. A Vipassana centre is not a prison camp with wardens and CCTVs to monitor what each student is doing. If we, as students, betray a signed undertaking to follow the rules, we take a risk and suffer. What’s there to gloat about? As you said, don’t shoot the messenger. The Vipassana teacher is just a guide, a voluntary messenger sharing the benefits of a timeless technique that has survived for millennia only because it has produced good results for people working with it correctly and honestly. And Vipassana is objectively looking at the reality mirror. If we can’t face what we see and can’t handle the truth about ourselves, then we need to work on learning to just accept reality as it is – without bringing the ‘I’ into it. The bigger the ego, the tougher a Vipassana course. It’s the student’s individual problem. Why blame others for it?
Don’t give up on Vipassana. It’s priceless, too precious; it’s the mental oxygen to a living a happy, peaceful life. In your case, there’s also a possibility that the concerned volunteers in the Vipassana centre may have made a mistake in processing your application. May I suggest that you contact the assistant teacher of your first course, or write to another Vipassana centre and ask to consult a teacher. Don’t worry. Am sure things will be sorted out to your satisfaction. These hurdles in the path of Dhamma are there to be overcome, and grow stronger in the process. Be happy.
First of all, I realize I'm reading this almost 2 years after it was posted, and a disclaimer — I'm a Goenka "old student" and daily vipassana meditator, so that's my bias. And I agree with what Raja said, but I still love this article! But I'd also say that it sounds like the person you spoke to at the Illinois center was being maybe a little more conservative than some others in the organization might've. I think the interpretation of Goenka's guidance might vary a little across the organization. I did other types of meditation between my first and second course (although granted I wasn't teaching), and all I got was warm welcome back, and then around Day 3, a gentle suggestion from the teacher that it would benefit me to figure out which method worked better for me and stick with just that one.
Also, I've always been told that it's totally fine to keep doing yoga stretches during the Goenka courses, in the privacy of your own room. The reason I've always heard for limiting yoga (and other physical exercise) is that it can be distracting to other students. I served on one course where there was a student who was staying in a tent and didn't have anywhere private to stretch, so we allocated some space in a back hallway for her. She set up her own little yoga area (I remember walking by when she was in trikonasana) and it was understood that this was ok'd by the teacher and center management.
As for skipping the 4:30 sit to do yoga (or sleep, or anything else), when we do that, as Raja observed, we're really only harming ourselves. That said, I've cheated on the 4:30 sit several times — it's the hardest of all the rules for me to keep, and I've talked with teachers about that, so it's not a secret (there's that pesky "no lying" rule in Goenka-land, too). Anyway, it's not like you get in trouble for breaking those rules; they're there to practice with, and everyone knows it's hard, especially for "newer" students.
I hope you'll try again, because I personally happen to think vipassana the way Goenka teaches it is too good to pass up lightly, but it also sounds like you've already got your own practices that are working for you. Thanks for this funny and well-written post!
-Jessica
LOVED this…I had a similar experience in that it took me two years to get into a retreat at all because of background of mental health "issues"… again honesty is the best policy… every time I filled out an app I was painfully honest and eventually a center took me…so make no mistake you are not banned for life from all! I took at as the right time and place and sometimes we don't always get what we want….well you know the rest!!
Since I just finished my first goenka retreat I am looking at going to see kornfield now
I love multiple perspectives!