30-day Vipassana Retreat. My experience

How I hadn't gone on a Vipassana meditation retreat in 8 years and suddenly found myself on a 30 day course.

Preparation.

I fly to Moscow and submit my passport for replacement, and while they make it, I am on the course, and afterwards - back to Bishkek. Yes, I'm in Central Asia now.

On my way from the MFC to Dullabhoo I stopped at Metro C&C, you know, they have the best plaids there. I lost my white one when I moved, so I decided to upgrade. And really, what's a course without a comfy, cozy plaid? :)
I only had a red one. But it's soft, soft to the touch. It'll do. Blue in the store was also (like the color of Vipassana), but hard, dacha for 500 rubles. It will do too. Two plaids. The third plaid I already had with me, also blue, but very, very small, he saved me, I'll tell you later. Three plaids. The fourth one was a gift for my wife, but I decided to do it on the way back. Four plaids.

Oh, I want a cup too. I found one with a vacationing cat that says "Enjoy. Relax, nice.
I also found a giant liter cup, "BIG BOSS. And always will be." I haven't figured out what I'm gonna do with it, and there's hardly any room left in my bag. Well something here felt ego rattling, and we're kind of going to work with it. We'll make do.

Got to the center. Got a room in a freshly built building. It was commissioned on the day of the course.

That's progress! A small room with its own toilet and shower! It was perfect. I remember in 2010 we lived in one big room, separated by curtains, with toilets outside. Oh, what progress then was made 5 years later (2015) on the first RF 20 when ceramic toilets appeared in the same building, floor below! It was super-convenient, came down, washed up and all that.

And here in your own room? It's a wild ride. It was hard to believe what the center has grown into in its 14 years. By the way, such facilities are a requirement for long courses, without such rooms, as far as I remember, courses of 30 and 45 days cannot be held. Like there should be maximum isolation of each practitioner. Yeah, we're getting closer and closer to monastic life, everyone has their own cave.

About Dana

It was only on this course that I somehow suddenly realized what Dana (donation for participation in the course) is. Before that I used to figure out the total cost of my accommodation/food and all that. But now I somehow realized that yes, all of this is a donation to me. That is, I live off the donations of others, really, like a monk. Someone gave money earlier - and they built a hall and a place to live for them. Someone gave money - so that I could eat these days. And it was not their investment, which someone is trying to recoup by calculating LTC (client life-time cost), AC (cost of attraction), sales funnel, sequence of touches with the client, handling objections, duration of retention and other standard mandatory business metrics, which I myself have been calculating for so many years. No, this isn't a business, it's a donation. And I'm here for free. And no one will ever ask or ask for anything in return. No one will count how much money I've brought to the center in my lifetime and how much of a valuable student I am from that. Yes, it took many, many years to realize this. As we later found out at the meta day (the last day of the course), yes, many people take years and decades to realize simple truths. Vipassana is simple to formulate - but difficult to practice.
But the money I can give at the end of the course is not a fee for the course. If you give it as a payment, it is, of course, financially useful to the Center, but you personally do not develop and accumulate a very useful ability - generosity, empathy, compassion.

That is why, probably, for the first time in 18-20 years I gave Dana as a wish for the Center to grow further. No, it was nothing special, some emotions and other things. And I couldn't resist, while I was writing down my donation in my notebook, I saw how much some others gave, ha-ha, about the same amount as me. But that's not the point. I just finally did another thing exactly as Goenka (our teacher) asked me to do in the lectures, that's all.

I got settled. Came to bed from two sleepless nights.

Day 0

In the last minutes before the deadline for the course application form and valuables in the vault, tried to socialize with my family and finish my work. So I was a little late in filling out the questionnaire and it was embarrassing.

Now I could look around. Yes, familiar faces, Sergey Dodov, Eugene (a cook on one of the courses when I was a manager), Misha. Oh, Misha, as my neighbor in the building said later (there is one entrance door and two separate rooms) - Misha, he is already like a family, if there is Misha - then everything is fine. I agree. Warm, supportive, friendly, joyful. Misha introduced me to the others, remembering how the two of us went to Dullabha to choose in 2010 and to photograph documents. And we had worked hard to get the Foundation Board to unanimously agree to buy it, breaking a 16-year tradition of postponing the purchase and holding courses only in rented camps. We bought it! (Now they say that our Dullabha is the most quiet and peaceful Vipassana center almost in the whole world. Even the Hindus with their most magnificent centers are shocked when they come. There is really a ringing silence here, which is very good for samadhi). Anyway, Misha, as always, shines.

A young bright and kind guy came up and said he remembered me from 2015 and thought I was missing. I said that yes, I hadn't been to a retreat in 8 years, but I was keeping up my practice at home, which is probably why Jurgen let me come. I thought, if he is so young now, then minus 8 years he was even younger, he must have changed a lot, to my shame I didn't recognize him because of that. His name is Sergey (hi!), he shared at the meta-day what he practiced hard and shared his valuable thoughts and conclusions (more about that later).

Yes, at the beginning of the approach I met Peter, with whom we served as managers once together on the same course. He came from Belarus. We had a little talk and I rushed off to finish my work.

And there were a few other acquaintances with whom I talked less.

Yes, it was only during this course that I suddenly felt the Sangha for some reason. Sangha in Buddhism is like-minded people who practice. And when we start the course, we take so-called refuge in the Buddha (Guru), in the Dhamma (Teaching) and in the Sangha (associates). So it's not like knitting loafers. I physically felt the power and existence of the Sangha. I benefited and I hope I did too (I will tell you separately).

Evening Gong.

An introduction from the course manager Andrei.
Andrei was stern, not verbose. Told us what was where and how. That everyone had a room and also their own cell.

A cell?! Yes, a mini-room in a separate building. It's a cozy little nook, one meter by two meters and three meters high. With ventilation and personal temperature control up to 22C. No lighting of any kind.

This is awesome! Am I really in Dullabh? In that Dullabha, where in 2010, not that there were no cells, there was not even a toilet (in the form of a hole in the floor, and the boys generally peed on a vertical oilcloth at the fence, but all the space was enough, and there were no queues, in extreme cases you could pee on a stump), so the toilet and shower only street were, and winter courses were not, because there was no heating. And here is a separate cell with a thermostat?!

Yes, this was another new building with new cells. And then there are the old cells - in the same building as the main hall, for the oldest students.

Then I took the butt and knee pads there. And blankets? And blankets.

In fact, it turned out that I had not grown to the cell, it was more difficult for me to concentrate there, because the place was new "unmeditated", and after an eight-year break and terrible sankaras I had nothing to share myself. So I meditated practically the whole course only in the hall. Only in the evening every day, after the last general meditation, when there was an English lecture from 19:05 to 20:10, we were asked to leave the general hall (those who listened to the lecture in Russian), and then I spent that time in the cell.

Sometimes I even managed to "observe sanskars" there in a balanced way.

One time I remember, half an hour was left, while after 6 hours of continuous meditation I went to the toilet and drank water with my diabetes. I thought that half an hour is also invaluable time, so I sat down, even though it was painful, in a pose with a straight back, without moving. And yes, in half an hour the sankara came out and the pain went away. This was at the beginning of the course and really, really helped me remember the technique. And yes, even half an hour is very valuable.

After the course I realized that yes, with a higher level of practice, I would prefer cells too. Because towards the end of the course, I really became distracted even by the sound of old students' footsteps, quietly and very attentively entering and exiting the hall at every break. Anyway, cells are cool. But not for me right now.

(I'm re-reading the text now, a week later, after having read the lectures of the Honorable Webu Sayado, and I have something to say about "distractions," but that's for later :)))

Buddhochki, how lucky I was with my neighbor (I'll tell you later), who was in the same building behind the wall. He meditated continuously and on meta-days (meta-days are the last 2 days out of 30, when it is allowed to talk, so that it was easier to adapt to the end of the course. Yes, yes, you heard me right, there is not 1 meta day on the 30, but 2. Here I was shocked). So there he was meditating the whole time in the cells. Incredibly strong guy. It helped me so much to get involved and keep the process going. (Hi, Lekha, if you're reading this!).

Lekha always got up so that he was already out of the room at 4am with the first gong. And for the first few days I still allowed myself to lie down until the second gong (at 4:20). And then I thought, why am I? Do I have the strength? Yes. Am I tired in the morning? No. If I'm tired, I'll rest. Come on, let's go to the gym. And cheered myself up. Like Lekha, thank you, Alexei.

And a few days later I was sitting on the mat at 4 am. Lekha, by this time left the room already about half past four, but I did not chase further. Which is also important. By this point I was waking up at 3:40 on my alarm clock, had time to wash up and quietly at about 4 to start meditating.
When I tried to get up at 3:30, I felt a strong resistance of the body, well that is logical, everything has limits, I did not let myself go, but I was not going to kill myself either. So I went back to 3:40 the next day.

(The Visuddhimagga, the main canonical treatise with commentaries on Theravada, also talks about the importance of the middle path in order not to lose balance).

There was a cool story related to Lekha on the last day of the course. I was already packing my things at ten in the evening and realized that I was sad that I had talked to almost everyone on the meta-days, but I didn't even say hello to my neighbor (he was also meditating on the meta-days), how could it be, and it was important to me. He helped me so much. And he's already asleep, he'll probably leave in the morning to meditate, and I'll leave at 6:30. And then suddenly the door opens and Lekha comes in, that was a gift from Dhamma. We talked for almost an hour in the doorway.

He also told me about a cool metaphor that came to his mind when he heard at the lectures: "Dhamma is your father. And compared it to Goenka's words, "Grow up in Dhamma." What truly servant-like parents care for newcomers who are growing up.

How lucky I was to have a neighbor (I'll tell you later) who sat next to me on my right (eh, I didn't have time to communicate). He sat with a straight back all the time, without moving. Shit. And I lean back and straighten up. I had an example every time. Every time, I tried to be a little tougher on myself and learn a little bit from him. And he used to come to the gym before everybody else during breaks. Man, that was so cool. Empty gym. I was sitting, as I tried to sit all the breaks (except for lunch), and then my neighbor comes in and sits next to me on his mat. And it's just the two of us until the hall gong. So supportive.

Let's go back to the beginning. I found out later why the manager Andrei was strict. He had just come from two 45-day training sessions. So he was "on his own wave". As a manager everything is excellent - very attentive and caring. Every day he washed the floors many times before entering the hall, handled correspondence from students and many other things that I do not know. As far as practice, I didn't get to ask him about it.
One of the stories is memorable, though. At the meta-day he was a little "lamenting" that he didn't have time to sign up for the 10, which comes right after the 30. I told him that about 14 years ago, the course manager had preferences, you could ask to sit for one more course, if you really need it. But he said he didn't want to throw away the credit. So that if a very important situation arose in the future, those merits would come in handy. There's something to that.

Next up, a Goenka/Jurgen mini-lecture and meditation.
Lights out.

Day 1

Washing and lifting

The first few days I got up at 4:20 so that I could make it to the gym by 4:30 standard time. After all, the standard morning meditation is from 4:30 to 6:30.
Then I decided to wash myself in the morning, as I couldn't catch hot water in my room during the day, so I started getting up at 4:00, when almost everyone was still asleep and there was water.

Then someone else realized this trick and started getting up at 4:00 in the morning. But since the building was new, it had a feature that if someone turned on the hot water and was closer to the boiler, then the water was turned off for me (and I lived in room 24 out of 27).
And I could not wash with cold water, because right before the course I had measles! The disease was atypical, I had all the signs, except for rashes. Although I recovered, but a month after measles immunity is extremely low and I experienced it myself, I caught a cold even at the hint of a draft.

So I started getting up at 3:50. Someone else figured it out and started washing at that time too. Then I moved my schedule 10 minutes earlier and got up at 3:40. That was enough, because it never took more than 10 minutes to wash. Usually 8, with a soaping break. It was like that until the end of the course, where in the last days many people started to get up early, alarm clocks were ringing starting at 3:30, and the schedule was shifted to 3:30 once again.

Here is the first time a neighbor helped. With the first gong (at 4am), he was already opening the exit door and walking to the cells. It was inspiring. Not someone out there on relaxation trying to catch up on sleep, but a diligent practitioner not wanting to waste any time. I was so motivated that a few days into the course (when I was physically able and had adapted a bit after such a long break), I started going out early too. And in order to sit in the gym at 4:00, I had to leave at 3:53 (it was a long walk to the gym, and I had to go to the bathroom when I was sitting continuously until lunchtime). When I matured to 3:53 my neighbor would get out even earlier, at 3:40 I think, or maybe even earlier, I sometimes didn't even know when.

The question may arise for those who read a report like this for the first time. Why not even earlier, if you are such maniacs to get up so early? Go to the gym at 2:00, 1:00, or don't go to bed at all.

The answer is simple. Guru has given the answer to it in the lectures. Vipassana is the middle path. There is no need for extremes. 3:30 was enough. To start even earlier would be to squeeze oneself out. And to start later, if you have real strength, is just a waste of time. The point is to work hard. What is hard work - everyone determines for himself, based on his physical capabilities. For example, because of an accident and three fractures that did not heal, I had almost 9 pillows in the gym, including two huge foam pads. I looked like a total newbie craving comfort. Well, that's okay. Such were my physical limitations with a broken leg.

(A week after writing this report, I have already had time to read lectures by the Honorable Webu Sayado, the Honorable Lady Sayado, and a little bit of Sunlun. So to go to the gym at 1:00 - yes, you must, actually. If you want to get results in the foreseeable future and you have the physical ability. But I've realized that after 8 years I need a smooth entrance).

Hey, buttocks.

The day started, morning meditation 2 hours, breakfast and rest and a half, then before lunch general 1 hour and right after that 2 hours.
My ass was totally screwed. Turns out eight years of skipping is eight years of skipping. Even though I had been training at home for the last month, sitting on a mat instead of on my bed every day for the last month, I hadn't had time to work out my muscles.
By lunchtime, I couldn't remember ever experiencing such incredible pain in my gluteal muscles. Everything hurt. When I got up off the mat, I wasn't sure I could even stand up. Thirty days ahead. The prospect is beautiful, fresh and uplifting. Pompous and poppy. It was hard to move around afterward, too.

Pillows

Yeah, the first day I only had 2-3 pillows, if anything.
I thought even that was a lot, because I used to be such a great meditator - just a mat and one small cushion with buckwheat stuffing that I had been sitting on since 2010. It's already 14 years old (I brought it to the course, but never used it, because I realized it was too hard for my current level). Well and 1-2 cushions under a broken leg.
But after such a welcome, I went and got myself a huge foam pillow. Since, in general, I was not going to suffer on purpose, and so knew that it would be difficult. And Goenka does not prescribe to make yourself suffer, it is not about Vipassana at all, it is a wrong way. Vipassana is the path to equilibrium.
And you can't avoid pain because of the sanskaras coming out. It will appear when the time is right. And that's when you should have the strength to deal with it in a balanced way.
Sitting on nails is for yoga. That's different.
Looking ahead, I will say that one foam roller wasn't enough and a few days later I picked up another one just like it. To the relief of my Ego by day 7 the drawer with pillows was empty. But, perhaps, I was still its main beneficiary.

(Rereading this report, I would like to note that "sitting on nails" is normal, and not sleeping at night for decades is normal, and giving loads of any degree of extremity is normal. After all, the teacher in our tradition is a dost. Webu Sayado just followed a very persistent practice, more on that later. And the same Visuddhamagga lists 13 canonical ascetic practices. The only question is that the degree of extremity is determined by poise.
Once again I would like to emphasize: EQUALIZABILITY - determines the upper limit of perseverance in practice.
And how to determine the lower limit by load? According to Dost. Webu Sayado it is simply not necessary to think about it at all and it is necessary to always go on the upper limit.
Let's be practical. If I lost my balance during meditation, if I lost my balance during meditation, if the pain overwhelmed me, if I started moving, agonizing, suffering, even howling. Is that it, do I stop immediately? For me it is a process of personal exploration. At the moment I have defined it for myself in the following way - I give myself a "gap" of 1 to several hours. If during this time the dynamics is steadily negative - and the balance is getting worse and worse, then yes, I have to interrupt the continuity of practice. Try to get up, rest, walk around. But that's fail, of course.
Though now I'm thinking that no, I don't have such a thing to dynamically evaluate the dynamics over hours. So far it's quite difficult and distracts from concentration. So I'm keeping it simple - additonal. That is, a predetermined period of time to sit in one pose. And only in the most extreme case I change it.
In general - pain is a helper, it helps to instantly understand the degree of my equilibrium).

Jurgen and Health

Had to come by 12:00 for a meeting with Guru, who has health problems and needs to coordinate taking pharma during the course.
Showed up. I said hello to Jurgen. Wow, he hasn't changed much in eight years. He just grew a beard. I decided to go a little bit beyond closed-mindedness and add a little bit of soulfulness. Still, in 2010 we traveled together around Kovrov/Vladimir a bit and I took him by car. So when addressing Jurgen I ran my hand along my chin and said something like "Oh, nau yu hev e bred! So big bred!". He grinned and kindly replied that by the end of the course she would "probably be gone". That was nice. And a bit Eriksonian, since we usually use about that phrase "have gone" to refer to sanskars leaving.
Then I took the jars and bags and packages out of my purse one by one. And I'd tell you what they were and why they were there.
Yes, a lot has happened in these eight years. The birth of an adorable daughter, and she's 6 years old now. Online school, emergence, growth, burnout. Speaking engagements, coaching, courses. Burnout right down to diabetes, car accident, problems. Moving house. Teaching at a university. Writing and publishing my book.

• It's glucophage/metformin. Diabetes support
• Ok. Something else?
• Amprilan. Hypertension support. I'm, like, the third most dangerous degree.
• Well. Something else?
• Pilex. Support for blood vessels (here I forgot English and tried for a long time to remember how to explain it in English correctly, looking for support from Andrei, who was sitting next to me).
• Well...
  ... and so on. With each package I felt funnier and funnier. For some reason I felt completely stupid. In front of me is a grandfather-teacher, who walks in the cold in one shirt with sleeves rolled up, and I, a 45-year-old man in the very dawn of life, wasting precious time just to get a jar of medicine one after another. And with fractures. Have I really lost it in eight years? No way. It seemed kind of crazy. I didn't think it could be that stupid. Fuck it. Somehow I immediately realized I was a hypochondriac and what do they call those who pretend to be sick (with an "s").
  P.S. By the way, even this fleeting realization helped me. Both during the course and afterward, I carefully considered which medications I could cut back on - and cut back. That's just how it goes.

Because of this, by the way, there was a mishap later. I forgot to take to the meeting a jar of flaxseed meal, which I use a spoonful at night along with glucophage, because the latter irritates the esophagus. And since we are taking the prescription that we do not take food after noon, I decided that flax could well be considered a food, even in such quantities, and it would be necessary to coordinate the intake with Jurgen. But a) I didn't know how flax would sound in English, b) I decided not to bother with it at all. And do without it. So I brought him back later.

Case: food for diabetics on the course.

Asked for soybeans. Were kind enough to also have coconut oil - perfect for keto. When there was breakfast (first 23 days) it was mostly 2 spoonfuls of sunflower seeds, 5-7 pieces of butter and 2-3 spoonfuls of sunflower oil, soy sauce.
For a drink, I discovered a mixture of chicory (2 teaspoons with a scoop), 2 pieces of butter + a spoonful of coconut oil, plus sweetener.
Extremely filling breakfast, gives a lot of energy and doesn't burden the stomach with volume.
For lunch: soy, salad (Peking cabbage, cucumbers, tomatoes), soy sauce, sunflower oil, seeds, sometimes sour cream.

This is the first course where I keenly felt Goenka's advice to eat to your heart's content.
The meditations were so physically exhausting at first (the first 20 days or more) that I could feel the energy of food being used for meditation. And that if I ate a little less, it was as if I had less energy to overcome the pain and equalize my attitude towards it. It was quite energy-consuming for me. Well, and if I ate too much, it's clear that I would fall asleep, and that's just hours thrown in the trash.
And I even asked myself while eating - taak-s, how much energy I need for the next intensive meditation, that 3-hour one, it could easily consume the whole breakfast too, when there were heavy sankaras. That 6 hour one, the afternoon one.

Second half of the first day

The time from 13:00 to 17:00 is marked in the schedule as one meditation.
Traditionally, from 14:30 to 15:30 one of the teachers comes to the hall and meditates there.

The first ten days of the course are Anapana. When we do nothing else but just trace the inhalation and exhalation, focusing on the little heel above the upper lip, under the nose, trying to feel a little bit the touch of air coming in and air going out. And the sensation on the skin in that area.

So that's what I was doing. Taking breaks, trying to get used to the course, realizing that in order to effectively complete the course one should not give oneself an extreme load at once, but should gradually increase it from the most comfortable and tolerable to more and more collected.
So from 13:00 to 14:20 I meditated, ten minutes to go to the toilet (to drink water), from 14:30 to 15:30 together with Jurgen. Another ten minute break (restroom and water). And from 15:40 to 17:00.

Why so much water and toilet? Diabetes. One of its significant disadvantages that I feared so much during the course. Its main symptom is unbearable thirst, lots of water, well, and consequently, lots of waste.
Running ahead of time, I will say that everything is ok, I coped, sugar in the morning was like a healthy 4.4-4.7. And as it turned out, I lost weight by 4-5 kg (not on purpose). After the course I became only 64-65 kg (but by 2020, I remember, I gained then somewhere under 96 kg, I think). True, there was one excess (about it later).

From 17:00 to 18:00 tea and rest. I drank my tea and went to lie in bed. It was very important for me to let my lower back rest after all. Yes and my leg was hurting all the time. The fracture site is still sore. But that's okay.

6:00 to 7:00 p.m. General meditation.
From 19:10 to 20:10 meditation in cells (or in their rooms).
From 20:10 to 21:00 evening lecture

Evening lecture

Yeah, about the schedule. I was very pleased with the way Goenka said - you are old students, you are your own masters. The purpose of Vipassana is for you to be able to practice completely on your own. And the main thing is to bring Vipassana into your daily life after the course. That's why in the evening one hour from six o'clock is obligatory general meditation in the hall, be sure to attend it, and then a lecture for half an hour and forty minutes. The rest of the time you are completely on your own. No schedule is implied at all. No one will ever follow you around and ask you what you are doing and where you are doing it. Please watch yourselves. This is a serious course. But for convenience and habit there will be the usual familiar gong, while it happens on introductory courses. And three times a day teachers will come and meditate in the hall.
You can meditate either in the hall, or in your cells, or in your rooms. Any time you think it's necessary.

But remember that meditation is not limited to just sitting. So be sure to continue meditating during all household activities: eating, washing, and even sleeping. And only deep sleep, while you are not yet experienced enough to do without it, is the time when you cannot practice. The rest of the time, don't waste a moment.

Let's start.

Lights out

From 9:00 p.m. on, it was lights out.
By about 21:11 I managed to get to my room, drink water, brush my teeth, undress and get into bed. At 21:14 Lekha came to the next room. I couldn't decide for myself whether to leave the light on in the hallway or not. I left it on or turned it off myself, then I stopped thinking about it.
Surprisingly, everything subsided quickly and I could fall asleep.
I learned to fall asleep instantly. Except maybe the last week of the course, I fell asleep in the evening most of the time in minutes or seconds.
I would lie down, start observing my breathing. Nimittas (internal images) would arise and consciousness would shutdown.

P.S. By the way, here's a quick trick. I was wondering from the very beginning of the course why it was so easy for me to get up at 4 am and 3:40 am. And why it is so quick and comfortable to fall asleep at ~21:00.
The answer was simple - time zone.
When in Moscow it's 4 am, in Bishkek it's 7 am! And what's so hard to get up at 7am?
When it's 9pm in Dullabh, it's midnight in Bishkek! Perfectly normal time to fall asleep.
Take note :)

Days 2 through 10

Wake up

Woke up to the first gong at 4:00, but out of habit from previous courses (I thought), waited until the second (4:20). Or not, on the first day the gong wasn't working yet! So I woke up to my alarm on my smart watch.

NB: As I didn't keep sub-daily notes during the course, all dates, times and even order will be approximate from here on. As memorized.

The gong had been made electronic! It now always rang at the right time from speakers located by all the main buildings in the center. Very much like the real thing. A recording, maybe, of our original gong.

What is it that the manager now doesn't have to run around the course grounds in a frenzy to wake students up? And students used to be able to tell the manager's mood by the sound of the gong. Some would strike sharply, and some would strike carefully and with metta. You could really feel it.
Eh, the era is gone :) Practicality has come.
You can read my previous posts when I was a manager and how I was given feedback on the gong.

The next nine days are just Anapana. So it's hard to remember a specific breakdown of observations by day. Oh, and the focus is such that you don't remember much at all.
I remember perfectly well if I recite it to myself. But during Anapana I tried to work very diligently so that the internal dialog gradually became less, that's why... that's why... That's why, yes... "Mind distracted, start again"....

Scraps of phrases of inner conversation. After all, Goenka said, as soon as you notice that you are distracted from the observation - do not continue the thought, do not try to finish it, interrupt and come back again (to observe the breath). Try to extend (stretch) the period of continuous observation of the breath without any thoughts. Therefore, thoughts... They just start... And then....

It will be further outlined... will be kraine....
Anyway, I'm not able to apply the technique as I usually remember things. My mind was really shutting down a lot. So I'll just have to describe what I can remember in hindsight. As a whole, as a big picture. Or in disparate fragments.

P.S. After a week or two, during home meditations, memories keep coming up that I would like to add to the report. But of course after meditation I forget them.

Here is the main thing: as soon as I noticed that I was not observing the breath, but something else was happening, I just said to myself "The mind is distracted. Start again" and went back to observing, trying my best to prolong the period of continuous observation without any distraction.

P.S. Goenka's phrase helped a lot here: if after realizing that you are distracted you continue the thought, try to finish it - then you are doing anything but Vipassana. And if you immediately return to the sensation - that is exactly Vipassana.

Silence of the mind

Amazingly, as soon as I try to write further, the mind just stops and I fall silent. I'm reminded of the stillness of the mind. And it obviously has nothing to do with writing and putting thoughts in writing.
I thought maybe that's why we see so few diary texts from serious practitioners.
Okay, I'll still try to write something if I can remember. My daughter asked for a memoir. Maybe a vipassana memoir will be the most useful thing I can remember about my life at all. I'd read my dad's memoirs too, where he went, where he stumbled, how he coped, what was important.

Surprise and annoyance. Blind spot

Here's what was memorable about having what's called a blind spot under my nose.
That is, I could usually feel sensations there perfectly well before. The whole spectrum. On the first 20, it helped to come to the 1st jhana (or the beginning of it).
So I really expected myself to reach jhana on my 30th.

Note: 1st jhana is the first stage of sustained concentration of the mind on an external object. It is defined by the fact that the mind is so concentrated that there is no need to return it to the object, it is as if "glued" to it and the attention is further held by itself. Nothing distracting in the mind or body arises inside. All painful sensations disappear completely. The body is filled with a very pleasant feeling (Sukkha) and a pleasant feeling arises in the mind (Pitti).

If anything, it now seems to me that from a neurophysiological point of view Pitti is very similar to the serotonin reinforcement of achievement. But that's not the point. Maybe it isn't.

On the 2nd jhana one of the two disappears, I forget here as I have never reached it, either Sukkha or Pitti. And without a steady first jhana, it doesn't matter what is on the second jhana.
On the 3rd jhana both Sukkha and Pitti disappear and only peace and poise remain.
On the 4th, I don't remember what (it's a long way off).
Further from the 5th to the 8th (the last one) the body is switched off completely. And the work goes exclusively in the realm of the mind. These are near-mystical stages, they are not necessary for Vipassana, as they say in the lectures.

Also, superpowers (sittkhi) arise when attaining jhan. The further you go, the more.

So I was really looking forward to the first jhana. But it requires a good feeling of subtle sensations in the area above the upper lip. And I don't have them. One day I don't, the second day. Day three. Okay, maybe I'm getting used to it after a long break. Day four. But then it became clear that the matter is different. Since the summer I have accumulated a lot of negative karma (in Pali - kamma) related to hatred. And the work should go in this direction. And if the jhanas had succeeded, the focus of attention would have been only on them, due to the quick and pleasant result. And the ego would be satisfied. So it was cut off at the root.
It's good that Goenka said in his lectures that if you can't catch sensations, it's enough to concentrate only on awareness of inhalation and exhalation. That's how we live. Inhale, exhale. Day five. Inhale and exhale. Sixth day.
Concentration on breathing is there, but the sensation under the nose is not.
And it should be, distinct, according to Goenka, like a hammered nail. To it awareness clings and glues itself firmly to it - to achieve jhana.
Day seven. Inhale and exhale.

Random technique

Accidentally discovered a strange technique, seemingly not contradicting anything. If three to five breaths concentrate on the air in the left nostril. Then 3-5 breaths - on the air in the right nostril. And then transfer attention to the area under the nostrils, above the upper lip, the sensations immediately become very clear and intense.
I noticed that the sensations become even stronger when I lifted my left eyebrow slightly on the first step, and on the second step I lifted my right eyebrow.

It was like a circus.

But there was no great sense in it, as the blind spot quickly returned. In the end, after playing around a bit, I just kept watching just the breathing.

Just accept it

On the eighth day, just in case, I made an appointment to see the Master at 12:00 to ask if everything was okay, and just to keep him informed.
Jurgen said something that I literally wrote down on a piece of paper right afterwards:
JUST ACCEPT IT. DON'T TRY TO CHANGE THE REALITY.

Well, in general, yes, what else is there to do. But it is important to remember that Vipassana is about accepting reality as it is, not as you would like it to be.

Like/don't want is attraction/ aversion, which means unstable mind, unbalanced mind. And Vipassana is the development of equanimity and peace, regardless of external/internal stimuli and their strength.

So okay, "as is."

Nimittes

What reassured me more was the distinct appearance of Nimitta.

What is Nimitta? The lectures said that it is simply a sign of good concentration in meditation. I mean, it has nothing to do with jhana, per se, but it shows that you're either already in it or somewhere near it.

(But I was definitely not in jhana this time, as there were no other factors associated with jhana, so you could see I was just hanging out on the approach at arm's length. I clearly felt that I would like to have a sensation under my nose, even if it was my old usual one, not a blind spot, I would be attentive to it and by sensations I would be glued there. The thoughts were slowly starting to stop pretty well by now)

First type of nimitta

For the first time ever, I had a nimitta - a background light.
And okay once, I probably wouldn't have believed it. But here it is multiple times and in different ways.
The first time (I think) it's like a light suddenly came on from below. Just a very bright light coming from the bottom up and occupying the bottom 30% of the field of view.
Something between like a spotlight decided to illuminate the scene and the even light of a campfire, but bright and even.
From surprise I even opened my eyes a little - maybe the light was turned on so strange?
But no, I (sort of) sat in the cell. And everything around me was on the verge of total darkness. It was very strange.
What is especially strange is that this background light is not like anything else, it is immediately recognizable. It's not like the images in my mind, and it's not like an external light. To be more precise, it is most similar to it, but when you open your eyes you can make sure that there is no light outside.

The second time (I think) the lights came on everywhere. Just a bright light that illuminated the whole field of vision. It was like the lights were on at night. I got used to such tricks and I don't remember whether I checked by opening my eyes or not.

The third time (sort of) a pretty bright light came from a corner (sort of upper right). It was more like a spotlight, but it was also as if it was like that on its own. That is, there are all kinds of movies and pictures spinning in the background (one layer of perception), slightly opening your eyes you see something outside (second layer of perception), and this nimitta, it's like between them, neither this nor that (third layer of perception).

I used to think that nimitta "background light" is just seeing a picture with light, like looking at a meadow flooded by the sun. Well, that is, just one internal movie changed to another with light. It's like a filter.
And what I had appeared was different, the background movie did not change in any way, nimitta appeared as an additional internal object. As if, in some very approximate sense, you have another eye, which began to see its own pictures and all these pictures are always different variants of light and illumination.

Well and also on different days (from 2 to 10) in several different variations repeated. I should have written it down at once, probably on the meta-day, while I remembered exactly what were the variations. But the gist of it, I think is clear.

There seems to have been no more than 7 such episodes in total over the whole time.

In terms of how long each one lasts... Here's a hard one to estimate. You're meditating, concentrating on your breathing, so your sense of time is distorted.
Well, in short, it definitely doesn't pass quickly, not at the level of flashes. Subjectively, it takes quite a long time. Maybe a few minutes. Maybe a few tens of minutes. Probably less than an hour (since the gong usually measures 1-2h intervals). I think the episodes average 5-7 minutes each. One (I think) was noticeably longer.

It's pretty cool. It doesn't interfere with meditation. How could it interfere? It's just shining. There's nothing to see. It's the surprise that gets in the way at first. It immediately provokes thoughts of surprise like "what the hell is this unknown thing". But then you're like, "ah, nimitta shines," "okay, let's see how long it shines."

Second type of nimitta

The second type of nimitta (as I understand it more common and much more easily attainable) are internally bright colored 3D pictures.
I've had movies like this turn on, it's amazing.
There were no such movies before, by the way.
The duration is incomparably longer than the background light. Easily and often lasting an hour or more.
How often - yes almost every meditation, always. All anapana days.

About this type of nimitta even at the lecture it was said that some people can get scary faces, some people have images of Buddhas and gods and so on. I had a thrash (about him further on).

Maybe for some people it is a common thing (who have developed imagination). It's not like that for me. I am extremely audio-digital. What does that mean? All everyday domestic internal thinking is built on internal dialog. I have a continuous endless inner voice and dialog voicing generally everything and always (in everyday life). In the complete and utter absence of internal pictures, not that colored, but none at all. For people with rich visual thinking, I can imagine how strange this all sounds. When I am told to "imagine" - I can only mumble the words to myself (in everyday life).
I'm going to tell you a story that will make you laugh. I've had audio-digital dreams my whole life.
What does that mean? It means dreams without pictures! It's one continuous inner voice voicing what's supposed to be happening. Imagine that you are blind in a movie theater and a friend sits next to you, who tells you the plot of the movie - that's my typical dream. By the way - it's not fun and it's exhausting.
That's why for years I've been developing my imagination with the help of Eriksonian hypnosis and made progress (I can talk about it separately later).

Well, can you imagine what such nimittas mean to me? It's like a blind man who suddenly sees. The richness of details, colors, volume, naturalism, depth effect and involvement is simply shocking.

In short, it's like a vivid dream, but you're not asleep, you're extremely aware and focused as you catch every inhale and exhale.
If you distract yourself from the inhale/exhale - they gradually go out. If you start internally thinking about it or reasoning about it - they just disappear.

What's the content?
It's unparalleled. In short, it's not unlike modern generative neural networks.
It's just endless generative, three-dimensional, colorful art.
But because there was no cross-cutting meaning to the art, it was extremely easy to ignore, it wasn't engaging or engaging.
It's like taking the craziest dream and making it 100 times crazier.
Like a man with three eyes, turning into a shovel, who has wings against some alien landscape, with all the details in the same style constantly in a crazy metamorphosis of colors and shapes.
(Maybe I'll post some examples here later.)
Anyway, ask GPT-4 to come up with the craziest visual prompt for MidJourney, then throw it in there and enjoy it. By feel, it'll probably be close to 100% of what I've seen continuously. But you just need to add more volume and a field of view with an immersive effect.

But since they explained about this type of nimitta in the lectures at the beginning, it didn't bother me at all. I just knew not to look at it. It's like coming to a movie and staring at your phone. Instead of a phone, I had a breath (eh, I wish it was a feeling, it would have been such a jhana, I would have gotten an award. But I didn't deserve jhana with my karma, it was clear as day and there was no chance of not accepting it).

The type of content can be categorized into scary, disgusting and neutral.
There was not much of the scary stuff. But when some horrors are shown, it gets a little creepy. What exactly, I don't remember. I don't get scared by some pictures now, so, yeah, I don't remember.
There was a lot of disgusting and repulsive stuff. Half as much as neutral.
It was all kinds of physiology, but not natural-naturalistic, but just surrealistic-crazy. If you take Salvador Dali's style, add cubism, Mad Hatter and all that and multiply it by 10, then yeah, something like that. Anyway, I'd give it a PG 80+ rating. I mean, I mean before Grandpa dies, maybe ok, but... That's where the thought stopped.
Not watching the disgusting stuff was easy - because you wouldn't want to for the money either.
Neutral type was the most dangerous, because there was at least some micro-sense, something like adventures, flights, landscapes. If on the previous ones you could not be distracted even for 1-2 seconds, then here you had to pull yourself out.

Third type of nimitta

I will also single out, perhaps, the third type. In general, it is something between the first and the second, but without light. From the first - stability in space. From the second - form and color.
For example, balls appeared in front, like soap bubbles, filling all the space in front, but very rarefied, half a meter between them. Volumetric, if anything. That is, not a flat picture.
What's so special about it? The fact that when I opened my eyes a little in this concentration, those orbs didn't go anywhere. And when I moved my head from side to side, they stayed put, man! I was shocked a little bit (not really, I just noted to myself, "Well, well, well, well, well, well, hmm, stayed in place, well, okay, I'm nothing, I'm nothing, balls, so"). I mean, it was like the whole space was filled with balloons. Probably at most it would be similar to a simple positive hallucination (as in schiziks), but first of all I did not open my eyes completely (though I opened them quite a lot to check), and secondly they were clearly felt by something internal and they were coziest when my eyes were closed. That is, they passed the "reality check" completely - it was impossible to confuse them. On the one hand. But on the other - how did they manage to stay in place like real objects? Well, like in Apple Vision or Oculus Quest3 all sorts of objects stay in place when you walk or just move your gaze. Yes, I moved my gaze, they stayed in place. Here, yes, a little bit of fear arose, I remembered, it was when I began to squint my eyes back and forth, while they were ajar, and the picture did not move with my eyes.

It is unlikely that I will describe something more detailed, because there is a clearly observed feature - absolutely all nimittas appear when there is unidirectional attention (i.e. distraction by thoughts disappears for a while). And since thinking stops, there is no possibility to investigate this phenomenon. And if you start to investigate, the effect, even the most insanely bright one, ends immediately. If you return your attention to breathing fully and focused - and it returns immediately, like a button pressed. You can turn your attention to the nimitta and contemplate its metamorphosis, and it remains just as vivid and naturalistic. But once you start thinking about it, it's power off. Darkness at once. You go back to breathing - welcome back, everything is immediately turned on again.

I have checked this many times - switching back and forth, most often not intentionally, just in the process of practice trying to develop more and more concentrated unidirectional attention. But then a thought arises and the unidirectional attention gets distracted by that thought. Then it is developed again. And so on for 10 days.
And to the extreme acuity I felt that this is such a way of communication of what can be called unconscious with what can be called conscious (consciousness). But I don't really like the term consciousness in this case, because it includes thinking, and there is no thinking here. So I would call it all as communication of the unconscious with the conscious.
Because the conscious has only the function of being aware, but not thinking and comprehending. And if it starts to reflect, then it becomes banal conscious.
So, in short, for some reason this unconscious needs to supply at least any information to the conscious one.
And if I stop one channel, the habitual one (my conversational one), the other one (in this case visual) is instantly switched on.
And with the same fury, brightness, loudness and intrusiveness with which the inner voice interferes in awareness, visual images interfere as well, if the inner dialog is switched off.

It's an interesting observation. At first it seems that conversational thoughts are somehow more meaningful than all this visual nonsense. But then I suddenly realized, I noticed when they attacked me in the evening before I went to bed, that while thinking about these thoughts I had not really thought about anything. I bluntly asked myself - so-and-so, well, what have we accomplished in this half hour? And nothing, it was just a process-based conversational-emotional mess, albeit an entertaining one. Sassing and repeating.
So in both cases, unless we're focused on some specific task, what's being transmitted from the unconscious to the conscious is just some pseudo-organized meaningless white noise, what's visual, what's auditory-digital.

If someone suddenly thinks to themselves like, "Gee, I don't have any nimittas." So what? I haven't had one in 18 years. It's all about nothing. I'm telling and writing it down in such detail that I don't forget it myself. They don't give any bonuses at all. You can't be distracted by them. So this is just an indication of the strongest atmosphere of the center, the diligent old students around (our Sangha) and one's own maximum attainable persistence in practice. "And then, for sure, the nimitta will suddenly shine...".

If they are not there, it doesn't mean you are doing something wrong. They may just not be there and that's it. I didn't have nimitta on my first 20, and the results were very interesting (see the post about 20 in this post). And if they are there - it's just a sign "you're going in the right direction". And yes, such a sign is always reassuring, of course.
It calms me a lot, so the whole practice was very strange and difficult. And I needed to know if I was doing everything right or if I was doing something crazy.
Why is that important to me? Because this time the sanskaras were being worked on in a different way than always (more on that later). So different that if you add to it a blind spot on anapan, you can suspect mistakes in practice. And there one is not far from destructive emotional reactions. So for me, the nimittas were like a friendly pat on the shoulder "come on, come on, keep going". Thank you for that, really.

More about nimittas from other courses (other lineage of teachings).

After the course there was a chat about attending another Theravada course: Guru Pa-Auka. This is a different lineage of Gurus and slightly different principles of practice.

There are a few paragraphs there about jhanas/nimitta, so I'll copy it here:

«
JHANAS

Pa Auk Monastery is known for its emphasis on practicing jhanas, deep states of samadhi.

• There are over 1000 people in your monastery. How many people a year achieve jhana?
• Very few.
• How few is how many? 10, 20, 50?
• Less than 10, said Kovida Sayado.

NIMITTA

Before a practitioner is able to enter jhana, he or she must develop concentration on the breath to the point where nimitta, the mental sign of concentration (often manifested as light), appears....

Many practitioners in the monastery were very desirous of results. If not jhana, then at least to see nimitta. Sometimes the desire was so strong that it brought suffering....

• Why are you so sad? - I asked.
• I have been meditating here for four months now, and still no nimitta appears.

In general, he (Kovida Sayado) said that a good practitioner only needs 20 days of practice to see nimitta. Unfortunately, I have not been in contact with such practitioners. He also said that in his experience it is necessary to be able to maintain concentration for 45 minutes and some practitioners for 90 minutes to see nimitta.

NOT ENOUGH PRACTICE?

A fellow asked if the 7.5 hour meditation schedule at Pa Auk Monastery was too little? After all, Goenka and Mahasi retreats are also 14 hours a day.

Kovida Sayado replied that for those who already see nimitta, he recommends practicing longer....

(c) Kasatka's Blog, pdf
»

And this is where I additionally checked out our rare noble Dullabha. The unique opportunity to work in complete silence for as long and as hard as you need.

Days 2 through 10 (continued)

So what else did the anapana days have in store?

Regimen and adaptation

Physiologically, these were the days of the body adapting after an eight-year hiatus from this type of exertion.

It was painful. And since this is not the period of Vipassana technique (it will start from the 11th day), there is no task to work with pain in any way. That's why I didn't force myself.

I meditated short meditations as usual, i.e. 1-1.5 hours each. In the morning I did two more 2-hour meditations, yes.

Note: For beginners, one word has two meanings here. We call Vipassana the whole course. And at the same time Vipassana is a separate specific meditation technique, different from Anapana, when we move attention all over the body, it goes from the 11th day of the course until the end.

Aaaah, I remember, a couple or three days, first time, like on 4, second time closer to 8, I was disappointed with the blind spot and decided to take the whole thing by storm and still go through the pain, building up concentration. That is, I sat for four hours continuously after lunch (from 13:00 to 17:00).

After the first time, the concentration did improve. But it had no effect on the blind spot. And it was uncomfortable to suffer from pain for such a long time without practicing Vipassana, so I doubted whether I should repeat it. And if I did not repeat it, I doubted whether I was not doing idleness.

Now, retrospectively, remembering about the nimittas, I can say that it was probably right to sit in this period of short meditations. But on the other hand, not trying a slightly more authentic one would have been wrong too. So a couple or three such attempts, within physiologically tolerable limits - also ok. So I think that I passed this part close to the optimal variant.

And it is clear that breakfast, lunch and afternoon snack were important parts of the rest and I definitely allocated time for them for the first 10 days, so that I could lie down and my body could rest and recover.

How else did I check the adaptation process? By post effects. Stupidly, if by the morning the gluteal muscles have not recovered and are sore, it means that the load should be reduced.
That's what I used the second set of foam pads for.
I spent the first half of the day in foam rubber, and after lunch 4 hours already on a hard pillow made of buckwheat husk.
If the pain stopped by the morning, I reduced the pillow-pillow time. For example, I sat for meditation only from 4:30 to 6:30 on them, and further on a hard pillow for the rest of the day. By the end of the course (conditionally the last 5-10 days), I switched to hard ones only.

Pose

Pose? This is where I screwed up. It was extremely difficult to keep a straight back, so was "slightly" bent, or maybe not even slightly at all. Or maybe not even a little bit.
Judging by the nimittas, it was enough. But it would have been even better with a straight back. Theoretically. After all, on the other hand we have a wild load and there is a question of adaptation.

Anyway, feci quod potui faciant meliora potentes. Translated as "I've done my best, let those who can do better.")

Legs. Oh, feet.

It used to be easier. In the previous 18 years. I had my left leg closer to my tailbone in one meditation and my right leg in the second. That balanced the load and made it more symmetrical.

This time I have a broken right knee and tibia, and the ligaments there are obviously torn (I haven't gotten to the ultrasound technician yet, but judging by the ultrasound of the shoulder, that's what it is - tears and inflammation).
Therefore, there was no chance to bend the right leg, move its heel to the tailbone and put the knee on the mat.

To be more precise, sometimes at the last short meditation from 19 to 20 hours (actually shorter, because I went to drink water and to the toilet) I tried it. But then my leg couldn't recover even overnight. And after a few such attempts, I gave up on the idea. I didn't come here to do stretching and sports. What I have is what I have. That's what we work with.
Also, the right knee could not lie on the mat when the left leg was leading. It could not work, so I always used a pillow under the right leg with shame. Even several, and kept changing their configuration. Only in the last days of the course it (posture) at least somehow settled down.
An accident is an accident. Consequences are consequences. Yes, it's unpleasant. Yes, it is difficult to accept it.

Boundaries

By the way, in all this experimenting and balancing, I found it was the relatively long course that was insanely helpful, as it gave me time to test the limits and get back to the most optimal norm.

By the way, I've noticed for myself that I'm always trying out boundaries. With the goal of making sure for myself that all of my core time is really spent in the middle path. And if that turns out not to be the case, so that there is an opportunity to adjust.

Specific example: it iteratively turned out that at the beginning of the course for me the middle path is a lot of short meditations of almost an hour each + rest on all available breaks of more than 5 hours a day.
But by the end of the course it is only two long meditations of 6-7 hours each and only about an hour and twenty minutes to two hours a day for eating, toileting and resting. (More on that later). Yes, by this point, that was enough time for the body to rest. And I'm pleased that it didn't come from my head.

Well somehow, that's kind of it on the anapan.

And no, there's more...

Shiela

What were the lectures at Anapan about?
I don't really remember very well.
But I remember there was a lot about shila (code of moral behavior). Just a lot and fundamental.

From what I remember:

Story 1.
If you can lose money or some object to save some part of your body, then do so, a body part is very important in the long run.
If suddenly you have to choose and you can lose some body part to save your whole body whole, of course do so. After all, the whole body is so important.
If suddenly you have to lose the whole body to save the shila. Then lose the whole body. The shila is extremely important.

Story 2.
A monk who was practicing diligently became ill and was starving to death.
He went to the village and collapsed without strength under a mango tree with ripe fruit on some peasant's property. Who found him, and asked in astonishment, O "venerable bhikku" (monk), why did you not eat the mangoes, there are so many of them around you.
The monk replied that he could not do so, as they did not belong to him. That would be a violation of shila (taking something without asking for it). And without shila he would not be able to practice. The peasant carried the monk on his shoulder to the cave and nurtured him until he recovered.

Story 3.
The peasants were plucking lotuses in a pond. A very strongly practicing monk passing by thought that he too could pluck a lotus and plucked one. Immediately someone there suddenly appeared to him and said that this was a violation of shila, since the pond was a peasant's pond. When the monk asked why this someone appeared to him but is not a layman, the being said that they are very polluted and another small pollution is almost visible against this background. But the Venerable Monk is so pure that even a small pollution becomes a huge obstacle. So here he is, appearing to warn of the error in person.

(I think these same stories are on the 10. But they play with different colors now for some reason. It's very serious here, I'll tell you why later)

In short, if there is no shila, there is no Vipassana. Whatever you do formally, however you focus your attention, it is no longer Vipassana.
Why?
Because disturbance of shila gives fundamental restlessness to the mind. From the superficial to such a deep level that there is an obstacle in meditation. The mind is not calm enough. Samadhi (concentration) does not develop. Pañña (wisdom) is not developed either. That is, formally one can sit flat on one's butt, but there is no sufficient concentration.

And then there's the karma. That's the worst part. It's central, though.
It was at the meta day that I realized even more about all of this.

It was at the meta-day, after hearing several different stories, that I saw how experienced and diligent practitioners who are deep in the Dhamma (i.e. in the Teachings) get hit.
Like it or not, even minor shila violations have far more serious consequences for such practitioners than for those who don't practice.

A few case studies, no names:

• (my case study for 2023) One project that was extremely difficult was very successful. It was carried out with meticulous adherence to shilas. But after just a rude scolding - instantly a financial defeat for a very significant amount of money came straight to me
• (my case for 2023) Violation of shila, connected with cultivation and allowing the deepest sankaras of hatred and strongest anger to manifest - led to a sudden collapse of all plans and affairs for at least half a year. Almost immediately there was an accident in a seemingly safe environment with three displaced fractures. At the same time, I also paid a fine, as I was (apparently for a bribe) made to blame for the accident. Maximum perceived injustice. Then a significant work project was canceled 1 business day before it was due. Then another one. And then all projects for the spring were canceled (on the plus side, it gave me the opportunity to go to the 30th in March). A very experienced and well-known doctor, who was supposed to do the surgery - called and for 20 minutes just stupidly argued. Thus I left myself without surgery (help) and healed lying down on my own like a cat. In the neighborhood scammers stole a lot of money - the local police for some reason went up to our floor, to our apartment, and told my wife that they decided that your husband is a criminal. Why, why, why, why on earth - they had no intelligible answer to all this. It just popped into my head. It doesn't just happen. The second time I almost got hit by a car, from around the corner, but I managed to take a step back.
• A very diligent and involved practitioner had an accident when his car was hit by another car at a great speed. This also happened after a sanskar anger manifestation. It is good that he survived without injury
• An extremely involved dhamma practitioner. A serious accident at work, with serious consequences. I didn't specify the details
• Very diligent practitioner. Manifestation of diabetes with blood sugar levels so high that it's not even talked about out loud
• There's also a case for diabetes, but I don't know much about the details

The impression is that the Dhamma (Teaching) carefully monitors its followers. And the deeper a person practices and the more diligently he practices, the greater the consequences of lesser violations of the shilas he receives.

I came across such a phrase here, it broke through, maybe you will like it too, it is generally in the theme:

---

• STRONG DAMMA - STRONG KAMMA *

---

Days 11 through 30 (Vipassana)

Loving sankara

The first sankara that came out was very kind to me.
The heel of my right foot touched my left foot at the shin and there was an incredibly burning spot on my skin, as if I had been burned, if not with iron, then certainly with boiling water. No, boiling water, that's too mild.
Why kind? Because it calmed the mind. I knew for sure that it was not a lesion, it was absolutely not terrible, and although the pain was extreme, it was clearly psychogenic in nature and was due to good Anapana in the first 10 days.

But by this time I had not remembered the Vipassana technique (about balancing the mind), so for the first time I just tolerated the pain. And it was just wild. So wild that I even swore to myself (aha, an experienced practitioner).

What is sankara about?

This time, due to the deep Anapana, I was able to follow the connection between each sankara and its emotional foundation very easily. Just a little bit of attention and it was immediately felt - what exactly this sankara is about.
This is not really the way to do it. This I realized later. If you start to find out what emotion is associated with this or that pain - then this emotion penetrates into the mind, starts to dominate, destabilize the peace of mind and cause such a storm that it becomes impossible to meditate further.

So if someone regrets that he doesn't know what his exiting sankaras are talking about. Do not be sad, but praise yourself. I knew for almost every major sankara (pain), but it did me no good, only took a lot of time each time to calm the storm and get back to meditation.
It's much easier to experience pain as physical pain than as emotional pain.

So my Lovely sanskara was about hate. It's easy to understand. There is even a phrase "burning hatred." That's what it is. It was burning.

Burning Hate

Overall, burning hatred and was the central exiting sankara of the entire course. It dominated from day 11 all the way through day 26-27. First moved from the left shin to the right ossicle and then to the right side of the foot. And it burned. By day 26-27 it steadily stopped burning. I was surprised. I mean, really. I mean, all of a sudden my foot stopped burning. After 27 days, it's a very strange experience. You keep waiting for a catch or wondering if I've made a mistake.

Was the hate completely gone by the end of the course? Nope. I mean, some of it did. But not completely out yet.
That's interesting, by the way. The process of coming out.
When in the first days of Vipassana it expressed itself to the maximum and took over my emotional state, it hit me. I just sat there and directly said to myself "yes, I am hate, I am just hate, I am hate, all of it, and I am not going to work through and change, this is my essence to the roots of my hair, get away from me", and so on. It's like a demon exorcism, man.
I was acutely aware of this obsession. But I couldn't do anything about it. I just watched. Then she left. I can't tell you how long it took, whether it was hours, days or weeks.
I mean, I know how long it took to physically stop feeling the terrible burn, of course, because it was the end of the course. But emotionally, when it went away, I don't remember at all. Well, so that you could work and not be swayed by emotions.

Parents divorcing and kids

I had another story told to me on meta day that rocked. (Thank you if you're reading!)
A friend on dhamma told me that he was also covered with hatred on the course for a long time, it was terrible, he thought that he would destroy everyone on the course, it was so manifested energetically in mind and body. But he sat without moving at all and was able to observe it.
And when it started to come out and went out, he wondered to himself what it was about. And suddenly realized clearly that it was about his parents' divorce at a tender age. When his mom had taken him away from his dad somewhere else. And it turned out that that was the trigger and out of that grew this incredible amount of hatred and lived for many years, almost his whole life. And now it's in him, it can't even be traced externally by scanning, not even the tails.
Shit, I thought. Well, this must be my story. My parents divorced at a tender age and my mom also took me to another city. But I guess it's not time for me to realize it or to work through it somehow. But it is very inspiring that such profound things can come out through conscious balanced observation of sankaras. Anyway, guys, who wants to go where, but I want to go on a 45 day program immediately. 30 days after an 8 year hiatus was too little for the deep level transformation that I need.

Teaching

Related to this same hatred is my understanding of teaching. When I realized all this, I got a wild laugh from a memory of some ten when I was asking a teacher about the conditions of becoming a Vipassana teacher. And I thought that maybe I could do it myself. Now I have so acutely developed scanning that scanning myself I just saw my problems and realized with the brightness of the summer noon sun, my shortcomings. And there's no proper motivation. Another epaulettes, yes, it's fun, but no more than that for now.
On the one hand it could be passivating. But I feel it is progress. Since my huge bhava-sankara like hatreds are no longer completely fused with the psyche, they did start to shake and little by little try to come out, I saw and felt myself detached from them, without them, and that's worth a lot. It's like a beacon in a storm. There's horror all around, but you see there's somewhere to swim to. Well, maybe you won't make it, of course.
I don't know if this life will be enough for all the things I've seen and encountered to come out. But I saw exactly what it takes to be a teacher. I just saw it, that's all. I can't explain it. A vivid, accurate picture-feeling. And if these problems can come out, then there is nothing left for me but to become the most devoted follower of Vipassana, because I know for a fact that I don't know of any other psychology/psychiatry technique that would work on this level and could do something about what I was facing. And what I'm facing is genus level problems and more than one, believe in reincarnations, I'd say past life problems and more than one. And the size of them is so much bigger than me, about as big as a wheel of war grinding thousands and millions of lives.
I should probably practice more rigorously. I feel like I'm too relaxed and careless against such an opponent anyway.

X-ray

And in other people, I started to see similar problems a little bit, as well as seeing when they are not there.
I've seen where the sankara is, what kind of sankara, its size, a hint of the story and what it's about. It doesn't evoke any emotion. It's about the way you see it. So there is such and such, in fact. There's not much use in it either - there's definitely no point in voicing it to a person. Not at all. And me too - that's another thing. Their own are humming like a fighter jet breaking the sound barrier.

This, if anyone is interested, is a short-term consequence of perceptual aggravation from concentration.
There was a good confirmation of this scanning process.
When I learned that a teacher's aide was sitting in a course with us, I scanned him and mapped out for myself that person's internal pollution/purity landscape. And then wondered if there was anyone else on the course with a similar landscape. And yes, discovered another person. Surprised. Thought, why isn't he a teacher's aide? And then I got a tip that Jurgen had offered him one too.
And in those who I saw deep level problems - I didn't delve into the research, there's no point. I don't care. When I myself have problems that I can't say on a blog or type on a keyboard. I think I have a much bigger problem, but I haven't compared it.

What is sankara

I got a much better understanding in this course of what sankara means. And what needs to be incubated and whether it should be incubated.

For beginners in 10 day courses, sankara in lectures (roughly) refers to the pain that sometimes arises during meditation.
This pain is determined by the contaminations of the mind that we have accumulated to that point.
What are the contaminations of the mind? The consequences of unwholesome thoughts, words and deeds. In the most crude version, it is murder. And then there is the violation of basic ethical norms (called Sheela in Theravada). Up to gross and destructive thoughts and emotions - hatred, anger, rage, disgust and so on. All of these give rise to things that want to repeat themselves later in life.
It may seem unusual for beginners, but attraction - also generates sankaras. Pain, problems and suffering (but about this, let's talk separately, an important and strange topic for me, with interesting stories)

What to do about this pain?

1. I used to fight it. Tried to sit it out. Be stronger in the spirit of - it hurts, it's okay, I'll get over it. It's not like it's forever.
2. Then I realized that if you have good concentration, such that you can feel fine sensations in the body, where attention is directed, then it is enough to concentrate well. Then as long as the attention is in the upper half of the body, the pain from the lower half of the body is not perceived, it is there, but it does not come to realization.
3. During this course I finally remembered, though not immediately, that the main thing is equanimity, balance. To relate to this pain without the slightest aversion and therefore without the desire for it to go away or to end.

I was helped to remember this rule, strangely enough, by Wu Ba Kin's morning chants.
His voice is so uncompromisingly tough. I could literally physically feel that voice separating the mind from painful feelings (or urges). It's hard to explain, but when "scanning" it felt like the voice of a very powerful teacher who overcame the attraction/disgust on some unfathomable-unfathomable level for me.
And it helped me to try to approach that state of equanimity myself.

So, if you treat any painful sensation in your body with equality, without aversion, accept it as it is, without trying to change it, reduce it and so on. In time it will diminish and subside. We call this at the everyday level "sankara is out".
That is some emotional karmic charge was there, but all of it has dried up.

And, sometimes, in the most difficult moments, I used to say to myself something supportive like "come on, come on sankara, wipe yourself on me, I am strong, I have stamina, I am a dad, I am 45 years old and I will definitely endure it", "it is better for me to endure it now than for you to repeat and intensify later in my life". I took this approach from the lectures, there was something about this topic, I don't remember verbatim, I only remember how I applied it to myself.

When you practice rarely, this is the most difficult part of the technique. Because you simply forget about it (about balance). And when pain appears, especially when it is very sharp, the first thing you want to do is to get rid of it, which is obvious.
That's where the practice of Vipassana begins - as a practice of working with aversion.

In general, this section should be the center of the report. Because it is the first thing you encounter after a break. And the first thing you work on. The first thing you need to believe in, but not theoretically, but by practicing it many times.

And then the thinking changes. If you feel that there is such pain that you notice the appearance of desire to get rid of it, you know that it speaks only about one thing - that the mind is not balanced at the moment. And it is the balance that you need to work on right now. Otherwise you're screwed. You'll curl up in pain like in a quality torture chamber.

And the main insight is that it's not the balance of the mind in relation to that particular pain. IT'S ABOUT THE BALANCE OF THE MIND IN GENERAL, IN GENERAL. Otherwise it's easy to miss the sway of "when will it all end?" etc.

For the first few days of vipassana, I forgot about it. I only remembered that the posture should not be changed and that I should wait, sit through the pain and it would come out. And that's when the pain came. No, when the pain came. I was cursing all over the place. I came to the torture room, I said to myself, "Well, what the hell. I was just sitting out in the wild. Will is good, it's virtue. It's a good and essential parami in vipassana. (Parami translates roughly as "accumulated ability"). But one must realize for sure that this over-sitting (not to mention the unwholesome inner speech - swearing) was not vipassana at all. This I only realized a few days later, when I remembered, about REMEMBERING. Sitting and enduring pain just to endure it, even knowing that you will endure it and it will go away, is not that at all. Such practice does not develop the most important thing that should be developed when observing painful sankara sensations - equanimity towards them. That is, when you do NOT REAGREE in any way. Not at all. Not the slightest movement of the body. Not the slightest desire for it to "end as soon as possible".

But nevertheless, this effort is still important. I don't see how I can do without it yet. (Not for nothing, 8 years ago I found a description of vipassana technique in Sunlun Sayado's version, which works only through pain). That's why there is Additana even on an ordinary ten. For how else do you teach the mind to balance itself? By mere persuasion and exhortation? By listening to lectures? Don't make me laugh my sankara.
It's the banal carrot and stick that seems to work most quickly.
The stick. If you don't want to develop poise, you're welcome, and it's hard on you. You'll be tortured like a real torture chamber.
Gingerbread. You can develop poise and hold it for a while. Please watch the painful sensations diminish, diminish and disappear. Or even pleasant ones arise.
And so on and so forth countless times.
I don't know any other method yet.
So long sittings are essential, but if you sit for that purpose alone, keep training the mind to EQUANIMITY. Teach it to NOT react to pain in ANY way. Change the deepest habits of the mind.

ABOUT EGO

Why did I almost get kicked out of the second 20? I didn't even write a report.

I got carried away with my ego. I kind of decided to sit so long that I ignored the clerk's request to leave the room at 9pm. I just decided to sit until the end and didn't understand why someone was suddenly coming to kick me out.

The clerk reported me to Jurgen. And Jurgen called me to the carpet. And gave me a personal task - to sit for one hour only until the end of the course. Of course, I was furious. But, of course, I did it. I had promised to fulfill all the Master's requirements during the course. But maybe this resentment was so stored up that I not only didn't write the report, but for many years after that I unconsciously postponed trips to retreats. That's the way it is, guys.

But Master was right. It became visible only in the distant perspective.
Long sit-ups and persistence are important. I have no doubt about that. But at some point I suddenly switched the purpose of practice and didn't notice it. I suddenly decided to set records. Unconsciously wanting to brag about them.

What's the danger of that? It's sitting around on principle, just to prove something, rather than developing balance. Here was the key mistake.
The ego began to develop, which was followed by the growth of bhava-sankara hatred, which developed in a couple and shot so much that by this time I did not look like a follower of Buddhism. There was no shila, no samadhya, no punya left. No purity of speech/mind, no concentration, no wisdom.

So on this course, I very consciously decided not to set any records. Not at all. Not even once. To work hard. To look for the point of effort more carefully. But no records at all.

Well, I managed. No records. Nothing to brag about.
Now duration is important for me only if I maintain balance. As long as I manage to keep it - that's how long I'll sit.

What's next?

Although, you know, well let's see, 30 days is too short to test all the boundary conditions in practice.

With a lot of self-pity - practice also gets woozy, which is not the point.

I've been practicing out of my mind. But I was left with a lot of dissatisfaction after the course. I still feel like I didn't finish.

There was a little bit left to make a strong transformation. But that little bit was separated from me by red-hot needles and insane pain. Not such an easy path. And I feel like I've fallen a little short. I mean, I definitely didn't get there.

I didn't have the poise to work through the hardest sankar. I wasted a lot of time fighting them. And that time could have been very useful.

And now when I return, I am saddened by the consequences of this underachievement.

It's as if I can see in my mind's eye the current sankaras, right in volume and size. It's like they've been dug up on several sides. But they're still there.

But I don't berate myself, you know.

Why not? Well, other than the obvious, that scolding is not a shill. I opened the report for my first 20 and that practice, which I called extreme at the time and only tried once and couldn't practice at all normally the next day - on this course I did 5 days in a row. And not out of mind or principle or record. It's just that by this point I was already rocked, adapted and could afford it.
It's about giving up breakfast and afternoon snacks and as a result of two long meditations a day: 7 hours and 6 hours. Oh, and reinforced that I wasn't sitting from 4:30, but from ~4:05. And I almost halved lunch for a couple of days.

About duration in detail

How hard was it possible to practice without trying to achieve records?

For the first 10 days I got up at every gong. Except for 1-2 times when I tried to reach the sensation under my nose while sitting for 4 hours. But it was extremely difficult.

Then, when Vipassana started and duration became important, I stopped getting up at intermediate gongs. I got 2-2.5 hours in the early morning, 3 hours before lunch, 4 hours after lunch, 1 hour after noon, and 0.5-1 hour before the lecture.

After a few days, when the body adapted, and I noticed that it quite began to recover in time, that in the night, that during the day. That time of midday became pointless to spend on rest and it went to meditation. So the afternoon was just the usual 6 hours of uninterrupted meditation. I was calm about it, because there was no record here, there was nothing to be proud of, because on the previous 20 days I was sitting for 8 hours every day for many days. And here it was only 6. Nothing at all.

Did I want to increase those six hours? It was impossible to do it at the lower limit, because after the last general meditation I had to leave the room. And I was not ready to start earlier, before 13:00, I needed the whole afternoon to rest and recover after the first half of the day. So six hours and that's it.

And five days before I finished, on Wednesday, I switched to the most accessible mode possible.
I actually wanted to move into it much earlier, a week or more in advance. But then I wasn't sure I remembered the practice enough and wouldn't sit stupidly out of principle.

And only when the duration became unimportant and I became sure that I don't put duration before quality - I took away the breakfasts. By the way, it was fine without them, it was not heavy, I didn't feel sleepy during the day, breakfast was absolutely unnecessary for me. And I started meditating from about 4 instead of 4:30, probably a week earlier.

(Thanks again to my neighbor for the example, so I would have gone to 4:30 by inertia, but half an hour a day multiplied by 30 days is 15 hours. Plus a whole day! And there is no difference at all in terms of workload by feel).

That's why I did it this way.
The first meditation from about 4 am to 11 am (7 hours).
Second meditation from about 13 to 19 (6 hours).
Third meditation from about 7:30 to 8:00 pm (half an hour).
The fourth meditation, while listening to the lecture from 20 to 21 (an hour).

And somewhere at the end I realized that I didn't need so much time for rest at lunchtime, so I reduced the lunchtime rest to an hour or so (1 hour and 20 minutes).
I came to the meditation hall at about 12:05 to meditate, so that the second meditation would also be 7 hours. But every time there was someone there with the Teacher, and it took an extra 15 minutes while I was waiting.
And it was no longer a grind. Six hours at night and one hour during the day was enough for rest.

Where did I possibly screw up?

Well two meta days instead of one shocked me. I certainly tried each of those days in the first half for at least 6-7 hours of sitting. But still, not enough. And I mixed up the schedule on the second day, I thought there would be a general meta-meditation (as on the first day), so that it would be qualitative, I got up, sat down, went to the toilet. And it wasn't. I could not have made this break of 7 minutes.
On the other hand - Sangha. It is also very important. Support on another level. Friendly support, sharing insights, sharing experience of hard practice.

About self-testing

Since I don't chase records, I remember when I purposely got up in the middle of my morning 7-hour meditation to go to the bathroom, just to check myself that I wasn't chasing the clock. That there's no attachment. It's okay, I did it.
I probably won't check again. It's also, you know, out of my mind to spoil continuous meditation. On the other hand, it was nice to check and make sure that yes, out of mind and out of principle I don't work.

Yes, yes, I remember about sampajanya between meditations. If someone can maintain it in such a way that the meditation doesn't lose depth - I admire it.

I'm sure someone on the course could do it, it felt like it from the outside. For me it is a weak point. And so far I've only been able to enhance it with continuity on a physical level. But it would be cool to develop continuity in general. Because then all the breaks would, if not completely disappear, then the practice could become even stronger. It's very difficult. But it's so important that I can't even count how many times Goenka reminded everyone about continuity during breaks: Atapi sampajanna satima.

I have checked this point many times before.
If sankara starts coming out. Got up, wildly in pain. So I decide to get up, take a break. For whatever reason. Or change my posture, just a short break. I sit down and feel nothing hurts, half an hour to an hour goes by and it comes back in the same form and intensity. I mean, start all over again. Just a wasted hour.

Why wasted?
Because if you stand up again and then sit down. Then again for an hour the pain goes away and comes back. And again, the hour is keenly felt by the inner assessment as a wasted hour. It's just a direct experience. I have checked it not a dozen times, but much more.

So why is it thrown away?
Because, according to the inner impression, during this hour no poise has developed and intensified. And as a result, it's like you're floundering in place.

Totally the same situation when you bend over quite slightly out of pain. Not to mention bending sideways - even forward/backward. If you bend over, the pain goes away, it feels better. But what happened? Yep, the reaction of disgust and reaction to disgust was reinforced.
After a few minutes, the pain returned. And the disgust response got stronger. And it's even harder to balance the mind. You change the tilt again, even slightly.
And on and on in a circle, until the pain increases to such an extent that a simple tilt is not eliminated.
So you're wasting your time. You don't develop balance. You're increasing your reaction to disgust. That's the way it is.

But if you can sit out the pain by developing poise. That's a different story.
First of all, sometimes a meta opens up and everything is illuminated by an inner light.
Secondly, this particular pain does not recur. Yes, a new sankara will appear, but different and in a different place and in a different way.
Thirdly, the increased level of equanimity is felt acutely. Tangible progress in practice.
Fourthly, if a sankara is out and there is no other one coming, then there is a long interval of very high calmness and equanimity. And here in it sitting already feels useful, as equanimity is consolidated. Unlike those hours when you take a break from pain.
Which makes sense. If you take a break just because everything hurts, it is a reaction of disgust and non-acceptance of pain. And so sankara only becomes more entrenched.
That's why long meditation is forever.

Quality and filler

Since in terms of duration I decided not to set records. I started working on the quality of the meditation. And I'm very happy with it. It was noticeably better than in previous courses. Just by leaps and bounds.

First of all, I worked hard on unidirectional attention. Simply, to keep internal chatter as small as possible.

Second, I've been working on eliminating fillers.
A filler is a reflection, a distraction from meditation, one that you become aware of but don't go right back to meditation, but stay in it. A classic example: food dreams. How you are cooking or eating something. Can you break away from such meditations? Yes, you can. Do you want to? No. Especially if there's a hell of a lot of pain down there in your knees.
Filler, from the word fill. It's short for filler.

But you have to realize that when you're in a filler, you're just wasting time for nothing. You might as well go flip through tiktok. It doesn't matter if you're on a course.

Goenka said it very, very clearly this time. If you notice that you are distracted, but immediately return your mind to meditation - you are practicing Vipassana. Because that's the way our mind works and you are training it gradually. It cannot be trained in any other way. This is the only way. But if you are distracted, you realize the distraction and you don't return it - it is not Vipassana at all.

This time I was struggling hard with fillers. I had never had them before and there were a lot of them. A lot of them. It's embarrassing! But this is important to understand in the context of ego growth and records.
This time, no records - but work with fillers.
As a result, their number decreased dramatically, by an order of magnitude or more. I remember half a day missing once.

And also when the storm - but the storm is not a filler, it is a storm, there is a different process. Because it doesn't cost anything to get out of the filler, once and then you're back. When there is a storm, it is much more complicated, you have to try hard, and there are techniques to work with the storm, which Goenka explains. Up to even going for a walk or lying down for a while.

The next thing that relates to quality is to not move at all. Not the slightest movement.
For the first half of the course it was almost impossible. Then it got better and better.Up to the point where I felt my body freezing for the first time. This happens after about an hour of sitting completely motionless.

And then sitting with a straight back. That didn't work at all. That's where I screwed up. I tried, but I gave up quickly. Embarrassing. This is important. That's what you have to do. That's where the virya is, that's where the effort is.

Body freezing effect.I noticed that if I don't move at all for about an hour, my body feels frozen. It is almost creaky to make any movements, even small ones. But then the most balanced mind appears. And the most severe pains are not so heavy. And sometimes they do not burden at all.

This is the kind of freezing that led once to 7 hours of "relaxation" in the morning, adhering not to struggle, but precisely to poise. Even the subtle currents began, finally, to appear. This was on the last 28th day. I then even considered skipping lunch, as I would have easily sat through the rest of the day. I thought I'd set a record. But since I decided not to set a record on this course, I got up after seven hours and went to lunch. And nothing hurt after getting up. Which is what happens when you don't get up in the middle of a sankara exit.
Turns out I would not have been allowed to sit further continuously anyway, as someone had a meeting with the Guru in the hall at 12:00 noon, and would have been asked to come out anyway.

Is it possible to sit for a long time? And for a very long time? Goenka's opinion

There is sometimes a debate - whether one should sit strictly for an hour, or whether one can sit longer. And if longer, how much longer would not be considered a violation of the practice?
At the meta-day I was told (Sergey, hi!) that Goenka was also asked this question. And here is his answer.
Meditation is like a four-legged stool.
Sati (awareness of sensations within the body), aniccha (awareness of appearance-disappearance), sampajanya (continuity of effort) and CONTINUITY.

If all four are fulfilled - then one can sit for as long as one gets.
So, yes, there is a green light for strong and persistent practice. But not sitting for the sake of sitting, but first of all working with CONTINUITY.

How much sankara comes out

Particularly helpful was the seemingly commonplace remark from Assistant Teacher Alexei on meta day that yes, sankara can come out for an hour and a few hours. And a few days. Or months. Or years. Or maybe even lives.
That's where I sat down. From the realization. And I've been trying to sit through sanskars for almost 18 years. And then I was like, oh, my gosh. What if you want to sit through something like this, this huge.
Conclusion - once again I changed my focus from sitting to working with poise.

Pain between meditations

Apparently due to deeper concentration (albeit without jhana) on the 30th the pain from sanskar continued between meditations. The first time I noticed it was when (sort of) my shin kept burning. Next, pain in a bone in the foot, sharp, not going away. Then incredible burning of the side of the foot. Got up from meditation - and it went on and on. I remember, on the first tens I wrote (if I am not mistaken, it is necessary to reread) that I distinguished sankars by the fact that they appeared only in meditation, and between sitting, everything stopped hurting at once. Now it is the opposite. Physical pain from a fracture went away quite quickly, steadily and with the same speed at the beginning of each meditation. But the pain from the sankar...

Between courses

Sankara is not only pain during meditation. I suddenly realized that between meditations as well. And yes, pain between courses. What one encounters in life that is painful, that causes aversion (symmetrically about craving) is also sankara. And one can work with it exactly the same way as on the course. To be honest, it is not even possible, but how else?

About working out

What was worked on? What came out? What were the difficulties? How were they realized?
Literally from the very beginning of the course I was meta-aware of myself.
Only now, after the course, can I attribute it to the atypically increased concentration during the first 10 days.

In short, I immediately realized in one insight how pathetic I was. And insignificant.

Just not at all. No, it wasn't self-pity. It was concentration, not emotion. There would be no samadhi with emotion. It's just like knowing. Like a direct scan like that.

I didn't know what to do with it, so I just observed. But that's the only thing to do, of course. Observe. So it's okay.

Somehow, during the anapana period, I saw my main problems: greed, envy and something else (I'll write it down when I remember). Ah, fear that something will end.

Then during vipassana they changed to hatred, anger, irritation.

I don't know, I just saw these manifestations like under a huge magnifying glass while observing myself, my thoughts during breaks and during the meditation itself, when thoughts flew away.

An example of envy: in the first days of adaptation I was still looking at others in the hall. And there was someone sitting with a straight back on the front row, not moving. And I'm so envious. It's just crazy, ladies and gentlemen. Just a stuffy green giant toad.

I thought it was no big deal. But I saw at once that it was a sankara. During this course, I saw sankaras as three-dimensional and from all sides at once. I saw them appearing, gaining strength, capturing me, fading away, disappearing.

On the plus side, between these appearances-disappearances I saw/felt/acknowledged myself without them, and then realized that this is the state of the teacher. If such a thing were to remain on a permanent basis, then yes, the clearing is enough to carry the Dhamma further on its own, it would both make sense and be inevitable and inescapable, like the emerging sun from behind the dissipating clouds. Pardon the overly poetic metaphor. I'm actually talking about rotten sankars here.

An example on greed and fear of running out of something.
They brought dates for breakfast. My first thought is, what if I don't have enough. And I'm like, "I don't know if I'm gonna have enough. Even though I can't have dates. Okay, I think, if I don't have enough, we'll wait and see. It happened so often that I even invented a phrase for myself, something like "We'll see".

Example 3. I brought 50mg of Colgate toothpaste with me. That's all I use. And I'm so scared that I'm gonna run out of it before the course is over. What am I gonna do? AHH. "I'll find out." If anything, of course, by the end of the course, I had 1/2 a tube left.

Example 4. Took the generic laundry detergent, poured it into a black garbage bag to carry to the room. Did the laundry. After a few days, there wasn't much powder left. And I caught myself that frantically after the last meditation and before the lecture, I go to the room to get the bag and fill myself up with this powder. My hands are almost shaking with fear that it will run out. Irrational, of course.
When I caught that, the next day I said to myself "Well let's see what happens when it runs out, just let's see". Took the bag out of my jacket pocket (hadn't had a chance to put it out yet by this point) and purposely dusted back the extra I had typed.
The result? At the end of the course, there was still plenty of powder left and I had to return it to the common pot.

Example 5. I got obsessed with cleanliness at some point. I started doing laundry every day. Fear of what if I stink. Every fear has a reason, because I was on a blood pressure-lowering pharma, my body could no longer regulate the temperature normally, and I was freezing and sweating a lot. But still not that bad, and I washed every morning. So when I realized this on day 20, I did not change my thermal underwear, consciously postponing from day to day. Saying to myself "well, nothing will happen for another day for sure". Underpants/socks, of course, washed more often.

Example 6. Before the course I bought a shower gel with a pleasant fragrance. Really liked the smell, but as a gel - so-so, not really moisturizing. Was very afraid it would run out before the end of the course "and what will I do then"?
Same sankara, same sankara, same sankara. Right on almost everything I touched. And they put a big bottle of gel in each room. Sankara doesn't care about that. Okay, "it might end, we'll find out, we'll see what happens." Clearly the gel didn't run out, brought 1/3 home, still using it.

Example 7. Took 2 almost empty cans of sweetener for the course. I can't have sugar. You know, just like the previous cases. It's exactly the same. And the same fears of "what am I gonna do if I run out?" And just like that, it didn't run out and I brought it back.

Example 8. About greed. In general, it is unique, at lunch I used to watch (for the first few days exactly) that someone had put a whole plate of food on his plate, and I felt so greedy about it. When I realized, I paid my attention in the spirit: "Hey, dear, why are you looking at that particular plate, look, but this one, this one and this one have almost no food in the plate, so that the stomach is not overloaded and meditation is good, why are you not looking there?".

Then I suddenly realized that this is from my childhood in the spirit of "no worse than others". What's the joke here? To be no worse than others, you have to look for the worst examples and compare yourself to them. To make sure that there are worse. That's pretty normal.

Example 9. Jealousy and envy. Oh, how it hit me that I have everything so bad on anapan and no feeling above the upper lip. So much anxiety "everyone already has sensations, everyone has been sitting in jhana for a long time, only you, you're nothing, sitting there, feeling nothing". It was a big storm. It was like a huge storm. From the feeling of complete inferiority and nothingness.

Here I did not even fully investigate, because all the time I tried to interrupt any thoughts and internal dialogs and return to observation. But I do remember that many days of the very beginning I felt the feeling of "my inferiority and complete nothingness". I was wildly upset by the realization of nothingness.

Anatta

The only thing that helped was to be able to catch the Anatta moment between the disappearance of the contents of the mind and the appearance of the next one and to try to prolong this moment (i.e. to work on the unidirectional mind especially hard at this very moment). Then the storm would instantly go away. Of course, since the sankara had not yet come out, the storm would reappear a little later. This I already remember from the fall of 2023. Sometimes it was possible to almost instantly strong storms, but because of the lack of deep elaboration, they then rose again and again.
(By the way, this is a question about the difference between Anapana and Vipassana).
In general, this is a super-technique. It gives an opportunity to experience directly that all thoughts/feelings/ideas/values/beliefs are not me at all. What in the Pali language is called Anatta.
(There's a reference to rebirths here, I'll try to write a separate post later. I remembered suddenly that on a superficial level I had experienced Anatta as a child, but at that time I had not yet found Theravada for myself).

In short: envy, greed, jealousy, fear, envy, greed, jealousy, fear, envy, greed, jealousy, fear, envy, greed, jealousy, fear, envy, greed, jealousy, fear, envy, greed, jealousy, fear, envy, greed, jealousy, fear, envy, greed, jealousy, fear.

Hatred also appeared, but I stopped it by the method described above (I will repeat it separately later), otherwise I remembered that meditation is not possible at all with a restless mind.

Further, starting from the 11th day, i.e. the 1st day of Vipassana technique, hatred appeared, as I wrote above. And backgroundly it was the main sankara. I tried not to allow it to reach limbika and leave it only at the level of physical sensation - heat, fire, burn, burning, burning, pain.

Silently yelled 1

When I had a cold and decided to sit in my room in the morning, day 11-12, I sat on soft foam cushions. Sat like this, sitting down.

Started to feel pain in the big hip joints. The cushions are atypical. I've never sat on one of these before. And all of a sudden I started yelling. I just opened my mouth and screamed in silence. Tears and snot, too, of course. Silently, so as not to disturb anyone. I didn't realize what it was at first. It started so suddenly, I didn't expect it.

Then I only realized that it was right after anapana, where a good, close to the limit of possibilities at that moment, concentration was achieved. And due to this some deeper than usual things could be caught. And also due to concentration, I could easily trace the connection between pains and themes of working through.

When I asked myself a silent question: "What was that?", I immediately realized, felt and saw at the same time. That it was about my mom. And how hard it was for her in the 90's to feed and nurse my sister and me. Right down to the incredibly painful crying and yelling. So there you go.

P.S. Rereading this post two weeks later I can add that there was synchronicity. Already after returning home I found out from my sister that somewhere at that time my mother just had a problem, which my sister helped her to solve.

Silently yelled 2

The second orr I wasn't expecting at all. But it too was on soft cushions and also at the very, very beginning of the transition from samadhi to Vipassana.
I was yelling for my daughter and my attachment to her and her attachment to me. I was the one sitting in the hall. I also tried to be silent. But snot and tears flowed. It came on suddenly and strongly. All my worries, all my affections. Logically, I realized before that there seems to be a little bit of a skew here, and it would be good to let go a little bit about it. A loving father is fine, but it's wise to have a balance and realize that a child is always an independent person and his life is entirely his own, no matter how much his parents adore him.
Well here's where I got rolled on the hard terc of unrestrained misery.
I can't logically explain what was going on. But I was suffering in an insane and concentrated way. But I definitely felt it as an output of some sankara, so I was able to suffer and observe at the same time. At some point this sankara appeared, intensified, lasted, then began to fade and left completely.
It didn't come up again at all until the end of the course. Something here came out and went away that was severely hindering the practice.
As other sankaras began to rise almost immediately, I can't say anything more about this one.

Scanning myself mid-course

Even though it seemed like I was trying to work as hard as I could. Somewhere between days 11 and 15, I was constantly scanning myself. To see if I had improved.
And saw the biggest sankaras still in place.
No, I hadn't improved.
It made me very upset every day.
My mind was saying to myself: well, it's the 12th day, well, it's the 13th day, well, it's the 14th day, and you haven't improved one bit. When scanning you are still as full of anger and hatred.
There's no sense of cleansing at all.
Even doubts began to creep in - whether I went to the right place, whether everything I do makes sense at all. I see, it's 8 years of skipping practice. When the body forgets about the process and results.
But it's been hard. Seeing every day that I work hard and hard, but my "soul" is still just as dirty.
Calmed the mind with thoughts like, "Well, what do you want. For eight years I have not been to retreats at all, and at home I meditated on the sidelines, do you have any idea how much I have accumulated? And this is without looking at the last six months of the terrible crisis". I can't say that it calmed my mind much, but it sounded quite logical.

Meta-Day, examples of avoiding cravings.

Somewhere in past reports I wrote that I didn't seem to be working on attraction specifically. But whole layers of attachments were falling away even then. I didn't realize it and didn't accept it. How can it be? I loved and adored it all my life. Why am I completely indifferent to it now?

There was an example about the sea. I still can't get over it.
Imagine that you adore a dish, and you eat it often, but not so much that you overeat it. And then there is a holiday, you have this dish in front of you, and it does not cause appetite at all. The mind will be in a stupor. You are not full, hungry, specifically it has not eaten for a long time, but the attraction to it is not. It's like a spanking. Like a grandma spanked you.

Then I had the same thing with airplane rides. Then something else.

Oh, I remember, cars. I used to love them so much. Sitting behind the wheel. Driving thousands of miles. I remember driving from Moscow to Karelia and back on weekends, without even an overnight stay. And the other weekend from Moscow to Odessa and back. And it was fine. And kayef. And in general, we family went to the sea by car every year. Plus and buy new ones (VAZ, Toyota, Lexus, Jaguar). And then like a grandmother spanked. Drive? Yes, well, thank you, come back tomorrow for tea (as Bilbo said). New car? Fix the old one? I'd rather buy a monowheel.
I'm ashamed of myself, two years in Bishkek, and I haven't even gotten to Issyk-Kul yet. Water and water, road and road.

I thought I only had it like this.
Thanks to meta-day and Sangha. Respected (hello, can I give your name?) informed me that from his diligent practice whole layers began to fall off. First of all, his passion for cars has also fallen off. And much cooler ones than I had. Then the passion and passion for business fell off. Skiing. And so on and so forth. I listened with my mouth open.

That's my point. Strong Damma - Strong Kamma.
This practice was so not a joke, I can't even describe how much.

About past lives.I still don't understand it. But so much of the rest is being confirmed by my own experience so far. I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever get to those questions. Or maybe not. In the lectures it was said that such understanding is a consequence of jhanas. And jhanas are such a thing. You may not be able to do it in one lifetime. It's what happens, not what you achieve.

Duration of practice

Is vipassana practice like the time from the beginning of sitting to the end of sitting, like an hour, two hours, three hours, etc.?

Or is it the time from the beginning of the 10 day course to the end of the ten?

Or is the ten too short and it is the time from the beginning of the 30-day course to its end?

Something seems to me that Vipassana practice is just the time from one course to another. To try to consider everything that happens in life as sankara coming out and to keep equal mind in relation to them.

Yes, it is wildly difficult. But it's also wildly painful on the course. I want to see if I can make the sankaras come out in ordinary life. Will I be able to observe them in everyday life?

Because now I know that sankara comes out not from sitting or moving attention, but from equal mind. And moving one's attention is necessary to discover more sankaras.

It's not for nothing that three people on a meta day in a row practically said/mentioned that Vipassana starts after the course, not before. And that the most-important thing is to bring the practice to life (including my neighbor Alexei).

I remember earlier I wrote about Sunlun approach in Vipassana.

Now in his lectures Goenka explained that there are different approaches in Vipassana practice. For example, so-called dry Vipassana is when only Vipassana is practiced without a separate period of Anapana. And there is where on the contrary, first janas are achieved up to the 4th and then only Vipassana begins. And according to Goenka - it's kind of a middle approach. Anapana is still there, but still not even the 1st jhana is required to practice.

In Pali it's kind of called upachara-samadhi (as opposed to 1st dana apana-samadhi) - momentary concentration.

Continuation of the experience of Anatta, learned a bit through quality sampajanya during the first 20-dana

There was a strong Anatta at the beginning of the course and the ability to stop any storm in seconds (extreme minutes), at the expense of Anatta (that's not me). But for some reason this skill got weaker towards the end of the course. And putting out storms was taking longer and longer. It was on the first 20, 9 years ago suddenly at the expense of sampajanya me that I suddenly saw Anatta. I reread my blog now. At the time I also wrote that it was probably temporary. Well, it turns out it's not temporary. I'm certainly not even close to living it all the time. But with concentration, Anatta is quickly arising again. It's amazing.What do I mean by anatta and how do I personally experience it? And how has sampajanya helped and what is it?
Anyway, 9 years ago I did a practice called Sampajanya in a course. It consisted of carefully observing anything that appeared in the field of attention and noting to myself "Oh, this has appeared", then that this something continues and noting "Oh, this continues", and then when it disappeared, noting "Oh, this goes away, disappears".
Example: Touching a cup and tracing how the sensation of touch arises, how it lasts, and how it disappears when I let go of the cup. And this applies to everything. Including the thoughts and emotions that come to mind. Anger appeared, continued to be there, anger began to leave. Astonishment arose, continued, began to fade. Joy arose... And so on.
So at some point suddenly came the realization that all thoughts, all emotions, all experiences are not me.

What are the strongest, what are the weakest. Because they come, they last, and they disappear. It's a direct physical experience. Values, identifications (I am the teacher, I am the practitioner), moods. And I somehow found nothing in the realm of the psyche that was I, mine. I could lose sampajanya and then at that moment merge with the current experience and then yes, a feeling would arise sharply - that this emotion, thought is me and mine. But if sampajanyu was restored, then it became clear and funny at once. No, it is not me. It is just something that comes and goes. And now it will be replaced by something else. And I can even observe it. Here, in the practice of sampajanya, the main thing is continuity. Because it is from discontinuity that attachment and false association of oneself with some inner processes are born.
What are the bonuses of this anatta? Well, when I was having a bad time this spring, I would sit in meditation and start anatta. And if I managed to concentrate, I could just see the conditionality of my current state, that it has no support, that it's not me. Not from any philosophical hypotheses or conclusions, remember that in samadhi thinking is absent, and we do not think, we do not draw conclusions, we only observe. And if I observed it, I could catch this moment of appearance, continuation, disappearance - and see how the whole emotional wave completely disappears in one moment. That's how even a major storm disappeared in an unrealistically short period of time. In general, it felt like an instant - because after a pause, at the expense of meditation, if one does not give a start to the same sankaras, the next moment in the mind began to occur quite different processes, not related to the previous ones in any way.
You can easily understand this if you imagine the change of sleep and wakefulness. Here also, just at some moment you see (if you have strong concentration) that all periods of waking are similar to periods of sleep, which just independently successively replace each other. And you can see how one waking dream replaces another.
And with proper concentration they can change almost instantly. Here the main thing is to trace the moment of fading of one filling of the mind and to prolong the state of unidirectional attention (silence) at this moment until the next one arises.
It is still amazing how the next one arises completely unrelated to the previous one. And the previous one is simply amnesized.
But since this is not Vipassana, i.e. sankara, karma is not purified by this, after a while the old sankara rises and the mind becomes dirty and filled with the previous content again. That's what I mean, as it turns out, you can't get away on this skill alone, you have to tighten up the rest.

What is Nibbana (Nirvana). How to become enlightened and what is it?

A lot is said about Nibbana in lectures. After all, it is the ultimate goal of Vipassana practice. But it is difficult to understand what it is about, because its main description is "something beyond nama and rupa (body and mind), something where there is no arising and disappearance"
The main thing about the practice is that one can find oneself in it several times.

The one who is in it for the first time, for seconds, minutes, is called Sotapana (one who has entered the flow of Dhamma (Teachings)). And he will certainly attain Nibbana on a permanent basis for a maximum of 7 rebirths.

Well, in general this is all kind of mystical side of practice, and without practice there is nothing much to discuss here.

Nevertheless, since it occurs in the lectures, after the lectures I allowed myself to think about it a little while I was going to my room or preparing for sleep. But in general I realized that even that was a hindrance, my mind would get distracted and start rambling on about everything afterwards out of inertia.
Still, I'll write down what came to mind.

One day in the evening it intellectually dawned on me what nibbana is and how it differs from jhan practice, why this difference is so much talked about. Why did the Buddha attain the 8th jhana but did not attain nirvana. And what exactly he discovered as sama-sambuddha (self-awakened Buddha).

Nah, it's not the knowledge of nibbana, it's just a mind game. Why we sampajanim, that is, we continuously observe the arising, existence and disappearance of everything that happens to be in attention: that of thoughts, that of sensations.

So in jhanas, in developing samadhi, no matter how much we concentrate, we are still at the mercy of the mind. Especially from the 5th to the 8th jhana, when the body disappears and only the mind remains. And further work and concentration goes on with the mind. The mind becomes stronger and stronger. But mind is just nama (part of conditioned reality). So no matter how much we strengthen it, we still remain in the conditioned reality.
So this is what was meant in the lectures!

And how to go beyond the mind? And that's where a fleeting experience of Anatta from the first 20-something helped me.
Observing the appearance and disappearance of the contents of the mind (dhamma), (Dhamma in Pali is not only a Buddha technique, but also just the contents of the mind), and remembering that the mind itself does not exist (this is how the Transformer model in Generative AI works), but appears only together with the contents of the mind (like chatGPT starts to think when tokens are fed to it, and does not think the rest of the time).

Well, you have understood further.

You can catch the moment when the content of the mind appears, lasts, and then leaves, disappears, dissolves. And along with it the mind also leaves, disappears, dissolves. But sampajanya is preserved. So we continue to observe all this. And at this moment, at this instant, we are outside the mind. If we are above the 4th jhana, then we have no vedana, body, rupa.
So in this instant we are beyond mind and matter. Beyond arising and disappearing.
Within this instant, nothing disappears and nothing appears. This is directly similar to the definition of Nibbana.

This correlates incredibly strongly with the sutta (Sanskrit: sutra) of Sattipattana. The basic sutta on attaining Nibbana. And at the end of this sutta, the Buddha says if you can hold sampajanya continuously for 7 months, you will attain the ultimate goal. What's 7 months, if it's for 7 weeks. What's 7 weeks, if for 7 days. Etc.

This is only an intellectual understanding. It too may prove to be wrong. But it came in one bright flash of realization and now it's clearer where to put the effort. And how fiercely.

Small notes

• The tip on the meta day to work in large blocks. It really helps. Sometimes now I go through the body in big blocks at once: the whole head, the whole arm, the whole chest, the whole belly... It helps to concentrate.
• I liked the instruction on the first day of vipassana - you can move this attention any way you want: only to one side, or to both sides, in parts, or in a stream, or both - it doesn't matter how you move your attention. Man, that's an important instruction!
• Another new one was concentration in the solar plexus, when reaching Bango, in the place of HADAI Vatu. I don't know what that means. I don't have Bango (complete dissolution of the body). I've never heard of what HADAI Vatu is either. Well, yes, in Qigong there is something similar, but there the Lower DanTian is lower, under the navel, and the Middle one is higher, in the heart area. But in yoga, yes, it's one of the whatchamacallits. But to talk about it in Vipassana? Ho-ho. I don't get it.But I really wanted to memorize the name so I could Google it. So I remembered it like this. I imagined a hard disk (HD) and stuffed with ordinary absorbent cotton. It was HaDa and absorbent cotton. I remembered it. I still got it. I guess you'll remember it too.
• Is Buddhism depressive? Is it a delayed Roskomnadzor? A tale from Suren. What is nibbana.Here when I felt bad at the very beginning a lot of mind generated blackness, there is no point in repeating it and writing it down. But when the same question was asked by Misha (is nibbana just the end of everything?), I liked a baika from Suren (thanks, Suren!) about nibbana and its metaphorical value.There, the Buddha's brother got married. Well, how married. In India at that time he had only seen his wife in a picture. But in the picture, yes, she was beautiful. Buddha was invited. He came, congratulated him and when he left he said, "Hey, do you want to become a monk with me?" My brother thought about it and said yes. There was a riot. Some time later, Buddha saw the brother sitting there looking gloomy. - What's wrong," he asks. - "Yes, I miss my probable wife," he says. - Let's go on a trip? - Buddha said and took him on a trip to the upper worlds. And there the king is sitting there and all kinds of beautiful maidens are serving him (like paradise in Islam?). Buddha said upon his return, "Well, how do you like your bride in the picture compared to the other picture you saw? The brother replies, "It's nothing at all. And Buddha says, I promise you, if you reach the second stage, you will find yourself in such a world. The brother practiced and reached the necessary stage of liberation. While Buddha was going to him, the brother reached arahant (i.e. nibbana). And he says to the Buddha, while you were walking, I became an arahant, so I'm taking your promise off you, I don't need these devas (as they are called in A), I'm already in nibbana.

Sangha and diligence

In the last two days I've been torn. Every day, every hour is so precious. Especially at the end of the course, when such an adjustment has been made.
By the way, if you take away the afternoon snacks and meditation for all 30 days. That's 30 hours. That is +2 extra days. If you take away breakfasts and meditate from 4 am, not from 4:30, it's another +2 hours a day, +60 hours, that is +4 additional days. If on meta-days you don't kick ass, but at least sit for 7 hours for the first half of the day, that's +1 full day. You get the idea. In fact it doesn't work that way for me, because I need time to adapt, so that I don't break everything by extremes.

So on the one hand to meditate - on the other hand to communicate with other practitioners. And this time I really felt the support of Sangha. So many insights. But this is really important. At first you think you are alone, and then it turns out you are not.

After the odor course

I'm on the subway after class. Suddenly someone walks in, and a wave of an unusually subtle and pleasant scent wafts over me. Some exquisite selective (selective is a special collection of limited edition perfume). My wife and I have our own collection of selectives for more than ten years, I know a little bit about perfume and, as it seems to me, I can estimate the level.

And you know what's weird? It was just shockingly weird for me.

I suddenly realized that this sophisticated and refined fragrance is not subtle enough. That it's quite coarse and superficial. Compared to the subtlety of the sensations I had experienced in the course.
That it's very coarse. And I even felt a little sad about the deception. That these kinds of smells are deceptive. They try to create the illusion of super-attractiveness and sophistication, even though they're nowhere near either of those things. And people are drawn to it, attracted to it, feel it's subtle and delicious. But it is not. It's just a mara, a veil. People are attracted to what is not what it seems to be. That there is an inner subtle sensation that is far more subtle, far more pleasurable, far more delightful, so much so that it is not even possible to compare.
But it's worth remembering the difference between insight after an intensive course, and constant uninterrupted observation in everyday life.

(P.S. When I re-read this paragraph, I remembered airplanes, the sea, skiing, and...)

Summary

What I learned from the course:

• Learned three types of nimittas in practice. From the most trivial to the most profound.
• I realized that two meditations a day for 7 and 6 hours are very accessible, but still too light option for working through really deep problems. A recognized arahant in our lineage, Venerable Webu Sayado, practiced more seriously (I will try to write about him separately).
• I clearly felt the flow of Dhamma. It is even difficult to describe in words what I mean. But you should, otherwise why the reports.
• For the first time I realized what Sangha is.
• For the first time I realized what Dana is.
• For the first time there was a clear free flow at least entirely on one hand.
• It seems that Nibbana (Sanskrit: Nirvana) is not something supernatural, but is real and actually achievable
• It dawned on me that Guru Dhamma and Profound progress in practice are practically synonyms. One without the other is not possible.
• I caught a glimpse of myself without my basic impurities (sanka), it's very strange.

Which is still not achieved/understood:

• Free flow throughout the body
• As a consequence and the state of Bango
• Anatta. What this beast is not formally from the mind, but actually at the level of experience
• Deepest nimitta: Merging nimitta with the focus point of attention
• Absolute and relative truth in Theravada (a separate post here).

Useful Livehacks:

• "Mind distracted, start again" - every time you notice the mind is not focused on a point
• Stretch/stretch - try to stretch, widen the gap between distractions
• Support yourself: "come on, come on sankara, rub off on me, I'm strong, I have stamina, I'm a dad, I'm 45 years old and I can definitely take it", "I'd rather get through this now than have you repeat and intensify later in my life"
• The main insight is not the poise of the mind in relation to this particular pain. IT'S ABOUT BALANCING THE MIND IN GENERAL, AS A WHOLE. Otherwise, it's easy to miss the swing of "when will this all be over" etc.