Vipassana Meditation; A ten day sit that changed my life....

I wish to share an experience with you all that happened to me two years ago, two months before my 27th birthday. It was one of the most powerful spiritual experiences of my life that instigated a deep shift in the direction of my life. After the sit I decided to move out of LA, a place I had lived for three years, and I threw myself into the unknown. Out of that unknown a new path has surfaced that I am so tremendously grateful for and I owe a lot of it to this experience. I recommend a 10 Vipassana course to everyone. Every person that I know that has gone has experienced incredible shifts in themselves and therefore in their lives as a result of the experience...

The course was held on a 120 acre campus tucked away in the foothills outside of one of the most beautiful places in the world, Yosemite National Park. The center is run off the donations of old students and volunteers and costs only what one can afford to give, as anything pure should. Immediately upon my arrival I was greeted by kind beauty in the smile of others, smell of the land and taste of the veggie cuisine. I knew at once much truth was alive and waiting to be uncovered in such a place.

On the third night after 30 hours of meditation (and keep in mind no eye contact or talking with others except the teacher), through tapping into the sorrow of my own life I was then able to see the sorrow of all my friends lives which then in turn tapped me into the sorrow of humanity. Upon the horror of that insight I had to excuse myself and run into the womb of the dark wood that lay behind the hall which at that moment was busy graciously greeting winters first snow. I unfortunately had to disrupt this quiet communion with kicks and fists to the gut of the earth and curses, tears and the middle finger to the heavens (even the trees need a good fuck you every once in a while, reminds them there alive too). Ironically enough the teaching the next day was how we must recognize the despair of humanity and life before we can liberate our self's from it and I learned this to be so true during the rest of my time their.

On the fifth day half way into my morning sit I discovered this deep seeded anger and resentment that had uprooted itself in my subconscious and came through into my conscious. It was anger I didn't even now I had for my family centered around the fact that we never have really been a family. We are a group of individuals that exist together only through blood and name and have never really shared a greater love that comes out of a cohesive family unit. This was deep rooted emotion that must have come from my childhood and was stored away in anger until that moment of discovery. It was so beautiful to realize and then to forgive, and upon that forgiveness I felt that anger and weight burn away. And in that space that once held the anger I was able to fill it with love and gratitude for all that my family has given me, which is so much of who I am today.

When I got up from that sit I literally felt like a different person, colors were brighter, sounds sharper, more in the present than I had ever been. It really made me realize the power of forgiveness. In order to have access to our true power in the present we must forgive all that is in our past, only then can we be free from it, to stand fully in the now and shape its malleable walls into what ever it is we desire. From there on the rest of the sit was true beauty. Its amazing to me how much traveling we do, how much money we spend, how much therapy we go through, how many pills we take, how much time we waste seeking truth when the wisdom of the universe lies with in and all we have to do is take the time to listen.

During that ten day sit I briefly touched something pure and couldn't distinguish it from myself and the rest of the universe but since then I have felt a calmness in me that I have never known, maybe its faith, faith in the universe, faith in myself, an assurance that everything is going to be okay, things might not shake out exactly how I wish them to but regardless everything will be alright, I have faith in that. 12/26/06

To find out when and where the next sit is near you go to: www.dhamma.org