Sitting Still with the three Liz's

Vipassana meditation.
Yes we're still on it. After we actually began vipassan-ing
things really started to get interesting. Pain erupted from every pore
every kneecap, every back muscle,every inch of my dead asleep feet. I
began to panic and dread the moment when after sitting for about thirty
minutes, things would begin to ache. The goal is to observe each
sensation with equanimity and recognize that each sensation is
impermanent. And for one entire hour ignore the reaction of moving when
you sense pain, or clinging when you sense a pleasant sensation. The
pains we are feeling,Goenka says are built up from past Sankaras.
A Sankara, he tells us is a very strong reaction to a sensation. For
example, a line drawn in water disappears immediately, a line drawn in
sand disappears after time. But a deep rooted Sankara is like a line
etched in stone with a sharp rock. It takes quite a long
time to undo the damage of a reaction as severe as this. So things like
anger and hate and ill will and passion and craving.These can all turn
into deep rooted sankaras,
which in turn makes you miserable. And I have a shitload of these in my
past, therefore a shitload of pain? I just keep telling myself anicca anicca, impermanent, impermanent.But sometimes it really hurts. The possibilities
of examples for this in my life are endless. Someone bumps into you on
the street. You react with anger.Hey that person just bumped into me.
Then you stew over it for a while making yourself miserable with anger,
why did that person do this to me? Why did they have to bump into ME of
all people. They must be a horrible person who has no care about anyone
else, and so on and so forth. You put all your effort into hate and in
turn it is you who are making yourself feel bad. No one else controls
your reactions but you. You control your mind. You are your own master.
And if you generate hate and anger and craving and ill will you become
miserable. And constantly blaming outside forces for your own
reactions. Well that is just crazy isn't it.

There are so many more things about Vipassina
that appeal to me. Its scientific, non-sectarian, universal appeal.
Buddha used this technique to become Buddha. But it isn't aBuddhist meditation technique. Goenka
tells us that he has nothing against this religion or that religion.
However he says that when a person puts their faith in objects or
rituals or gods or priestsor chanting when something bad happens or
when they want something good to happen. Then regardless of the result,
all the credit is given to the object they placed at the altar, or the
rosary they repeated, or the clergy member who blessed them. Sometimes
people can expect religion to be magic and to replace thingsirreplaceable or to undo sankaras
that only you yourself can create or not create. And example he gave
from Buddha. A son came after his father had died begging Buddha to
bring his father to heaven. Buddha knew the reality but instead asked
the boy to bring him a big bucket of stones and a bucket of butter. And
the son is so grateful,oh Buddha is going to perform someceremony to purify my father. And Buddha tells the son to place both buckets in this pool of water. The stones sink to the bottom
and the butter floats to the top. Then Buddha tells the son to make the
stones rise to the top and the butter sink down to the bottom. But the
boy replies that stones are heavier than water and will always sink.
And butter is lighter than water and so will always float. That is just
the way it is.Ahh Buddha says, so if your father was a kind, compassionate, light person he will float. And if he was heavy with sankaras and ill will he will sink. That is just the way it is.

And
a billion more stories like that really helped me to grasp this
technique. And how to use the technique in my own personal life in
order to free myself from misery and begin to walk on a path of
liberation. No God or Gods, no rosaries, no chanting, no rituals to
perform three times at Buddha orJesus's feet. The strength comes from
within. To be your own master. To control your own mind. The technique
goes hand in hand with the philosophy. You are sitting there. You are
observing your sensations. Your leg has fallen asleep and this rock
hard leg has turned into a bundle of pain.If you think in your head.
Okay this is a sensation, lets see how long this lasts, you don't
generate moresankaras and are training your mind to not react like it
has your entire life. If you sit there and say this is pain,this is the
biggest pain I've ever felt in my entire life, I can never imagine any
pain worse than this pain, oh it hurts it hurts I must react to this
pain and get out of it. Because that is what you have done your entire
life. You react. And boy is this right about me. I react emotionally,
irrationally, angrily, clinging, craving, the works. I am a textbook
example of asankara ridden person. So obviously when Im sitting there and the past sanakaras
are arising and passing arising and passing. (Quite painfully I might
add) I just keep telling myself. Listen, this takes time. You've led a
long passionate, angry life and you have a lot of work ahead of you.


This technique has helped me realize many things I have been
contemplating since I've been traveling. First of all I have been very
aware of my anger and certain darker aspects of my personality. I would
find myself indescribably angry at Juli for this thing or that for like
six months straight. And it was all me. All my reactions to situations
and allchurning and burning in misery in my body. Thus me getting sick
all the time and stressing myself out. I am so set in my ways and I've
been reacting all my life. I lose something i clung to, I throw a
tantrum. Someone does something I don't like I hate them. Instead of
observing and using my mind I just blow up like fireworks and the
littlest thing. My leg is uncomfortable from sitting so long and I
almost cry from the pain. But the truth, the undeniable truth, is that
everything passes. When I was sitting there, looking back at all the
anger and hate and passion and pain in my life,none of it is still
here, and none of it lasted forever. I was so angry and trapped in
Australia and thought I would never be happy or free again. And did
that last forever? No. Did God save me? No. It was only me, after
months of misery who finally acted to take myself out of that misery.
When I am hungry. All I can imagine is eating french fries from IN'N'OUT.
That is the only food that can satisfy my hunger. Its all I can think
about. I think I'll never be satisfied again. I could die from this
hunger. Then I don't get the fries and I become miserable because I was
clinging to them to save me and then things didn't go my way.
I
am in pain, lots of flesh has been ripped from my arm and it throbs
with the sensation of blood. I think I'll never use my arm again, it
will never heal. This purple iodine is going to be on my wrist forever
like a purple seahorse. My life is over. Misery.
All these things passed. My anger passed, my hunger passed, my pain passed. Every thing passes. Everything is anicca. Impermanent.
So
I am going to continue with my practice. Because it is exactly what I
have needed my whole life to bring myself out of an endless cycle of
misery. I feel so happy these days because everything that makes me
happy is due to my own action. And I know that I am in control. And
while thesankaras are still coming up every morning and evening in meditation, I am trying my best to reduce the amount of new sankaras being generated.
Craving is a tough one, because boy does the Liz love a good meal and some good shopping and her hot boyfriend.
Anger, Ill Will, etc. Those are difficult as well but I am taking things day by day and ooing my best to observe myself and to be present in every moment and to be careful with every thing that I do.

So
yeah,and so much more but honestly I just can't write about it any
longer. I am so thankful to everything in my life that brought me to
this moment. To all the crazy coincidences that led me through all my
experiences in life, because without them I wouldn't be here in this
state. If it weren't for every irrational and passionate reaction I've
made my whole life to every situation. I wouldn't have experienced pain
and shame and love and anger and death all in one month in India. I
wouldn't have stumbled onto thisVipassana meditation which happens to
be in this beautiful crisp mountain environment. I wouldn't have
happened to be on Day eight of my silent meditation, following Buddhas
technique for liberation on the exact same day of the Full Moon under
which Gautama attained enlightenment, nirvana, and became Buddha.
And thats all I have to say about that.