Vipassana January 2025

 The ninth year of ten day vipasana in Chiangmai 2025

I began this journey in January of 2016.  I have always journaled while I am here.  Reading over my journaling before I arrive is helpful because I am able to prepare my mind for another ten days of quiet.  It is a powerful thing to give up contact with the outside world when turning in your phone.  It would not be possible to go inward if this is not done.  I think I will try to do this periodically at least for a day or two when I am not on this silent retreat.  It does say clearly under the rules for meditation no writing so maybe I will limit my writings this year.  I will only add things that I feel are important to remember.  I will try this time to empty my mind as much as possible.

Second day

I seem to be dosing off to sleep more this year.  Of course lying in bed after breakfast to meditate is conducive to sleeping.  I felt that because I have been a bit under the weather with a cough and irritating eyes, I needed the sleep. So I will accept it.   Even this afternoon, meditating in the temple, I found my self dosing off and on between periods of meditation.  I accept this as what my body needs.  

Third day

I already had visitors in my dream the second night.  I remember speaking at my Dad’s celebration of life and saying that one of the reasons I come to this temple annually is that I have visitors, ones close to me who have passed on. There can be no denial that it is the place, the energy of the temple and its thousand years of holding meditators and monks.   If not, why do I not have these dreams and remember them in my outside life?  I have not done as much formal meditation as I usually do.  I do feel that all my time is spent meditating even when I am writing these words.  It is all about my journey and my time to leave distractions of the world behind me.  I awoke right after I had the dream.  Both my mother and father were in the dream.  And lots of children, ones I did not recognize.  The key characters were my mother and father and my sister.   We were with other family members and I believe were wondering around cotton fields,  the family cotton farm in Morven, still owned by my uncle and aunt who live there.  The land is now a pine forest.  My mother had gone to the house to put children to bed but we called her and said it was ok for them to stay up because we were going to watch a movie together in the cotton field and it was a special family time.  Maybe the movie was a symbol of all the family memories we had made?  We all settled down on a sandy area like a beach to watch an outside movie shown in the distance in the sky over the cotton field.  

It is the fourth day, January 23, Phra Ajahn’s birthday celebration wherein we are allowed to speak and enjoy his celebration, choosing from a wide variety of food from the vendors who have set up to honor his birthday.  The temple is full of locals who have come to celebrate his birthday.   The foreign meditators meet in the foriegn mediation office to be given instructions as to our procession to bring gift baskets to Phra Ajahn Suphon.  He sits in a chair in one of the temples and we enter as a group of around twenty foreign meditators to sit in front of him.  When asked by our monk teacher for someone to accept giving a speech to express our gratitude as a group, I volunteered.  When handed the microphone I said:

“Namaskan Phra Ajahn Suphon

 I speak for all us that we are very grateful for your wise and spiritual guidance to teach us to be better human beings.  Being in your presence reminds us to be focused on our meditation and sharing loving kindness to make the world a better place.  We wish you a very happy birthiday and continued wellness and happiness.  Sadhu, Sadhu, Sadhu”. 

It is now the morning of the sixth day, I have four more full days and then I have my closing ceremony on the eventing of the ninth day and will leave the next morning, the tenth day.  Along with my meditations, my time has been mostly sitting and reflecting on my life.  I feel like my life is in good order.  I am content.  I am especially grateful for having a good man in my life who keeps me in good company.  I realize this is the difference to give me this content life.  I am most grateful for him.

Another dream occurred last night.   As has happened in years past in the temple, I dream of our home in Davidson on Pinecrest Street where we moved when I was in third grade.  But in the dream I am an adult.  It was a dream with peace, my sister and brother were in the dream and we were sitting around a fire, there were several fireplaces in the house in the dream. In reality, the home had no fireplaces.  There was a similar dream last year with lots of fireplaces burning.  I remembered asking my sister where mom and dad were and she said they were away having a beautiful time together.  

My other thoughts in this time of clarity is that this could be my last time here.  I will see how I feel when I return to normal life.  As an alternative, I decided maybe my return will wait until November of 2026. Of course as I age, time will tell how much I travel.  I do realize especially with this clear mind that I want to slow down on my travel plans and rest more in Durham and Asheville in between trips.  I also want to reserve time to visit other places before my age and health dictate this frequency of travel.  The thoughts have come that being my tenth time, I have received what I need from these ten day experiences and can now incorporate what I have learned in my outside life.  There are so many feelings of counting the days, especially at the beginning.  As the days pass it becomes easier, it is like there is no time.  I considered more than before of leaving early this time.  These thoughts do cross my mind every time and when I reach the end, I realize that the ten days have been good and necessary.   There is a sign in the foreign office that reads “The benefits are after you leave not while you are here”.  So this decision to return or not will be made when I complete my ten days.  

A thought came to mind that during this time it is small things that we are greatly appreciative:  This is something I will commit to bringing into my everyday life:

The feel of the sun shining on my face during my slow and conscious walking in my favorite place to meditate, what I call the Buddha garden where I have spread some of my Dad’s and George’s ashes and want some of my ashes spread. 

My ritual of having my coffee in the morning 

The taste of fresh orange juice from the temple gift shop 

A nun handing me a can of very cold Coca Cola with a straw

My favorite place to do sitting meditation being available

A raised platform surrounded by a mosquito net

What looked like a tarantula on my ceiling not falling on top of my body lying on the bed underneath

A hot shower and the feel of warm water streaming down my back whereas in the first two years there was only a cold shower

The chanting of the monks

It is the morning of the eighth day.  I can easily go in out and out of meditation.  My sitting is more comfortable with the frequency of meditating.  Clarity of mine and acceptance of things in my life have increased.  One thought this year has been the acceptance of aging, acceptance of doing less than what I used to do.  I feel better prepared to let go of the desire to do things I used to do.  I feel I am able to accept this letting go.   I was wishing that I can still ski.  I can still ski but why risk hurting my self and then living the rest of my life with an injury?  This is an example of complete acceptance because of the clarity of mind.  I accept that there is no more skiing in my life.  This creates things in my future to add to my to do list, close out the time share in Tahoe, give my skis to someone who needs them.  Letting go of some things gives me time to do other things which I am able to still do.  I am still able to travel, maybe make time for travel that is easier at this age, maybe a cruise? I want to commit my time to do more writing, more art, more pottery.   I feel these trips to Chiangmai are a bit more difficult at the age.  Maybe this is my last time or maybe I come less often?  This I will decide year from year based on this process of aging and necessity to slow down.  When people or activities walk away, it is what my spiritual leader, Panesh says,“Thanks for saving me the time”.   

I  dreamed of my mother last night, a peaceful dream that she was in a car traveling with me and she was driving.  I feel this was an affirmation that she is with me all the time guiding me.

It is the morning of my last full day, the ninth day.  I sit and drink my coffee and reflect on my time here, this ninth time.  I have prepared a gift bag of tea and special cup I bought in the gift shop to my special reporting monk, Bhikuni Agga Nani.  The words of wisdom from the monks who have donated their time to this solitude and spreading they knowledge to people like me to truly help us to be better human beings, to travel though our lives with more clarity.  When I expressed to her in my last reporting yesterday that this week has been about my acceptance of aging and that the realization of slowing down is the result.  I was not sure that I would travel as much and possibly not be here next year.  She reminded me to always make these decisions in the present moment and that we will not know our feelings in the future.  I do plan my calendar for the next year but her reminder made it clear to make all these plans only a possibility.  At this point the possibility is to return again over Thanksgiving of this November 2025.  As always, in the first part of my stay here,  I am counting my days wishing to not be here.  But as the time goes on, I acclimate into my routine, live in the present moment more and am more unaware of how many days are left.  It is this clarity and the wise words of my reporting monk that encourages me to live in the present moment.  Each present moment is appreciated.  Before I came on the flight, I watched the Christopher Robin movie and realized how much reference to meditation there was, never mentioning the word meditation.  One of Christopher’s lesson as a child to Winnie the Pooh was that “Doing Nothing Always Leads to Doing Something”. He realized he had lost his own message as an adult when he returned to the Hundred Acres Forest and Winnie reminded him of this important message.  Christopher’s boss would tell him “Doing Nothing Never leads to Anything” so he had lost this childhood wisdom of knowing this message to live in the present moment.  There are also other references to time and living in the present moment in the movie, “Yesterday was today and tomorrow will be today”.  My commitment is heightened to bringing into my life to live in today and in the present moment.  My commitment to continue sharing in my writings and teachings about my journey in mediation is a purpose in my life.  I will schedule more invitations to meditate with me at Pilgrim Labryinth and classes in the apartment Maker’s Studio, and in Ventura on the pier or a class wherein Keya, a Sangha friend who joined me this year, and I share about our experience.  

As Keya has said, focus on my true purpose for my future life, it is not only about the selling of clothing.  She calls me a connector, I can use this connector characteristics to encourage meditation which I feel is my primary purpose. 

Vipassana January 2024

 January 15 to January 24 vipassana 2024

It is the morning of going into the temple for my seventh ten day vipassana, beginning in 2016. I’m in the hotel restaurant eating my last traditional breakfast because all of the meals will be Thai in the temple.   I am conscious if I have remembered everything I need for the ten days in the temple. There is not much in my suitcase, it is half full of a memory foam and a comforter to sleep on so I don’t have too much pain in my old hips in the platform bed with only a yoga mat that the temple provides. The other half is full of my white clothing required by the temple.  It is amazing how little we need. To live with so little allows me to appreciate the pleasures I have in my home. During my vipassana last year, the monk to whom I report told me I needed to live where people love me. So I moved from California to North Carolina to be with my sister and her family.  Over the last six months of living in my beautifully decorated home and close to my loving family in Durham, I know this has been a solid and good decision. It is one of the many benefits of these vipassanas that allow me  to clear my mind to make these positive decisions in my life.  I wonder what decisions will be made this time. 

The morning of January 16 2024

I awake after my first night of my vipassana.  I was pleased that I coincidentally got assigned to the room I had last time.  I told the monk who assigns the room and he was also surprised.  And are there no coincidences?  I am happy I am in a room of familiarity, it is like I never left eleven months ago.  With no thought, I moved the bed as I did last year, to face the door and the the view of the outside. I enjoyed reading my notes from last year wherein the decision was made to move to the east coast.  It did became a reality sooner than I predicted. I am grateful of this time to slow down and make these life changing positive decisions.  I was also thankful to hear when I checked in yesterday that I will be reporting to the monastic teacher who I have reported to most years during my vipassanas.  I look forward to my first reporting with her this morning and thanking her for her guidance in my decision to move to the east coast to be close to my family, a decision which has been a great one.  

Late afternoon on January 16

What is the benefit of my vipassanas?  I clear my mind of all everyday clutter and am able to make future plans as I did last year with my move.   This year I predict there would be no change of plans.  I predict that this will be an affirmation that I am on the right journey.  Yes there may be some fine tuning as these days pass.  But as I declutter my mind, I have reflected on my future plans.  And all seems good.  Planning my schedule a year ahead gives me security.  I am enjoying my trips, visits to Cabo, Tahoe, and Thailand and my visits to California every other month.  And mostly I am enjoying my extra time spent with family living close by to all of them, my sister, my niece and her husband, my nephew and his wife and children, my cousin.  Life is good and this time of slowing down allows me to appreciate my life, my travel, my health and being close and spending time with family.

The morning of January 18

Third day of vipassana

The time has gone quickly unlike years before.  These first days were always difficult in the past vipasanas but I find this year I am able to get quickly into the rhythm of my days.  One must meditate, there is nothing else to occupy the time.  No phone and a great realization once again how attached we become to this device.   Why have these days been easier?  I feel like last year I was struggling with an uneasiness of my life being away from family.  I did not know this until I entered my ten days last year and struggled during these days to make a decision.  The decision was made, the move was made and now this year, I am not struggling with any big decisions. There is peace.  During one of my meditation sessions yesterday, the word “truth” came to mind.  I feel I am living my “truth.” 

These words referencing to “truth” struck me in a book written by  the renown monk Honorable Dr. Phra Dmmarmamangalajrn “Path to Nibbana” gifted to me by my reporting monk at my last reporting.

“To gain an insight into the three characteristics of impermanence, suffering, and non-self, the meditator has to contemplate the body/mind in the present moment while they are arising and ceasing perpetually. When the concentration is strong, the mind that usually wonders moving one thing to another becomes calm and still.  In this state the mind, focusing on mindfulness and acknowledging, sees and knows only what has never before been seen or known.  The mind then perceives to become satisfied to preserve the truth that there is the body/mind which keeps arising and ceasing”.

I found a magazine in the grocery store before I left only on the subject on creating mindfulness through meditation.  Being one who values research accomplishing a dissertation testing the significance on teaching kindness to the young children,  I value this academic research. I kept the pages that confirmed these proven benefits of meditation.  There are many including heightened immune system, happiness, memory, lack of anger, worry and stress, and being able to focus better.  It was nice to read about the research and to know that mediation has had these benefits in my own life.  

My plans are to get involved more in my home of Durham with meditation groups and see if there is a need there to form a group of my own.  I do think I have unique experiences to share and I am missing my sangha group in Ventura.  This would create a sangha group in Durham. I could start very small and find others who are interested in meeting once a week.  I have already made steps by discussing with pastor LIndy and Nancy Ruth in my new church to start a group.  We would include walking the labyrinth before church every Sunday that I am there.   I feel excitement with this plan and a need and desire to move into a teacher role. 

The morning of January 19

These days are not without difficulty and slow because nothing is here accept meditation.  There are times of restlessness and wishing the days would pass faster.  I am now waking up to my fifth day.  I do have feelings of more peace and less restlessness as the days pass.  Some of my meditations have been rich but others are difficult to settle in to and when I do, sleep is a hindrance.  I notice that looking around at others during their sittings, sleep is not uncommon.  I watch them as their heads fall forward.  

One beautiful part of the ten days is “Buddha Day” which occurs every Thursday evening which was last night.  All the meditators light candles and walk as a group around the pagoda three times in respect to the Buddha.  Then we place our lit candle, incense and flowers on the base of the over a thousand year old pagoda.  I have up and down thoughts of questioning why I am here but always like in the past, I have experienced that the greatest benefit is after the ten days are completed.  The walk with fellow meditators around the pagoda is a very spiritual and uplifting moment and I reflect as I am walking. It is necessary and beneficial to me that I continue my journey to attend my Vipasssana here annually.  All doubt has left me in this experience and flows into lack of doubt this morning.  

The morning of January 21

Sunday morning has always been the most enlightening day of the week for me.  And today is no exception.  Although I have resisted when my monk gives me the assignment to be “in determination,” I accepted whole heartedly today.  She asked me about it at the beginning of the week and I told her I did not want to do it.  But now that the days have given me this peace and relaxed feeling, my fear of it has disappeared.  I was actually excited and proud that she felt I was ready and prepared to end my time with the one day of “in determination”.  Originally my first “in determination” was for three days and at that time I was more serious about following the rules.   I have learned over these years that this vipassana experience is what I personally make it and I am in charge of my own journey.   Two friends from California came by on Friday on their Asian travel trip. As I introduced them to one of my monastic teachers who is in charge of the foreign office, I told my friends that he was the one in charge of me.  He corrected me and said “No, Kate is in charge of her self”.  A sign saying “in determination, please do not disturb” now hangs on my door.  During these next 24 hours of “in determination,” I only complete my mediation cycles in my room.   One of the kitchen staff has just come by to hang my lunch in plastic bags on my door on top of the sign.  One is told to try not to sleep but my monastic teacher who I report to and gives me my assignment, told me in my reporting to stay awake until the body shuts down for these next 24 hours.  The note that was left in my room by the previous meditator is brought to my mind.  Her words were a turning point in these vipassana journeys.  “They have lots of rules here, follow what you can but remember to do what comes natural to you in pursuit of your own journey”.   

The morning of Jan 22

I had the most vivid dream I have ever had.  It felt like it was total reality.  I have always said one reason I come to do these vipassanas is that I have visitors from those who have died.  This dream was about my dear Sophie.  Yes, a dog, but a dog more important to me in her fourteen years than most people.  My sister was in the dream with me and we were playing with another dog I owned, Jack, a Jack Russell.  My sister was trying to help me feel better and trying to convince me how special Jack was and I agreed but said he was not the same as Sophie.  I was sad because I had lost Sophie but not from death because she was alive and missing.  A very scruffy bearded man drove up in an old truck with Sophie and said he had come a long distance to bring her back to me.  I remembered at the moment I had given Sophie to this man because he was someone known to spiritually be able to tell what is physically wrong with an animal and know how long they will live.  He told me he had bad news because Sophie’s heart was not in its right place and she would die soon on her own but it would be best to put her out of her misery now.  This had happened to Sophie in reality and the vet had put her to sleep to her death five years ago as I held her in my arms.  I was comforted by this dream that I could hold Sophie in my arms once more and feel her heart and her love.  Did Sophie in this dream represent all the people who have passed on, my mother, my father, and George?  These are people who have felt their presence in this place during my vipassanas  in years before.  And during this determination, I am grateful Sophie came to me to represent that all of these loved ones are still present with me.  I feel this dream was most significant because this year more than others, I had no predictions or expectation of having visitors and they came naturally.  I remember the words of Ajahn Sukito when I said on my visit November before last to just come spend a morning and meditate, I said I had the deepest meditation that morning.   He said it is the energy of the place and the many years of meditation which have taken place here by so many. 

Morning of January 23

Happy Birthday to Phra Ajahn Suphon!  One reason I scheduled my vipassana for this week is that there is an annual celebration for Phra Ajahn Suphon, the head monk here and many temples in Thailand.  It is an especially important one because in the last year, he has had a close death experience with brain clots.  He is better now but the people here in the temple and outside the temple or showing their gratitude and wishes for his continued better health.  The temple is full of vendors gifting their food.  The temple is full of people coming from outside the temple to celebrate his birthday, bringing gifts to all the monks who live here to show their respect for creating good merit and loving kindness to the world.  When walking over to the kitchen to get my hot water for my coffee at four o’clock this morning, the temple was full of people preparing for the event.  

I have my closing ceremony after breakfast at seven this morning. My bed is stripped of sheets I will return to the foreign office and my bag is packed.  I look forward to my freedom outside of the temple.  This time away from the outside activity brings a heightened appreciation of my freedom in the outside world.  I look forward to having my phone returned to me after my closing and communicating with my loved ones. I will stay for the celebration this morning and return to my hotel after I sample the delicious food and pay my respects to Phra Ajahn Suphon.  

A new beginning

I have not written in a while.  

I am back.   

It has been on my to do list.  

So I begin to write again.  

One of my favorite places to write is on a plane.  At present I am looking down on this great Pacific Ocean traveling from Lax to Cabo San Lucas.  One reason I decided to make my primary home in Ventura California is that it was an only two hour plane trip to Cabo, a place I have visited three times in the last year.  I had planned more trips except after my first trip with my sister in February of 2019, the pandemic hit us. This is my third trip this year, 2021. 

I am honored to be asked to facilitate meditation retreats at the Thai temple in Goleta.  The schedule is posted on my co facilitator’s site purnamaya.com

I have just completed my fourth Vipassana
December 2018

Yesterday afternoon during my daily reporting with Prah Ajahn Suphon, the head monk at Wat Ram Poeng in Chiang Mai, Thailand, I was "released from "voluntary solitary confinement," my phrase for what the temple calls "in determination."   When I came for my third Vipassana this past January, I was told when I had completed my ten days by the nun who is head of the foreign office at the Wat that during my next visit, it is time for my "in determination" what she referred to as “graduation.”  There is an option for meditators to come for a 26 day stay and do their "in determination" at the end of their stay.  My stays have been ten days, fifteen days, ten days, and this time twelve days, consecutively.  Adding them all up, I have meditated at the temple on my first three Vipassanas  a total of 35 days and now 47 days total. So I added some days to this visit to prepare for it as she instructed, one needed at least 12 days, maybe more, because preparation for "in determination" was necessary and during the daily reports with the monk, he will decide when you are ready.  So five days ago, Prah Ajahn Suphan told me I would be going "in determination" after reporting the the next evening.  The next evening, he handed me a sign instructing me to hang it on my bedroom door, with the words:

IN DETERMINATION
PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB
THANK YOU

This morning as I type these words sitting on the balcony outside my guest house room overlooking the Ping River in Chiang Mai, I am feeling more refreshed and happy than I have ever been in my life.  I can not describe in words the feeling.  I feel I received a message from the universe this morning checking my email for the first time in two weeks, from one of my Krishnamurti daily messages.  I am not in the habit of reading these daily but happened to open this one which was sent nine days ago.

This message affirms my belief that this experience is too difficult to express in words the feelings which come from it.  And possibly it may take away from the benefits of the experience if I try too hard to explain it in words, especially that of being in complete solitude during "in determination" and meditating continually without sleep.  As always, when I am completing my Vipassana and it's challenges of hour after hour of meditating, especially wondering when the timer is going to go off during eventually a total hour of walking meditation, I wonder at those times why I put my self through this and think that I will never be back after this one.   I wanted to write these words this morning, especially for my own reminder that it is the feelings when you walk away from the experience which are the great benefit, those feelings of happiness and true clarity.  When I got back last night from the temple to the beautiful guest house where I stay every year, I was still having this feeling that I may never return to the Wat.  But after a total of at least eight hours of the most restful sleep I have ever had, except for being awakened one time with a severe cramp in my foot I had to walk off,  I awoke with great contentment and a pure joy of life.  The Ying Yang of life, it is like the conversation I will always remember I heard years ago between my then four year old nephew David and his four year old girlfriend, Lily.   They began a discussion on death in the back seat of my sister's car because we had just passed a graveyard. They agreed that death happens some time when you get very sick.  But some times you get sick because when you are sick, you feel better after you are sick than you felt before you are sick.  Is this not one of the reasons to put my self through this annual experience of a Vipassana?  Is it that after Vipassana, one experiences the every day life outside of the experience in a deeper way?


Quotes from J. Krishnamurti:

Effort is distraction from what is.
We must understand the problem of striving. If we can understand the significance of effort, then we can translate it into action in our daily life. Does not effort mean a struggle to change what is into what it is not, or what it should be, or what it should become? We are constantly escaping from what is, to transform or modify it. He who is truly content is he who understands what is, who gives the right significance to what is. True contentment lies not in few or many possessions, but in understanding the whole significance of what is. Only in passive awareness is the meaning of what is understood. I am not, at the moment, talking of the physical struggle with the earth, with construction or a technical problem, but of psychological striving. The psychological struggles and problems always overshadow the physiological. You may build a careful social structure, but as long as the psychological darkness and strife are not understood, they invariably overturn the carefully built structure.
Effort is distraction from what is. In the acceptance of what is, striving ceases. There is no acceptance when there is the desire to transform or modify what is. Striving, an indication of destruction, must exist so long as there is a desire to change what is.
The Book of Life, August 28, HarperSanFrancisco, 1995


The flash of understanding
I do not know if you have noticed that there is understanding when the mind is very quiet, even for a second; there is the flash of understanding when the verbalization of thought is not. Just experiment with it and you will see for yourself that you have the flash of understanding, that extraordinary rapidity of insight, when the mind is very still, when thought is absent, when the mind is not burdened with its own noise. So, the understanding of anything—
—of a modern picture, of a child, of your wife, of your neighbor, or the understanding of truth which is in all things—can only come when the mind is very still. But such stillness can not be cultivated because if you cultivate a still mind, it is not a still mind, it is a dead mind.
... The more you are interested in something, the more your intention to understand, the more simple, clear, free the mind is. Then verbalization ceases. After all, thought is word, and it is the word that interferes. It is the screen of words, which is memory, that intervenes between the challenge and the response. It is the word that is responding to the challenge, which we call intellection. So, the mind that is chattering, that is verbalizing, cannot understand truth—truth in relationship, not an abstract truth. There is no abstract truth. But truth is very subtle. It is the subtle that is difficult to follow. It is not abstract. It comes so swiftly, so darkly, it cannot be held by the mind. Like a thief in the night, it comes darkly, not when you are prepared to receive it.
The Book of Life, September 6, HarperSanFrancisco, 1995

Free from the net of time
Without meditation, there is no self-knowledge; without self- knowledge, there is no meditation. So, you must begin to know what you are. You cannot go far without beginning near, without understanding your daily process of thought, feeling , and action. In other words, thought must understand its own working, and when you see yourself in operation, you will observe that thought moves from the known to the known. You cannot think about the unknown. That which you know is not real because what you know is only in time. To be free from the net of time is the important concern, not to think about the unknown, because you cannot think about the unknown. The answers to your prayers are of the known. To receive the unknown, the mind itself must become the unknown. The mind is the result of the thought process, the result of time, and this thought process must come to an end. The mind cannot think of that which is eternal, timeless; therefore, the mind must be free of time, the time process of the mind must be dissolved. Only when the mind is completely free from yesterday, and is therefore not using the present as a means to the future, is it capable of receiving the eternal. ... Therefore, our concern in meditation is to know oneself, not only superficially, but the whole content of the inner, hidden consciousness. Without knowing all that and being free of its conditioning, you cannot possibly go beyond the mind’s limits. That is why the thought process must cease, and for this cessation there must be knowledge of oneself. Therefore meditation is the beginning of wisdom, which is the understanding of one’s own mind and heart.
The Book of Life, December 22, HarperSanFrancisco, 1995


Meditation
I am going step by step into what is meditation. Please don’t wait till the end, hoping to have a complete description of how to meditate. What we are doing now is part of meditation.
Now, what one has to do is to be aware of the thinker, and not try to resolve the contradiction and bring about an integration between thought and the thinker. The thinker is the psychological entity who has accumulated experience as knowledge; he is the time-bound center that is the result of ever-changing environmental influence, and from this center he looks, he listens, he experiences. As long as one does not understand the structure and the anatomy of this center, there must always be conflict, and a mind in conflict cannot possibly understand the depth and the beauty of meditation.
In meditation there can be no thinker, which means that thought must come to an end—the thought which is urged forward by the desire to achieve a result. Meditation has nothing to do with achieving a result. It is not a matter of breathing in a particular way, or looking at your nose, or awakening the power to perform certain tricks, or any of the rest of that immature nonsense. ... Meditation is not something apart from life. When you are driving a car or sitting in a bus, when you are chatting aimlessly, when you are walking by yourself in a wood or watching a butterfly being carried along by the wind—to be choicelessly aware of all that is part of meditation.
The Book of Life, December 23, HarperSanFrancisco, 1995


Aloneness is not loneliness
Though we are all human beings, we have built walls between ourselves and our neighbors through nationalism, through race, caste, and class—which again breeds isolation, loneliness. Now a mind that is caught in loneliness, in this state of isolation, can never possibly understand what religion is. It can believe, it can have certain theories, concepts, formulas, it can try to identify itself with that which it calls God; but religion, it seems to me, has nothing whatsoever to do with any belief, with any priest, with any church or so-called sacred book. The state of the religious mind can be understood only when we begin to understand what beauty is; and the understanding of beauty must be approached through total aloneness. Only when the mind is completely alone can it know what is beauty, and not in any other state.

Aloneness is obviously not isolation, and it is not uniqueness. To be unique is merely to be exceptional in some way, whereas to be completely alone demands extraordinary sensitivity, intelligence, understanding. To be completely alone implies that the mind is free of every kind of influence and is therefore uncontaminated by society; and it must be alone to understand what is religion—which is to find out for oneself whether there is something immortal, beyond time.

The Book of Life, December 2, HarperSanFrancisco, 1995

I have just found a draft below never published transcribed from part of my journal written during my second year of meditation.  I will work on transcribing more of my journal.  My third Vipassana was with my cousin in January of 2018.  I did not journal much this time.  I returned for a fourth time in December of 2018 and return for a fifth time this November 2019.  

January 14, 2017 day two

It has been easier than I thought it would be.  My grandson, Tyler gave me the awareness when he asked if I were excited about going to Thailand. I realized how apprehensive I was, not looking forward to the first days since it had been so difficult last year. Now here this first evening and the following morning have been pleasurable, it proves I am in a different place. No fears, no trying to control and analyze my future, more present. I am learning more and able to let go, we should look upon our future with happiness, not worries because we have no idea what the future brings.  We only have this present moment.

Sunday, January 15 day three

I have the title of old student now not because I am old but because I have been here before. Every now and then the foreign Monk guide asked me to explain things to the new students. Only one other student in this large group of 25  has been here before but her stay was in 2004. Sarah lives in Italy and is from New Zealand.  The group is mostly travelers and dual resident meditators. There are very few Americans, mostly Europeans in this group, one man is from Colorado who teaches ESL in China.  

Today the women reported to the female monk and the men to the male monk and we will continue to alternate our reporting visits with each teacher during our stay. I came a few minutes early and was able to see the monk first.  I did my three bows to show my respect to and expressed

how grateful I was for her inspiration.  In the opening, she asked those of us who had been here before to stay longer, giving us each instructions individually. I told her I had been meditating an hour each day since leaving last year, she smiled with pride at me. She gave me a card which told me to start with step three alternating with 30 minutes of sitting.   

Today's mediation was rewarding, because I was determined to sit through the pain in my left hip, normally always having to change positions to lessen the pain.  Toward the end, I was so happy that
my pain disappeared and felt proud that my practice was advancing to finally take the advise of many monks to accept and release the pain. When I walked to breakfast after my first walking and sitting practice, I felt a difference in my walk, as if I had been to a pt appointment.

January 16 Monday Day Four

The superior monk was not there at his home as he was every reporting period last year, we reported to an assistant monk, Prah Along.  I showed him the instruction card the female monk had given me.  He told me I was not supposed to do the fourth step until I had breathed into all the points, he showed me the sitting Buddha with the white dots and instructed me to breathe into six of the twenty eight points.  I will remember to ask the female monk about their conflicting instructions.  

After reporting, I chose to return to the patio our aide last year's room on the second floor.  There are memories of sitting there last year with fellow meditators, Deborah and Rose.

Prostration walking sitting photos

The following photos are copied from a book I received during one of my five annual vipassanas in Wat Rampoeng in Chiang Mai Thailand.  They exhibit in visual form the tools I have been learning these last four years of my ten days of silence.  The first two photos show the specific positions of the prostrations.  Beginning at four am each morning with five sets of two hour meditation periods during each of the consecutive days of silence, three bows are preformed.  The second two photos are the six walking positions.  When beginning the first year in 2015, the monk told me to begin with the first step and as days passed during my daily afternoon reportings with the monk, he or she advanced me through the steps eventually getting to the sixth step.  The fourth photo is the specific way of turning when you reach the end of your chosen path.   The last two photos are the proper way of meditative sitting and the 28 breathing points.  The Thai monks have a saying, "Do not feed the monkey in your brain."  I have found in these last years of my knowledge of the breathing points and practicing these points during my daily meditations, it helps me to get the monkey out of my brain and release all thoughts except that of being present.  True your breath cannot go to these places but as you take these conscious breaths, you focus your thought on these points of your body.