Last month, from 27 December 2024 to 7 January 2025, I did Vipassana 10-days meditation retreat for the first time, and here are some of my personal experiences.
How do I know about Vipassana?
January 2022, when I went back to my home in Bekasi, Indonesia, I saw an Instagram post by Agustinus Wibowo, one of my favorite Indonesian travel writers, who shared his experience with this ancient Buddhist meditation technique. His personal stories were also shared on his homepage, and it really inspired me to experience it myself.
I went to Dhamma Java, one of Indonesia's Vipassana centers in the Puncak area, Bogor, West Java. I contacted the organizer to ask if I could visit the place at the end of the retreat day, and it’s possible. The first encounter amazed me in many ways when I experienced the kindness of the organizers and also the people who just finished the end-of-the-year 10-day silence retreat.
COVID-19 and Blessing in Disguise
I was so excited when I finally got a chance to do my first Vipassana retreat in Finland in December 2023. Unfortunately, I’ve got COVID-19 just a few days before the first day of the retreat. The 10-days retreat, became my 10-days of self-isolation. It sounds very unfortunate at first, until I found out that these isolation days were the stepping stone for me to find out what’s next step for me in Europe.
I reflected more about my life, and somehow, one day before I recovered, on 2 January 2024, I dreamed about a place with sunny scenery, which is in the University of Bremen or the University of Groningen. I never heard about Groningen before, while Bremen was already in my plan before coming to Estonia. I checked Google Maps and found out that these two cities are close by: Bremen in Germany and Groningen in The Netherlands. Lead by this dream vision, I made decision to apply again for University of Bremen, Digital Media master program. Something to answer my “What If” question: in 2019, I chose Germany instead of Estonia. The whole story can be read in my Thread post here (in Indonesian language).
Registration in Vipassana Germany
Fast forward to September 2024, I had already moved to Bremen, Germany, and somehow woke up at midnight time, wondering about what was missing from my plan in Germany. The failure to do Vipassana last year in Finland made me more curious about doing this now in Germany. I searched via the Vipassana course website and found out there are two sites in Germany that have retreat days at the end of the year, one in Triebel (the center) and one in Meppen. I chose the Meppen over Triebel, considering the closer distance from Bremen. Thankfully, it’s the first application day, so the quota is still available.
Arrival in Meppen
Arriving at Meppen train station, I walked to the the youth hostel where Vipassana Meppen will be held. I met a woman when getting close to the hostel, but the experience was not so good. I tried to greet her, but she said we must start to live in noble silence, even from day 0 (registration day). I personally felt weird, but later I started to learn how to live in silence, which at first sounds like a very boring life.
Finished the registration (in almost silence), we started to give our attachment for deposit (including smartphone, electronic devices, books, smart watch, religious thing, etc). We put our stuff in our 4-persons shared room and starting the introduction evening followed by a light dinner. The meditation area for men and women is separated. You can read more about the preparation here.
All of the discourses came from the recorded audio or video from the teacher Goenka. You can easily find the recording via YouTube or Dhamma app, but the experience of watching or listening to it during the 10-days silence retreat is different.
First Three Days of the Retreat
The first day, we supposed to wake up at 4 am, but the organizer seems mistakenly checked the time, and we got a morning bell (using peacefully sounded gong) at 3 am instead. I came around 4 am just to realize that nobody is coming, since we supposed to start the first meditation morning at 04:30 am instead. As we’re living in noble silence, not everyone knows until the last day we knew that it was a mistake :D
The first three days, we learned about Anapana technique, to observe natural, normal respiration, as it comes in and as it goes out. The daily routine looks like this:
- 04:00 am — Wake up bell
- 04:30–06:30 am — Morning meditation in hall or in your room
- 06:30–08:00 am — Breakfast break
- 08:00–09:00 am — First Group Meditation
- 11:00 am-12:00 pm — Lunch Break
- 12:00-1:00 pm — Rest or interviews with the teacher
- 1:00–2:30 pm — Meditate in the hall or in your room
- 2:30–3:30 pm — Second Group meditation
- 3:30–5:00 pm — Meditate in the hall or in your room according to the teacher’s instructions
- 5:00–6:00 pm — Tea break
- 6:00–7:00 pm — Third Group meditation
- 7:00–8:15 pm — Teacher’s Discourse in the hall
- 8:15–9:00 pm — Short Group meditation in the hall
- 9:00–9:30 pm — Question time in the hall
- 9:30 pm — Sleeping time
I remember one of the first 3-days discourses when Teacher Goenka said that many new students were expecting to get some ecstasy or supernatural feeling when practicing this. Still, we found out that this is a very natural way of meditation, observing your breath. The on-site assistant teacher kept asking the same question, “Do you feel a sensation below your nostril?”. I can see some people felt bored, the same way that I felt, and I counted that there were two or three people from male participants who left before the end of the course. I had a similar feeling until day 4 came.
The Real Vipassana Starting from Day 4
Starting from day 4, we started practicing the Vipassana technique, the body-scanning type of meditation. The challenge is staying still and keeping our eyes closed for 1-hour sitting meditation without moving our posture or position. The first few practices were difficult for me, especially in maintaining posture. The curiosity to open my eyes, to make sure if everybody also suffering like me, is becoming my early bad habit. In reality, I will not know about other’s suffering, as we’re staying in silence during the meditation. There were a couple of times when I also had an urgency for a toilet break. But again, if it’s urgent, of course, you’re allowed to take a toilet break, as I confirmed through a question to assistance teacher :”)
Three times a day, we did the mandatory 1-hour group-sitting meditation. Day 4 until day 7, it was a suffering for me. In one of the discourse video, there is also funny comment from teacher Goenka, when one of his students asked, “everything in this retreat is very good, but can you please remove the 1-hour sitting part?”. Some of us are laughing without talking, as we’re still in the noble silence.
Crying in the Morning Walk
One morning after breakfast, around 7am, as usual I decided to do morning walk outside. Following the boredom after 4–5 days living in noble silence, accompanied with the winter darkness in early morning, I started to have grieving process again. Usually I remembering more about my mom who passed away two years ago, but on this time it was my dad who passed away one and half years ago. All the memories from my childhood with him were suddenly re-appearing in my mind, mostly all the good memories. The boredom somehow re-open my old memories with him, which usually never showing up in my normal and busy daily life.
I’m crying when walking, a bit shy because some other persons who are also walking outside probably can hear my crying voice. But because it’s still dark outside, my face was covered properly. Later, I found out this moment made me stronger to come back to meditation and noble silence. While for some reasons, the topic of the Vipassana discourse in the evening also touching the story about grieving. I also asked our assistant teacher about the grieving and what if I’m crying during the meditation session, and he answered, “let it be!”, as Vipassana is not the teaching about repressing your emotion, but instead, accepting this emotion, “Annica”, every sensation is not permanent, both unpleasant or pleasant sensation. It made me feel peaceful in many good ways.
Healthy Vegetarian Food
The retreat will not went well, without the people behind the kitchen. They are the old students who are dedicate their time as volunteers (without getting paid), during our 10-days meditation. This is one of the Dhamma practice from Vipassana, when people do the retreat, meditate, and serve each other in the same time.
The menu is always vegetarian and looks very healthy. It was decided by the organizer of the kitchen team. Without processed food, the 10-days made me have a healthy detoxification diet from possible unhealthy food that I probaly eat some days.
Recapping All “Dragon Ball” Stories
As one of the Japanese manga that I read a lot during my childhood, Dragon Ball by Akira Toriyama has a special place in my life. There was a moment when I felt so bored inside my mind, and I decided to recapping all stories of Dragon Ball from Kid Goku until the ending of the manga in volume 42. It was a rejuvenating moment when I could passed the time quickly in silence. Some people call it “daydreaming”, but sometimes we need it for creative purpose :”)
Excellent Sleep Quality
I tracked my sleeping quality with my old Huawei smart band, and found out that it went very well, especially with longer deep sleep. In our daily routines, we went to our bed room around 9pm after the last group meditation session.
Because there was nothing to do (no books, no gadget, nothing with us), in my case, it was so easy to go for sleep directly. Thanks to my other three flatmates, I’ve got no temptation to do cheating in many ways. I think this is the power of presence of each other. Even we can’t communicate, their presence is enough to make me feel belonging to the retreat.
Sleep Talking
One of the funny parts was when I forgot to tell my flatmates from the very first day before the noble silence started, that I used to be a person who are doing sleep talking sometimes in my sleep. Because of that, until the last day, they don’t know who are talking in the middle of the night, and guess the wrong person in my room. Yes, it’s also because we don’t know each other’s voices 😂
Day 10 When Everyone is Talking
Finally it came when everyone can talk with each other, outside of the meditation hall. The nuance was totally different after 9 days of noble silence. I can felt the total noisy life surround me. Everyone seems trying to share their retreat experience, while for some people including me, it was very difficult to summarize all 9 days experiences in few minutes. Despite of these limitations, I felt so grateful to be able to communicate again.
Donation and Commercialism
In his discourse, teacher Goenka emphasize again about the core values of Vipassana meditation. To prevent it to become a commercial spiritual retreat, the organizer only accepting money donation from those who are finishing 10-days retreat at least one time. They are not accepting donation from company, business, or any individual sponsors, for that purpose.
1.5 Months After Vipassana Retreat
Since 7 January 2025, the last day of the retreat, I felt a different awareness about (sometimes) my boring life. The teaching of “Annica”, really shaped me in both physical and mental health awareness. I’m continuing the 1-hour sitting meditation, ideally one time in the morning and one time in the evening.
Sometimes, I can combine the my Catholic way of prayer in this personal 1-hour meditation, something that we can’t do during the 10-days retreat for the sake of purity of the meditation techniques. I’m starting to get rid of (sometimes) my blind faith or ritual about my religious life.
Vipassana is really taught me about the very essence of our life as living being, “breathing and awareness”.
Let me end this reflection with this words during the closing of our meditation. (It’s not mantra, but simply a chanting for a good wish)
“Bhavatu sabba mangalam”, may all beings be happy :)
Our Vipassana Retreat Place in Jugendherberge Meppen, Germany
