Vipassana Vault: Day 1
Context
After more than two weeks spent mulling over the experience, losing the plot at times, forgetting everything I learned and felt, and being swept back up into the real world, I finally have set aside time to reflect—in writing—upon my 10-day Vipassana retreat in Kyoto, Japan. I tried my best to keep a mind palace throughout the ten silent days (plus the two additional days as well). Mercifully, I dumped everything into a series of voice memos on the train back to Ōsaka, which has allowed me to let go a little bit over the past week, knowing that my in-the-moment thoughts are there to return to.
In short, a mind palace refers to the mnemonic technique of mentally placing information in specific locations along a familiar route or space. For me, I chose my bedroom growing up, with each day being allocated a particular section within it. To recall the information, you simply take a mental walk through that space and pick up what you left there. It leverages the strong spatial and visual memory of the brain to encode otherwise abstract or hard-to-remember information. I tried my best to make up little stories and objects scenes that would stick in my mind more easily.
Hence, I’d originally titled this series Inside the Mind Palace of a Mad Man, but that felt too complicated in hindsight, and kind of misses the major detail about these reflections in that they relate to a Vipassana course. So, the Vipassana Vault it is instead.
Over the next ten days, I’ll share my Vipassana adventure with you through this mind palace lens, hopefully offering a light-hearted spin on the whole journey and using it as a gateway to dive deeper into what I felt. Ultimately, this is both an exercise for myself in aiding my own digestion and processing of the retreat, but also a medium to share everything I experienced with others.
I should clarify: each day from one to nine was essentially the exact same, in terms of schedule. You can hopefully find a simple snapshot here. Whilst the minutiae of how I exactly used these chunks of time varied from day to day, the overall gist was unchanged. These mind palace reflections, therefore, intend to highlight mainly just the moments or thoughts that stood out to me, rather than attempting to capture every detail in a running commentary fashion.
Day 1
Okay, so I appreciate that my post about the arrival day dragged on a little and didn’t really stay within the confines of the day itself, nor the mind palace I’d created to remember it by. Hopefully, each of the next few days will be a little more concise, light-hearted, and only mention the highlights. Because truthfully, they all blend into one for the most part. We’ll see how it plays out. Perhaps I remember more as I write and it again becomes convoluted, rather than clear. From today onwards, there will be a theme song! The soundtrack to my insanity. The tune that looped over and over again, echoing in the empty chamber of my skull. Here it is.
Song of the Day
Flicks by Frou Frou
Such an apt song, yet also a puzzling choice. A song close to my heart that reminds me strongly of Mary. Also a song that can feel deeply maddening when looped. The four-minute runtime actually doesn’t feature all that many lyrics. The section that played most in my head was a long, dance-inducing interlude filled with a colourful instrumental and a heavy leaning on Imogen’s nondescript onomatopoeia. If you’ve heard the song, you’d probably know what section I’m referring to. Anyway, I think this track reflected how I felt delusional in a way throughout Day 1. When a catchy song starts being played everywhere, all the time, it quickly sours, becoming your least favourite melody. That hasn’t happened with this tune fortunately, but it did drive me insane during this particular 24 hours.
In revisiting the mind palace I constructed to represent this day, I can see the unmistakable black cat logo of Yamato Transport, unloading cute little ice sculptures from the back of the truck. One of them falls out. Another wears a watch. Therein you can see the lunacy of this entire mind palace exercise already to some extent.
An incredibly difficult day. One that stretched on an impossibly long time, offering only morsels of respite. All three that I want to share arose in moments of pacing the garden, where I walked endless circles around my mind.
Early in the day, it was the Yamato truck. A symbol that will live on long past the end of this trip in our heads as a beacon of many things Japan. Watching one pull into the retreat brought me back to reality in some ways. An encounter with civilisation! Normal life was still out there, co-existing with this strange world. In fact, they were connected. Not mutually exclusive, though it was so easy to convince yourself otherwise. They delivered fresh produce to the kitchen, handed a form to the centre manager, then up and left. Timely, organised, and incredibly useful. An epitome of Japanese service.
In a similar vein, when I emerged from lunch, there was a heartwarming little row of ice sculptures just over the female side of the garden (segregation was enforced throughout the retreat). Snow had fallen the day before, and someone had taken the time to make each of these carefully by hand this morning. They were extremely cute. A snowman. A little dog. Something a tad more indistinguishable. A smile stretched across my face.
Within the ice held several lessons for a version of myself in distress. It was a reminder of the stunning nature around me. I’d essentially taken this winter wonderland for granted. The stuff of dreams for many a Queenslander. It also communicated optimism and opportunity. That we have the potential to take the conditions we’re given in the world around us and shape them into something incredible. Additionally, there were other amazing people here with a beautiful heart, perhaps trying to bring light to, not only their day, but everyone else’s as well. On the flip side, the very concept of impermanence that we would meditate on for nearly two weeks rang true. Every time I gazed back towards them, they’d melted a little more than last time. Eventually, there’d be nothing left. When I came back out early on Day 2, they were just left as clumps of ice. Enjoy things while you can.
Wandering around the centre grounds whilst deep in your mind can put you in somewhat of a trance. As I gazed off into nothingness while approaching the wooden stairs leading back up to my favourite walking loop, I slipped over and fell onto all fours, hands covered in a mixture of mud and melted slush. The course manager stood near the top of the stairs, about to ring the bell to signal a return to the hall. It wouldn’t be my last embarrassing encounter, but it was an important one. I felt like crying. But also, it gave my body a jolt of adrenaline I’d actually been missing. The science mind within me couldn’t help but express curiosity at the sudden expression of my sympathetic nervous system. My body still worked. I was still very much human and very much my clumsy self.
Finally, my watch. On Day 1, I kept checking the time, over and over again. Yet, no time ever seemed to have passed. By 3pm, it feels like three full days should have flown by. I was constantly yearning for future moments to hurry up and arrive. Trying to cross many a bridge I could see in the distance. Longing for escape. In some ways, this is a quintessential Vipassana experience, but also one at the core of human struggle and meditation itself. We can never feel any moment except this one we’re in right now, yet we’re constantly trying to shed this moment for a different one. Another option. A more preferable one. Amongst this, we miss everything that the present offers us. I was clinging onto the concrete concept that the numbers on my watch face represented. But seeing them slowly tick over was torture. I was watching paint dry, and it never seemed to be drying much at all.
Day 1 was an excruciating introduction at times, I’ll be honest. I suppose that probably mirrors the experiences of most others. Routines are yet to be established and you are still finding your feet. Among it all though, there were moments of optimism, positivity, and plenty of time for reflection of course. By this time, I was still very anxious about leaving others in the dark on the previous day. Like on arrival day, this night I also cried myself to sleep. Yet, a positive, and also curious, outlook was equally present. I could tell that this was a special opportunity. I just needed to settle in.
