Second Vipassana retreat

I travel ‚back‘ to Dharamsala, exactly to Dharmakot to the Vipassana center. It’s on 2000m elevation level in a cedar forest.
The second day rain and some ice crystals fall down. When the sun is not coming out on 2000m, then it’s getting very cold…. In the main meditation hall, where the 45 participants sits, it feels like +5 degrees. Everyone is enrolled in one or two blankets. Underneath winter clothes, shals and hats, some wear even gloves. The third day is still cloudy, then slowly slowly day by day it becomes a bit warmer….. ? but no-one says anything, everyone in silence ?

I am challenged by my eating allergies. Since the last Vipassana course in November I discovered, that I have some more ‚allergies‘. So beside not being able to eat onions and garlic, I dicovered, that hot food as well as gluten is not good for my body. I also don’t eat sugar…. So…. what is left on the buffet in the morning and at lunch in an Indian country? Not a lot….. but by my surprise, I eat so little during this retreat, and there was no hunger at all. I always found a little bit… and there was no problem, if I had just some cucumbers at lunch, because the dish was to hot…. no hunger. The meditation nurished me a lot. Feels like ‚meditation-no hunger‘.
I even understand my eating disorders as a blessing. Not having the allergies – I would not be able to learn my lessons – I need so little….
There is no craving, not at all. If I come to the dining hall, with expectations to eat something, and the food is just to spicy, not a moment of sorrow or lamentation, not a moment of craving… ok, then I have just some slices of cucumber and carrot…. fine… this is a bit new to me…. but so good…. and no hunger….
And easily I can investigate and observe, is there craving or non craving….
During the retreat I have sometimes three boxes of food in my mind. I saw that in a shop before the course. A box of Tahina – sesame paste, a big liter glass of real honey (honey in India is often mixed with some syrup) and a liter of olive oil. It’s not, that I missed anything in the retreat, it’s about, if I should get it after the course, could I carry it all, and … if I buy it, can I resist, for example the Tahina, or would I start craving again?…. is it really necessary to get it….? Can I be responsibly with it?… Will I eat not to much later on?…

Also since the last retreat I got even more sensitive. If I go behind someone with a perfume I have the taste for maybe the whole day on my tongue. If I drink from a metal glass, the same, taste on metal in my mouth…. if there is some disinfection clorine in the urinal, I carry that smell for hours…. if I touch a metal pole with my hand somewhere, I can taste it, too…. actually it’s not totally new, but more intense. …
But because of that, I can even feel more… there is also a good side….

Again I see the Buddha statues in my mind, but this time only in the beginning… I ask myself, what it could mean… and I got a helpful answer….. ‚be like a statue’…. How to understand this? I ask myself…. so I try….
During meditation I sit like a statue…. a statue does not have any tension in the body, there is no effort to hold any muscle, so I release any little tiny muscle…. I think I am relaxed, but there are little tiny muscles who still hold a bit…. releasing I can feel it even in my brain….. A statue does not think…. so I try to let go of effort or idea, that something in my mind has to think…..  A statue is just…. nothing has to be done….. (But it’s not like being from stone or metal, if someone would touch me, there would be flexibility to see, there is ease….) From a statue perspective everything what arises and passes is ‚ok‘, no judgment….. just observing…. as the teacher tought….. and there is no problem for a statue, just to sit and be for one hour…. This statue thing, even though they maid be also another meaning behind it, is just helping me….

At the 6th day something happens…. and I wait for this to come since years…. There is always a blockage at my diaphragm. … I have the feeling since years, something want to come up, release upwards, but there is that blockage….. so at my diaphragm is because of that pain, accumulated energy…..
The teaching is, not to react on it. Not to wish, that it should go…. not to wish, that the pain is not there…… or should go….. no craving for a better feeling….. no craving for a release…. the teaching is, just to observe!!….
This is the only way, to develop equanimity with whatever arises or passes, to totally accept, what is (there), then, by total acceptance, then something maid change (or not)….. because everything in this world arises and passes….. witnessing and observing the arising and passing is one part, too….

The teaching is also, that everyone has a lot of lives, (if you don’t believe in this, think of all the lifes from your ancestors) until the total liberation. In this countless life times we have accumulated a lot of negative energies, who are stored as let’s say ‚packets‘, called Sankaras (Pali-old language of India) The Sankaras get stored if we start craving or getting attached to something or someone…. if we just experience,  and don’t cling to it, nothing will be stored. Also the bad behaviors, such as killing, lying, sexual missuse, taking intoxicants, stealing get momorised and stored as Sankaras until we understand better and follow universal rules.

That 6th day, sitting there as a flexible statue, observing with quite some pain my diaphragm area, willing not to react on it, accepting totally the existence of it (with all the pain), not wanting that it has to change or go….. then….. it opened up….. what a release, all the Sankaras, I could feel and see, that they managed to flow upwards, and out of my body…. hundreds and hundreds and hundreds…. this happens in the afternoon and continued after midnight…… facinating and happy….. observing observing…..