You couldn't ask for a more ideal location than
Camp Jaycee, Virginia for a long meditation course. Nestled in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia, it is truly remote if you don't live locally or don't have a vehicle of your own.The closest airport or a train station is in Raonoke, 15 miles from the camp. The airfare is quite expensive even from nearby cities like New York or Washington DC and the Amtrak train service is no cheaper. You get to Raonoke, and there's another 15 miles you have to deal with - a five hour journey if walking is your only choice! A secluded, unadulterated location for a 10 day soul-searching exercise, but almost inaccessible if you have to rely on public transport.
 |
| Camp Jaycee, Blue Ridge VA |
There was no way that a nomad like me would make it to Blue Ridge on my own. My brother couldn't miss his work on a Wednesday, and everybody else had the same commitment (If it was in England, people could call sick at work in a heartbeat. This is one of the reasons why I am not very fond of America). The cost of the airfare or the train tickets was too much for the 10 day retreat I was supposed to enjoy for free, and hence the option out of question. So I was very close to cancelling my place for the course. However, where there is a will, there is a way. I had put up my name on the rideshare board maintained by the organizers. Rideshare board is where people who need a ride to a
vipassana camp can register their name and fellow meditators who plan to drive can offer them a ride. And presto! I got an email from my savior. A gem of a a guy called Sanjeeb- a student of Economics at the University of Maryland, who had done the course once before.
I was very happy that I didn't have to cancel something I so dearly wanted to experience. I packed my bag with clothes, pillow, bedsheets and toiletries, and headed to the train station where Sanjeeb agreed to pick me. Sanjeeb was, as Americans would call him, awesome! He looked newer than his Toyota Corolla. A young man funding his study with his own means had his car on the bottom of his priority pyramid. But the Corolla took me by surprise- it was like an epic book with torn covers. It ran as smoothly as butter, even in some mountain stretches that resembled the
Daaunne Ko Ukalo in Nepal.
So after a 5 hour journey with a lot of chitter-chatter and a veggie lunch break in between, we got to Camp Jaycee.The lunch was unforgettable. For $3.99 each, it was the cheapest Chinese buffet I had ever had in my life. And boy, it was not bad! At 5 o'clock in the evening, we had reached the camp. The registration was completed, our mobile phones and valuables were handed over. We had a light evening meal with fellow students and we were introduced to our assistant teacher (late SN Goenka who structured the Vipassana course and spread it outside Burma is regarded as the teacher, and those who instruct students in a meditation camp are his assistants) and managers. We were briefed about the course and the dos and donts. For the next 10 days all men would be separated from female students, we would not cross our boundaries, never speak to anyone, and observe the five precepts of Budhha's teachings: I will refrain from telling lies, stealing, killing, having sex and taking intoxicants (alcohol and drug). There were 3 more precepts for old students (who had undertaken a course earlier). You would only get limited amount of vegetarian food during the course period.
Facilities at Blue Ridge
Most of the Vipassana camps across the world are permanent facilities owned by the Dhamma organizations. Majority of them have state of the art meditation, resting and dining facilities. The Camp Jaycee at Blue Ridge, however, is a rented property and has a number of limitations. The
Mid Atlantic Vipassana Association (MAVA) rents the property to organize meditation camp once or twice a year.
There were a meditation hall, a dining hall partitioned into two for men and women, about a dozen bungalows, toilet facilities and a car park. Each bungalows had about a dozen beds spread left and right of a passage in the middle, and a couple of toilets and showers to share with fellow boarders. An adjoining cabin had sitting facilities, where you could relax and enjoy the jungle outside. Having to wake up at 4 with the chiming bells, and being allowed to take rest only after 9 in the evening when the last meditation ends, many struggle to sleep well when there are other strangers around. Not being able to communicate with one another makes it even more difficult, as your mind keeps flooding with so many thoughts. On the second night, there was this guy who walked around with his rucksack on, and I began to liken him to a guy with guns and lied down cowered for hours before falling asleep. You don't get a good sleep at least for a few days until you have settled to this new environment.
The food
Vipassana course has strict meal rules. You would get a breakfast at 6.30 in the morning and your lunch at 11. You would then get few fruits and a tea at 5 in the evening, and that is all.The old students are only allowed to have tea in the evening. Breakfast was fine- a variety of breads, cereals and fruits with a selection of preserves and condiments. The lunch was pretty average, lots of variety but far from the spicy blends we Asians are used to with. Whenever something tasty was served, there was a rush amongst the male meditators. And it would finish before everyone came in. At the beginning, the weird sounds of stomachs churning would interrupt your concentration in the meditation hall. I kept struggling to stop salivating thinking about my dinners.You had no choice over your food, the management made a list of menus and the volunteers followed the manuals to bring food that had no consistent taste to your table. However, there were healthy salads, beans and vegetables that forged a nutritious balance. The cost of a meditation camp is paid for by the donations of the old students. (Students donate according to their means and wills at the end of a Vipassana camp). This includes the purchase of grocery. The idea being that the new students live a life of a hermit, eating foods donated by others.
The meditation technique
The class starts with a discourse of S N Goenka in the first evening. He introduces the technique of Ana Pana, where you sit in a comfortable position, close your eyes and try to observe your breathing. You return to your quarters and from the next morning, 10 days of lengthy meditations begin. For the first two days you continue Ana Pana, observing your breath and learning to focus and medtitate in a stable posture. This prepares you for the Vipassana meditation due to begin on the third full day of the course. However, the first two days also make you more agitated as you try to comprehend the technique and experience its effectiveness. The instructions are often repetitive and you start to feel bored. The combination of repetitive instructions, uncomfortable and tiresome sittings, food discipline, sleep deprivation and quietness had made me contemplate leaving the course on the second day.We later found out that two students had left the camp on the third morning.
From the third day, Vipassana meditation starts. By this time, I could get used to with my posture. I could sit on lotus position for hours without moving. And the meditation was about observing the sensations throughout the body. You are instructed to close your eyes and feel the sensations from head and move downwards to the feet and vice versa.
You would feel pleasing sensations, unpleasant sensations and various subtle sensations, but would observe them equanimously and without reacting to any of them. You would not crave for pleasant sensations and you would not have aversion for unpleasant sensations, and keep moving your focus to different parts of the body. In this way, you would understand that all sensations- pleasant, unpleasant and subtle ones were temporary, and you would learn just to observe them and let go without reacting. SN Goenka explains that our body reacts with pleasant or unpleasant sensations to everything we hear or see or feel, and practicing Vipassana would strengthen your resistance to such sensations, thus making you immune from the cravings and aversions of the material world. When you have no cravings or aversions, you can effortlessly handle the ups and downs of your life. You become the master of your mind and body, you become enlightened. This idea made a lot of sense to me as days passed by.
On the 10th day, you are taught a meditation technique called Metta Bhavna. This is about wishing well of everyone in the world. At the end of your Vipassana sessions, you think of everyone else and wish for their happiness and well being. Your meditation is more fruitful when you end it thinking about the well being of others- every living beings of the world!
The discourses
The discourse videos of late SN Goenka were the highlights of the meditation camp for me. The one-hour long recorded videos were played every evening, beginning from 7 o'clock. In the discourses, he explains about Dhamma- the law of nature and the changing characteristics of everything around us. Taking references from Budhha's life and teachings, giving examples with interesting stories and anecdotes and making subtle and witty remarks about human behaviors, his discourse videos persuade us to realize the fragility of our ephemeral life. "The art of living is to recognize that everything around our life is temporary, and to resist indulging on temporary sensations", he says. "Our mind is being used as a bottomless bucket where we keep filling in our desires. The more we fill in, there's room for more. Each desire turns into a misery and we end up carrying a mountain of miseries on our head." He backs his argument with scientific reasoning too: our body is composed of tiny sub-atomic particles (known as Kalapas in Buddhism) constantly reacting to each other and changing every seconds. As we are morphed into a new composition of matter each seconds, we have a new oneself. Like, when a river flows, the wave of water in front of our eyes moves downstream and a new wave comes along. The river is a wave or a bulk of water constantly flowing- one after another. We think its the same, but we are witnessing a new river every moment. So is our life.
We should stop clinging on to a particular time, experience pleasant or painful feelings about them and be miserable by indulging on them. Once we understand and acknowledge the transient nature of everything we come across, we learn how to stop craving and clinging on to material things, and overcome misery. By practicing Vipassana, by deeply observing whats going on within our body, we learn to realize that we are just a lump of millions of sub-atomic particles undergoing chemical reactions, and understand that our body, our pleasures and sufferings are impermanent and there is no reason to be miserable worrying about temporary objects. You may not agree with everything said on all discourses, but those on day 1, 3, 6 and 9 are truly enlightening. They help you understand more about yourself and the world around you, and motivate you to explore the ultimate truth of your being and attain real happiness. SN Goenka is very articulate and engaging, and his ideas are backed with facts and reasonings; his discourses are captivating. I recommend everyone to at least watch these discourses (
available in the internet) if you cannot participate as a Vipassana student.
Our mind is so powerful
Science has already explained how wonderful and powerful human mind is. I had read a lot about this before. But, Vipassana has helped me to experience the greatness of human mind-first hand. Although the idea of Vipassana is not to get lost in our thoughts, I couldn't stop it from traveling to the memory lanes during the lengthy solitude. And I was absolutely thrilled to see through each and every events of my past, as everything came up one after another like motion pictures. I saw every individuals I met in my life exactly how they were when I last saw -each of them! I could even remember the poems, stories and mathematical formulae I had long forgotten. I now know by personal experience that everything we come across at every instants of our life is stored in our mind and they remain there forever. We react to new situations based on previous experiences stored in our mind.
Thanks to Vipassana, you get to know a lot more about yourself. What I want to learn now by practicing Vipassana is to observe new situations without reacting to any of them. Where I can, I want to use the immense power of my mind for the good of myself, my family and friends, and if possible for the good of all mankind and living beings. I wish that my mind is free of all cravings and aversions, and I experience ultimate happiness. I am convinced that if Vipassana is practiced correctly, happiness will embrace you sooner than later.
And finally
On the morning of the 10th day, the silence is broken and the meditators can speak to each other. I had a weird feeling when I rediscovered my voice, stuttering for a while before finding my usual tone. Students share their experiences and you will be amazed to find that your fellow medtitators come from all walks of life- doctors, engineers, teachers, accountants, business managers, students and others, very much like the composition of a normal society. The organizers make presentations about their activities. The volunteers explain their experiences with joy and pride. You can make donations if you wish, which is used to organize a new camp that new students can benefit from. Old students are the sole contributors for Vipassana camps worldwide, and everything is done voluntarily. The segregation between men and women ends on the 11th day, when the Vipassana camp formally concludes.
This will not be the last time I have taken the Vipassana course. As an Old student, I will be able to retake the course as a participant or a volunteer. I will try to make myself available for as many opportunities as possible in the future. And I want to continue practicing Vipassana. I know my limitations won't allow me to become a Buddha, the truly enlightened one. I have some responsibilities and desires for my loved ones that I cannot simply let go. However, having learned the art of living, I can practice my way into a happier and lot less miserable life for sure. The little hiccups of sleeplessness, loneliness, boredom and dinner deprivation fade away in a couple of nights as we learn the art of controlling our mind. The words of wisdom, the truth of life and the source of happiness that we get familiar with during the process are more than worth the little troubles we go through. And I will be back to one of these camps again. Bhavatu Sabba Mangalam .
PS: These are my personal experiences and recollections of the meditation camp and may not be the exact description of the proceedings. Please refer to official publications for formal documents and information.
