Jocie's Blog

By the sixth day of the course, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be leaving.. I had worked too hard and come too far.   I had done the inside of the nose thing.. the entrance to the nose.   I had gone from focusing for less than a minute to over twenty minutes.. by having my mind ‘look’ down my head, my face.. over my neck and down one arm and then the other.   I then focused on the front of my body.. then the back and down the legs right to my toes and starting over again.   Little twinges and zingers I was told, were the molecules rearranging themselves and my body getting rid of the rubbish.   It was explained to me much better, but there you have it, my interpretation.   But when my mind started to wander, after hours and hours of meditation, I felt the little twinges become stronger and stronger, hurting me more and more.   And then suddenly it is like something exploded.. wherever my mind ‘touched’ I felt emotional and physical ago...

Every night, after our evening meditation,   we had an hour long discourse.    At this time, we were allowed to move.. stretch our legs out, scratch if we had an itch.   The Guru was a great speaker and used metaphors, stories and humor  in his examples to help us understand what we were doing and why.  While we  weren’t allowed to speak, or even look at each other, he often made us smile and even giggle now and then. He asked us if we ever had a visitor come see us at home bringing unwanted gifts.   He reminded us that if these gifts were anger or jealousy, we could smile, send the giver on his way and make sure he took the ‘gifts’ with him. There were men and women.. these are just a few of us on the last day. We were happy!!   I loved this… it simplifies issues that appear so complicated.     I am having family issues right now.   At a time when I hunger for forgiveness, acceptance and love, I  ...

When you check in for a Vipassana Meditation ten day course, they take your stuff. Your technology; your phone, computer, iPad, Ipod.. gone.   They lock up  your keys, your purse, any pencils or pens.   You can't have books or magazines smuggled in in your suitcase; nothing to ‘do’.   And once things get going, you can't do any major exercise such as running or yoga.   You can’t practice your religion or even try out any sort of meditation other than Vipassana.   Vipassana attempts to get to the far reaches of your mind, so in order to give the technique a fair go, you need to apply Vipassana and only Vipassana to that place where you store all of what makes you, you!   And so on the very first day, you stop talking.   While you can get help if you need an extra blanket or a clean tooth brush, and you are able to speak with the Guru teacher who is on site to guide you through the program, you may not communicate in any form; body...

Driving to work everyday from Mataranka to Jilk, in the Northern Territory in Australia, meant constantly dodging the wildlife.. birds, donkeys, horses and of course the wallabies and larger kangaroos.   So it was a gift to be able to hitch a ride with workers who drove bigger vehicles and had ‘roo catchers’ or bull bars.    Warren would often regale me with stories of his misspent youth as we drove along early in the morning.   A self declared ‘hoon’ (red-neck) at 20, he was now closer to 40 and all I saw was a gentle but lively colleague, a sympathetic teacher, a concerned father and a great story teller.     “I was a total hoon” he told me one morning.   “You would never have recognized me!   I was a drinker, a fighter, an asshole actually.”    O ne day I asked him what had changed him.     “Vipassana totally changed my life!”   he said, and went on to explain how painful the experience was, how ha...