The silence of the monks

YOUUUUUHHHHHHOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU, feels great to feel the vibrations of my vocal chords again. What an insane feeling and what a refill in the experience department.
I could probably write a book about each one of the 10 infinite days, but then again it would ruin the moment like explaining a classic movie to someone about the see it.
It's like...no wait...let's start the story at another point...in time...
It's around 16:03:12 and I'm sitting feelingless in the same usual spot trying to force the timer of eternity to change gears. I look outside, people moving in invisible protective bubbles from point A to point B, pure machines programmed to ... What is the difference between that immobile screen that reacts to my typing and those blinding force fields around us ants. Looking at my watch anxiously 16:04:03. I can feel my heart stretching my ribs and my salty cuticles mixing with saliva between my stressed teeth...
Everything becomes blank and when I get back to reality I don't know the time, but I see my dad driving in his car. My chest is getting smaller, I'm fighting for air, there's tension in the air and I can feel the benevolence and sadness in this great tired man. Some air gets angrily through my twisted throat  and I realize that I'm about to go once again into the unknown, releasing the soft and tender hand of comfort for the cold and scary darkened part of the map. I can see that even if his defenses are up and he seems to be doing small talk, he can feel my fear and his soul is caring for mine, even if I haven't always been there for him. A tear breaks the echo of time and I can feel just so much love for this human being that I've growed apart from during the last years of my independence. Through all the fog of inconfort, we get to the airport, I get my convertible house on my back and hug my dad gently with all the love that I can, trying not to awake any old pains.
This is how it all starts once again...planes, buses, faces, trees, customs, habits...everything blanks just to come back to...
The vehicle stops, it's a dirty old tuktuk, the driver playing deep inside his nose, points with the other hand a muddy road that seems to lead nowhere. Keeping the habit of looking at my watch as if I was afraid to lose a second, it's 11:17:xx. I'm about to walk into a small jungle where the Vipasana meditation center hides it's existence. I pay the man, who's using the same finger now to get something out of his teeth, and a shiver crosser my spine in disgust. About 2 minutes later, I enter the gates of my new and only isolated world for the next 10 days. Again the heart is beating fast, sweat is running pushed by gravity and I breathe hard while surrounding bugs take shots at my delicious milky skin as if I was a big pile of ice cream. Eventually more future meditators come with a clumsy look and the fantastic adventure seems less threatening as it usually does when a group is formed.
First night is only day zero, where I learn to face the horrifying link I have to bigger bugs. My room is dirty, but at least I'm alone and I can stretch in my own privacy.
Once again I don't have the intention of spoiling something great by explaining the simple technique, I just feel like sharing some of the top experiences of those up and downers 10 days.

From the first days I noticed that the 2 main challenges at my level, will be the bugs and the uncomfortable position needed to keep concentration, but I was far from the truth since the real challenge as with everything in my life is to fight the biggest and most powerful enemy which is...obvious...

Second day, filled with excitement to experience the magic of something that came to my ears full of compliments. The wind of hope was inflating my sails and I integrated the silent practice of this meditation technique. But....if you look at the pictures on my gmail, you'll see that the schedule includes around 10h30 of pure meditation and sitting per day which eventually will break even the happier thought out of your spine and legs. By night I felt the frustration drenched in sweat from the jacket I used to fight the unfulfilled stings of mosquitoes. Couldn't concentrate and by the end of the night on the way back to the room I saw a HUGE ENORMOUS fear of 1 little inch of eight legged plenty of staring eyes arachnid. My panic alarm was sounding with all its madness. The inner voice was shouting "children and woman first...save yourselves". I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure that was a panic attack and throughout the night I would wake up grasping for air and considering running away , escaping from that hellhole. What a great thing fear is, but eventually I fallen asleep and something must have cheered the dreams, because the next morning was energetic and filled with singing birds.

The main thing about this third day is a somewhat cultural shock, since one of the meditators that I will call "burpy" without any bad intentions, decided to let ripping burping noises about every 2-5 minutes which broke the magic of meditation and made us (probably more the foreigners) get back to the hurting joints that occupied the reality of non-meditation. Again, I don't mean any disrespect and different values or importance associated to our everyday tasks are not important as long as the intention is sincere and honest.

With so much silence and time to explore the wonders and mosntruosities of oneself, many memories arises to the surface. Things that I saved on old brain vinyl discs and stored deep underground in the mist of unconsciousness. No point in sharing, but we've all had our share of good and bad experiences which haunt us from time to time and that we either hide or learn to live with. Day 4 was particularly filled with deep secret intense memories.

After that intense revival, came day five, with a painful neck bulge, probably caused by the stop smoking 7 days before. I felt sick, couldn't stop coughing and the pain tolerance during the meditation sitting was low. Eventually by night again like the second day, my envy to screw everything and pack my bags came to me again. This time is was the nightly recorded speech from the creator of this technique that charmed my good senses back into remaining and giving it a try for another day with the firm intention to leave if shit kept hitting the fan.

Woke up filled with a brand new energy, the one of a desperate man who would give everything before losing the battle. Only my old friend stubbornness kept me going and "god knows" that is friend is tenacious. He came in handy a couple of times before rising the Phoenix from the ashes, when everything seemed doomed. I remember going with the motorcycles through floods in Equator where every millimeter on 2 wheels where a possible death trap, same when crossing a peak in Colombia on a cold rainy night. Somehow, when everything seems last, destiny sends an angel for help on that last desperate breath. I did everything feeling the pain as if all extremities came apart and when moments seem like years, which has the advantage to make you conscious of the reality of time...

Ended up the sixth day with a certain pride and hurt joints, just to give me an extra push for the 7th day in which I got to experience the Pagoda experience, meaning that you can meditate by yourself in a private cell. If felt amazing, especially after something happened involving my previous sworn death buzzing enemies, who became my allies and made me realize how anger and fear worked together, but I'll leave the pleasure to everyone to learn from their own experiences.

Eventually day eight arrived and I found out what real Love could feel like, instead of running around hurting others without end, trying to corrupt what is into something we wish it to be. Again my own experiences and everyone has theirs...

What I clearly remember about day nine and it's important for me because I did have an excess of anger is how to trans-mutate it into laughter. It's my experience again, but it's funny that whenever I consciously catch myself being angry, I start up laughing... It's a cool gift and hope it stays around.

Day 10 ended with the silent barrier and finally got to hear the others voices and test my own vocal chords. Great and relax.

Now it's day 11 and just shaved. It's been a month since I left home(in a couple of hours). I lived 10 years in 31 days, while I used to live 31 days in 10 years back home and it's why the few moments of consciousness that I can remember from back home is wondering how can we just act like machines, waking and doing the same things in order to keep artificial comforts going. Maybe I'm a pessimist, but now I get 2 hours a day of living an eternity in each of them without going anywhere.

I would like to thank all that influenced my path into getting here:
-Patrick Salibi with the amazing course of OsteoYoga in the plateau and his technique is very close to the Vipasana meditation
-Ze'ev Evgeni for his openness and experience with mind, he's a great Hypnotherapist, but so much more
-Eckhart Tolle's book "The power of now" and different videos he's putting up to date
-The Paititi Institute in Peru where I got to see a Shaman and try Ayawaska
-The Vipasana meditation and all those who crossed my path saying great stuff about it(Max, Silli, etc)

If you ever get the chance to try this, it's a simple technique that last 10 days in your life and has the ability to change it. If you don't get any spiritual stuff out of it, you'll at least get a more focused mind, a better flexibility(you can always ask for a chair, it was just my pride that kept me in that position and am grateful for it now), good stories and new friends.
It has nothing to do with religion, sect or anything of the sort. I will most likely never try it again(a class) but thinking of meditating one hour a day for as long as I can.
The last argument that you might have, it works on donations, REALLY, so if you don't enjoy it, don't pay, you get sheltered and nourished for free for 10 days.

Peace and Love and Equanimity