This is the second page in my series of Vipassana Experience so if you haven't read the first page I would recommend you read that one first so you get the flow of the Experience.

Sleep, you might assume it's in short supply, given the 4am wake-up-call. But actually its plentiful, chiefly because I immediately mastered the art of sleeping upright. And unlike my nights of wild dreaming, these are peaceful slumbers. By the afternoon, though, I' am awake; boredom sets in. No new techniques have been given since last night, though I have by now places the voice: Kamahl. "Keep your entire attention focussed on the area at the entrance to the nostrils." Goenka/Kamahl implores richly, deeply, "on the area within the nostrils" I can't belive I've willingly elected to endure 10 days of this.

Beyond the tedium is the pain. My back, my ribs, my legs are burning, as if branded by hot pokers. But I'm not alone. As the session enters it's fourth hour, the shuffling increases. Still I wonder: are the others experiencing pain like mine? They seem so serious. While I rejoice at each sessions end, others continue meditating. I feel depressingly useless, pathetic. Compared with me , they seem infinitely more diligent ( a word Goenka admires, judging by the amount of times he uses it ). But I know if I go to hard to early I wont make it.

After dinner Goenka treats us to, in what shall be a nightly indulgence, a 90-minute videotaped discourse. Goenka doesn't appear guru-like: he is pudgy, be speckled and looks like an conservative, late-middle-aged Indian businessman. Tonight, he states the course's not inconsiderable ambit :understanding the ultimate truth. While I concede knowledge of the ultimate truth has it's attractions, what captures my attention instead is Goenka saying our stomachs should always be a quarter empty. I've just eaten dinner ( an apple and a ping-pong ball size mandarin ) and my stomach is growling angrily. If only, I grumble it WERE a quarter empty.

I commence the 4:30 session initially numb, but pain and horrendous boredom soon re-emerge. I sit half waiting, half hoping for someone o jump up and tear the silence asunder, berserk and screaming and howling. I just hope the someone isn't me.

At breakfast, while down fingerlings of sun warm the paddocks below, I watch the others moving slowly, deliberately. Are they deep in contemplation or shell-shocked> There is no way of knowing. It strikes me as entirely unnatural to undergo such an intense experience surrounded by people whose thoughts you have absolutely no idea of. I don't even know their names, so I christened them myself. Japanese Guy. Older Guy. Serious Guy. Ponytail Guy.Middle eastern Guy. Usually Late Guy. Poncho Guy and so on.

Besides not knowing what they're thinking. I can't even accurately describe what I'm thinking. I feel a vague inkling of serenity, but I'm certainly not serenely serene - unwanted thoughts keep flooding in. We're supposed to be clearing out our minds, concentrating on nothing but breath, yet random thoughts, work thoughts, an idea for an novel are all insistent and I can't keep them out. My second day of this and I can't truly focus for more than 10 or 20 seconds at a time. "patiently," Goenka tells us, "patirntleeee and persistently feel the flow of respiration ... Work diligentleeee If your mind wanders, do not be angry or upset. Smile." I smile a lot. But in the late afternoon, something clicks. I find myself able to concentrate on nothing but breathing for two, three, even five minutes at a time. At last I feel I'm getting somewhere. Though this doesn't reduce the boredom. After dinner Goenka instructs us to no longer focus merely on reparation but to observe physical sensations around the nose and upper lip. Hotness, coldness, dryness,moistness,itchiness, ticklishness; it matters not, any sensation is valid. After two days of focusing on nothing but breath, this seems a thrilling development.

Keep Reading the My Vipassana Experience in my next part you can find it here Vipassana Meditation Experience Part 3