10 days inside my head taught me more than a degree ever could

Taking the wisdom ladder from thinking you know, to truly knowing.

I’d been sitting cross-legged for almost 10 hours. My knees and lower back screamed in agony. But that wasn’t even the worst part. My mind hurt. For the first time, I realized what a “mental workout” felt like. 

I was only 3 days into my Vipassana meditation retreat. It felt more like 3 weeks. 

7 more to go.

I’d wake up at 4:30, meditate, and wouldn’t speak to anyone or get anywhere close to my phone. I wouldn’t workout, wouldn’t write or read. I wouldn’t do anything other than meditate and learn the technique, with the exception of a few walks in between sessions to stretch. And even then, I’d still be meditating. I’d eat vegetarian, with my last meal at 1pm. 9:30 pm would be bedtime.

It’s an experience that stays with you.

Even for a massive introvert like myself who loves every second by himself. Hanging out for 10 days inside your own head, changes how you think, how you see the world and people. Because when you’re forced to take time with your own thoughts and sensations, you realize how often you run from them on a daily basis.

I still remember the day they finally rang the bell, sign that the retreat was over and that we could break silence, when I got to exchange feedback with the other meditators. Everyone had vastly different experiences: some embarked on mystical journeys and crazy vision quests, some really struggled to go through the entire retreat. Others gave up and left. But everyone got to face their own demons. 

Vipassana simply means “to see things as they really are”.

The technique involves two steps: first you focus on the breath to sharpen your attention. Then, once you are able to focus attentively on even the most minuscule sensations, you go through a series of body scans. From the top of the head down to your toes, and vice versa, until the time  is up. The goal, to create space between these sensations and your reaction to them.

Vipassana is a great teacher, because you don’t just follow a technique, you learn how to feel your mind-body connection. So that whenever a positive or negative sensation arises, you avoid reacting impulsively. 

This is how you intuitively and physically understand how all “suffering” stems from your cravings and aversions. Because with that extra space your mind is balanced and unaffected. Which rarely happens in the bustling day to day.

And while apps and guided meditations are a great introduction, I was never able to make meditation stick, until I tried Vipassana. Because it helps you go deeper.

I always describe it as a simulation of your daily ups and downs. As you’re scanning your body, sensations arise, a myriad of thoughts pop up like bubbles, only to burst the next moment. And it’s in this constant stream that, with your heightened focus, you can train yourself not to react. You stimulate your real-world experience inside your body.

You literally go from thinking you know what meditation is like, to feeling it in your body. Gradually, through a step by step, slow and often painful process.

You go down the “wisdom ladder”.

Imagine a ladder leading you down into the depths of a dark, scary hole. You see two rungs. Each rung represents a different way of acquiring knowledge:

Received wisdom is the knowledge you blindly accept as true when you hear it from someone else. You borrow it.

The second rung, Intellectual wisdom, is what you learn to be true after thinking it through.

But at the end of the ladder, at the bottom of the dark, scary hole, there’s another rung, hidden behind a misty fog. You can’t see it yet, but it leads to an entirely new world. A world full of possibility and opportunity.

The only way to access it, is to take another step, on the Experiential wisdom rung.

As WIlliam Hart states in his book “The art of living”:

This is the wisdom that one lives, real wisdom that will bring about a change in one’s life by changing the very nature of the mind.” 

You can’t think knowledge into being. You have to experience it.

That’s what Vipassana does for you. 

But it all comes down to action. To taking that last step into the unknown.

With meditation, you can’t realize how powerful it is, unless you feel what it’s like – in your body – to not react to the thousands of sensations or thoughts that constantly crop up. It’s work, and it’s stressful. But it’s a good kind of stress. Stress that helps you grow. Like that of a workout.

Our society, like that misty fog right before the last rung on the ladder, hides this work and stress from us. 

It does it through the “comfort” of academic learning, prioritizing intellectual knowledge over everything else, to the point where we think a degree matters more than our actual experience. It does it through online content when we start equating watching a few quick videos to real-world action. And it does it through books. The more you hoard, the more you must know, right?

As we go down the ladder, from the ideas and thoughts of other people, to reaching the intellectual wisdom rung, we think we know. 

But it’s just that, a thought. And it’s not enough.

When you really know, you feel it. 

Next time you wonder how much you know about something ask yourself: “Do I merely understand it, or am I really experiencing it?”. And if you don’t intuitively know it, if you don’t feel it yet, realize it’s time to take action. To start living that knowledge, and taking the next step into the misty fog.