Swifts are these birds we saw in the cenotes when we were in Mexico. The fastest birds on Earth. Who would have guessed?

There was such a huge ecosystem, with the birds feeding the fish, while flying around to catch insects, or eventually seeds floating on the water.

A beautiful dance.

On n’a jamais remis en question la façon dont on crée la communication sur Internet : on est sur du commentaire, de la réponse, et à part le design graphique qui a changé, on est plus ou moins sur un forum, on a juste rajouté des meilleurs smileys… Les designers qui créent ces interfaces le font pour des équipes marketing et des ingénieurs dont le but est de rationaliser les comportements. En passant à côté de l’irrationalité inhérente à l’être humain, on produit des effets faibles voire néfastes.

source : « La conscience d’une pollution mentale créée par le numérique émerge  » via un post sur Facebook dont j’ai oublié l’origine – que la personne se dénonce si elle se reconnaît  !

Je ne suis pas expert en la matière, mais force est de constater que les commentaires sont plus souvent utilisés pour concrétiser une émotion que pour enrichir la réflexion à propos du contenu commenté.

One of the teachings and main notions is Equanimity, which (very basically) aims at avoiding craving or resentment for any sensation, freeing you from frustration (if what you crave does not happen) or inability to act and address a problem (if you fear what’s to come).

The course being about sensations, I really felt overwhelmed with emotions that I constantly needed to keep in check instead. In no particular order, curiosity, sadness, anger, hopelessness, thrill, frustration, rage, excitement…

On the sensation side, that lead to smiles, tears, punching a wall, hugging people, a lot of moving left and right on the butt, lots of heat during the second body sweeping, a few bright lights in the empty vacuum of my closed eyes, hunger, and an agitated mind. I was way too distracted by recent life events to really focus during the meditation with, I believe, an average focus time of ten seconds. On a total of more than a hundred hours, that’s a lot of wandering in fantasy places and managing one’s mind. The best meditation experience probably lasted about ten minutes; I’ll come back to the notion of time later.

Goenka says in one of his early discourses, probably the second or third day, that the mind is like a wild monkey going from branch to branch, and that’s why it’s hard to focus. A monkey going from branch to branch follows a general direction; in my case, the representation I had of my mind at that point was that of a puppy: Oh… A squirrel! (puppy barks) Wait… Squirrel… Tree! (puppy pees on the tree) And OooOOOOH! SHOES ON THE PORCH! (shoes became the puppy’s worst enemy that he needs to annihilate, with a very fierce look and pride of defending its master’s territory. Goodbye your favorite shoes…), …

Everyday life does not allow our mind enough space to expand and reflect on its current context very often. Having ten days of silence in an enclosed space without any distraction whatsoever leads to a sudden vacuum that the mind is more than happy to fill.

So time is relative right? Ten days is nothing in a life… except if you have no notion of the time.

My only watch being a smartphone that I look at occasionally on a need‑to‑know basis, I’m usually not worried about Time since I have it on my computer when working, so everything is in check when it needs to be. That being said, any valuable or distracting object (computer, smartphone, audio player, book, notebook, …) being stored away from you at the beginning of the course, you’re left with no indication of time, beside the sun. Having a bell rang by the staff of the monastery for each event as the sole point of reference in your day is something quite extraordinary: “Did I miss the first bell this morning? Am I on the right schedule?” The first few days, I ended up waking up around (I believe) three or three thirty in the morning, the first bell being at four, and the first meditation at four thirty. Our brain is beautiful. The lack of a constantly available representation of time skewed it so much that several people got really confused about which day or date we were at the end of the course. I’m still not quite sure now what really happened, despite counting days and doing some quick Maths. The confusing organization of the course (from before the course) didn’t really help, I have to say.

Overall, I didn’t experience life changing events or lucid dreams described by a few fellows (and some amazing things I hope they will relate somewhere…), but the experience confirmed that the work I started on myself years ago is probably the right one, and this little fork in my life’s journey is really valuable. It also gave me a condensed reflection about how specific events unfolded in my life recently.

As a conclusion, I would like to share a few things I believe would have helped me more, or that I experienced directly:

• Talk to the teacher.

  It’s even more important if you have any doubt about yourself or the technique, but it helps in general. Even if it’s to ask seemingly stupid questions, you will feel relieved, if only just by the compassion the teacher can show, and the fact that usually, you’re not the first person to confide the kind of trouble you have.

• Don’t underestimate how troubled your mind can be.

  Not speaking for ten days means you will be alone with yourself (even though you can always talk to the teacher or the administration if you have any problem). I advise going to such a course with the mindset of a detective analyzing past traumas (everybody got one…), more than that of a soldier trapped in an emotional war.

• Don’t leave until the end.

  People all feel discouraged at some point. It’s OK. It’s just ten days and you will survive. If you feel anger or frustration: as repeated throughout the course, observe the situation and focus on addressing the root of the problem with as much calm as you can. You’re likely to find out the reason was given to you at some point; you just understood it without making the link between the knowledge of how to solve such a situation, and experiencing this situation.

That was a very good experience, both for what I learned and for some people I met there, radiating peace and humanism [wink wink… Vincent]. I hope some positive things will grow from the seeds we planted there.

As for me… I will probably go to “meditate” upon this for a few days, and decide which branch I am going to swing on next…

Be happy… :)

J’ai laissé le Guatemala derrière moi il y a cinq jours, et suis maintenant au Nicaragua pour assister à dix jours de Vipassana à partir de demain (le 13).

Dix jours entouré de gens silencieux, seuls avec leur propre bruit intérieur, avec tous les problèmes insolubles à ne pas résoudre, tous les projets fous qui trouveront peut‑être une réalisation à leur virtualité, tous les amours perdus ou à naître, toutes les amitiés entre parenthèses et à venir… toutes les choses qui resteront en suspend pendant dix jours, histoire de sans doute relativiser la gravité de ne pas s’en occuper.

À dans onze jours…

Dix ans de bienveillance, tant envers ses humains que ses congénères, ou même les chats qui l’entouraient.

Dix ans de câlins, de pitreries et de bave partout.

Dix ans, ça peut être vieux pour un chien, mais jamais un vieux ne se sera comporté d’une manière aussi touchante et enjouée que celui‑ci. Une masse de muscle qui se prend pour un chiot, c’est déstabilisant, dans tous les sens du terme, et ça ne passe pas inaperçu.

Comme dirait sa patronne : il est « en train de courir avec des copains au paradis des chiens  ». C’est tout le bonheur qu’on lui souhaite.

So long Cassis… Merci. :*