A 10-Day Vipassana Experience: Rediscovering Myself in Silence (Part 2)

If you missed the first part of my Vipassana experience, you can catch up here.

As the final day of the course arrived and the silence lifted, the once tranquil space suddenly felt like a bustling marketplace. It was only at this moment that I truly heard the names of my fellow meditators, some of whom had seemed distant and uncommunicative. A roommate, who I thought was aloof, turned out to be a warm-hearted soul.

Reuniting with my friend after the course, we eagerly exchanged stories about our subtle experiences over the past ten days. I got to know two women in their thirties: one was a girl from South Korea who had moved to Singapore in her early twenties solely to improve her English. From her beginnings as a call centre agent, she had worked her way up to become a manager in a multinational company. What an inspiring story! She had taken this opportunity between jobs to join the Vipassana course and planned to travel around Europe before starting her new role.

The other was an energy healing practitioner. She shared that meditation often felt challenging, with old issues surfacing for her to confront. Yet, she described it gently, saying it was like the dirt from the depths of her soul gradually rising to the surface. It may seem murky at first, but it signifies that her inner self was being cleansed.

I didn’t have any particularly spiritual experiences. During meditation, I mostly felt physical discomfort and mental distraction. However, once I pushed through, I felt as if my body and mind had been rebooted to their factory settings. There was no miraculous transformation overnight, nor was there a dramatic awakening. As the teacher had said, there was no need to chase specific feelings. Everyone’s journey is unique. A noticeable change, however, was that upon returning to work, colleagues remarked that I seemed more relaxed and smiled more often. I had always been a typical perfectionist, easily fixating on minor issues, inadvertently creating tension among my coworkers.

I once complained to a friend about how frustrating it was when colleagues didn't take work matter seriously like I did. She replied wisely: 'It is not wrong to be hardworking but it is when you're too attached'.

There's a fine line, I learned, between being diligent and being rigid. Changing my mindset has proven far easier than trying to change other people.

We've all heard the saying about the glass being half empty or half full. But the energy healer offered a fresh perspective: 'When you see the glass as half empty, it's because you don't realise the other half is filled with air'. If we focus only on what's missing, we miss the gifts that are already present.

Her words reminded me of a friend's suggestion, before the course, to practise gratitude by listing ten things I was thankful for each day. Looking back, life has been gently reminding me ever since: practise seeing the light, not dwelling in shadow.

Today, my gratitude list is long. When I got my phone back, it was filled with happy news from friends, including one of them got engaged, one got into new relationship. One thoughtful friend even remembered I was finishing the course and sent a welcoming message.

After ten days of silence, I'm newly grateful for simple pleasures: losing myself in a book, writing down my thoughts, even singing loudly in the shower.

It turns out, life itself is the real blessing.