“Spirituality means waking up. Most people even though they don’t know it are asleep.” – Anthony de Mello
The visit of the charismatic Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, to Ireland over the past few days has aroused Irish people’s curiosity of Buddhism, and what it has to offer the Western world.
Today during his speech at the University of Limerick he chose to focus on the importance of forgiveness in achieving a happy life.
Another important tenet of his teaching is meditation; he advocates a daily practice, and speaks of how powerful and beneficial it can be.
In a timely fashion, I just last weekend happened upon a meditation course in Galway.
There is one thing that is sure- meditating is not easy. Sitting still and attempting to allow the mind the rest is supremely challenging.
The style of meditation being taught on the course I attended was called Buddhist Vipassana or Insight meditation, which has its origins in South East Asia.
It is all about developing mindfulness, observing our own experiences without judgement and practicing being in the present moment.
The teacher was Marjo Oosterhoff, who runs her own Meditation Centre in West Cork.
Marjo’s style was gentle and simple; she didn’t overload us with instructions. Just the required amount of gentle guidance.
There were about 25 people on the course; it was held in a spacious room in the Croí Nua Spirituality Centre on Taylor’s Hill.
Some participants sat on meditation cushions on the floor, but most people sat on chairs.
Marjo told us to close our eyes and observe what she referred to as “the points of contact”; she was referring to the contact of my buttocks with the chair or my feet with the ground.
“Whenever a thought arises, you observe it, label it, then return to your focus,” advised Marjo.
While the course was relatively short (10.30am to 4.30pm on Saturday and Sunday, and a long lunch break) it seemed to me quite long, as there was little stimulation. In ordinary life we are constantly bombarded with stimulation such as TV, the internet, work and various activities. So taking time out from that feels odd, and for me brought up feelings of boredom throughout the four walking and eight sitting meditation sessions.
During discussion times there was a variety of reactions among the participants. Some spoke of how much they loved the quiet and peacefulness. For others, it brought them directly into contact with various negative emotions such as anger and frustration. It also made some realise how much their mind was wandering.
For me, it gave me a deeper awareness of my physical body, and I noticed a few pains and aches that I had not spotted before.
The literal meaning of ‘Vipassana’ is ‘clear seeing’. It offers a ‘warts and all’ view of our own mindscapes and starkly reveals our present state of mind.
Regular Vipassana meditation is a process of awakening and leads to greater consciousness of our everyday thought processes. We begin to see just how our minds are constantly distracted by judgements, imaginings, plans for the future, memories of the past, desires and negative emotions. The ultimate goal of Vipassana is to achieve insight and develop wisdom.
Clearly to get real results you would need to practice regularly. But it was lovely to tune out for a weekend and just ‘be’ instead of ‘do’.
At the end of the weekend Marjo told us that she makes a living out of teaching meditation and has no other income. She manages the Passaddhi Meditation Centre on the Beara peninsula in County Cork in a place called Adrigole, which is halfway between the Sugarloaf Mountain and Hungry Hill. She travels once a year to Burma to reconnect with her meditation practice and for spiritual nourishment from her Burmese teachers. The suggested donation for the course was €50 per day.
