Leaving the Practice
Carl Stimson was a dedicated vipassana meditator in the tradition of S.N. Goenka… until he wasn’t. In his podcast conversation from a couple years ago, after he spent some time reviewing the spiritual travelogues of three Western yogis in their visits to India, Burma, Thailand, and Sri Lanka. Following his review of their work, Carl included himself as a kind of fourth character in the discussion, and spoke quite openly about the trajectory of his own practice, and where he now finds it. In the following excerpt, he describes his difficulty in maintaining his daily practice while a student in the Goenka tradition.
“I was terrified that if I stopped that meditation, I would revert back to who I was in the past.”
“For a while, it just felt like I was on the straight and narrow path; I made a lot of changes in my life and felt a lot of improvements from the retreats and the daily practice. I met some teachers [who] I really looked up to, just the kind of vibe they gave off was something I'd been looking for. ‘Yes, this is the kind of vibe I want to have in 10, 15, 20 years.’ And the instructions are so clear in the Goenka tradition - this is a practice that’s not terribly difficult to learn. You can learn it in a few days; just implementing it and continuing is the challenge.
It felt like, ‘Okay, I have the recipe, and I'll just put it into practice and time will pass and I'll do whatever I can to dedicate more and more time to that end. And I'll just keep feeling better and better.’ Eventually, that just stopped. I kept continuing to go to retreats, and they continued to be fairly profound. I continued daily practice and that in the moment felt nice to come home from work and meditate and be that. But there was just a loss of momentum. Change and plateauing or stagnating, all those terms definitely apply. And I felt just so confused by it for so long. It took me a long, long time to even admit that I was having problems.
I tried talking to different people, teachers and friends. No one within the tradition had an answer for me, or at least, something that really clicked. I eventually stopped meditating, not fully at first. You know, the two-hour-a-day practice is kind of the standard in the Goenka tradition. And if you're doing that, you're ‘on the train.’ You’re a member in good standing. Letting go of that was a huge step. And eventually I did [stop], actually, right after I sat my first long course.
That was a surprising moment, because I [had] gone through such profound change with meditation in the early days, coming from a point of suffering in ways that meditation just changed almost overnight. And it was just such a such a miracle that I was bowled over by it. It generated so much faith, and so much dedication. And I was terrified. I don't know if it was the messaging of the tradition, or if it was my own thinking. But I was terrified that if I stopped that meditation, I would revert back to who I was in the past.
Eventually, I was just so frustrated and so disillusioned, that I stopped meditating two hours a day, and it went down to about an hour. And [it] kept getting less and less. And nothing really changed. At least nothing substantial. I certainly didn't go back to who I was at 24 years old. That was kind of a shock to me. It really has made me question what Dhamma practice is and how it affects us: how it affects your mind, how it affects your behavior. For the longest time, I thought it was just like weightlifting or exercise where if you stopped doing it, you're going to get fat and get soft. And you know, when that didn't really happen, when my mind didn't go back to its old, harmful habit patterns, I really had to re-think it. And so that was kind of part of the process.”