Vipassanā Meditation Retreat in Thailand
Not a day goes by when I do not give thanks to God and to the brothers and sisters who made it possible for me to participate in the spiritual exchange program that was held in Thailand from November 26 to December 10, 2024.
I left Italy with an open heart, without any preconceived expectations, ready to welcome the gifts and surprises that God certainly had in store for me. I knew little or nothing about vipassanā meditation. I entered it with a certain naïveté but also with my whole being.
My first encounter was with my corporality. My concentration gradually became deeper during walking meditation, allowing me to listen more and more attentively to the slow movement of my body. There was a shift in awareness from “I have a body” to “I am a body.” By nature, I tend to live in the realm of the mind, and for that reason I have regarded my body mainly in terms of its function. It was a kind of “machine” whose purpose was to support me in achieving various existential goals. Walking meditation, on the other hand, has made me aware of the oneness of being in the multiplicity of its elements, of which the body is the primary foundation.
The second encounter was with my psyche. In seated meditation, my body and the attention I paid to my breath were the tools that allowed my emotional world to emerge, my defense mechanisms to let down their guard, and my needs to become apparent. The frequent periods of meditation allowed “equanimity”—that is, acceptance of things as they are—to take deep root within me and not let emotions overwhelm me. This psychic state was not indifference but pacified serenity, a balanced distance from excess joy and excess sorrow.
The third encounter was with the spiritual dimension of my being. More than two hundred and fifty people of different nationalities and even other religious traditions sat in absolute silence, meditating for hours on end, day after day, in the same room. No words were needed: there was just the living, embodied witness of the spiritual dimension of being human. “Our Father,” Father of each and Father of all, brothers and sisters in the one human family, all safeguarded by Love, by that Spirit who leads all to Truth by ways that are certainly different, but never contradictory.
My heart overflows with gratitude for so much beauty. I also hear the strong call to cherish the precious and fragile gift of universal brotherhood and to continue the constant practice of meditation, the form of which is now enriched by the gift received during the meditation retreat at Camp Son.
Translated by William Skudlarek
