|
|
VOLUME XV, Number 1 January - June 2025
Italian and Korean monastics with Phra Medhivajarapundit
“No pain, no gain!”
Reflections on a Recent Experience Of Vipassanā Meditation When our community received an invitation from the Italian commission for Monastic Interreligious Dialogue to participate in a Vipassanā meditation retreat in Thailand, my first thought was that a desire that has stayed with me and given direction to my life even before I entered the Benedictine monastery of Dumenza eleven years ago was coming true.
I was introduced to the practice of Vipassanā meditation during a trip to India in the year 2000. To this day, I consider that introduction to be the most meaningful gift I received in my younger years. Since I was convinced—and am increasingly convinced—that meditation is not something you can make up as you go along but a discipline that requires physical and mental health and, most importantly, the guidance of a master, I prudently decided to put off the practice of Vipassanā meditation until I could find a master. Five years after my trip to India, I was able to participate in a ten-day Vipassanā meditation retreat in the Sayagyi U Ba Khin tradition as taught by S. N. Goenka. That retreat took place at the Dhamma Atala Vipassana Meditation Center in Lutirano, about two hours from Florence, and was followed by four others over three years.
For various existential and emotional reasons, but also because of my rapprochement with Christianity, over time my practice of Vipassanā meditation became less and less intense. Nevertheless, I never ceased to be grateful for what I received from that spiritual practice, and upon entering the monastery, I began to look for meditation practices in the Christian monastic tradition that were similar to Vipassanā. I finally discovered the Christian meditation practice put forward by Father John Main and Father Laurence Freeman, which is now my daily practice. These two ways of meditating are different in both modality and purpose, but I believe they can both be a part of my monastic life.
Thus, when I received permission to be part of the group going to Thailand, I anticipated that I would discover something new by being able to meditate with Buddhist theravāda monks and nuns in their cultural context. I also hoped to validate the meditative journey I had been on since the year 2000.
Needless to say, the reality is always richer than one imagines.
What surprised me most about the two weeks I spent in Thailand, one of which was entirely dedicated to a meditation retreat, was a word I picked up from Phra Medhivajarapundit, director of the International Buddhist Study College at Mahachulalongkornajavidyalaya University in Bangkok. I thought I knew all about Vipassanā meditation. In fact, it continued to be part of my life, an inner niggling that needs time to be understood and to receive an adequate response.
At the end of second day of our participation in the Annual Meditation Retreat at the Religious Development Center in Camp Son, Phra Medhivajarapundit called us to the platform where he sat and from which he guided our meditation. After greeting us, he introduced us to the meaning of the days we would spend there with a word that surprised me: pain.
By emphasizing pain, the meditation master, in his clear, concise, assertive English, summed up in little more than five minutes the value of the meditation practice we were being introduced to during those few days. At least this is what I perceived in the moment and then experienced over the following days. He did not speak about pain as something to be sad about or to dread. Nor did he present it as some grandiose sensation we could later brag about. Far from it! He proposed pain as one half of a balanced and serene pairing that was both strong and delicate. What most impressed me was his statement, “One can summarize the whole teaching of the Buddha in two sentences: a) Life is pain; b) It is possible to learn to deal with pain. That is what you are here for.” He then concluded with the compelling slogan: No pain, no gain!
What was it that surprised me about his reference to pain? The answer I give below is like a glimmer, a faint light that will eventually lead to understanding. Guarding this light means keeping open the question of the value of pain for my spiritual growth.
I was not surprised by the master’s use of the word “pain” per se, nor by the possibility—which, for me, is more of a certainty, remembering what I experienced during previous Vipassanā retreats!—that I would experience pain and fatigue, but by the fundamentally liberating attribute that attributed to it in the practice of Vipassana meditation. It seemed to me that he was telling us, “In the coming days you will have to learn to accept the pain you will experience (leg pain, back pain, headache, disorientation, painful memories, etc.) not as something you can hastily free yourself from, but as a necessary condition for receiving the liberation that you seek.” In other words, I believe he was opening our eyes to the purpose of meditation and how to do it well. The goal of Vipassanā meditation is not freeing ourselves from pain; rather, it is living the process of liberation through pain, in pain, and with pain.
“No pain, no gain!” Pain is not an end in itself, but a condition we learn to deal with in order to acquire the joy and liberation that have been promised! The powerful pledge of Vipassanā meditation that the master was holding out to us is the possibility of learning to cope with pain, accepting it as a passing phenomenon, from which we can distance ourselves without becoming emotionally affected by it.
All of this, intuitively sensed and comprehended during the days of retreat at Camp Son, points me back to a question that I, a Christian and a Benedictine monk, have often left on the back burner and that, when misunderstood, leads to a weakening of faithful adherence to Jesus Christ. To put it in a way that is ancient and yet ever new: “What is the relationship between the cross and salvation?” Recovering the importance of this question is already a great gift I received from meeting this Buddhist monk. Realizing that this question is to be embodied in my daily life is a strong spiritual and existential motivator that I need to cherish and cultivate. Meditation practice can certainly help me not to forget it!
Translated by William Skudlarek |
 |
