I just got back home from a 10 day Vipassana retreat, in the UK. Wanted to log how that went.
 
Very physically painful for the first 3 days, but it got a lot easier once I had found a more comfortable position, relaxed a little and become more equanimous to the sensations. Except for a shoulder/neck injury which remained painful throughout. Was able to not ask for a back support, but came close.
 
Concentration really improved. Becoming more familiar with the sounds around me and again becoming more equanimous towards them helped. Was able to experience new sensations all over the body.
 
Some thoughts around what I understood of the practice:
Technique is all about feeling the various sensations around the body, including the 'wind element' or subtle sensations that you normally wouldn't know were there.
 
Then you 'reprogram your mind' to stop automatically labelling those sensations as good or bad and simply become aware of them, observe them. This is the process of becoming equanimous, starting with awareness.
 
Goenka (teacher), explained that these sensations actually precede the thoughts and emotions we are all more familiar with. So getting a grasp of these help us to understand the triggers for thoughts or emotions.
 
You begin to experience this as you sit with the physical pain of the 8 hours of mediation, become aware of the sensations at a 'root' level and then slowly accept them. The process allows you to feel the physical pain but not suffer from it. You also notice that the subject of your concentration takes priority and allows you to almost completely 'forget' the pain in the peripherals.
 
I think you begin to practice moving your awareness around and changing the breadth and depth of awareness within your body.
 
The awareness of various muscles around the body allow you to actually relax muscles you never knew you were tensing... You become aware of tension and muscles and then relax the muscles you may never have independently controlled before. I note the book 'the body keeps the score' here, which seems somehow related. I could imagine that some of these tensions around the body are psychosomatic and this process relaxes those mental and emotional tensions also.
 
As you sit for the 10 days, no matter your concentration level, emotional memories, traumas and triggers are brought up and there is an element of emotional healing as you become equanimous to those too. Similar to therapy.
 
Having the awareness of sensations as well as emotions gives you a whole new abstraction and subject for mindfulness. Meaning that when you witness emotional events you have an additional data-point to become mindful, rather than getting caught up in the emotion itself.
 
I had an experience after the Vipassana where I went to a pub and a bunch of blokes were shouting and screaming at the football match. After 10 days of silence this was quite overwhelming, but rather than noticing the emotional feeling of overwhelm, I was able to notice the physical feeling: very strong vibrations all over the body, I was able to 'decide' that this was not a dangerous situation and therefore the overwhelm was unnecessary... Basically becoming equanimous to the physical sensation of overwhelm therefore making the emotional feeling of overwhelm redundant and disappear... Hard to describe.
 
I have been able to 'triangulate' the vipassana technique that Goenka teachers, against other meditation techniques I know, allowing me to further my understanding of meditation as a whole.
 
In terms of my progress in meditation:
I had a few insights into impermanence, arising and passing at a 'macro' level, meaning arising and passing of emotions, gross-level sensations. I had some amazing sensations that I have never felt before, all over the body, which I am not craving but now aware of.
 
I now have the new technique. I am meditating twice per day, 2 hours total, as instructed. I am experimenting with the technique and continue to practice that and other techniques...
 
Goenka warned to stick with one technique only. I feel that I will continue to experiment with many techniques in small ways while I learn about my mind and which I prefer... I could do with reassurance on this point?
 
My scheduled mediations, usually a minimum of 1 hour long, now reveal subtle sensations across the body but many blind patches. I experiment with 'flowing' across the sensations in different ways and have not settled on the 'right' way to do it. I notice that depending on my equanimity and frustrations levels I am able or unable to experience certain sensations. I don't have a good grasp on it.
 
Any advice, feedback or comments welcome. Thanks.

Hi, Joe, and welcome to DhO.

Did you happen to copy and paste your comment from a word processing application? Doing that will cause the font size here to be too small to read. Can you re-post the content from a text-only app?

Thanks,

Chris M.
​​​​​​​DhO Moderator

done

Thanks

Was this a Goenka retreat, Joe?

yes, that's right!

 Nice, thanks for the descriptions, explanations, and reflections.

I've not done Goenka style or been on retreat but I can relate to the awareness of bodily-energetic stuff increasing over time. That's been the center point of my practice for a bit over a year now.

"Goenka warned to stick with one technique only. I feel that I will continue to experiment with many techniques in small ways while I learn about my mind and which I prefer... I could do with reassurance on this point?"

I don't know the full context of that statement, but on a deep philosophical level, it can't be the correct advice in all cases for all people. Sounds like a middle-way thing where constantly changing techniques without reaching any depth is probably not a good idea for most people. Conversely, I have on several occasions been beating my head against the same piece of wall for months or even years (actually the first 4 years of my practice) because I wanted to follow the same technique. Then a skillful person came along, showed me a different piece of wall to bang my head against, and a breakthrough occurs. So for me.... it is definitely a middle way thing.

Not to invoke sectarian conflicts, but I have heard other similar absolute statements from a teacher like this... and it just seems better to treat these things as contextually useful pieces of advice as opposed to ironclad rules.
 

"Goenka warned to stick with one technique only. I feel that I will continue to experiment with many techniques in small ways while I learn about my mind and which I prefer... I could do with reassurance on this point?"

Goenka's advice is to not mix technique during the course in order to learn as best you can. Afterwards you can decide for yourself whether you want to continue using it. He recommends not mixing technique afterwards, as do some teachers I've read over the years, in order to develop proficiency. His advice is not that his technique is the only technique, although he does claim it is the original and best, but that you should make a choice on how to practice and stick to it.

Full disclosure: I connected to this technique almost immediately, practice no other and continue to make progress daily,  for almost a decade.

Thank you Joe S for the report. That was interesting to read.