My 10 day Vipassana Meditation Course was a life changing experience that fundamentally shaped my worldview and daily experience like nothing else in such a short amount of time.
As I said in my previous post, this past weekend, I served as a volunteer at a 10 day course in Maryland. I had never worked as a server before and got to see the amazing effort involved behind the scenes.
I kind of wish I came much earlier too since most of the servers had already bonded over the previous 7 days, and I felt very awkward coming in so late and not knowing how to do anything. But, everyone was extremely friendly. In fact, everyone’s first priority was to make sure I was well fed before I did any work despite my protests.
My work was mostly in the kitchen helping prep food, cleaning dishes, and cleaning the dining room. Although cleaning dishes isn’t glamorous work, there is a joy involved in physical labor especially when you see the benefit to people stemming directly from your actions. This direct connection is what’s missing in what could be called intellectual or mental work where the fruits of your labor aren’t as apparent or immediate.
I came back home refreshed with plans to fix my bad habits and stick to the path once again.
I actually failed at my 7 day meditation experiment last week. I barely meditated at all before serving. But, I have continued doing at least 1 hour/day since Sunday and plan on keeping it up.
I definitely plan on serving full time in the future.