08/04/2026
Vipassana- Year Three- Reflection on Days 1 and 2
When I arrived at the retreat this year, something in my body remembered the silence before my mind did. It was like stepping into an old truth. One I’ve visited twice before, that has been quietly and patiently waiting for me. I felt a deep duality: gratitude for returning, and a tender ache for my husband and daughter, knowing I’d be away from them for ten days.
I settled into my tent and wrote, “All that anxiety and emotion just to end up here, in my tent, and it feels so familiar it’s like home.”
And it did. The rhythm, the earth, the quiet rising inside me, even the people felt familiar, as if silence makes everyone look like someone you’ve known in another lifetime.
Vipassana, to me, is simple and impossible at the same time:
It is seeing the truth of yourself and the world.
My nervousness rose and fell throughout the first day, like waves brushing the shore. We learned the foundation of the practice: Mindfulness from the Base; the mind, mindfulness, and the whole body, all existing together in one moment.
Ajarn Willie described mindfulness as “an eye for the mind.”
And something in me recognized that phrase like a memory.
For the first time in three years, I felt something unlock.
Mindfulness was more than just a concept; it was a presence. An experience. Separate from the mind. Separate from the body. A light turning on. A thought that can never be unthought.
It felt like stepping out of the mind and watching it from the outside like a surreal movie of your life. It felt like something in the mind "turned on."
During walking meditation, a question rose up in me like a ripple from somewhere far older than thought: What was it like to be human before mirrors existed? Before photographs and reflections. Before we ever saw our own faces.
I imagined a world where identity was shaped from the inside out:
where “I am” came from breath, sensation, and presence, rather than from appearance or image. A world where the self was known through awareness alone. Where people recognized themselves not by sight, but by the feeling of being alive.
It made me wonder how much of “me” is built from reflections, literal and metaphorical, and how much of the true self exists beyond anything the eyes can capture.
The thought expanded me. It felt comforting, inspiring, like remembering something ancient and familiar: that the deepest parts of who we are have nothing to do with what is seen, and everything to do with what is aware within us.
Day 2 felt calmer. My body surprised me. The sits were hard, but easier than the first two years (thank you, 100 days of practice). I felt myself slipping into the rhythm of chanting, walking, sitting, observing, and returning to the Base.
My awareness felt clearer, brighter. Like life was happening in high definition. Details stood out. Subtle energies shimmered. My memory felt crisp. My body felt like a temple I could finally hear.
And in the middle of all this cosmic unfolding, the human moments grounded me: the bruchetta at lunch was incredible; the sunset during evening walking meditation was soft and golden.
Even enlightenment has snacks and sunsets.
A Poem from Day 2 (Mind felt busy so I wrote this as a mantra. A base and reminder to keep practicing.)
Where is my mind?
Are you aware?
Observing life neutrally without even a care.
Thoughts and feelings arise, like identity in disguise,
and we forget the truth of what we are.
So we observe the body and mind,
and contemplate the Divine,
until we can see with Enlightenment’s Eyes.
These first two days were the threshold. The doorway into silence, the first soft unraveling of the mind, the first glimpse of the watcher behind the thoughts. This year already felt different. Deeper. Clearer. Like something inside me was waking up that I’d been waiting to meet.
More soon. Days 3–4 were where the deeper breakthrough happened.
