How Vipassana Prepared Me For Death

For the last month I have had many requests to write about my recent experience at a 10-day Vipassana silent meditation retreat.  I can tell you that when I sat down to write this blog I had no idea that what you are about to read would come flowing out of me. Due to the vulnerability, I actually questioned whether I should share it, but I trust that it will be valuable to someone.

On the morning of October 21st I was at a good friend's place in Riverside, California on the way to Phoenix where I was to catch a plane to Mexico for an Intentionality Retreat I was hosting.  Earlier that week I had just declared to my EO forum that I was feeling something that I had been searching for my entire life...can you guess what that feeling was?

It is that incredible feeling of peace. 

I had spent the past 4.5 years integrating Intentionality into all that I do, and had done what was required to feel this feeling in all areas of my life - my grounding, prosperity, love and wellBEing paths.

Suddenly something that didn’t feel very peaceful happened.

My spiritual partner comes running out of the bedroom in a hysterical state telling me to get off the phone, get off the phone quick!

I was a little bit confused, wondering what had happened and for a moment wondering if I had done something wrong. I didn’t anticipate what would come out of her mouth next.

My mum is dead, speak to my sister. I can’t handle this…

I take the phone and find out that a tragic accident has occurred and instantly I knew my spiritual partner would never be the same and neither would our relationship.

It’s moments like this when you really discover who you are, what you are made of, how well you are connected to your beliefs and how strong your spiritual practices are.

Thankfully and serendipitously I had just completed my first 10 day Vipassana silent meditation retreat just a week before.

Although the majority of my energy was focused on my partner’s trauma, I observed that some fears and doubts were creeping into my head, as my own trauma started to surface.  Oddly, my ex wife’s father passed away from the exact same tragic accident and how we handled that could be said to be a contributing factor to the demise of our marriage. I started to feel that the elusive feeling of peace might be taken away from me the moment I had finally got it.

Suddenly I hear the words from the teacher and founder of Vipassana, S.N. Goenka:

“Rising, passing, rising, passing, rising, passing.

Observe your respiration, observe the sensation.

This too will change.”

A younger version of Finnian would have ignored this and instead tried to suppress these feelings.  I would have criticized myself for thinking about myself at such a horrible time. 

This time I chose to lean into the sensations instead.  I became the witness to the sensations and allowed them to have their moment. As soon as I allowed this, they soon disappeared and I was able to shift my focus back to the most important thing to me. 

How can I show up in the most courageous way and support the woman I love who was going through the worst moment of her life?

All I could think of was those statements again.

“Rising, passing, rising, passing

Accept the present moment. This too will change.”

These are the foundations of the Vipassana teaching. That everything is impermanent.

It’s our craving, attachment and aversion to particular sensations that causes all of our suffering.

The more I became connected to these statements, the calmer I became. I remembered that nothing external can ever bring me peace, nor can it take it away. I can be peaceful in any situation, no matter the external circumstances.  I leaned into the foundational Intentionality principle: “Experience peace and joy by learning to choose love over fear.”

All the stories that were coming up for me, that brought the fear in, that my ego could use to sabotage this moment in my life, were suddenly overcome with a higher vibrational energy: Love. 

This wasn’t by chance, I was reaping the benefits of another Intentionality principle: “Connect to your true nature by practicing the power of presence.” Your true nature can simply be described as love. As love starts flowing into you and out of you, time stands still, you stop thinking and something takes hold of you.

In this moment I was taken over by love and this love started guiding my behaviors instead of fear.

In times like this, it can be really hard to know what to do and we can become consumed by trying to work out what is the right thing to do.  

What I have learned is that if you truly operate from a place of love, then you can do no wrong.  Even if the immediate reaction gives you a reason to think otherwise.  Love and light will always overcome fear and darkness.

These last few weeks have been incredibly challenging and there have been many tears as we navigate this grief journey.

At the same time they have been some of the most joyful and love filled moments of my life and our relationship. We have become more connected to our spiritual beliefs and we have discovered more love for ourselves, which has enabled more love to flow into our relationship and our lives. 

We have also done some of the most incredible and inspiring service of our lives. I was in awe when in the hardest moment of my spiritual partner’s life, she overruled my decision to cancel the Intentionality retreat that started two days later.  She made the conscious decision that there was no place she would rather be (by the way, she is also a student of Vipassana and was an inspiration for me to do my first retreat). One of my favorite quotes is from Ghandi, “Lose yourself in the service of others” and we chose to embody and be guided by this wisdom.

From the outside, she and I could have easily received judgement for this decision. That we were distracting ourselves and we “should” have been doing something else.  I am so glad that she overruled me and that I listened because she was right. There was no better place for us to be.  This was a testament to the power of living by another Intentionality principle: “Make life a game you can win by setting your own rules rather than conforming to social conditioning.”

If we had succumbed to social conditioning we would have stayed and felt sorry for ourselves.  Instead we intentionally and consciously brought death into the retreat. These lucky and courageous Pathers witnessed and participated in something that all of us will never forget.  I can tell you from the transformations that everyone had at the retreat, death was the secret ingredient.

Vipassana helped me embody that we are not just our physical body, that we are also a soul. One that lives on even when the physical body does not. I know that my partner’s mother was with us the whole time and couldn’t be more proud of her gorgeous girl. 

So is Vipassana worth it? 

YES. It will prepare you for all the paths of life in ways you can never anticipate.

To learn more about the Vipassana traditions and retreats you can visit the Dhamma Organization.

In loving memory of the wonderful, inspiring, and beautiful

Deborah Bergen!

*An additional note*

You have heard me say over and over again how important it is to bring Intentionality to your mornings and a big element of that is staying off your phone. Hopefully this share motivates you even more to stay off that phone. 

On that morning when we received that news, it was actually 2.5 hours after her sister had initially called with the news. In that time we had done an hour of Vipassana meditation, a stretching and breathing routine and also completed some very important planning and admin for the upcoming retreat. If she hadn’t had her phone on airplane mode we would have been woken up abruptly in our sleep with the news.  In either scenario there was nothing we could do, but I tell you we were so much better prepared to handle what had happened because we were in such a centered and grounded state.