Dhammadipa Arama

Dhammadipa Arama is a Buddhist monastery and college in Batu-Malang, East Java where 50 monk/nuns in training come to stay for 4 years without going home. During the school breaks they all go on Vipassana retreat. Its also where lay people like myself can come to study Vipassana with Bhante Khantidharo, who is almost80 and studied with Mahasi and U Pandita in Myannmar. Having previously attended 2 retreats at Dhamma Java, the Goenka retreat center here in Indonesia, this was my first extended experience with walking meditation, noting and following the breath from the stomach rather than the nostrils.  I was on retreat there for 14 days and it a pretty intense experience, very challenging, inspiring and rewarding.. I became very intimate with pain as enemy, teacher, companion.

Below are some observations I wrote for Ines, my wonderful online teacher from IMC that I have continued to work with since taking the online course (highly recommended)

General Observations:

1. Dhammadipa Arama is a monastery and a Buddhist college housing @50 monk/nun candidates. They stay there for 4 years, don’t go home and during school “holidays” do Vipassana retreats.
2. The head monk and founder – Bhante Khantidharo is almost 80 and studied with Mahasi and U Pandita in Myannmar.
3. Bhante emphasized continuity of mindfulness too – walking from place to place was done like walking meditation and eating was also done mindfully.
4. Watching  Bhante bow was very inspiring – he looked totally absorbed and mindful.
5. Students had interviews every other day with dharma talks on the other days.
6. Bhante (understandably) is a traditionalist with a monk/lay dichotomy. Lay people’s duty is to support the monks/nuns through dana and don’t have the opportunity to do good deeds like monks/nuns do since they have families to support.
7. Bhante emphasized the Kalamma Sutta – not believing but finding out for yourself thru experience. Yet for me the whole Buddhist cosmology seemed to be based on belief and not something verifiable through meditation.
8. Bhante emphasized urgency and effort since death is always near and inevitable.

Personal Observations:

1. Initially I wasn’t able to sit for 1 hour w/o moving. I had difficulty doing so at the Goenka retreats. This was very frustrating and I couldn’t sleep the first night.
2. The next day I could differentiate pain into distinct and separate sensations which could also be separated from our negative reaction the pain. This realization was really inspiring. From there I had the experience of pain as a sensation being totally neutral – without any inherent “pain” and being entirely separate from my reaction to it. When I reacted I could feel the “pain” starting to hurt and when I controlled my reaction the hurt would recede. Then later I had the experience of tuning in or out the pain sensations by increasing focus on the object of concentration – breath. Amazing…
3.  Dukkha. From pain I discovered that dukkha is my reaction to pain or to any other sense stimuli. React and there is clinging, suffering, and pain. “Noting” I could neutralize and prevent a reaction or thoughts from arising by quickly returning to the breath. At a certain point I was able to do this smoothly – time passed effortlessly, I felt light and free.
4. Acceptance. From dukkha I had the realization – although not a new understanding, that accepting what is without wanting/hoping for anything else is freedom. Not freedom to do anything, eat anything or move position but to accept as fully as possible what is.
5. Fear and no self. The Bhante talked about anhatta but I was afraid to let go more. If I let go of thought – who would I be? I had this discomfort/suffering and had a realization that I should just let go, there was no me, that “I” am a process like everything else unfolding around me. I felt great relief and freedom.
6. From there I had the short and difficult to explain realization that I didn’t have to even focus on sensation/reaction or self/no self, I could focus on nothingness. It felt black and negation. This did not last long though and did not repeat.
7. Bhante had me doing 2 step walking meditation and then pausing, noting and returning to the breath. This needed a lot of patience and at times I had strong rejection/aversion but also felt great acceptance.
8. Strange experiences. About 1/3 into the retreat while sitting I felt my arms break into fragments and become gaseous, then intense tingling and heat. The pulse in the back of my head and between my eyes was throbbing and thunderous.  Strong sensations in body and head – like a storm. These sensations continued with some variation while sitting and then while walking I felt like I was really light, floating, colors intense, field of vision shaking and being off balance. Strong sensations in arms – tingling then stiff and hard. Later while sitting I would feel footsteps, tugging on my sleeve even though no one was there. I saw a white object out of my peripheral vision which moved to center and disappeared. I often had very loud ringing in my ears. Once I sat almost 2 hours and my left arm started shaking uncontrollably and very strong contractions up my neck to the top of my head. I saw red then everything went pitch black as if every bit of light had been sucked away. Wracking sobs emerged and after awhile everything passed. I didn’t open my eyes or move my arms/legs and after finishing I felt very light. Bhante was dismissive of all of this saying they were “noda” or stains.
9. The last third of the retreat the strange experiences went away except for the tingling and heat and ringing. What was left was observing the breath and accepting.
10. At times I felt able to very precisely focus on the breath as the object of concentration even feeling my intestines all too clearly. Very clear and penetrating. Other times fuzzy and slippery despite attempt after attempt to latch on. Mostly concentration through strength – determined to focus. Other times I could take a softer approach being more discerning but often felt in danger of losing focus.
11. I also had the feeling of extreme fragility of life – only breath to breath, nothing more. No guarantees that the end of one breath will be continued with a new breath.
12. I had the sense of fruition – of understandings ripening and maturing and dropping from the tree when they were ready. I felt vastly increased confidence in the “path” and that I am on it. I felt inspired and energized and a deep sense of commitment. I felt really scientific – like the body is the laboratory and that I could verify things directly and experimentally. Tremendously inspiring and exciting.
13. My noting is still less than gentle and if thinking felt like a shout of warning – THINKING, THINKING, THINKING rather than a label.

Below are some photos of the place, my little hut, the drum they beat to wake us up at 2:30am, the different meditation halls and the Bhante and me... I usually meditated in the wood structure shaped like an octagon in the middle of the lily flower pool.... It has no walls and the water birds would sometimes climb up and walk around, other times it would rain and be very windy.