For nearly an hour I watched the ants, studying their behavior with great attention, and almost immediately I found myself drawing comparisons to us human beings (who are supposed to be the thinking ones). These little creatures with their distinctly unfriendly faces are in constant motion, and yet they seem to have no clear direction in anything they do. They move so fast they'll climb right over other ants if one happens to get in the way. The only discernible purpose is an urgency to collect everything, food, objects, whatever, with the sole aim of accumulating, even in a place like this where they would hardly ever go without the essentials. But because it is their nature, they cannot see the difference between living here, where every living being is respected and cared for, and living in an ordinary house like mine, where we spend our energy trying to keep them out. And if they do get in, many of them will die.

They are almost always bunched together and go everywhere in groups, yet they never look satisfied or at ease. I think the old sayings exist for good reason: "She has the mind of an ant," "He works like an ant," and in the language of modern life, "We live like an anthill." The similarities are too close to be accidental. They left me with a feeling of anxiety, those ants.

Watching the butterflies, on the other hand, made me feel so good, because they drift from flower to flower, rest wherever the mood takes them, drink their fill of nectar, and flutter about as if the passage of time were simply not their concern. Which is why I asked myself: if you had to come back as one of these creatures, which would you choose? And I, acknowledging my own hedonism without the slightest embarrassment, choose butterfly. Without question.

My first meditation:

As I mentioned, it was at 4:30 a.m. on the very first morning I woke up in that place.

At the center of the grounds, the main building is a kind of auditorium-temple whose roof is crowned with a golden stupa like the ones that top the temples here in Thailand. The hall faces west (I confirmed this with the compass on my watch).

The women's dormitories pointed north and the men's pointed south.

Because of that orientation, and despite very high ceilings and a row of industrial-scale fans or extractors mounted up in the rafters of the hall they called the Dharma Hall, there were moments when the heat was overwhelming. There were regular fans too, but they were only switched on at the teachers' request.

Inside, everything was quite comfortable, the acoustics were perfect, and there at the front, facing all of us (somewhere between sixty and seventy people), sat the teachers on raised stools so everyone could see them. They were, of course, in lotus position, as were we all.

This Thai couple moved through the world with a gaze, a bearing, and a way of walking that was placid and almost soundless, and they drew attention just as I did, though for very different reasons: the woman in charge of my dormitory had asked me to please try to walk more softly, because my footsteps were too firm and created too much movement. Another thing I recognized in myself.

That first day began with Vedic chants in Pali (the ancient liturgical language of Theravada Buddhism), meant to draw us closer to the origins of the practice. I loved them so much that I bought a few CDs when the course ended.

We were asked, over the recording, to repeat them, and we all made the attempt (though for some of us it was not exactly easy).

Then, in the evening talks that Mr. Goenka gave night after night, he explained their meaning little by little. They are Vedic phrases full of wisdom, phrases that Gautama (the Buddha) was known to repeat. Woven into all of this was his nightly explanation of what we had done that day, why we had done it, and what would be expected of us the following morning. He told stories too, wonderfully engaging ones, many with deeply interesting metaphorical layers. The endings were always enchanting: the teacher would close each session by singing the chants in his strange, guttural, utterly original voice, always wishing us recognition of "real happiness," always repeating: "Be happy."

After practicing for two or three days, you begin to experience sensations in the body. They can be of any kind, and you must not try to induce or force any of them. Each person may have different sensations, or similar ones, and it makes no difference either way. You might also take longer to feel anything at all, and you should not worry about that, because the most important condition for any of this to happen is a calm mind that can observe without anxiety.

I felt itching in various parts of my body, numbness, little pinpricks, palpitations, and so on.

Naturally, day by day, things begin to clarify. These physical phenomena arise and pass away on their own, without you controlling anything (they are called sankaras).

It is said that the great enlightened thinkers of ancient India discovered twenty-five centuries ago that we are made of atoms, which they named "Kalapas."

With time and practice, they say one can reach a state of complete mental purity, and with it, enlightenment, or what we might call "Nirvana." Whether I will ever get there I honestly cannot say, and my goals at the moment are not quite that ambitious, but what I am already beginning to verify in myself, starting now, are real changes in my attitude and in the way I see things.

This practice is so scientific, so rational, so clearly oriented toward concrete results, that it has nothing to do with Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, or Christianity as mere religious organizations.

It involves no conversion of any kind, and that needs to be understood clearly. This is simply the law, the law of nature, and great emphasis is placed on never allowing yourself to be led by people who represent religious sects, whether church representatives or gurus.

The only conversion that takes place, of course, is the one that happens when you exchange your suffering for happiness. Your bonds for freedom. Your ignorance for illumination. Not the kind where you leave one religion for another and then another, perpetually in search of someone to guide you.

So the final question: why ten days and not two or three, or an hour a week, like other meditations? Because Vipassana is a technique that works at the depth of the mind, and it simply cannot be taught in less time.

It is like wanting to speak a language and thinking that if you urgently need to use it in three months, one class a week will get you there. This practice has its steps and its technique, and in my view the time it requires is exactly right.

On the fifth day they also assign you an individual cell to meditate alone for a couple of hours each day, but mine was so hot that I ended up undressing to do it.

I will confess that I had days when I asked myself: what am I doing here among all these strange half-zombie people? Will I come back completely changed? I want to hold onto a couple of attachments, with whatever risks and pain I have to pay for them.

As the day when we would be allowed to speak approached, I developed a terrible headache, and since obtaining an aspirin required navigating a whole bureaucratic process designed to discourage you from taking any medication, I decided to face my pain head-on during a break just before the final evening meditation.

And what can I tell you: I sat on the ground beneath the hall, hugged my knees to my chest, pressed my forehead down, and told myself, explode if you need to, just leave me in peace. I don't think I stayed like that for more than ten minutes, when the bell rang to return to meditation. I opened my eyes, and the headache was completely gone.

To be continued....