For everyone who's still interested, I'm going to tell you more about this incredible experience with vipassana meditation..........

I'll be more precise this time, for those with a genuine interest in this practice, because I know these readers will come to it with a specific purpose in mind.

This vipassana meditation course, led by the teacher Goenka, is divided into three stages, which are:

1.- Sila.- This refers to morality, to the abstention from sounds or movements that might distract or disturb yourself or others.

It refers, essentially, to the precepts one must follow as a first commitment in order to participate in the course. So, as I explained in my first account, morality here simply means the modest, decent behavior you're expected to observe so as not to distract others. You must dress covered up, preferably in loose clothing, without adornments, and keeping to a simple appearance.

They aren't terribly strict about it, and among the younger participants, some arrive in clothes that aren't quite appropriate, and as long as it isn't extreme, they let it go.

That said, none of us wore jewelry, and only a few of us wore watches. Mine turned out to be enormously useful, because as I mentioned before, I had such a hard time holding the lotus position and staying still for long stretches that sneaking a glance at my watch, which I'd set on the floor in front of me, gave me a real boost on many occasions.

Naturally, this precept is meant to be carried forward even after the course, in terms of treating others well in every sense of the word.

2.- Samadhi.- This refers to concentration for the control of your mind, that is, the training of it.

You achieve this by following the steps the teacher lays out, and although it takes a great deal of effort to sustain this concentration for any length of time, by doing what they say you gradually acquire the practice. The first thing you must do is relax and not force your mind to do anything at all. The more you push or anguish over it, the less you accomplish.

The rule, the thing you will hear constantly, is this: "keep your mind calm and silent; all you have to do is observe and let things happen." The quieter the mind, the more easily you begin to have sensations and to perceive reality with greater clarity.

3.- Panna.- This is the stage of wisdom, and it has three steps to follow:

"Suta-maya panna: wisdom acquired by listening to others." "Cita maya panna: wisdom gained through intellectual analysis." "Bhavana panna: wisdom developed through one's own experience."

On the surface, we believe we control our bodies because they move and act according to our conscious wishes. But at another level, the internal organs function without our control and without our awareness. Constant chemical changes are occurring in every cell of our body. These particles continuously arise and disappear, their existence passing unnoticed, as nothing more than a flow of being.

This is the ultimate reality of the body, and this is the method for arriving at what the Buddha discovered 2,500 years ago.

Of course, many people had been Buddhas before him, and many after him continue to achieve it and will go on achieving it, but we ask ourselves: how?

Most of us know so little about our own minds, and of course nothing, or nearly nothing, about how to control them.

That's why even those of us who pride ourselves on doing whatever we want are really just doing the best we can, and we live contentedly enough within that reality of ours.

This isn't about killing the beautiful fantasy each of us is capable of, nor the creativity of those devoted to art, which is nourishment for the soul.

But it is about not spinning so many fantasies that they keep us from moving through this already very complicated world of ours with more determination and steadiness.

Especially when twenty-first-century life, more than ever before, sets us in competition with one another and pits us against each other as human beings in the pursuit of our own satisfaction or success. Often without respect, trampling over the rights of others.

That's also why, from the very beginning, they emphasize strongly that you may continue with your religion and that you alone decide what you want, because the point isn't to go leaping from religion to religion, from one belief to another, but to need nothing at all, if that's what you choose. Or, if it's also your wish, to continue with your own religion, but without the ties, the guilt, and certainly without gurus, priests, rabbis, and so on, while acknowledging your own reality. Because the people who run these institutions, in the vast majority of cases, are looking for the same things every human being looks for: recognition, power, and money, the perfect tools for going out and conquering the world.

You begin by concentrating on the breath, and then you move on to concentrating on the central triangle of your face, which runs from the bridge of the nose, fanning downward in a triangle toward the cheeks and the mouth.

It was at this point that I began to feel a great deal of itching in my nose, and then at other points on my face. The first few times I scratched, but eventually you realize that these sensations are simply reactions worth observing, reactions you should let arise and disappear on their own. This may seem simple and even silly, but it gradually leads you to understand the meaning of life. Because things in life happen, they grow, sometimes it seems we won't survive the trials placed in our path, but everything passes, and even when it leaves scars, it passes.

This is where vipassana meditation becomes enormously useful again. Because if you learn this correctly, the things that must happen to each of us will pass in just the same way, since, as they say in India, each person must live out their own karma. But the reaction will be far calmer.

The sensations you begin to feel, first in the face, will spread over the course of the days to other parts of the body as the method takes hold and the various changes unfold.

They also tell you not to worry if you don't feel them, or if you take longer than others, because they will come. We all have them, and in Pali they are called "Sankharas." They come and go, and all you must do is observe them. This is the mental reaction and the conditioning of it.

In this stage of Sankharas you must maintain equanimity in order to continue with the uninterrupted practice and thus arrive at what would be "Bhanga," where the impurities that had remained in the unconscious will manifest themselves and rise to the surface of our minds, expressing themselves physically.

This is why you need to maintain equanimity and calm when you feel them, so as not to create new Sankharas. This is where things get complicated, and why continuous practice is required.

Some of these sensations will be painful, unpleasant. But there will also be others that are agreeable, and you must not try to prolong these any more than you should flee from or avoid the disagreeable ones.

Why? Because that is reality, and you cannot hide from it; you have to face it. When it's pleasant, it costs us nothing and we cling to it, but what about when it isn't?

I am one of those people who, even though life has been genuinely pleasant for me most of the time, and being as hedonistic as I am, tends to cling to whatever gives me pleasure.

Until very recently I would have said that's exactly how it should be, and I don't know whether I'll be able to change it entirely, but what I am beginning to understand is that I run from pain, and maybe that works out well enough for me, but what about those at my side? Those I love, or say I love?

This is my own experience. Yours may be entirely different, but today I'm going to share it with everyone who wishes to receive it, and if it's of some use, all the better.

I think it's one more of my pleasures: I like to give, because it makes me feel good, and since I love to communicate, this is one way of doing it.

I'll continue with this account and explanation over the coming days, and I hope you enjoy this first part of what has happened since my course, and the method I followed.

Sanuka.