The Ultra Review: 10-Day Vipassana 🧘🏽‍♀️ Silent Retreat in Hong Kong (Part 2 of 3)

Stardusts, gong baths, and the madness of Vipassana (insight) Meditation

(Part 2 of 3. Go to Part 1, Part 3)

The whole point of this “boot camp” was meditation. The rules and setup were there so we could feel the intense effects of meditation as strongly as possible.

Vipassana meditation is about noticing body sensations. As our awareness grew, the teachers used it to help us feel two Buddhist ideas: impermanence and equanimity. These can sound very strange or “woo‑woo,” but the retreat tried to make them real.

Impermanence: everything keeps changing

We were told to notice how our breathing and the feeling of our breath were always changing:

• Sometimes air came in through the left nostril, sometimes both

• Sometimes the exhale felt wet, sometimes strong

Hour after hour, staring at the breath and nostrils, the message sank in: nothing stays the same. Impermanence is easy to understand in theory, but being forced to feel it like this made it more useful.

For example, remembering that hunger comes and goes helped with the involuntary fasting. Over and over, the pattern repeated:

• “Wow, I’m hungry.”

• “Oh, I’m not hungry anymore.”

• “Damn, hungry again.”

• “Wait, did I even feel hungry a moment ago?”

Equanimity: not chasing or running away

Then we were told to be equanimous. That is where things felt truly crazy. Equanimity means keeping the mind balanced:

• Do not crave pleasant sensations.

• Do not push away painful sensations.

So:

• If toast tastes amazing, do not cling to that feeling.

• If pain is terrible, do not fight it or beg for it to stop.

We spent hours scanning the body, looking for sensations. After a while, my mind became so tuned in that I felt tiny tingles and tremors in different places. At first, there were bubbly feelings on my forehead. Later, sparkly sensations appeared all over my body. I could not tell if they were “real” or if I was going insane, but they spread more and more.

Sometimes, the whole body would feel covered in these bubbly tingles at once. It felt like every cell in my body was jiggling and dancing together, like a full‑body party.

All the cells in my body were having a little party, dancing to Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky.”

🎶

We’re up all night ’til the sun

We’re up all night to get some

We’re up all night for good fun

We’re up all night to get lucky ….

🎶

The closest comparison: a really smooth, satisfying bowel movement. Sorry, I don’t have a better way to describe this.

Stardust and moving pain

As I meditated more, this blissful state kept growing and changing. In one session, when my body felt like it was dissolving into sparkling bubbles, I suddenly felt like I was part of the air around me. The thought popped up: “I’m just stardust.” I knew this sounded crazy, like I was just a dust bunny in the universe, but the sense of being deeply connected to everything was hard to resist.

In another session, I was in a lot of pain from sitting. Then my mind imagined that the “stardust” in my left ankle started moving together, like a flock of birds flying in formation. Within seconds, that feeling swept the pain away and replaced it with awe.

The good thing was that all of this was happening inside my head. Everyone else had their eyes closed, so I did not have to worry how I looked. Even if I looked ridiculous, no one saw it. I could let the mind go wild.

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The mind game: craving stardust

These powerful, rewarding experiences were also the core of the Vipassana “mind game.” Equanimity means you must not crave anything. But as soon as I had those strange, blissful experiences, I wanted more.

The moment I craved them, they disappeared. When they did not come back, I started to dislike the normal, plain sensations of just being human. The more I pushed those normal feelings away, the more they stayed. Inside my head it sounded like:

• “I want stardust!”

• “Wait, I shouldn’t want stardust.”

• “Where are my stardusts?”

This never‑ending self‑torture was the training. As Goenka said during the course, “Awareness, equanimity: THIS! IS! VIPASSANA!”

The greatest “game” for life

Now it is clear why some people meditate for their whole lives. Vipassana is like extreme training for living with equanimity. In daily life, you can try not to cling to things, but it is not as intense as this constant beating from meditation.

Every session can become a practice round for letting go of desire and resistance:

• “My mind drifted again. Ugh. Wait, I should accept that my mind drifts. Why am I still so bad at this? I should be better. Oh no, now I’m craving improvement. Equanimity is gone. Great, now I’m angry too.”

It is impressive that monks figured this out. Vipassana is like the best game ever invented to prepare us for life. You just close your eyes and keep training yourself to detach from highs and lows, wins and failures, by simply watching body sensations.

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Gong baths and Goenka’s chants

One last funny part: by the end, I actually enjoyed the chants. Most sessions started and ended with Goenka chanting. I did not understand the language, and his deep grunts and sounds were dramatic and, at first, hilarious. I silently made fun of them in my head.

But one day, during a brutal one‑hour “strong determination” sitting, the pain started 15 minutes in. I felt like I was on fire. I was sure the gong was broken and time had stopped. My mind was all over the place.

When the final chant finally began, something shifted. My whole body felt the vibration of the chanting. It was incredibly comforting and freeing. Behind my closed eyes, I was tearing up with joy. In that moment, it felt like: “I’ve arrived. I believe. Gong baths are real.”

Continue to Part 3: “Torture of pillows, insanity, greatest game on earth.”