It is recorded that the Buddha described 84,000 ish methods of meditation, which fell broadly into two types. One type was to focus on something external, and the other vipassana, means in-sight. Vipassana therefore is a pure form of Buddhism, popular with westerners because of its lack of religious paraphernalia. So saying, there are plenty of Europeans in town who are fully paid up Tibetan Buddhists, which is a religion with heaps of ritual, superstition, tradition and paraphernalia. The basic technique in vipassana practise is to sit and be aware without the mind wondering. One is to be aware of ones' breathing first and foremost, but also of one's sitting still pains, of sounds, of intentions, of thoughts, of itches, of emotions. Once aware of them, they can be analysed and dealt with, so the theory goes. There is a lot of theory when the mind turns inwards, since experimental verification is hard to come by.

Our group of twenty participants, two managers, and two teachers resided in part of a monastery just down the hill from McLeod. We had paid for accommodation, and two meals from the monastery's kitchen, There was to be no entertainment laid on. No speaking to each other, no books, no chess, no unicycling and no juggling. No killing, stealing, sex, drugs or music. We were left alone with ourselves, each somehow sharing a private and silent space, while also sharing 3 to a bedroom.

Each day would start sonorously with a half past five gong giving half hour warning for the morning sitting (each session 45 mins), which was followed by 90 minutes of Yoga, then breakfast and a work or duty hour.

Then the day would begin in ernest as we received our instructions at the beginning of the next sitting. Basically we had to sit still and concentrate on the breath only. At first these instructions seemed rather mundane, and I was surprised by how much attention was given in the first few days to the discipline of not fidgeting and not automatically reacting to discomfort. Sure enough, our two teachers, Brian and Odelia would sit s t o n e still throughout each session, but the rest of us weren't used to it. It takes a while to find a comfortable position, to work with cushions and chairs, and variations on the lotus position or various kneels. You need your back straight, and upright, and relaxed, this helps to prevent falling asleep. Ah sleep! The last salvation of nodding novices, who must first try a variety of methods to stay awake. This is often a problem for beginners. Towards the end, the instructions were more about the attention leaving the breath, which is itself a distraction. From what, I never found out.

The bulk of the day consisted of alternate walking and sitting periods. I was lucky to choose this particular retreat where the option of walking broke up the wedges of meditation into sane chunks. Walking meditation? Just walk. Same idea as sitting meditation, where you just sit. Walk and concentrate on walking alone. The soles of your feet on the ground, the shifting of your balance. During these times I was reminded of a scene towards the end of the book 'Neverending Story' where the new childlike Emperor came across a camp with all the previous 'burned out' Childlike Emperors. With glazed eyes they handled their toys but they weren't really playing. So it was seeing all these people walking back and forth, sometimes very slowly. I just didn't get it, or find it meditative, but some people raved about it.

15 minutes of Chi Gung after lunch was no help at all to wake up from the siesta. One mediation in the afternoon was a guided metta meditation. Metta translates as loving kindness. The idea behind this practice is to cultivate warm and positive feelings in the participant. It's elementary psychology. You start by telling yourself how great you are, and wishing yourself all the best. Then you wish the same for other people, including your enemies, and eventually the whole world. Buddhists are nice like that. They often say things like "May all beings benefit from the meditation I have just performed" or "May all beings be set free from suffering and find happiness" Personally, I think that would cause some logical difficulties in Nature for all beings to be free from suffering. Surely some beings live off the suffering of others? Anyway Its a nice sentiment, and as long as you don't take it as logically as I am bound to, probably quite a healthy thing to tell yourself.

In the evening was a Dharma talk from one of the teachers. These were really the highlight of the day, since they provided the only intellectual stimulus, and the only official humour. Then after a final walk and a sit, we were in bed by 10pm, except for those really devoted people, insomniacs, or people who don't like getting up early, who might use the quiet hours of the night to squeeze in some extra practice.

You know, for such an uneventful and structured few days I've got an awful lot to say

Things were admittedly a bit uneventful for the first three days, I just tried to fight off sleep, hunger and distraction and concentrate on my breath. The next night though, I was disturbed by a noise which I imagined to be one of the sorry dogs that hang around the monastery. I dreamed of trying to have this dog put down, and woke up feeling cross. Then I started thinking about Stuart. Since I left Cambridge and sent him a rather personal critical letter, he has been muttering about rearranging my face, while blocking my reconciliatory emails. On the beach at Goa I thought I'd sorted the problem out in my head at least, by preposterously inviting him to come to India as my guest. But on this fourth day of Vipassana I discovered I was still angry with him, and I believed he was purposely delaying the return of my deposit just to make my life more difficult, and to give him time to find ways to subtract chunks from it. I requested a private audience with Brian, who suggested I watch my anger to see where it really comes from. A couple of hours later I requested another audience and said it wasn't really anger, it was disappointment that he had read me so wrongly and so negatively and reacted so very aggressively. But the real problem was, we established, that he was holding my money. He had me by the balls to some extent. On the spot therefore, I relinquished the whole sum to fate and was freed.

This was not the end of the incident though. My nasty mind then started to gloat. Now he no longer had me by the balls I was much freer in the power game between us. If he tried to give me less than I thought I was entitled to, I could return the shredded cheque and demand that we reach a compromise etc. etc. Gradually though these thoughts subsided.

The next day was the day 5 half way group meeting, and everyone was saying how useful the walking meditation was and how great they felt after the metta sessions. All I had to contribute was that, my stomach hurt, I'd rather do metta mediation alone, and I'd rather sew than walk. I realised what a negative contribution this had been, and that it was time for some time out. I donned my flip-flops and mooched down the track, and let all my doubts assail me.

After this half way hurdle, I began to look forward to the end, to think about the coming month of solid computing, I had an idea to offer massage to the other retreatants afterwards, because I don't know about them, but my hamstrings were sore from daily yoga and my shoulders from all that sitting. I started to produce by hand a flyer for massage, and soon used up some of my sleeping time in reproducing it. I was looking forward to going into business as a multimedia consultant and masseur. When all the flyers were done and stored in secret under my bed, my energy was starting to pressurise inside me.

On the ninth morning I emerged from the morning mediation, and within two hours composed a love poem to Odelia, the other teacher. It was the best I have ever written. According to Bjorn's accounts of vipassana, the silence was traditionally broken on the last evening, to give the retreatants a chance to get to know each other before going in their various directions. Brian however announced that the silence would be kept until next morning, so unable to contain myself I put on a disguise after the final dharma talk and climbed up to Mcleod and had an hour with the computer, a quick Tibetan soup, and a cigarette. Then on my return I found only one person (don't forget I wasn't supposed to talk) who would come the forest with me for a joint, but at least we let off some steam on our final evening.

You'll be glad to know that after the retreat broke up we all met three evenings in succession, and did indeed get to know each other better. I read my Ode to Odelia and it went down a treat: