No no don't worry...I won't bother you with what Vipassana exactly is but maybe just give you some insight information about things I had to deal with these couple of days ;-)
Who takes part?
72 women including 6 foreigners are 'sitting' (meditating 10 -11 hours a day) and 15 women are 'serving' (cooking, cleaning, etc.)
30 men including 2 foreigners are sitting and 10 are serving + 7 monks + 1 teacher + 1 translator (both monks)
age??? everything between 16 and 80? though it's hard to guess how old these men and women really are...they just looked old with bended backs, sore knees, hanging heads, wrinkled faces but they where all there and sitting on the floor for hours!
Who is wearing what?
Actually ALL Cambodian women, either nun or not, are wearing white...the foreigners they were wearing whatever they want, but it's has to be over the knee and cover your shoulders with now deep decollete.
The monks are in orange and the men wear whatever they want....
What's in the room?
My room..uhhh sorry cell, is 6m2 with one wooden hard bed, one mattress 5cm, one laundry basket and some nails on the wall.
My first worries:
- the blood circulation stops in my legs during already the first hour...how I'm I going to handle this?!?!
- coughing, sneezing, rattling (spitting), burping, farting, yawning...
- smashing doors, whispering, telephone rings or alerts...
- rattling plates, for creeping...
You'll have to know this is a noble silence retreat so everyone should try to make him/herself invisible to the others... The sounds are even more intense than usual.
What happened to me?
- I damaged a tap..trying to be invisible it made me more visible and more wet than I ever good be :-)
- I've been daydreaming a lot
- I've been sitting on a chair (just one hour, I couldn't do it longer with the view of all these old ladies sitting on the floor, printed in my mind)
- I've truancy every day
- I've been walking till I got blisters on my feet
- I've been crying and laughing
- I've been giving people animal names to deal with all the noises...there was a woman burping hours no days after each other...she for example became my camel ;-)
and after all, it was all worth it and I can only recommend it to EVERYONE!
....if you want to now more about Vipassana : www.dhamma.org and go for it!