"I wish I could bottle that smile you have."
Those were the words my partner Thoko said to me on the morning of day ten, the moment the noble silence finally broke and we were able to speak to each other again for the first time in ten days.
My smile was not my usual smile. It was coming from somewhere deeper, from an inner tranquility. The kind of smile you sometimes see on a monk, or a wise elderly person, or a spiritual teacher. A calmness that comes from the inside out.
So where did that smile come from? That is what this episode is about.
The Third Chapter of a Story
This is not the beginning of this journey. In 2022, I attended my first ten-day Vipassana silent meditation retreat and talked about it in episode 267. I stepped into the complete unknown and came out changed. Then in 2023, I returned for a three-day refresher course, which I discussed in episode 333. This episode is the third chapter of that ongoing story.
If you want the full detail on the technique, the schedule, and what Vipassana actually is, episode 267 is the place to start. Here, we pick up where we left off.
A Different Centre, A Different Season
This time I attended a different centre, in the west of England, and in June rather than November. Nature was entirely different: long bright days, a small forest for walking, flowers in bloom, squirrels and rabbits moving through the grounds. One of the gifts of slowing down so completely is that you begin to actually see things. The sheer beauty of a flower. The sound of birds in the trees. Details that busy living keeps hidden.
I attended the retreat together with Thoko, although together is a figure of speech. Male and female students are completely separate for the first nine days. We did not see or speak to each other until the silence lifted on day ten.
The Rollercoaster
Externally, some things were more familiar this time. I knew the schedule, I knew what waking up at 4am to a bell feels like, I knew what eleven hours of meditation a day does to your back. That familiarity gave me something solid to stand on.
Internally, it was an entirely new experience. And it was not easier.
Day one brought unexpected resistance. I found myself thinking: why on earth did I sign up for this again? By day two, I had settled. The schedule became a structure I could lean on, and I noticed something about myself: as a foundation, I need predictability. A level of certainty.
Day four brought something else entirely. After a long group meditation, I left the hall and burst into tears without knowing why. I walked slowly, head down, completely spaced out for a couple of hours. Something had been released. I still cannot fully explain what it was.
Day nine felt endless. Knowing the following day would be the last, I was surprised by how much resistance I still felt. Thoko told me afterwards that she had hit her wall on day seven and had seriously considered leaving. Just because you have done it before does not mean the mind will spare you. The deeper complexes surface regardless.
The Insight That Cracked Something Open
There were two significant insights from this retreat. The first was recognising a pattern I had already noticed in 2022: creating elaborate mental portraits of people from tiny observations, then filtering my attitude towards them through those projections. I was surprised it was still there. But the value is not that the pattern has gone. The value is the awareness of it. That is how this work actually goes.
The second insight was the most important one I have ever had about this podcast, and it did not happen during meditation. It happened during the evening discourse on day four, when the teacher spoke about the three levels of action: physical, vocal, and mental. Most people assume the physical level carries the most weight. The teaching says the opposite. The mental level, what he called volition, is where everything truly begins. Physical and vocal actions are simply the outward expression of what was already set in motion at the mental level.
And sitting in that silence, with nowhere to hide, I looked honestly at my own volition. On the physical and vocal level, this podcast serves you, the listener. But at the deepest mental level, my volition has been self-benefit: learning, self-expression, financial return. Not wrong in themselves. But not the same as giving freely, without wanting anything in return. That gap between what we do and why we truly do it is where the real work lives.
The Drive Home
After ten days apart, Thoko and I had a four and a half hour drive home. We talked the entire way. When we arrived, we sat in the parked car for another hour, not wanting to break the in-between state we were both still in. Going through something this deep with your life partner is a gift I did not take lightly.
A friend, after hearing me describe those ten days, said something that stayed with me. She thought I was not describing a retreat. I was describing a life. The good days and the days of doubt. The flow and the resistance. The moments of grace and the moments of wanting to give up. All of it, compressed into ten days.
Two Questions to Leave You With
What if you examined not just what you do, but why, at the deepest level, you do it? What if ten days of silence could show you things about yourself that years of busy living have kept hidden?
If something in you is leaning forward as you read this, it is worth paying attention to.