10-day silent meditation retreat at Dhamma Malaya

For the third time, I’ve attended a vipassana retreat in an effort to calm my mind by experiencing the Universal Law of Nature: impermanence. It helped. It always does. This time, my 10-day silent meditation retreat at Dhamma Malaya was extremely successful in terms of practicing the vipassana ‘free flow’ throughout the body.

My first two 10-day silent mediation retreats were in southern India, at Dhamma Arunachala and Dhamma Setu. (I’ve also done a one day session at Dhamma Setu.) Each visit was ‘successful’ in that first I learned the meditation technique called vipassana, which means to see things how they really are – not as you want them to be. This technique is the same used by Siddhartha Gautama, known as ‘the Buddha’ (although anyone who is ‘enlightened’ can be a buddha). On my second visit, I made great progress and continued the meditation practice through five months afterwards, only letting the habit slide on my trip ‘home’ to the USA.

10-day silent meditation retreat at Dhamma Malaya

This post is a bit niche. Our regular readers who want info solely about ‘budget slow travel in early retirement’ may want to skip this one.

For vipassana students, I hope you take away two points.

• One: while the vipassana courses are the same at the official centers worldwide, the minute details are different and contingent on the host country.
• Two: heat sensitive people might not get clear results/sensations in hot and humid locations without air conditioning.

These differences don’t make one better than the other. No craving or aversion here. I whole-heartedly recommend any vipassana retreat at an official center anywhere in the world!

What’s more: I’m extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to experience retreats in three equally great locations with amazing assistant teachers.

But new students – or newer old students – might benefit one way or the other. I share my experiences here only with the hope to help someone become aware of these differences so they might make the most of their own opportunities.

Differences between Malaysia and India vipassana centers

In Malaysia, the retreat offered the same course as every official center, taught by the primary teacher, the late S.N. Goenka. His guided meditations and evening discourses are audio and video recordings. ‘Assistant’ teachers are physically present and able to answer questions during two time periods each day.

But there were clear differences from my experiences in India. The biggest one to me was the air conditioning. It was used in the meditation hall and the individual meditation rooms at the Malaysian center, whereas it was not used at all at Dhamma Arunachala (near Tiruvannamalai) during my January 2024 visit, nor was it used at all at Dhamma Setu (near Chennai, India) during my January 2023 visit.

In Malaysia, the food had major Chinese influence (Chinese Malaysians frequent this facility) instead of Indian. For example, coffee was available in Malaysia, but not in India. That’s a huge one for many people. Also, noodles for breakfast versus rice and thali.

Morning chantings were not played on loud speakers after breakfast at Dhamma Malaya, as they were in India. I missed those a lot.

Dhamma Malaya let old students go to their individual cells on the second day! In southern India, old students were assigned a pagoda room on Day Four – Vipassana Day – if I recall correctly.

Dhamma Malaya provided large umbrellas — handy for sudden downpours and also relentless blazing sun — and also brooms for each room. (See photo above.) In India, no umbrellas were provided, and brooms were shared between entire wings of student rooms.

Old students were given thicker mattresses at Malaysia’s only official vipassana center than the ones for old students in southern India. (New students usually get thicker mattresses.)

Air conditioning greatly helped me

Sure, I missed the morning chantings I heard in India while strolling after breakfast before the day’s first group sitting. And my osteoporitic hips and spine appreciated the thicker mattress in Malaysia compared to India.

But the biggest difference of all – and most important to me – was the AC. It was easier for me to concentrate in air conditioning used in the mediation hall and cell at Dhamma Malaya. And I made real progress, I believe, because of it. Of course, it could be that I made better progress also because this was my third retreat.

I understand why air conditioning is not offered year-round in Southern India at the two locations where I’ve attended courses. It’s expensive and donations are likely smaller, but also: people are used to life without it. I would guess, however, that during summers in southern India, AC have to be used – even for locals.

However, as a privileged Westerner from the Global North who wasn’t sweating constantly at Dhamma Malaya, it was easier for me to discern if my intense sensations were really happening from within, or caused by external climate.

Personal experience with sensations

To be clear, I experience some ridiculously heavy (gross) sensations. Not everyone will have sankharas like me. In fact, after my second retreat in India, I wanted to take one course in South Korea in October 2024 to test these experiences of extreme heat and water sensations in a cooler climate. I was accepted to the course in the South Korean Dhamma center, but spouse Theo asked me not to go. He asked me to wait a few more months before I disappeared from his life again for 10 days. (Phones are not allowed.) I reluctantly agreed, so I didn’t go.

My experiences are always stronger at the retreats than when I meditate at ‘home’. Why? Was I imagining these physical sensations?

I’m lucky Dhamma Malaya used air conditioning. I am now convinced these sankharas are definitely real. Sure, some sweating will happen in a hot and humid climate without AC, and not every single session in the meditation hall had at Dhamma Malaya the AC running (only open windows in the early mornings or after downpours). But these experiences were so intense — even in AC — that I simply cannot ignore what happened.

But still I’m left with the question: why aren’t my sankharas this intense when I practice ‘at home’?

I believe there are two reasons, and old students will get it.

• One: my old stock of sankharas surfaces with intensive work and concentration without any outside distraction at these retreats, especially as I progress in my vipassana experience.
• Two: my mind is still weak and gets ‘unconcentrated’ when I leave these retreats and go back to reality – daily life full of travel and distractions, especially news and social media.

My challenge now is to keep up the practice, and hopefully reach that point of intensity at ‘home’, while finding that equanimity level I know I can reach if I work “diligently, ardently, consistently” — to use a phrase we old students know. And another: “Continuity is the secret to success.”

Life is Now — truly — moment to moment, arising and passing, arising and passing… anicca… anicca… anicca…

Thanks for reading, “10-day silent meditation retreat at Dhamma Malaya.”

Related:

• First vipassana retreat for an American in India
• Budget slow travel around Bodhgaya & the Buddhist circuit in India

About Ellen

Ellen and spouse Tedly started a budget slow travel lifestyle in 2015. She was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer while traveling in Europe in 2018 through an annual mammogram. She had a double mastectomy in Croatia, recovered from surgery, and kept traveling.

As a recovered alcoholic, Ellen seeks out spiritual growth opportunities in a variety of ways during her travel life, including service work, volunteering, and the occasional silent meditation retreat.

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