The “Vipassana Vendetta”
The “Vipassana Vendetta”
Vipassana Vendetta, what is it, and does it have anything to do with meditation?
“Vipassana Vendetta” sounds like the name of an action-packed movie. However, it is actually an obscure term that is used to describe an experience that happens quite frequently in silent meditation retreats, especially if it is your first time attending one (Goldstein, 2002).
So, what is a “Vipassana Vendetta” and to answer this question, let us take an unconventional path and start by breaking it down into its separate words, “vipassana” and “vendetta,” defining the meaning of each word.
Vipassana: Vipassana is one of the two foundational meditation practices in Buddhism (Harvey, 2013). It is usually translated into “insight” or “clear seeing.” Vipassana is most commonly associated with the Theravada School of Buddhism and was initially popularised by Buddhist Monk Ledi Sayadaw (Braun, 2013). This was then further fuelled by S. N. Goenka, who was probably one of the main drivers for its popularity in the West (Hart & Goenka, 2011). It is a practice that aims to cultivate mindfulness to develop insight into the nature of reality and things from three aspects, “that they are impermanent and unstable (anitya/anicca), that they are unsatisfactory and imperfect (duhkha/dukkha), and that they are not self (anatman/anatta)” (Gethin, 1998, p. 187). Ultimately, the practice is directed towards “freedom from suffering,” so at cultivating inner peace, wisdom, and compassion for self and others.
Vendetta: This term has been borrowed from Italian. It was originally used in English to refer to heated retaliatory conflict or feuding between different families or clans. Generally, it is used to describe engaging in an often-prolonged bitter campaign of retaliatory violence and retribution against someone or a group of people (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). We could say that this would be the antithesis of vipassana and would go totally against the principles of Buddhist and contemplative traditions.
So, at first glance, these terms are opposites to each other, so why are they joint?
First, it is important to note that although this term is referring to a phenomenon that happens in silent retreats, it is not a recognised “concept/term” that is made mention of in traditional meditation manuals or Buddhist texts. This is not to say that traditional texts do not mention the phenomenological experience or something similar to the experience of “vipassana vendetta”. However, this term emerged more recently as Buddhism and silent retreats became more popular in the West.
I tried to look into when the term actually emerged, and after doing some research and scoring through multiple articles, I could find nothing concrete.
However, a curious fact is that I found about four published books that mention this term: 2 mention it in relation to meditation and another 2, by the same authors, who mention it in the context of self-help (books are below in bibliography). So, I would be inclined to hypothesise that this term probably emerged after the 1980s, as the earliest mention I could find was in the book by Joseph Goldstein, published in 2002. Why do I say this?
Joseph Goldstein was one of the co-founders of the Insight Meditation Society, which was established on February 14, 1976 (IMS history, n.d.) I would say that it probably emerged after the establishment of this society and them conducting silent retreats. But again, this is what I think, and if you happen to know of the term’s mention in any literature, I would love to know in the comments.
So, departing from all of this and considering that vipassana and vendetta are polar opposite concepts at odds with each other, their combination likely points us to something curious. That they probably were combined to describe or put a label on a humorous or ironic paradoxical phenomenon being experienced in silent retreats, and this actually seems to be the case.
So what is vipassana vendetta
“Vipassana vendetta” is usually a phenomenon that happens in silent retreats where “minor irritations” turn into “major irritations”, all amplified by thoughts in the mind. A great practical example of this happening is the one described by Oliver Burkeman (2012) in their book “The Antidote: Happiness For People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking.” They write:
Gradually, I started to become aware of a young man sitting just behind me and to the left. I had noticed him when he first entered the meditation hall, and had felt a flash of annoyance at the time: something about him, especially his beard, had struck me as too calculatedly dishevelled, as if he were trying to make a statement. Now his audible breathing was starting to irritate me, too. It seemed studied, unnatural, somehow theatrical. My irritation slowly intensified – a reaction that struck me as entirely reasonable and proportionate at the time. It was all beginning to feel like a personal attack. How much contempt must the bearded meditator have for me, I seethed silently, deliberately to decide to ruin the serenity of my meditation by behaving so obnoxiously? (ibid. chap. 3, para. 28)
How sitting with yourself in stillness, especially if this stillness is accompanied by an environment of silence such as in a meditation retreat, how small irritations or discomforts can easily become magnified beyond their true effect as in the example shared by Oliver Burkeman. How something so mundane, such as the sound of someone’s breath, turned into this whole story that the person was doing it intentionally to irritate them.
This might seem irrational, but in such situations where the mind is deprived of everyday stimulation, it reveals an underlying conditioned nature that of how easily we can get caught into storylines, especially negative ones and run with them in our thoughts, creating a whole scenario. This phenomenon is what is meant by the term “vipassana vendetta” (Burkeman, 2012; Goldstein, 2002).
Oliver Burkeman (2012) writes “vipassana vendetta” is how, in the stillness of a retreat,
Tiny irritations become magnified into full-blown hate campaigns; the mind is so conditioned to attaching to storylines that it seizes upon whatever’s available. (ibid. chap. 3, para. 29)
This has happened to me multiple times, sometimes in the context of a silent retreat and other times in my daily practice.
Over the years, from my own experience with meditation, I find that the main four elements or challenges that tend to trigger it fall under the following:
1. Mental challenges: “Vipassana vendetta” can also happen in instances where, during long periods of silence in meditation, practitioners might be more prone to the amplification of difficult emotions or thoughts due to the same process that we described above. So “vipassana vendetta” does not only “humorously” refer to the mind’s tendency to fixate on perceived annoyances from others in the retreat around us but also to internal challenges due to the mind’s tendency to fixate mentally on these challenges, getting lost in a spiral of thinking amplifying them.
2. Competitive mindset: Social comparison is something that is ingrained in our psychology (Hogg & Vaughan, 2017). So, a “vipassana vendetta” might show itself in the arising of a sense of competitiveness with others in the retreat. This might show itself in a subtle way, like just getting lost in a sense of comparison in how you are doing compared to others, or not-so-subtle where we might end up harbouring a sense of inner resentment towards someone or a group that we perceive as “doing better.” An example of this could be getting lost in an inner monologue like, “How they always look calm and steady in the practice, they are surely faking it, wish a fly sits squarely on their nose and just stays there, I too can sit like them in meditation, I will sit next to them hope this throws them off.”
3. Restlessness and frustration: In the context of a retreat, this can happen due to needing or being expected to adhere to a strict schedule tempered by prolonged moments of silence. These can be frustrating or give rise to restlessness, for example, due to the long time spent still in sitting meditation. This might give rise to what I would call getting caught in an internal “vendetta” against the retreat conditions or teachers. For example, “They could have planned the retreat better, the teachers could have done a better job at organising this,” or even oneself, for example, “Why cannot I sit still? I am not good at this. You are making a fool of yourself. Everybody can see how restless you are.”
4. Physical discomfort or irritations: Further, a “vipassana vendetta” might also be triggered by physical discomforts or irritations in the body. In the context of practicing alone at home, this might pass through as you are less restricted and can move freely and shift your posture or scratch an itch or, stand up and sit again if your feet are getting numb or adjust the cushion mid-way in your practice. However, this might not be the case when on retreat, where you are practising in a group in an environment that is to observe silence. For example, you might be practicing in the main hall, there is dead silence, and you start feeling an itch in your throat and a need to cough. Here, a “vipassana vendetta” can easily strike in spiralling thoughts similar to the following, “please stop, go away, why is this happening now, I cannot resist, but you have to keep it in, I wish I was at home I could just cough there”; or maybe you cannot hold it and cough and start feeling as if you want to be swallowed by the earth compounded by a downward spiral of thoughts of how you disturbed the others and what they might be thinking about you now.
Being paralysed from the neck down (you can read more here “About Me – Clayton Micallef”), the last one, “physical discomfort or irritations,” is the one I tend to struggle with. I can recall a clear example of a “vipassana vendetta” that happened to me during an online silent retreat, which would not have been the case if I would have been practising alone.
I remember getting a really bad spasm that shifted my posture and, in an instant, getting flooded by thoughts, “Why did this happen now, I am going to disturb the others. Is my microphone on, should I turn the camera off, hope nobody notices,” etc. As mentioned, if something like this had happened while practicing alone, I would just stop and adjust my posture and then continued with the practice. This again highlighting how, in the context and environment of a retreat, irritations that might not usually disturb our practice can end up being amplified.
However, from experience to a lesser extent, I would say that this phenomenon does not only occur during retreats, but it can also happen as we go about our personal daily meditation practice and sometimes even while going about our daily lives and how we can get caught up in minor irritations and run with them in the mind ending up unnecessarily distressed. This happens universally. It is just that during meditation retreats, there is a greater chance that this phenomenon gets amplified and makes itself really apparent.
Ultimately, the phenomenon of “vipassana vendetta” highlights what is said in the Sallatha Sutta with the example of the two arrows. How we are bound to be hit or experience discomfort in life, the first arrow, which we cannot avoid and how the discomfort can be compounded or increased, ending up further distressed through the interpretation we put on it, the second arrow, and how this can be avoided (Feldman & Kuyken, 2019; Thanissaro Bhikkhu, 1997).
And you, have you ever experienced a “vipassana vendetta” or something similar in your meditation practice? Leave a comment below.
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Bibliography
Braun, E. (2013). The birth of insight: Meditation, modern Buddhism & the Burmese monk Ledi Sayadaw. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
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IMS history. (n.d.). Retrieved August 4, 2024, from Insight Meditation Society: https://www.dharma.org/about-us/ims-turns-40/
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Vendetta. Retrieved August 12, 2024, from Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vendetta
Thanissaro Bhikkhu. (1997). Sallatha sutta: The arrow. Retrieved August 18, 2024, from https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn36/sn36.006.than.html