I have recently returned from another Vipassana meditation retreat. Each time I go, the experience is very different from the time before. This is because life is always changing too – this time I had a roommate, and am in a different life stage; other times, I had been a student, new grad, starting a business, etc.

A revolutional experience I had this time, was actually experiencing the fact that thoughts are not true. You can know something, without actually experiencing it.

During one of the meditations (out of the 10 hours done each day), I had a thought I was uncomfortable with. I watched as my mind quickly tried to make me feel better, by rationalizing how that initial thought was not true. My mind came up with many situations, memories, and facts that proved the initial thought could not be true, and that I could relax back into my comfortable life.

But then… if that initial thought could not be true…couldn’t it be true that my rationalizations could also not be true? YES!! That MUST be an option, if in fact my other uncomfortable thought had the possibility of not being true. and I laughed.

It is more liberating to understand that neither the “good” or “bad” thoughts are actually truth, than living in the delusion of rationalizations. In my life long quest for truth, this certainly feels like another stepping stone, and I have been able to bring it back with me from the retreat, into real life.

To read some more about my experience at Vipassana, click here