Pursuing Wisdom

Reflections from a 10-Day Silent Meditation Retreat

I just returned from my second Vipassana retreat. Ten days of silence.

“OMG, I could never not talk for 10 days.”

And fair enough. You can’t read, write, look at others, listen to music, or entertain yourself. You sit in meditation for 10+ hours a day starting at 4:30 a.m. Your last meal is at 11 a.m. You renounce your worldly life and live like a monk or nun for ten days.

Mind you, you’re going into the depths of your mind — which, for many, is the most uncomfortable part they have yet to discover. You meet the things you’ve been hiding from. You sit in discomfort until it dissolves. You watch yourself try to escape and realize you can’t. You learn the true power of your own mind, and the agency you actually have over your suffering.

Coming out of this retreat I felt pretty equanimous, but I wasn’t prepared for what would come.

In the last twenty minutes of my car ride home, I burst into tears as the gravity of the experience finally hit me.

I just have to serve others.
I just have to serve others.
I just have to serve others.
Nothing else matters.

So let me tell you how I got there.

About Vipassana

For those unfamiliar, Vipassana is a meditation technique used by the Buddha to achieve full liberation and enlightenment. It spread across India and neighboring countries, was lost in India for 2,500 years, and was revived in the 20th century by S.N. Goenka. He was a wealthy businessman who discovered the practice in Burma, found peace after years of illness, and went on to establish centers worldwide.

Hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, have since been taught the same technique during these 10-day programs which are free by donation.

At its core, Vipassana is the art of observing sensations in your body, seeing reality as it actually is, and learning to remain balanced. It’s non-sectarian and simply a technique to free yourself from the habit patterns that repeatedly cause pain. It’s simple, tangible, and rooted in the universal law of nature.

The First Retreat

My meditation practice began when I was a junior in college, suffering from massive anxiety. I didn’t even know what to call what I was feeling — I just knew it wasn’t great.

I started sitting for five minutes in the morning and five minutes at night. It was small, but it was something. Eventually, it became thirty minutes every morning.

Both my parents had attended Vipassana retreats years before, and they suggested I attend Vipassana.

How rude! You think I’m that anxious that I need to sit in silence for ten days?

But after college, something in me felt open. A month after I moved to New York, I went.

And I came out like a baby seeing the world for the first time. Crying at the sheer beauty of it all. Vipassana was the final zip of a wetsuit — the moment it all clicked. Suddenly, I felt like I had stepped fully into my own skin, responsible for my life, sailing the winds of my own mind.

That practice gave me true independence. Less FOMO. More peace. A sense that I could steer my own life.

Little wins, but profound ones.

Of course, the results only last if you keep practicing.

The Practice Continues

Around that time, I found a yoga and meditation studio on my street in the East Village called Three Jewels. A Tibetan monastery disguised as a modern studio and cafe.

It became home: yoga, meditation, friendship, community, philosophy, service, tears, laughter, even work meetings. It’s where I became a 200-hour meditation teacher in 2023. It was another container that cracked my heart open to how much love a human can feel, and how much we hold ourselves back from letting things actually just feel good.

I’ve been zig-zagging through Dharma since childhood. But I never wanted to go too deep.

If I got too wise, I’d become too monk-like. I didn’t want to lose the game of the world.

I wanted to keep suffering. To keep being “relatable.” That, I suppose, is called ego.

Still, Three Jewels remained an anchor, and a reminder that no matter how far I drifted, wisdom was waiting.

It’s taken me years to accept that resistance, the dance between knowing and forgetting, craving and letting go, is also the practice.

The Second Retreat

If my first retreat was filled with thoughts like “does this boy like me?”

This one was an incessant drumbeat of: We have to serve others. We have to serve others. How can we serve others?

And what a f*cking treat.

Don’t worry — the TMZ-style thoughts still made plenty of guest appearances.

I rode waves of exhaustion and energy, dreams and hallucinations, frustration and bliss. I saw the brightest stars at 4:30 a.m., wished on shooting stars, took naps at 6:30 a.m., counted the minutes until my next meal, and learned that hunger is mostly habit.

Nature became mesmerizing. Pain dissolved into lightness. My mind tried to trick me, then softened. Rinse and repeat.

When silence lifted, we all laughed like children learning to speak again. We stayed up until 10 p.m. (rebellious!) talking about everything — philosophy, practice, pain, laughter, life.

Learning to love people without words is one of life’s greatest gifts.

The only reason our paths ever crossed was because we were all pursuing truth. Different lives, same longing. The most interesting, kind, and wise souls I could imagine.

Coming out this time, the feeling wasn’t explosive like the first. It was deeper and calmer. The first retreat was life-changing. This one was life-happening. I felt steady and clear.

Mostly, I felt grateful — for the chance to study, to teach, to connect, to practice. The wisdom felt so pure compared to the noise of daily life.

And my loudest thoughts during the retreat was that I have to share the gifts that I have benefited from.

To make meditation and wisdom accessible — approachable — for as many people as possible.

The rest would follow.

On Service

There are universal revelations that have helped me train my mind to see the world more clearly. To understand how your happiness is 100% your responsibility, and giving your peace over to people is a choice. That underneath all these coats and jackets and layers of suffering we wear, underneath it is this unadulterated quality of joy and compassion and love within us all.

I’ll share some more of my personal experiences too, but what was so loud to me was that every person’s pain is the same — different stories, same ache.

To serve others is simply to serve the truth that lives in all of us.

And beyond that, we exist in a culture of suffering. Yes, life and this world is suffering, even the Buddha knew that. But the infrastructure of our world today amplifies it to the nth degree.

A Wisdom-less World

Our moral compass is broken. We live in the shadow and the underbelly. Yet nearly every spiritual tradition carries the same code, with principles for living with clarity and compassion. In whatever way I can, I want to walk toward that code — for myself and with others — to change the culture of suffering in whatever way we can.

The pillars of wise and ethical living are there, but what shows up is the shadow of it:

Generosity → greed and accumulation
Morality → corruption as the new normal
Renunciation → attachment to identity and status
Wisdom → ignorance of where love and joy truly come from
Effort → apathy
Tolerance → division
Truth → misinformation
Determination → laziness
Selfless love → self-interest
Equanimity → reactivity
Eternal nature → biohacking and billionaires chasing immortality

It’s time to recalibrate the compass - because wisdom is our human nature. I think many of our “problems to solve” are a result of this culture. Less about tackling each one individually, but to go to the root, the source. It starts with all of us, on an individual level. The playbook is there.

Goenkaji once said it best:

“Developments in the fields of science and technology, in transportation, communications, agriculture and medicine, have revolutionized human life at the material level. But this progress is only superficial; underneath, modern men and women are living in conditions of profound mental and emotional stress, even in developed and affluent countries.

The immense suffering arising from racial, ethnic, sectarian and class prejudices affect the citizens of every country. Poverty, warfare, weapons of mass destruction, disease, drug addiction, the threat of terrorism, epidemic environmental devastation and the decline of moral values—all cast a dark shadow on the future of civilization. One need only glance at the front page of a daily newspaper to be reminded of the acute suffering and deep despair which afflict the inhabitants of our planet. Is there a way out of these seemingly insoluble problems?

The answer is unequivocally, yes. People everywhere are eager to find a way to achieve peace and harmony, one that can restore confidence in the efficacy of wholesome human qualities and create an environment of freedom and security from all types of exploitation—social, religious and economic. Vipassana is such a method.

Vipassana is a path leading to freedom from all suffering; it eradicates the craving, aversion and ignorance which are responsible for all our miseries. Those who practice it remove, little by little, the root causes of their suffering and steadily emerge from their former tensions to lead happy, healthy, productive lives.

Societal change must start with the individual. Human beings must be taught to investigate their true natures, to initiate a process which can bring about transformation and lead to purification of mind. This is the only change which will endure.”

On Sharing

I feel endlessly grateful to have encountered these teachings at this stage of my life. They’ve helped me TRY to navigate the world with more clarity and compassion than I ever could’ve imagined.

During my teacher training, we were asked to share short reflections on social media. The response surprised me—people resonated deeply. It reminded me that most of us are simply looking for a bit more peace, a little less noise.

Back then, I wasn’t ready to go deeper. But now I realize it would be selfish not to.

If you already have enough, why stay trapped in the prison of wanting more? Get what you need, then give it away. Give it away. Give it away. Whether it’s time, resources, knowledge, or love, keep it moving.

I don’t have all the money in the world, but I’ve lived a life of privilege. And yet, in so many of the circles I’ve moved through, it’s always more, more, more. Not enough, not enough.

When I walked through the door at home, tears still on my face, I told my parents:

No amount of “more” will ever bring me greater comfort or happiness.

The truth is, we’re not addicted to getting—we’re addicted to wanting. Meditation rewires that desire. It teaches you to let things be, to stop grasping, to meet life as it is.

Because the only things truly worth obtaining are peace and wisdom. Not just for yourself, but for the good of others. And that is a mountain I’d like to climb.

This is where that so-called permanent happiness lives: in cultivating a calm mind that remains balanced through every current, and in choosing, again and again, not to cause harm.

To see and touch the pure essence of what it means to be human can leave you in awe.

It can be this way. Let it be this way.

To know wisdom is the most priceless gift there is. Use it well. Share it freely.

Keep it Moving

I write all this not to place the experience in cement, but to share it — to remind myself and anyone reading that something more pure is within reach.

I am no stranger to the fact that the world is shiny and can trick you into falling back into the old patterns, and the same games.

If any of this resonates for you, or leaves you confused - please reach out I’d love to chat!

Let this be a small reminder or motivator to get on the cushion and meditate. Just start by breathing for five minutes, phone down, eyes closed. Watch your thoughts like planes in the sky. See what they say. Then, let them go.

And now, the real work begins: to show up in the world with more temperance, less attachment, and more service.

Make good use of this precious human life we’ve been given.

And by the way: Happy Diwali. May this year bring you the lightness of your inner wisdom.

Be happy, and love you to infinity :)

Anushka