me too! me too!

so recently some pals of mine told me about a meditation technique called Vipassana. in a nutshell, it is the practice of self-observation while refraining from communication (verbal or otherwise) with the outside world while minimizing distraction. this is called "noble silence" — "silence of body, speech and mind." it is usually practiced at retreat centers, for a period of ten days.

i've been taking an intro to Ashtanga Yoga series at Samarya and i love it. if feels amazing and balancing and i am learning a lot about myself. i also have all sorts of complicated feelings about it at the same time. like what spirituality means to me now, particularly in light of my evangelical christian upbringing. and how appropriation of the tradition and beliefs of a culture that is not my own plays into my practice. but that's not what this post is about.

i'm super interested in the Vipassana retreat. it sounds amazing: really intense yet calming, terrifying yet safe. right up my alley. and i'm totally down with the 4am to 9pm schedule. the vegetarian food. the utter silence. there's just one problem: not only are the sleeping quarters divided by gender, but "complete segregation of men and women is to be maintained," including even meals.

now, though on a purely theoretical level i disagree with gender segregated sleeping quarters, i understand and respect the reasons why many folks feel like this is important. namely the instances of sexual violence that most women have experienced. and the importance of feeling safe, particularly in an environment like this.

but segregated eating?! and meditation?! i am filled with rage.

******

mind you, part of this is a very logical and rational rage. those rules are predicated upon two false premises: 1>that there are only two genders 2> that the distinction between these two genders is clear and universal.

the debater in me wants to go off. whip out my Anne Fausto-Sterling and talk about the regulation of bodies. the mutilation of intersexed babies. the multitude of ways we define sexual difference and their inconsistency. the emphasis on difference as a self-fulfilling prophecy - not just in a hippydippy humanities kinda way: Fausto-Sterling is a biologist and she explains how gender socialization, even before birth, physically changes our brains. how there are soooo many more differences among men and among women than there are between them.

oh yeah, i said i wouldn't go off. not because the above claims can't be fleshed out into a convincing argument. but because they are based on truth claims, which folks, particularly those that benefit from this polarization of gender, will always find ways to refute. and because talking about truths about bodies is kinda an oxymoron. the dichotomies between nature and nurture, sex and gender are false ones and i don't want to play into reinforcing them. you have to be able to separate these things (like culture from bodies) in order to pit them against each other and i don't think that that is possible, or healthy for that matter.

******

so usually, when i get to this point in my head, i feel panicked. my body freezes up, my jaw locks, i withdraw from folks who disagree with me, often without telling them why, i make myself sick with tension. because there are a shit ton of really intense feelings beneath these ideas. feelings that aren't up for debate and can't be rationalized away or logically justified. and when i engage on a purely "rational" level (which in itself is always a farce) the rage becomes a distorted blob inside of me.

******

before i get to those feelings though, humor a few more arguments.

let's pretend that there only two sexes and that their difference is clear and distinct. er, i mean, even if there are two sexes and their difference is clear and distinct, why would the folks that do Vipassana meditation feel the need to separate men and women? i did my best cursory internet research and haven't been able to find any reasoning for this tenant of the practice. (please let me know if you know something i don't) so the best i can do is guess.

maybe it has to do with the history and culture connected to this tradition - namely Buddhism. i didn't find much about gender and Buddhism (also didn't have time to do an exhaustive search), though this article was interesting. but in some ways i think that the tradition of Buddhism is beside the point. namely because,

People from many religions and no religion have found the meditation course helpful and beneficial. Vipassana is an art of living, a way of life. While it is the essence of what the Buddha taught, it is not a religion; rather, it is the cultivation of human values leading to a life which is good for oneself and good for others.

there's all sortsa stuff i could go into here about the complexities of cultural appropriation, cultural imperialism, change that comes from within a culture or tradition, etc. but again, that's a much bigger topic. i want to acknowledge that but am not getting into it at the moment.
so where do i, this white american, raised in a conservative christian tradition that taught me that meditation was evil because clearing your mind would literally open it up to the devil, where do i get off criticizing this tradition that is not my own? i think mainly because it's purportedly for all folks to participate in, yet i feel intensely, though not intentionally, excluded.

but i want to go back to my speculated reasons for this division for a moment.

some might argue that separating men and women is to prevent distraction. like i said earlier, this is one of the most essential factors of the practice: "All students must observe Noble Silence from the beginning of the course until the morning of the last full day. Noble Silence means silence of body, speech, and mind. Any form of communication with fellow student, whether by gestures, sign language, written notes, etc., is prohibited." they don't allow: any other techniques, rites, forms of worship; physical contact; yoga and physical exercise; religious Objects, rosaries, crystals, talismans, etc.; intoxicants and drugs; tobacco; outside food; revealing clothing; outside contacts; or music, reading and writing.

obviously distraction from internal reflection is to be avoided.

but assuming that somehow men will distract women more than other women and vice versa is hella heterosexist. founding this rule on the assumption that everyone participating is straight is not okay.

******

and it's transphobic.

this is hard to talk about because i'm tempted to immediately connect this claim to the initial arguments i make in this post. about the fluidity of gender and how this principle excludes trans folks.

them. not me.

but really, this is where i feel most excluded. of course the transphobia is all bound up in the heterosexism (they need each other to exist). but this is the gut level that left me sobbing myself to sleep last night.

i feel left out. i don't want to click "female" or "male" on their application form. i don't want to be surrounded by self-identified women and have them assume that i am one of them. i don't want to be surrounded by self-identified men and either have them hate me/give me weird looks because i'm not one of them or wear a binder for ten days (which sure as hell wouldn't facilitate meditative breathing) and attempt to pass, terrified of being found out.

i just want to have this experience...as a human.

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all of the quotes about Vipassana are from this website.

ed. note: this post is mostly written to an imagined foe, who is a conglomeration of folks i've argued with in the past and to my internal dude who delegitimates intense feelings like this when they come up.