Vipassana experience

I went to take 10-day course of Vipassana meditation. After chancing up on this meditation, I became intrigued, signed up, and secured a place at Vipassana centre in Indonesia, Bali. 

Places for Vipassana meditation is highly sought after, and often you have to sign up a few months in advance to secure a place. Furthermore in year 2022, Covid restrictions was still in place in a number of countries, notably Japan centres require that only Japanese resident to apply, while the website for the Bali centre indicates requirement for Covid ART test and mask requirement.

My signing up experience was smooth, and I happily was offered a place around September. My parents then resisted and tried to make me to cancel my place and my plan of going. In hindsight the precaution was ridiculous but with no way of knowing how I was faring, I can understand the concerns.

In any case, I tied my airplane ticket back from Bali for SQ redemption making the journey with a transit in Singapore prior to onward vacation to Japan. My ticket was redeemed for DPS - SIN - HND. Fortunately, it was booked that way, as several visa problems with my parents travel to Japan almost caused us to cancel the Japan holiday. Also, Japan was on verge of opening up, so every single families that we know of in Singapore were eying to spend that December in Japan.

I arrived in Denpasar, Bali on the day of course starting on December 30, 2022. I found an honest driver at the Bluebird taxi queue. I asked the driver (Mr. Bli Putra) to drive me to Tegallalang, to enjoy a final pre-meditation meal at a cafe next to serene paddy fields famous in Tegallalang. It was nice to do people watching, before finally heading to Bangli for the Vipassana centre, arriving at around 2.30pm.

 

Society construct

A company rank is a designation that purely determined by the employer who hired you. It influences your standing in the company, how others perceived you. But it often has little to do with who you are and what your value is. When you leave the company, the rank goes away and you are left with your true worth and value.

It is often interesting how we associate our ego on how people should interact with us, based on our roles and standing in an organization and its business partners. I see all these as temporary and impermanent. Yet it is interesting how pervasive this attitude is amongst the corporate folks who have had spent majority of their career in a company, often large and competitive, including myself.