A 10-day Vipassana course, day by day

In 2024 I left New York to travel across Asia, and along the way I sat a 10-day Vipassana silent meditation retreat. It is one of the facts on my page about how I came to teach, and people ask me about it more than anything else on it.

This page explains what a standard 10-day course involves: the timetable, the silence, what is taught on which days and what it costs. The facts about the format come from the organisation that runs these courses, and the source is at the end. Before I began teaching I worked in corporate advertising, so I know the kind of tired that makes ten silent days sound appealing. If what you need is something shorter and closer to home, private yoga lessons for stress and burnout are where I start with most working students.

What is Vipassana?

Vipassana is a meditation technique. The word is usually translated as seeing things as they really are, and the method is self-observation: steady, disciplined attention to the physical sensations of your own body, without reacting to them.

The best-known way to learn it is the 10-day residential course taught by S.N. Goenka’s organisation, which runs courses at centres around the world. Goenka began teaching in 1969 and died in 2013; courses are now led by the assistant teachers he appointed, under the system he set up for training new ones. The rest of this page describes that course format.

How is a 10-day course set up?

The course is called ten days, but it spans twelve once you count the day you arrive and the day you leave. Students commit to staying for the whole course.

A few rules shape everything else:

• Five precepts. For the length of the course, students agree not to kill, steal, lie, take intoxicants or engage in sexual activity.
• Separation. Men and women are kept completely apart, and couples do not contact each other in any way.
• Simple food. Meals are vegetarian. New students get tea with milk and some fruit at the five o’clock break.
• Other practices on hold. Other meditation techniques and spiritual practices are suspended, and so are exercise programmes and any strenuous exercise. Only what is taught on the course is practised.

That last rule is worth knowing if yoga is part of your routine. For ten days, the practice is sitting, not moving.

What is noble silence?

Noble silence is silence of body, speech and mind. It is not only no talking: no gestures, no sign language, no written notes, no communication of any kind with the other students.

It runs from the start of the course until the morning of the last full day. Two exceptions keep it workable: you can speak with the teacher about the technique and about questions from the evening talks, and with the course management about practical matters.

What does a day look like?

The published timetable is the same every day:

• 4:00am wake-up bell
• 4:30 to 6:30am meditation
• 6:30 to 8:00am breakfast and rest
• 8:00 to 9:00am group meditation
• 9:00 to 11:00am meditation
• 11:00am to 12:00 noon lunch
• 12:00 to 1:00pm rest, and interviews with the teacher
• 1:00 to 2:30pm meditation
• 2:30 to 3:30pm group meditation
• 3:30 to 5:00pm meditation
• 5:00 to 6:00pm tea break
• 6:00 to 7:00pm group meditation
• 7:00 to 8:15pm the teacher’s talk for the day
• 8:15 to 9:00pm group meditation
• 9:00 to 9:30pm question time
• 9:30pm lights out

Add it up and it comes to roughly ten hours of meditation a day.

What is taught on which days?

The course builds in three steps, with a fourth practice at the end.

1. Moral conduct. The five precepts come first. They are there to calm the mind enough for the rest of the work.
2. Attention on the breath. For the first days, students practise a technique called Anapana: fixing attention on the natural flow of breath as it enters and leaves the nostrils. By the fourth day, the organisation says, the mind is calmer and more focused.
3. Vipassana itself. From then on, students observe sensations throughout the body, learn about their nature, and practise equanimity: noticing a sensation without reacting to it.
4. Loving kindness. On the last full day, students learn metta, a meditation of goodwill towards all beings.

If the second step sounds familiar, it is close to the plainest instruction in how to meditate at home: rest your attention on the breath and come back when it wanders. Moving attention through the body, the third step, has a gentler cousin in a ten-minute body scan, though a body scan is not Vipassana and is not taught the same way.

How much does it cost?

Nothing. There is no charge for the teaching, the food or the accommodation. Courses are paid for by donations, and a donation is accepted only from someone who has completed at least one 10-day course. A first-time student can give one at the end, if they wish.

Who should wait or ask first?

The organisation is direct about this: Vipassana is not a substitute for medical or psychiatric treatment, and it does not recommend the course for people with significant mental health issues. It also notes that symptoms can return during or after a course, even for people who are stable.

Ten hours of sitting a day is also physical. If you have pain that sitting makes worse, or any condition you manage day to day, say so honestly on the application and talk to your doctor first. If you live with a mental health condition, talk to your doctor or therapist before you apply.

How does it relate to my lessons?

I do not teach the Vipassana technique. It belongs to that course, and the course is where it is taught.

What I bring from my own sitting is simpler: I know what it is to be still for a long time, and I do not rush the quiet parts of a lesson. Every private lesson ends in savasana with sound healing to close, and the most still version of a lesson is a restorative lesson, built on supported rest.

If you want to try a few days of sitting before you think about ten, start with a few minutes a day. If you want a quieter practice with someone guiding you, message me on Viber.

Sources

The course format, timetable, rules and cost on this page come from dhamma.org, the website of the Vipassana courses taught by S.N. Goenka and his assistant teachers: the Code of Discipline and About Vipassana pages, read on 1 October 2026. Check them before you apply, as details can change.