Day Zero: It takes all afternoon to let the rainy Himalayan nightmare sink in: I’ve hiked out of the charming, Tibetan hamlet of Dharamkot and all the way up a nameless mountain just to sign myself into a concentration camp. Actually, I signed up months ago, from Florida, via the Internet. Vipassana Meditation Courses fill up fast. They’re a surefire ticket to enlightenment for an unbelievable price: free.

All lodging, meals, instruction, chai and facilities are paid for by previous participants. But free comes with rules. Ten days of staggering silence. Men and women segregated. Cold plywood plank bunk beds. Four a.m. gongs. A miniature banana for dinner. No books. No journals. No iPod. No killing. No lying. No stealing. No sexual misconduct. Bucket showers. Hole-in-the-floor toilets. Oh, and meditation. Ten hours a day of sitting meditation, our backs burning like torches, our legs numb as pretzels carved in ice.

A monk strides down the mountainside.

Day 1: At four, as promised, the gong goes off. I shake myself awake in my concrete block shoebox of a room and stumble up to the Dhamma Hall, or meditation room. Each meditator gets a firm, square cushion and we all sit facing the “teacher,” a small Indian man dressed in white. I close my eyes, and I’m in a dog kennel.

The 40 men around me are sniffling and snorting, belching and coughing. This disconcerting symphony dwindles as a stereo system booms a voice chanting Sanskrit.

This is the voice of S.N. Goenka, a Burmese leader of the rebirth of Buddha’s original path to enlightenment: Vipassana Meditation. For the rest of the day, we practice focusing all our attention on the sensation of our breath moving in and out of our nostrils.

Day 2: I wake before the gong with hunger’s claws in my guts. I meditate in my cell until 5 a.m., practicing the teaching of “anicha” or impermanence, realizing that the sensation of starvation will pass away as naturally as it arises. My body is a bundle of aches as I meditate through the day, envious of the gangs of mischievous monkeys splashing in the muddy, red courtyard.

Day 3: By two in the morning I’m thrashing around in my bed like a shark in a sea of fire. I’ve got the worst fever of my life, and I don’t want to die. To distract my mind from the pain, I focus on the face of a beautiful girl I left behind in America. At four I break the silence and whisper to a facilitator that I need help. He tells me to practice “Hana Pana” or breathing with a focus on the sensations inside the nose.

I’ll be back,” he says.

A few sweat-soaked hours later, he beckons me to the teacher’s quarters, but I’m so weak that I hobble along like Pinocchio.

“I need help,” I say to the teacher. “It might be malaria.”

Oh, this fever is very good, dear boy,” he says. “You are making great progress. Fever is only your negative karma rising to the surface. Be strong. Keep meditating.”

“I think I should take some medicine, too.”

“Yes, yes, yes! Medicine and meditation!”