That Misery Called Meditation
slate.com
slate.com
Dad: "So, sitting will definitely produce positive results if you do it for long enough, right? What if I sat for 20 years?"
Master: "You mean, a guaranteed amount of enlightenment, however small?"
Dad: "Exactly."
Master: "The only thing I can guarantee you will get after 20 years of zazen is hemorrhoids."
It seems analogous to going on a running retreat, spending seven days running all day and then coming home and not running again.
It strikes me that it would be more worthwhile to cultivate the habit of meditating once a day rather than making a large unsustainable change.
Once you've dived into it deeply, then you actually have an understanding of what's going on when you do regular sittings.
A retreat is a chance to get that pot of water to a boil. Once there, a little meditation each day will continue to boil the pot.
Without the focused immersion, a little heat each day might never boil the pot.
Note that this works for languages, physical skills (aikido) and many other complex tasks.
Of course, if you hit a plateau in that sustained practice or have a hard time getting started, a dedicated retreat may be just what you need.
http://www.amazon.com/Cutting-Spiritual-Materialism-Shambhal... is a good starting point.
Then I realize that my refrigerator is full of delicious things, and that my friends mostly live in Western society.
For my part, I've decided there's nothing else I'd _rather_ be doing. It's the only thing in life I can reliably count on to provide a satisfying, enriching experience. The material/hedonistic experiences are still important to me, and most of my time is still spent on them, but they're all pretty transient in comparison.
The following week had moments with intense joy, moments with intense pain. But it became easier to see them without clinging, giving a lot of peace.
It's something definitely worth doing. Though it doesn't hurt starting with tiny steps, rather than cold-turkey ;).
For some reason, the concept of meditation is intuitive to me.. an analogy I feel like making is that it's similar to "reading between the lines." Yet at the same time, I understand the author's frustrations and I can't think of a way to make meditation work for him.
Maybe meditation isn't for everyone.
Scariest time of my life. Apparently meditation, when done with some skill is similar to third plateau of DXM. Doing it everyday made me feel extremely weird in normal life. Still recovering.
Stress relief and mindfulness are great but not really my goal. I want more focus and energy.
In that case, I suggest a nap instead.
I think that's the point.
all I can say is, a 7 day retreat is probably a really, really bad idea for a beginner
Going to a session helps too
It's different for everyone what `slow` is, but if you're not sure if you're ready for a 7 day retreat and you go anyway you might end up like this guy (in the article).
Unless you're on the edge of psychosis, a long retreat won't hurt you. There are rare horror stories about somebody going nuts, but that's probably about as common as somebody dying from a bee sting.