100 Hours of Meditation in 10 Days
highexistence.com
highexistence.com
Now, admittedly I had done very little meditation before hand, but _please_ don't just jump into this course like I did. And no, there was no history of manic depressive behaviour in my family so this came as quite the shock.
10 days of total silence (no reading, no writing, no eye contact, no nothing) is a really serious stress on your brain. Do not take it lightly.
this article is very interesting
The OP kind of glosses over what was for me, on my first retreat, the single most enduring issue: physical pain. Yes, all experience is transient, but that drill driving into your knee is constantly impermanent, as in, not much respite (btw, doesn't matter how you sit, cross legged, kneeling, or in a chair, when the body is made still for @14 hours a day, der pain cometh ;-))
Escape in day dreaming, meals, and sleep is par for the course, as is going to your room to meditate (forbidden, a monitor would come and bring you back to the hall), and doing yoga, thai chi or other practice to break the monotony/limber up the sore joints.
Saying that, if you've got time and are of sound mind (have to sign a waiver to that affect), go for it, it's a truly unique experience -- things are not as they seem, the concrete you that you thought you were, doesn't exist, at least not permanently ;-)
Yep. I've done the Goenka course twice and in talking with fellow students afterwards, the common thread was that it was very hard for almost everyone, but hard in completely different ways. Sometimes you can tell during the course that other students are struggling, but by and large everyone else seems to be doing fine and it's easy to think you're the only one who's barely managing to hang in there.
If you're at all interested in all the mental and physical health benefits of mindfulness, you do not have to go to this guy's extremes to get them. Try getting started with a guided meditation like Headspace (www.headspace.com) instead. Ten to twenty minutes a day is all you need, and it's great stuff.
When asked why Zen Mind Beginner's Mind didn't include much on Satori, Shunryu Suzuki admitted he'd never reached it[0]. He never broke through, he just sat on his cushion every day and when he did he was just sitting on a cushion. No fireworks, nothing special. At the same time he's also one of the most respected and widely read Buddhist teachers the West has even known.
And, sadly this part is noteworthy, he's one of the few teachers in America who never had any major scandals.
I have heard from others that serving a ten day course (as opposed to sitting a course, as the author here did) is more beneficial as you are able to talk with fellow servers, help prepare food, and can even read a newspaper. Although you can't go deeper into your mind, you learn to integrate meditation into daily life better. I have yet to serve a course.
Agreed that meditation in real life is hard to maintain. I find that I quickly lose the ability to do the body-scanning technique effectively, and with that I lose the motivation to put in the 2x 1 hour.
In Vajrayana you can look in each others eyes, have sex and eat meat every day. Also, the meditation rules are more up to you. It is for people who can handle everyday distractions and "use them" to deepen experiences gathered in meditation. For instance, if my boss is somehow behaving in an angry way, I try to imagine a golden Buddha over his head which will change my attitude towards him and as a result my outer reaction. This is how I apply that "all beings are Buddhas whether they know it or not" - an important meditation-object both in Mahayana and Vajrayana. (This is quite strong compared to the meditation object in Vipassana, which is "just" the breath.)
I do not want to say that Vajrayana is better than Vipassana, but that it is better for me and better for a different kind of people.
(btw. meditation cushions should cost about 10$; 80$ is really a lot)
One interesting thing was the type of people I met there. After the silence was over I met a nuclear engineer, venture capitalist, computer engineer, neuroscience grad student and various other science/engineering types.
If you want to see some people making some seriously fast progress, check out practice logs on these sites:
http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/messa... http://awakenetwork.org/forum/kfd-archive-wetpaint
I'm definitely seeing some Gladwell's "10,000 hour" experts there. This is a very deep ocean of practice with which I have only the most passing level of acquaintance. It's interesting to imagine investing enough time to actually become adept at this, but hard to square with the reality that the business(es) demand 26 hours from every day.
I'm not sure I'd trade it for my time spent on HN, it doesn't sound nearly as entertaining!
As for not having time, most of these folks have worked up to 2 20 minute sits per day. Myself, I take a single 40 minute walk and meditate each day. Thats not so much especially considering that I'm also getting exercise.
I can't remember the last time I had 10 days I could free up.
That said, even though I've always wanted to give my self a time and place where I could really "break the barrier" to meditating more often, I'm not so sure I'd do some thing like that after this...
Here's a documentary maybe closer to what you were hoping for: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1_DVac9kkI
Also, I see a lot of these ask for donations and have no fixed price, how much did HNers pay or donate for these retreats?
Since nobody else is biting...people arrive to the Buddhist scene (and in particular retreats and such) for any number of reasons. Most have some type of thorn in their side they're trying to take care of. Some people who attend are people in their twenties who are traveling and trying out new experiences, some have an unexpected amount of free time after losing a job, getting divorced, or just "life happening." Maybe the kids left for college. Maybe they're deep into recovering from addiction and trying to understand themselves and why the addiction happened in the first place. Some people have a daily practice and they use their vacation time to go on retreat and become better people. Some are there as a rite of passage, or for social status back home where "doing a Vipassana" may be a badge of pride. Some people are essentially homeless and move from one Dharma center to the next without any real sense of direction.
At the places where you're allowed to talk to the other people you find it's quite an eclectic mix, everything from overworked executives to homeless musicians.
OpenEEG (http://openeeg.sourceforge.net/doc/)
OpenSensors (http://sourceforge.net/p/opensensors/home/Home/)
Brain Refactoring (http://www.amazon.com/Code-Complete-Practical-Handbook-Const...)
[0] http://www.dharma.org/meditation-retreats/retreat-center
[1] https://www.spiritrock.org/retreatsFocusing on something (chants, breath, nostrils, etc) seems to be a proven way for them to help you into reaching a meditative state of mind. You can either master these techniques or figure out others that work better for you.
I'm not an expert or anything so I could be totally wrong here. I'm just a dude who took the Silva Method courses about 10 years ago.
Are these Vipassana retreats suitable for someone who has very little knowledge about meditation and zero experience?
Are there other options? I would prefer to be guided by a person than read a book, that option will just slip out of my schedule.
If you want just an intro meditation weekend, I highly recommend the "Joy of Living" level 1 workshops from Tergar - http://tergar.org/events/
If you're young, in great health and looking for a huge challenge: maybe. It's a very extreme intro to meditation. Vipassana retreats break people.
> Are there other options? I would prefer to be guided by a person than read a book, that option will just slip out of my schedule.
Check for groups in your area, meetup.com is a good resource. So is google. Look up the lineage, the teacher, etc. For school X look up "X controversy" and there will almost always be something there, that's OK but there are some weird traditions out there that you'll do well to avoid. Trust your intuition.
A lot of Buddhist meet-up groups will have a little note that says something like "if you're a beginner, second Tuesday of every month is beginner's night so show up a half an hour early and we'll square you away." Some have a "young people's night". There's a lot of luck involved.
A usual evening should be a bit boring and might include one or two 20-minute sitting meditation sessions, maybe some walking meditation, maybe refreshments, some sort of a talk, some social time, and hopefully an opportunity to ask questions.
Went to the center in rural Illinois around Thanksgiving. The air was cold with a jagged wind. An occasional crow croaked ominously in the damp brown grounds. Surrounded by old decommissioned farm machinery and a jet-black manmade pond, I entered with unexpected foreboding, crossing the opening of a rickety wrought-iron fence.
I signed some forms in what felt the relinquishing of my human rights, and the leaders demanded to take away my car keys and cell phone. It was an odd request since I was earnest about doing a good job at the retreat and going deep into it. I felt immediately like they didn't trust me and wanted to control me. I handed the phone over, and prepared for the gong which marks the boundary into silence.
Silence. Sounds relaxing, doesn't it? Finally at peace accepting our inner thoughts and rhythms. Wrong, this was no natural silence. it was an enforced interpersonal death, with not so much as a meaningful glance allowed between participants. Although we were all merely obeying orders I felt like the lack of eye contact or human sympathy as an omnipresent hostility. I realized that everyone who cared for me was miles away and could not possibly contact me, nor me them. These cult leaders could do anything to us really...
Time to start the first evening meditation. The well-worn paths between meditation hall, dorms, and cafeteria had become bare dirt and were at this point a boggy muddy slough. We wore clogs in between buildings. They gave us beat up metal water bottles. As a last sound of the human voice they softly called us one by one to join the meditation hall.
We found a place on the mats and got quiet. Then the tape-recorded chanting began. In this expectant calm the halting burbling throatwreck of a song was unstoppably funny. I tried with all my might not to laugh. "Ohmmmm... ...Hngghgh!" Far from being a sacred experience it sounded, well, mentally challenged.
Then back through the misty darkness, holding my bobbing flashlight and watching its feeble beam dance over the impenetrable horror of the black pond. I fumble removing the muddy clogs in the dorm entrance then off to my divided cell. My contented roommate falls asleep nearly immediately and rips into my ears with full chested snores. How am I going to sleep? What if this place makes me actually go insane from the weird treatment and sleep deprivation? They will be waking us soon, at 4am. I toss on the narrow cot.
Next day it's back to the main hall. Time is going impossibly slowly, I get out of a two hour session and go back to my dorm. There is no living thing outside. All plants are dead, there is no sound but the unrelenting wind. Once I catch sight of a squirrel far away but it scurries leaving me alone.
In the distance, but entirely surrounding the retreat center, I hear actual gunfire. Am I hallucinating in here? No, it's hunting season. There's no way I can escape. They'll mistake me for a deer and shoot me if I step outside the iron fence. All these paths just loop back, inward inward. At the ends of the paths are signs telling you to turn back. Back to the chanting, back to the hall. No talking, no looking, no feeling. They'll shoot you if you leave, you know.
What am I thinking? These thoughts aren't right, but I feel brave, I have to stand up to this. Who can I talk to? How much time is passing. (Steal a look at the watch I smuggled in.) It's been only three minutes since I entered my dorm? Ten days has become inconceivable, like a dark mountainous wave cresting over my flimsy dinghy. And nobody knows how oppressive it is here. No one will come help me.
I lined up a one-on-one talk with one of the teachers. You can't just go talk to them, you have to write your case on a clipboard and await a Kafka-esque review process which takes roughly one hundred years in dilated retreat time. They accept my plea later that day and I enter the teacher's chamber.
She is literally dressed in a robe and seated on a raised platform. Am I supposed to kneel before it? Is this really happening? I sit down and explain that I'm getting unusually paranoid and that the way their rules are formulated makes me uncomfortable. Is there a room where I can get a night's sleep and can I have my belongings back -- just for peace of mind? She looks at me beatifically and assures me that my mind simply doesn't want to relinquish its sense of self. She explained that my question about getting my stuff back is simply nonsense. (Notice she didn't refuse, she just brought out the mind-games and discounted my feelings.)
I agreed to give the retreat more time. Maybe this panic is normal like the teacher said. They said they would look into finding me another room. Fast forward to that night. The roommate change is a no-go. Fuck it, I'm going to break the rules and just talk to one of the volunteers running the course. I'm not petitioning on that weird form. The volunteer was really evasive.
Darkness was falling. The mud, the pond, my little flashlight. Nobody can look at me. Surrounded by guns. Where did the squirrel go? "No," I resolved, "I have to get out of here, this is not right." I snuck into a staff area to find a phone. Someone saw me and started questioning me. I lied and calmly told them the teacher wanted me to make a call. Then I swiftly took the cordless phone into the bathroom and locked myself in. Overjoyed I listened to the sweet note of a dial tone. It was an audible electric road to freedom. I dialed my family. Nobody answered the phone. Tried all the numbers I could remember. Then it occurred to me that it was Thanksgiving night. They were all away from the phone, living lives out there in "regular time," time that actually passes. I left messages and went sadly back out to the cold dark paths which only fold back onto themselves.
Word must have spread to the higher-ups that a student was cracking because they did come talk to me. I told them I simply had to go. After some deliberation they brought me my keys and went out with me to the parking lot. Then things got really weird.
They pointed to a car that wasn't mine and told me to open it with my key. In some disbelief I explained that my actual car was on the other side of the lot. They insisted I was wrong! It was like a dream where I sought to weigh my words and appease my captors with the subtle nuances of dreamthought.
"OK," I said affably, "I'll give this car a try. But just humor me and let me give that other one across the lot a try too. If it's not my car then the key won't open it, right? So there's really nothing to lose." Inwardly I was contemplating the likelihood of violence and keeping a watch on their movements in the deep gloom. A faraway crooked street lamp they had installed on the property glinted off the windshield.
The impostor car did not open. They started explaining it away, but I was already off to my actual car. Opened it right up, threw my blankets and stuff inside. It was actually my friend's car (we went to the retreat together) so I couldn't just drive away with it. Another camp volunteer joined us and offered to drive me to the city.
On the fairly long drive I had a mixture of emotions. At some level I knew I wasn't right in the head. I was grateful to this lady for rescuing me and embarrassed that I couldn't "handle it" like the other students. But most of all I was grateful to leave and never -- ever -- come back. I can't explain the overwhelming panic of this retreat, but somehow I knew I just wanted to be living a joyful life with human speech and companions and time and freedom.
It is these states of mind, where, if you can hold strong to the meditation instructions and objectify everything in the field of experience, the possibility for liberation from suffering arises. When you realize that these experiences are just experiences arising and vanishing on their own, not things happening to 'I', there is an immediate relief from the suffering of those experiences.
From http://alohadharma.com/2011/06/12/the-dark-night/
"As the meditator moves along the path and has already experienced their attention syncing up with the arising of phenomena, then the peak of phenomena, it then moves to the passing away of phenomena. I call the next section of the path the “Dark Night” and in the commentaries it is also called “the knowledge of suffering.”
As you can gather from the name, this is a pretty difficult part of the path. It is so difficult in fact, this is where most meditators get into trouble, and can become stuck. The sheer discomfort and negativity of this part of the path may lead the meditator to conclude that they are no longer “doing it right,” and they may decide to just quit meditating. After all, why keep at it when it pretty much hurts to meditate? In the Zen tradition, this part of the path is called the “rolling up of the mat” for just that reason – the meditator just wants to throw in the towel and stop.
This actually makes a lot of sense if you do not know the map. The memory of the rapturous A&P is still fresh in the mind of a meditator who initially steps into the Dark Night. Compared to the joy and wonder that was only just experienced, the Dark Night is a horrible let down. But it is important to know that the difficulty being experienced is a sign of progress – it means that you are doing the meditation correctly."
So, the reason for the aloofness of the staff is partially because these phases are totally expected and normal, and unless you are having a true psychotic episode, the whole point is to push through.
It's like lifting weights, with time you learn the difference between the pain that comes with growth and the pain that comes with injury. If you haven't lifted for long enough to know the difference then you shouldn't be "maxing out" because the risk of injury is so high.
By the same token if you haven't been meditating long enough to know the difference between when you're being a cry-baby and when you really need to go take care of yourself you might not want to go to an extreme meditation retreat.
Maybe if there was some angle on how this could make you a better developer, but no, I don't see that.
> Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
There was at least one Googler at my last retreat.
I would also assume (pure speculation here) that this retreat is a for-profit operation.
This is not cynicism on my part, it is the mere observation of a pattern.
At the end of the class, you're given an opportunity to make a donation. It's made clear that this is what sustains the center and makes it possible for future students to attend the course. If I remember right, they tell you how much it costs to house and feed a student, so there's an implied "this is how much you should give". But I have the strong impression that many students give much less, and a small number give a multiple or give large donations at other times.
There's no further pressure to give money (or come back) after you leave the course.
Edited to add: as for Goenka as a leader figure: the whole course is taught using audio and video recordings of Goenka explaning his interpretation of the teachings of Gautama Buddha. He adds his own life story. I can't think of any way that adoration of Goenka is encouraged. In fact, Goenka refused to confirm whether he had reached certain standard levels of semi-enlightenment (e.g. arahat) saying that he wanted to avoid idol-worship around his person. And unlike many "gurus", I don't know of any accusations that Goenka took advantage of his students.
The retreats can seem cultish because the rules are strict and weird, and you're strongly discouraged from leaving halfway through the course. But I think by any reasonable checklist of what makes a cult, the Goenka centers would not quality.
I'm also weary of personality cults. Goenka did everything (he passed a year ago) to make sure you don't worship him. He claims throughout his lectures that he is not a sage, but instead a mere "householder." He doesn't say he's enlightened. He tells his story of having migraines, learning from another Vipassana leader the technique, and then dedicating his life to teaching others.
tldr; don't knock it till you try it.
But I do agree with the author that there all elements of "faith," whereas he claims you don't need faith. There are concepts in his lectures that imply belief in reincarnation for instance. That being said, 95% of the course is just about developing concentration by focusing on your breathe, and awareness & equanimity by focusing on sensations of the body.
Maybe not as much faith as in resurrection, angels and miracles. Reincarnation is not necessary as a concept to do awareness practice.