Where do I find a place like this?
If I want to do this, what are my first steps?
For something a bit easier that you can do at home, check out this self guided course: http://palousemindfulness.com/selfguidedMBSR_week1.html
The analogy I'd give is if I'd joined a 10 day fitness camp and the only instruction was "do deadlifts", and then you were left alone for 11 hours. What's a deadlift? Is this the right form? After an hour I feel like I've exhausted these muscles, do I really just keep doing it for ten more hours today?
After three days of this, (each day having a slightly more specific focus but still lacking in the kind of direction or confirmation I was looking for), I left. I was a stone's throw from the Himalayas, and I felt that spending my remaining time in the mountains would do more for me than sitting in a dark room feeling confused and frustrated.
I can't answer how to learn to meditate, I haven't followed it up (once burnt, twice shy). But you could try the vipasana way at home - sit in a quiet room and "feel the breath entering your nose" for an hour.
When I was starting out I especially liked Shinzen Young's [2] teaching style a lot. He's been meditating for a long time, taught math and comparative religions at a university, and he does an excellent job of presenting Eastern meditation in a way that an educated Westerner can understand.
There are a lot of resources available online, but you might try poking around in the Something's Happening [3] radio archives for KPFK. Tuesday and Thursday night they play talks from Alan Watts, Shinzen Young, and a lot of other people. Some of the talks are extremely hokey, full of New Age gibberish, but some of them are really good and it's a good way to get exposed to a range of teachers. Go to the archive page and search for "Something's Happening" and give it a try. There's also an Alan Watts program that good, too.
[1] http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html [2] https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=shinzen+young [3] http://archive.kpfk.org/
I generally tend to fail magnificently at first and then flourish very quickly after making all the rookie mistakes all at once.
If you have questions, don't be afraid to use the question sessions to speak to your teacher. If it seems like the instructions are too simple, you might be overthinking it. It's all about letting go after all.
It will do me more to go back to Vipassana than any single thing I can do for myself. It puts you at the center and you just follow along, being true.
As far as long-term effects, I came out of the experience glowing. Heat didn't bother me. I saw clearly. The afterglow lasted for about three months. Slowly, I became a little bit agitated by things that didn't bother me during the period of afterglow. If I had continued to meditate regularly, I would have been fine. Centered. Since I didn't...Because I made excuses for myself...I'm in a not so great state these days. And yet, if I found myself again in the state after Vipassana, if I took care of myself and meditated, I would be in a much better mental state.
It does great things, but it's not a cure-all. It changed my life more than anything else has and is immensely powerful. It introduced me to myself. For that I will always be grateful. And I hope I respect myself enough to go back soon.
I even went back for a short 4 day course but the 10 day one was the best.
I hope you can go back once more and then continue the practice afterwards.
Surely as rational people that is the course to take?
I see the same with my Yoga practice... touchwood, I am mostly healthy and I should do more Yoga but somedays I am looking for reasons not to do my usual tiny practice..
Is it cause we don't make the outward connection between the practice and our wellbeing?
PS : thinking aloud and trying to see if I am alone in this...
Brb going to meditate, even though its past my bedtime and I've got a couple glasses of wine in me.
That's a pretty compelling motivator to keep up with it.
Also, the meditation itself can be used to calm and focus me during stressful times, but like any exercise, it must be practiced. I haven't probably given it the necessary diligence.
I'd like to emphasize more than anything that the teaching truly does its best to be a force above creed and philosophy. I was very skeptical about it going in. Much of the instruction does not expect you to take anything on blind faith, and all its asking is for you to become a more compassionate individual. There's no proselytizing, or expectation of money in any way. All donations which run the facilities are done in private, and it was maybe mentioned once.
Consider the class as teaching you how to exercise. Nothing comes easy, any gain you have comes from the effort you put in.
Is there really some point in sitting and trying it all day long? I mean, if you cannot "get" it within an hour, aren't you doing something wrong? Or it takes different length of time for different people?
What was your experience? How long it took you to get into the other "state"? Were you able to get into it much faster afterwards?
It definitely takes different people different amounts of time. And if you are suffering, it is that much more difficult because you have pain that is holding you with attachment.
I'm not able to get into that state very quickly at all...I haven't been in that state for years actually.
Disclaimer: I am more a follower of Zen Buddhism.
There is no right or wrong. The goal of this, any other forms of Buddhism, is satori. It can take some people a year, some people a lifetime, but at the end, practice and satori are one.