I don’t have much time today, but I’m determined to keep my daily streak going.
Thinking I’ll write about the meditation retreat
Because, I wanted to write about it for a while
But what’s been holding me back is this flawed belief that it needs to be perfect
And that feels like too daunting of a task
If I just do it as part of my 500 words without thinking, low bar, can’t fail, much easier
WHAT
I did a 10-day Dhamma Vipassana meditation course, England, November 2023.
RETREAT
Before I left I read a review that said ‘retreat’ is a misnomer, it’s much more of a bootcamp. This was 100% my experience too. Nothing relaxing about it. It was hard work from start to finish.
LET’S TALK ABOUT TIME
I have never experienced time moving so slowly. I found it so painful. This was the main thing that got to me. After half a day I felt like I’d been there for a week. Which in theory would be delightful - it would be incredible if I could make life move that slowly normally. But I found it so unpleasant being there that the slow passage of time was almost unbearable.
I actually found it a bit less horrible once I realised that time was still moving at the same speed as on the outside world. Like, subconsciously I was feeling like every few hours I was missing a whole week on the outside world (because that’s how long the few hours felt). Once I realised that no matter how slow it feels, after 10 days here only 10 days of time will have passed on the outside, it was slightly less unbearable.
FOOD
Like with a lot of events in my life, feeding time was my favourite. Only happened twice a day though (6.30am and 11am)
So I made the mistake of trying to make this one into a fully formed post a bit too much, and that meant I resisted finishing it
Let’s quickly finish this with whatever to get to the word count
Meditation ‘retreat’ (boot camp) felt horrendous
I don’t think I’d ever do it again. Nor recommend it
But I want to dig into why
Because I realise there’s a bit of a flaw in my logic
What’s actually objectionable about being still, not talking, not reading, etc
I could imagine that that could be bliss
Why isn’t it?
It can only be thoughts / resistance / identification with feelings, right?
What would need to change for it to be blissful despite being hard?
I really struggled with the voice of the guy who narrates all the meditation
It grated on me. I found it the opposite of calming
But again, why? Why couldn’t I sit with that feeling of discomfort? I had aversion to it.
I do think there’s some value in the meditation techniques they were teaching (Anapana and then Vipassana)
Maybe if I ease myself back into meditation with techniques and guides who I don’t find unpleasant, that’d be a good way to progress from here.
