Vipassana:
This TR is pretty personal/long. It won't do it justice as I'm not that great of writer and It's quite choppy. Plus I'm just whipping it out about 50 days after the practice. But if you are interested, I believe it's worth the read.
Vipassana is a form of meditation. Long story short, it's a purification of the mind. What does that mean? It means becoming a master of your own mind, realizing what it does, what affects it, how to take ownership of it and lead a better life. Its roots are from buddhism; I want to stress it's not a conventional religion. There are no gods, no one to worship, no religious artifacts. I was drawn to it because I've always been envious of people who can meditate/seem truly happy and not always reaching for a bottomless well of 'wanting'. The results are 'felt' there are no do this and then in the afterlife you'll be rewarded aspect of it. It's all internal. For what it's worth I'm an atheist and I'm not one of those stereotypical 'cosmic' people that you might think things like this is for. I've never done meditation seriously before this course. I went a did a 10-day retreat learning the technique (100 hours of practice).
The day-to-day approach was as follows:
4am - Wake up
4:30-6:30 - Meditate
6:30-8:00 - Breakfast
8:00-9:00 Group meditate
9:00-11:30 - Meditate
11:30-1:00 -Lunch
1:00-2:30 - Meditate
2:30-3:30 - Group meditate
3:30-5:00 - Meditate
5:00-6:00 - Tea
6:00-7:00 - meditate
7:00-8:00 - Group meditate
8:00-9:00 - Video
9:00+ - Bed
It's 10 hours of meditation a day. I probably wrote the schedule wrong but you can google it online. Your goal is to sit still and focus your mind. You start by learning how to focus on your breathing. If you're reading this, for fun, try this exercise now:
1) Sit cross legged, still, relaxed, with your back upright. Close your eyes and focus your mind solely on the area below your nostrils/above the upper lip. Your only goal is to observe your breathing by focusing your mind on it. See how many breaths you can take before your mind 'wanders' (thinks of something else/can't do it)
*When I started I could do 2 breaths, or roughly 5-seconds tops before my mind would wander. If that bothers you too, perhaps this is something that could benefit you as well..
Random preface for context: This was one of the hardest things I've ever done. It's a completely different kind of 'hard' than say anything physical. I was challenged in ways I haven't been. I nearly quit, almost did, except for the fact that one of the 'coaches' there really helped me get through it.
It took me roughly 25-30 hours of practice before I could push past about 5-7 seconds of my mind wandering. By day 10. I could sit still for 1-hour easy (no moving/itching/nothing) and my mind would be clear/focused. It would not wander, and when it did I could quickly bring it back to the present moment and focus it. I'd say on hour 99 of practice I could focus/observe for roughly 55/of the 60 minutes. This was extremely hard to get to this point.
Day 1-3 I struggled getting used to sitting for 10hours/day and still fidgeted a bit/mind wandered lots. There is no books/internet/stimulants/talking etc I was stressed about being here and wandering if this was all for nothing. I had some doubts but knew I signed up for a reason and wanted to see it through with an open-mind. Unfortunately, I went in with a pretty ****ty state of mind because my girlfriend basically told me as I was leaving that she was unsure she'd even be back when I got back. This left me in a spot where I was kind of mind****ed and stressed about the future (high anxiety and worry; which is like the worst thing I could have going into a meditation retreat for 100 hours..)
Day 3 you learn the rest of the technique, whereupon you learn to focus/feel different parts of your body. Actually feel. This sounds silly writing it, cause if you haven't done this before it's unlikely to make sense. But you actually begin to feel/observe sensations in your body. I know everyone, litterly, knows what those words mean, but I mean that past the literal sense; you become more in-tune with your body. This stirred up emotions in me.
I broke down on day 6 and cried for the first time in like the last 10 years of my life. Everyday I was improving at the technique and new stuff was coming to the surface for me. The only way I can explain this is your mind is like an onion. Day-to-day life with electronics, social media, pressures, etc are the top layer. You remove that layer and begin going deeper into the core of it through observation/meditation. As you pull back layers, all the bull**** melts away and you're left with some hard, raw, truths. I realized what was wrong in my relationship. And a lot of shortcomings in myself. I realized I was anxious/clingy and extremely selfish in a lot of ways I wasn't aware of. I became acutely aware of how I affected those I loved in my life, and ways I could/should be a better person. It's funny, sometimes even with my parents I sometimes always thought: "Oh if only my dad was more like X, we wouldn't argue by Y" etc.. and then I realized and truly realized only in this moment that's that all bull****. You just how to love unconditionally. I realize writing that sounds silly, but none of this was done through rituals, being primed in any way, but only through observing my own mind. All these emotions definitely broke me and made me so much more aware of a lot of things going on in my life. Days 7-10 I finished off the course and left.
Observations:
-If you're wondering, there is no 'scam' or cult-y part about this. I was slightly skeptical going in as this is like nothing I'd usually ever do, but as someone who's not afraid to think independently, and critically, this is legit.
-It's extremely hard, at first especially, to begin breaking down habits. Day 2-3 & 6 I found the hardest. There are introductory courses that go 3-days. I strongly encourage you if you go to do it, take the 10 day course. After day 3, I was nowhere near where I was after day 10. It takes at least 25+ hours to break down habits before you can even begin learning new ones. 3 days is just not enough time to get anywhere.
-Not talking/internet/tv/etc.. that's all easy to give up. The diet was only vegetarian and probably 1500 calories a day and I'm definitely a meat eater (and eat closer to 3k calories a day); but that was easy too, it's just mind over matter. No exercise was much harder, but I did lots of stretching and you're allowed to walk on trails and stuff. This helped a lot.
-Learning to sit still became easier over time. It became kind of fun to 'observe' an itch appear and just watch it. Then you'd find it would just pass and be gone. You wouldn't even need to scratch it. You'd also sometimes get almost a 'waterfall' vibration effect sweep over your body. This was something I'd never experienced before and felt really cool; just awesome inner vibrations. Many times I'd leave the meditation session very lighthearted, almost skipping, and you would feel good. At the same time, I left some feeling very dark/worried and heavy. It would vary depending on the day and how hard I was taking the practice. The natural highs though, they were 'higher' and more sustainable than any psychedelic (I've done shrooms, acid, GHB before but truth be told I'm not much of a rec drug user at all; I did them all just to have that experience/social connection in the past) anyway, all those are chemically induced, where as this is just a natural high. It was amazing. For some parts you'll feel amazing. It's organic.
-I left with a clear/focused mind and I wrote down a bunch of things soon as I was done so I wouldn't forget. The first thing I wrote down was: "You have to do this again". It made me aware I took probably 1-2 steps down a very long path into my own mind. I want to go back/do it again and see how much farther I can go. Also go when I am not distracted by external life girlfriend problems and see what happens when I can fully focus on myself. I signed up for another course May 18th and I'll be doing it again. If people are still curious, I'll write a TR right after it so it's fresh in my mind (and not 50 days+ late like this one).
-Day to day my life has benefited from the practice. I'm more calm, less anxious, less worried about the future. I'm not 'reinvented' nor a 'changed' man. My views have not changed. I still eat meat, etc. I'm slightly happier and just a slightly better version of myself. I like it. I'm still pragmatic and the shifts in me have been quite minor, but positive. I do strongly believe personal relationships in my life will improve over time because of this practice. I've slipped some in my practice (it's good to try and do even 5-10 minute of meditation a day, once you know how.. and I haven't been) so I'm happy I signed up again. I think after 2-3 course the habits will really stick and I am optimistic I'll get incremental benefits each time. I really do encourage anyone and everyone who has read this to spend at least 20 minutes researching vipasanna and seeing is this is something that could be for you. I rarely vouch for anything, but I really do believe this is something great, and I look forward to having it be a part of my future/lifestyle in the future.
-If you're on the fence about it, or in a position in life where you're lucky enough to have 10 days to just spare. Just go try it. Trust me on this. I get nothing out of you going, except knowing that the experience I had with this practice, I can encourage others to try (It's even run by donations only, which they only take after you do the course).
Cheers everyone