7 ms·

Meditation retreats sound interesting, but they've always struck me as tending to have a fairly grueling, bizarre schedule- awake and breakfast at ~6AM, dinner

Meditation retreats sound interesting, but they've always struck me as tending to have a fairly grueling, bizarre schedule- awake and breakfast at ~6AM, dinner at 4pm, lights out at 9PM (and no meal until breakfast the next day.) It strikes me as the worst setup for long meditation sessions- getting everyone sleepy and hungry and out of sorts. That it would send susceptible people off the deep end doesn't sound surprising. As a sort of "negative control," I wonder if psychosis is as frequently triggered by other taxing programs; for instance, army basic training? There too people are forced to sleep on an artificial schedule, meals are regimented and at potentially unfamiliar times, and most of the day is spent in unfamiliar, effortful activity (but all of which is probably diametrically opposite to meditation.)

jason_slack 8y ago
I did a 10 day Vipassana retreat recently. It was indeed grueling. Up at 4. Start meditating at 4:30, etc. It was hard but rewarding. Im still celebrating the rewards and I did this 6 months ago.
skullgrid 8y ago
I did a week-long silent meditation retreat in Thailand a few years ago. I thought it would be difficult for the same reasons you mention -- I tend towards night-owling and loathe the thought of not eating for more than a few hours. It turned out to be much much easier than I expected. Without electronics and other sources of artificial light the circadian rhythm shifts to the sunrise-sunset cycle pretty rapidly. I slept quite well for the majority of my stay. As to the food, I think we're just conditioned to think we need way more than we really do. Eating two meals was only hard the first full day, and after that it felt fine. The meals were on the large side so it wasn't a large calorie deficit, if any. I definitely encourage you to try it if it's something you're interested in, you may be surprised at what you're capable of. e: in light of what jason_slack said - your experience may vary, of course. Just saying that personally I did not find the sleeping/eating situation to be too difficult after a couple of days. My biggest struggle was actually sitting on the ground for so many hours per day. My hips and legs have become so tight from chronically sitting in an office chair that maintaining good posture on the floor was very painful for me (I've actually since started stretching regularly to work on this).
- kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
  Three meals a day including breakfast is basically lobbyist propaganda to support the cereal, milk, and egg industries. I'm never hungry in the morning and breakfast is unnecessary for me.
  - TravelAndFood 8y ago
    How many meals do you eat a day and how many calories total? I eat 4 "meals", including right after I wake up. But they are usually 500-600 calories each.
  - trophycase 8y ago
    Interestingly enough, if I wake up before 10 I'm hungry for breakfast, if I wake up later, I'm not.
c54 8y ago
A lot of the reasoning behind these kinds of shock-related systems is exactly as you describe, to shift you out of your previous modes of function and directly into a new mode. The participants of the group (meditation retreat, army boot camp, etc) are all 'reset' into this new mode simultaneously and together, increasing group coherence. The point is not to be comfortable, the point is to spend all one's time and mental energy doing the new thing, whatever that may be. I suspect most folks are extremely shaken for the first two to four days and then settle into the new routine.
throwaway34241 8y ago
If you're going to sleep that early, I don't understand what the problem is with that schedule? For example, if you made everything 3 hours later, that would be breakfast at 9AM, dinner at 7PM and lights out at midnight. That's still 9 hours of sleep... it's probably a bit early compared to the average coder schedule, but waking up around sunrise doesn't seem all that strange (compared to waking up hours after the sun is up). Is there no lunch maybe?
- collyw 8y ago
  I have tried arguing this with self proclaimed night owls including my girlfriend. The time of day is nothing more than a number, so saying that "I can't sleep before 11pm" is pretty nonsense. We swap the clocks back / forward by an hour twice every year and it only takes a couple of days to get used to the change. Spain is an hour ahead of the UK, despite being on the same longitude. If you ever fly between time zones, again it only takes a few days for your body to adjust. I am still looking for someone to give me a decent counterargument and that "night owls" is a real thing that couldn't be solved with some discipline about sleep and waking times. Night Owls always seem to focus on a specific time, ignoring that fact that it is all relative.
  - zenlot 8y ago
    Good resource would be: Matthew Walker Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams
  - kybernetikos 8y ago
    There are various studies that suggest a genetic component to energy levels at different times in the circadian cycle. A quick search will find some for you. Just because your cycle can be adjusted doesn't mean that some people don't have longer ones or experience high energy levels at later times.
gotocake 8y ago
Lack of sleep, sudden change of routine, total immersion in a new mindset, and withholding food is the classic playbook of cult indoctrination. The point is to weaken existing barriers that would otherwise keep people aloof, disengaged, and instead create a total experience. I’m not claiming that a meditation retreat is a cult indoctrination, at least not most of the time. It does however share some commonalities with indoctrination, and interrogation. If your goal is radical change, a breakthrough emotional or otherwise, this is an ancient and proven system to make it happen. Boot camp has some things in common, because it is quite the indoctrination, but they feed you well, and focus more on breaking down the ego and forming a group identity and esprit de corps. Cults focus on breaking people mentally and creating dependence. Interrogation tends to focus on disorientation and a need to bond with the interrogator. Meditation retreats focus on breaking existing habits and perspectives and instilling new ones. Similar tracks, different intentions and outcomes. Another difference is that in the military you’re screened for prexisting psychological issues, and they have a vested interest in that screening process. You also have trained observers at all stages who know to look for signs of deterioration. In a retreat you have no screening, no such resources, and no training in recognizing early signs of psychosis.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- namlem 8y ago
  There's never been any sleep or food deprivation at any retreat I've been to. They keep an early schedule because that's what they used to. The routine that parent described is basically normal for your typical early bird.
  - geomark 8y ago
    It's basically the standard monk's schedule. Might be a shock for late sleepers used to eating and snacking throughout the day. Enough of a shock to set off some people. The Thais have an idiom for it which translates to "allergic to the robe". It happens to new monks sometimes. I saw it happen to one new monk in the group I ordained with. A few days after ordination I saw him running and yelling that the senior monks were trying to kill his family.
philwelch 8y ago
This is partially the purpose of army basic training. If you can’t take the stress of boot camp, it’s good to know that before you’re faced with the stress of combat.
- collyw 8y ago
  I am curious if medical training (which apparently involves lots of crazy shifts) has a similar purpose.
  - philwelch 8y ago
    "Hazing" in general has a "let's subject you to hardship to see what you're made of" component to it, which is sometimes of value and sometimes is just a cargo-cult.
TravelAndFood 8y ago
The one I did was breakfast 7 AM, lunch either 11 AM or 12 PM (I forget), and no food after that. I didn't find it an issue since I ate a big lunch then used little energy and went to bed early.
- c0nducktr 8y ago
  Was it positive in the end? Is it possible to replicate the experience at all apart from the retreat?
jdietrich 8y ago
The author doesn't mention where he went on retreat, but there's more than enough information in his post to figure it out. I won't name them, but I will say that they aren't a monastery and aren't part of an established Buddhist tradition. The movement that the retreat centre is affiliated to was established in the late 1960s by a businessman with no monastic training. Bluntly, there are a lot of organisations out there who are accountable to nobody and are teaching stuff that isn't Buddhism, but sorta-kinda looks like Buddhism if you don't know any better. Actual Buddhist practice is, by and large, considerably less bizarre. Not eating after noon is the sixth of the eight precepts accepted by laypeople during retreats or special days in the Buddhist calendar. The purpose of these precepts is to focus the mind on spiritual matters rather than worldly pleasures; they aren't all that different to the restrictions of Lent, Ramadan or Ta'anit. The overwhelming majority of religious and spiritual traditions make use of some kind of temporary asceticism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_precepts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_precepts The eight precepts aren't terribly difficult to follow, but they can be a shock to the system, especially if you go from dabbling in meditation to an intensive retreat. More significantly, meditation is much more physically and mentally taxing than you might expect, so an intensive schedule of meditation can be utterly exhausting if you haven't built up a baseline of endurance. It'd be like going straight from jogging in your local park to a desert ultramarathon. No reputable Buddhist sangha would invite someone who is pretty much a total novice to a ten-day retreat. I'm a fairly experienced meditator and I'm comfortable with sustained and lengthy meditation sessions, but there's absolutely no way I'd go on a retreat of this level of intensity. Novice monks in my tradition wouldn't be expected to follow this kind of schedule, let alone people who had just walked in off the street. I think there's a problem on both the supply and demand side; dodgy organisations are offering recklessly intensive retreats, but there's also a broader culture of extremism and quick-fixes that drives people to seek Enlightenment In A Week™. A huge amount of diet advice is dangerously unhealthy, because sensible eating is much less appealing than "The Miracle Diet - Get Your Perfect Body In 21 Days". CrossFit practitioners joke about rhabdomyolysis, a potentially fatal symptom of extreme overexertion. I regularly see submissions to HN that brag about extreme "productivity hacks" that involve chronic sleep deprivation or eating pseudo-food substitutes. Ironically, this all runs directly contrary to one of the core tenets of Buddhist practice - the Middle Way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Way

jason_slack 8y ago

I did a 10 day Vipassana retreat recently. It was indeed grueling. Up at 4. Start meditating at 4:30, etc. It was hard but rewarding. Im still celebrating the rewards and I did this 6 months ago.

skullgrid 8y ago

I did a week-long silent meditation retreat in Thailand a few years ago. I thought it would be difficult for the same reasons you mention -- I tend towards night-owling and loathe the thought of not eating for more than a few hours. It turned out to be much much easier than I expected. Without electronics and other sources of artificial light the circadian rhythm shifts to the sunrise-sunset cycle pretty rapidly. I slept quite well for the majority of my stay. As to the food, I think we're just conditioned to think we need way more than we really do. Eating two meals was only hard the first full day, and after that it felt fine. The meals were on the large side so it wasn't a large calorie deficit, if any. I definitely encourage you to try it if it's something you're interested in, you may be surprised at what you're capable of. e: in light of what jason_slack said - your experience may vary, of course. Just saying that personally I did not find the sleeping/eating situation to be too difficult after a couple of days. My biggest struggle was actually sitting on the ground for so many hours per day. My hips and legs have become so tight from chronically sitting in an office chair that maintaining good posture on the floor was very painful for me (I've actually since started stretching regularly to work on this).

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
Three meals a day including breakfast is basically lobbyist propaganda to support the cereal, milk, and egg industries. I'm never hungry in the morning and breakfast is unnecessary for me.
- TravelAndFood 8y ago
  How many meals do you eat a day and how many calories total? I eat 4 "meals", including right after I wake up. But they are usually 500-600 calories each.
- trophycase 8y ago
  Interestingly enough, if I wake up before 10 I'm hungry for breakfast, if I wake up later, I'm not.

c54 8y ago

A lot of the reasoning behind these kinds of shock-related systems is exactly as you describe, to shift you out of your previous modes of function and directly into a new mode. The participants of the group (meditation retreat, army boot camp, etc) are all 'reset' into this new mode simultaneously and together, increasing group coherence. The point is not to be comfortable, the point is to spend all one's time and mental energy doing the new thing, whatever that may be. I suspect most folks are extremely shaken for the first two to four days and then settle into the new routine.

throwaway34241 8y ago

If you're going to sleep that early, I don't understand what the problem is with that schedule? For example, if you made everything 3 hours later, that would be breakfast at 9AM, dinner at 7PM and lights out at midnight. That's still 9 hours of sleep... it's probably a bit early compared to the average coder schedule, but waking up around sunrise doesn't seem all that strange (compared to waking up hours after the sun is up). Is there no lunch maybe?

collyw 8y ago
I have tried arguing this with self proclaimed night owls including my girlfriend. The time of day is nothing more than a number, so saying that "I can't sleep before 11pm" is pretty nonsense. We swap the clocks back / forward by an hour twice every year and it only takes a couple of days to get used to the change. Spain is an hour ahead of the UK, despite being on the same longitude. If you ever fly between time zones, again it only takes a few days for your body to adjust. I am still looking for someone to give me a decent counterargument and that "night owls" is a real thing that couldn't be solved with some discipline about sleep and waking times. Night Owls always seem to focus on a specific time, ignoring that fact that it is all relative.
- zenlot 8y ago
  Good resource would be: Matthew Walker Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams
- kybernetikos 8y ago
  There are various studies that suggest a genetic component to energy levels at different times in the circadian cycle. A quick search will find some for you. Just because your cycle can be adjusted doesn't mean that some people don't have longer ones or experience high energy levels at later times.

gotocake 8y ago

Lack of sleep, sudden change of routine, total immersion in a new mindset, and withholding food is the classic playbook of cult indoctrination. The point is to weaken existing barriers that would otherwise keep people aloof, disengaged, and instead create a total experience. I’m not claiming that a meditation retreat is a cult indoctrination, at least not most of the time. It does however share some commonalities with indoctrination, and interrogation. If your goal is radical change, a breakthrough emotional or otherwise, this is an ancient and proven system to make it happen. Boot camp has some things in common, because it is quite the indoctrination, but they feed you well, and focus more on breaking down the ego and forming a group identity and esprit de corps. Cults focus on breaking people mentally and creating dependence. Interrogation tends to focus on disorientation and a need to bond with the interrogator. Meditation retreats focus on breaking existing habits and perspectives and instilling new ones. Similar tracks, different intentions and outcomes. Another difference is that in the military you’re screened for prexisting psychological issues, and they have a vested interest in that screening process. You also have trained observers at all stages who know to look for signs of deterioration. In a retreat you have no screening, no such resources, and no training in recognizing early signs of psychosis.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
namlem 8y ago
There's never been any sleep or food deprivation at any retreat I've been to. They keep an early schedule because that's what they used to. The routine that parent described is basically normal for your typical early bird.
- geomark 8y ago
  It's basically the standard monk's schedule. Might be a shock for late sleepers used to eating and snacking throughout the day. Enough of a shock to set off some people. The Thais have an idiom for it which translates to "allergic to the robe". It happens to new monks sometimes. I saw it happen to one new monk in the group I ordained with. A few days after ordination I saw him running and yelling that the senior monks were trying to kill his family.

philwelch 8y ago

This is partially the purpose of army basic training. If you can’t take the stress of boot camp, it’s good to know that before you’re faced with the stress of combat.

collyw 8y ago
I am curious if medical training (which apparently involves lots of crazy shifts) has a similar purpose.
- philwelch 8y ago
  "Hazing" in general has a "let's subject you to hardship to see what you're made of" component to it, which is sometimes of value and sometimes is just a cargo-cult.

TravelAndFood 8y ago

The one I did was breakfast 7 AM, lunch either 11 AM or 12 PM (I forget), and no food after that. I didn't find it an issue since I ate a big lunch then used little energy and went to bed early.

c0nducktr 8y ago
Was it positive in the end? Is it possible to replicate the experience at all apart from the retreat?

jdietrich 8y ago

The author doesn't mention where he went on retreat, but there's more than enough information in his post to figure it out. I won't name them, but I will say that they aren't a monastery and aren't part of an established Buddhist tradition. The movement that the retreat centre is affiliated to was established in the late 1960s by a businessman with no monastic training. Bluntly, there are a lot of organisations out there who are accountable to nobody and are teaching stuff that isn't Buddhism, but sorta-kinda looks like Buddhism if you don't know any better. Actual Buddhist practice is, by and large, considerably less bizarre. Not eating after noon is the sixth of the eight precepts accepted by laypeople during retreats or special days in the Buddhist calendar. The purpose of these precepts is to focus the mind on spiritual matters rather than worldly pleasures; they aren't all that different to the restrictions of Lent, Ramadan or Ta'anit. The overwhelming majority of religious and spiritual traditions make use of some kind of temporary asceticism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_precepts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_precepts The eight precepts aren't terribly difficult to follow, but they can be a shock to the system, especially if you go from dabbling in meditation to an intensive retreat. More significantly, meditation is much more physically and mentally taxing than you might expect, so an intensive schedule of meditation can be utterly exhausting if you haven't built up a baseline of endurance. It'd be like going straight from jogging in your local park to a desert ultramarathon. No reputable Buddhist sangha would invite someone who is pretty much a total novice to a ten-day retreat. I'm a fairly experienced meditator and I'm comfortable with sustained and lengthy meditation sessions, but there's absolutely no way I'd go on a retreat of this level of intensity. Novice monks in my tradition wouldn't be expected to follow this kind of schedule, let alone people who had just walked in off the street. I think there's a problem on both the supply and demand side; dodgy organisations are offering recklessly intensive retreats, but there's also a broader culture of extremism and quick-fixes that drives people to seek Enlightenment In A Week™. A huge amount of diet advice is dangerously unhealthy, because sensible eating is much less appealing than "The Miracle Diet - Get Your Perfect Body In 21 Days". CrossFit practitioners joke about rhabdomyolysis, a potentially fatal symptom of extreme overexertion. I regularly see submissions to HN that brag about extreme "productivity hacks" that involve chronic sleep deprivation or eating pseudo-food substitutes. Ironically, this all runs directly contrary to one of the core tenets of Buddhist practice - the Middle Way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Way