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An intensive Vipassana retreat is just that, an INTENSIVE retreat. I've meditated for ~10 years. I don't think anyone's FIRST meditation experience should be a
by dayvid 5y ago
An intensive Vipassana retreat is just that, an INTENSIVE retreat. I've meditated for ~10 years. I don't think anyone's FIRST meditation experience should be a 10-day Vipassana retreat. I don't think anyone's first silence experience should be a 10-day Vipassana retreat. That's like going to a Navy Seal bootcamp when you've never exercised in your life.
A lot of Buddhist or meditative practices also have close student-teacher relationships. You should have an active human coach guiding you through the process, because shit comes up, people have different mental health setups (just like a physical therapist has different workout plans for people with injuries and physical conditions) and if it's just DIY experimenting, you can encounter something and get screwed.
A good example of this is the Tim Ferris podcast where he did a 10-day Vipassana retreat and decided to fast for a certain number of days to amplify the effect and almost had a complete mental breakdown. It worked out and led to a very vulnerable podcast down the line (https://tim.blog/2020/09/14/how-to-heal-trauma/ https://tim.blog/2020/09/14/how-to-heal-trauma/), but these are things to keep in mind when going into deep waters.
- mcguire 5y agoI knew picking that example would derail the discussion.
- naasking 5y agoI don't think it derailed it, I think it actually highlighted a very important point. You're right that disregard for the side-effects are common, but this disregard is also often in discussions where the dosage is low and so probably fairly safe. Dose always matters, and this should be more widely communicated for meditation practice. So while I don't think it's valid to extrapolate results from an intensive retreat (high dose) to casual meditators that meditate maybe 20 mins a day (low dose), pointing out the relevance of dosage is insightful.
- fossuser 5y ago> "A lot of Buddhist or meditative practices also have close student-teacher relationships. You should have an active human coach guiding you through the process" This seems to also open the door to a lot of fraudster con-man types and cults, so worth being wary of that relationship imo. The author seemed to have experienced a bit of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depersonalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depersonalization which I've felt before and can be quite scary.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]