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Never understood the need for meditation retreats. The only purpose of gathering would be to meet and converse with other people. Not to sit and listen to the
by starkd 4y ago
Never understood the need for meditation retreats. The only purpose of gathering would be to meet and converse with other people. Not to sit and listen to them breathe.
- jelling 4y agoI suspect the primary driver for 1 - 2 week retreats is that is the average Western vacation length and the mindful companies are maximizing revenue relative to CAC. Formal Buddhist training - such as to be a teacher within the Kadampa tradition - can be done once a week over a course of years. Other traditions training requires full-time reading training over years. I wouldn’t recommend someone try to master an instrument in 7 - 14 days as learning takes time for integration and people progress at different rates. So I’m skeptical of why anyone would suggest that for attempting to master the mind.
- starkd 4y agoI can think of better ways I would want to spend a vacation.
- dayvid 4y agoI think for a good deal of them you're in silence (no cell phones or talking with others). It's really valuable to be in silence if you haven't before. You can gain awareness of random thoughts and things you don't notice when you're surrounded by distractions. Doing it for too long or with no stimulation (e.g. only sitting all day and meditating or wandering off w/ no structure when you can maybe do some activities in-between) can lead to strange things popping up.
- starkd 4y agoI suppose there's some value in them for supplying some kind of structure.