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I'm not OP, but I attended the same 10-day course last year and will likely attend another one at some point in the near future. I started experimenting with m

I'm not OP, but I attended the same 10-day course last year and will likely attend another one at some point in the near future. I started experimenting with meditation after listening to Howard Stern talk about transcendental mediation around seven years ago. At the time, I was struggling a lot with anxiety and bouts of depression. When I discovered Mindfulness and Acceptance Therapy, I started to move away from mantra meditation(TM) and towards mindfulness meditation. Over the years, I became more and more interested, not only in meditation, but in Eastern philosophy, and studied everything from Vedanta to Zen to Yoga to Tibetan Buddhism. I meditated anywhere from 20-40 minutes a day, but I was never very consistent. Sometimes I would skip a day, and sometimes a week, but I always came back to it. The anxiety and depression eventually went away, but I still was a very unhappy person, and I didn't understand why. Enter psychedelics. After a psilocybin trip last spring, I wrote about 40 pages worth of advice to myself. It was all very practical, very pragmatic, almost fatherly. Part of that advice was something along the lines of, "If you really want to figure out what's going on, you need to study your mind, study your thoughts." I signed up for the first available course.

abandonliberty 12y ago
What was your experience with the course?
- adrice727 12y ago
  It was one of the most difficult things I've done, mentally, physically, and emotionally. It was also very rewarding. It completely changed my understanding of meditation and instilled a belief that meditation really can be life-changing if practiced in earnest.
  - abandonliberty 12y ago
    How about all the things that unsettled redmaverick?
    - adrice727 12y ago
      The cult stuff? It's somewhat understandable. I think timeofgifts summed it up pretty well. You're essentially giving up your freedom for 10 days and are asked to do some things that may seem rather strange (e.g., bowing and chanting). It's normal to freak out and to want to leave, and you'll come up with a number of reasons to do so. I was miserable for a majority of the 10 days and desperately wanted to leave. But I also recognized this urge as just more "mind stuff", and the reason I was there was to learn to stop reacting to this stuff. Another point that hasn't been mentioned is that these courses are funded entirely by donations. This is why they want you to work hard and take your time there seriously. This is also why they really discourage people from leaving early. There are typically long wait lists for these courses and they don't want to "waste" spots on people that are going to leave early or not take it seriously.
kamakazizuru 12y ago
Has Vipassana helped you further?
- adrice727 12y ago
  Absolutely. I practiced for 2 hours a day for many months after the course. Life circumstances forced me to take a several-month hiatus, but I'm now back to sitting for about 90 minutes a day. I can't attribute it to my meditation practice alone, but there have been some huge changes in my life since doing the retreat. I've become a lot more compassionate and accepting of myself and I've started to gain some major insight into the patterns of negative thinking and self-sabotaging behavior that I've engaged in for most of my life. It's like I finally found the end on the ball of yarn of all my negative bullshit, and I'm slowly starting to unravel it.
  - kamakazizuru 12y ago
    I got kind of out of the practice after a few months post the 10-day workshop (life), and this is really encouraging me to get back into it. "The end of the ball of yarn" - really hits the nail on the head. I feel like there's some deeper reason for a lot of the stupid thought patterns I know I have that don't help me - but never managed to get deep enough to find the root-cause. Maybe sitting again will take me there, or at least let me realize its impermanance and move on. It's weird how I can discuss this but feeling it is a whole other thing. :) Metta to you!

abandonliberty 12y ago

What was your experience with the course?

adrice727 12y ago
It was one of the most difficult things I've done, mentally, physically, and emotionally. It was also very rewarding. It completely changed my understanding of meditation and instilled a belief that meditation really can be life-changing if practiced in earnest.
- abandonliberty 12y ago
  How about all the things that unsettled redmaverick?
  - adrice727 12y ago
    The cult stuff? It's somewhat understandable. I think timeofgifts summed it up pretty well. You're essentially giving up your freedom for 10 days and are asked to do some things that may seem rather strange (e.g., bowing and chanting). It's normal to freak out and to want to leave, and you'll come up with a number of reasons to do so. I was miserable for a majority of the 10 days and desperately wanted to leave. But I also recognized this urge as just more "mind stuff", and the reason I was there was to learn to stop reacting to this stuff. Another point that hasn't been mentioned is that these courses are funded entirely by donations. This is why they want you to work hard and take your time there seriously. This is also why they really discourage people from leaving early. There are typically long wait lists for these courses and they don't want to "waste" spots on people that are going to leave early or not take it seriously.

kamakazizuru 12y ago

Has Vipassana helped you further?

adrice727 12y ago
Absolutely. I practiced for 2 hours a day for many months after the course. Life circumstances forced me to take a several-month hiatus, but I'm now back to sitting for about 90 minutes a day. I can't attribute it to my meditation practice alone, but there have been some huge changes in my life since doing the retreat. I've become a lot more compassionate and accepting of myself and I've started to gain some major insight into the patterns of negative thinking and self-sabotaging behavior that I've engaged in for most of my life. It's like I finally found the end on the ball of yarn of all my negative bullshit, and I'm slowly starting to unravel it.
- kamakazizuru 12y ago
  I got kind of out of the practice after a few months post the 10-day workshop (life), and this is really encouraging me to get back into it. "The end of the ball of yarn" - really hits the nail on the head. I feel like there's some deeper reason for a lot of the stupid thought patterns I know I have that don't help me - but never managed to get deep enough to find the root-cause. Maybe sitting again will take me there, or at least let me realize its impermanance and move on. It's weird how I can discuss this but feeling it is a whole other thing. :) Metta to you!