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I know almost nothing about meditation or Buddhism, but I would think that holding on to ideas and realizations so you can journal them is not just cheating "a

by xtian 12y ago

I know almost nothing about meditation or Buddhism, but I would think that holding on to ideas and realizations so you can journal them is not just cheating "a little bit." It's contrary to the whole purpose of the exercise.

MichaelAO 12y ago
Agreed. For me, it was an interesting read - I just finished the same type of 10 day retreat yesterday. I'd recommend it to most people. It has helped me establish a solid foundation to start practicing serious meditation and the 10 days without looking at a screen was a much needed break. A word of warning though: it was exceptionally difficult and you need to be open to hearing new language. One interesting thing was the type of people I met there. After the silence was over I met a nuclear engineer, venture capitalist, computer engineer, neuroscience grad student and various other science/engineering types.
orasis 12y ago
Quite to the contrary. Keeping a meditation journal is an invaluable, underutilized tool that allows students and teachers to see patterns that arise during meditation sessions, diagnose progress, and recommend next steps. If you want to see some people making some seriously fast progress, check out practice logs on these sites: http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/category/2658626 http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/messa... http://awakenetwork.org/forum/kfd-archive-wetpaint http://awakenetwork.org/forum/kfd-archive-wetpaint
- xtian 12y ago
  His feeling that his thoughts were too precious to let go of might be more important to examine than whatever he wrote down.
  - mentat 12y ago
    Absolutely agree with you. The point is to let stuff going, to be in the present.
  - stolio 12y ago
    Or maybe the thing to examine is he didn't trust the leaders of the retreat on a fairly small thing, yet he did trust them to lead him through a very dangerous amount of meditation in 10 days.
- zaroth 12y ago
  Interesting... at first I did agree that the journaling and use of technology seemed to be a direct violation of the ground rules and defeating the purpose. But glancing over some of those logs, I can see how central they were for those students. I'm definitely seeing some Gladwell's "10,000 hour" experts there. This is a very deep ocean of practice with which I have only the most passing level of acquaintance. It's interesting to imagine investing enough time to actually become adept at this, but hard to square with the reality that the business(es) demand 26 hours from every day. I'm not sure I'd trade it for my time spent on HN, it doesn't sound nearly as entertaining!
  - orasis 12y ago
    Yes, there are certainly some experts, but also people that have done only dozens to hundreds of hours who have made enormous progress. As for not having time, most of these folks have worked up to 2 20 minute sits per day. Myself, I take a single 40 minute walk and meditate each day. Thats not so much especially considering that I'm also getting exercise.

by xtian 12y ago

MichaelAO 12y ago

Agreed. For me, it was an interesting read - I just finished the same type of 10 day retreat yesterday. I'd recommend it to most people. It has helped me establish a solid foundation to start practicing serious meditation and the 10 days without looking at a screen was a much needed break. A word of warning though: it was exceptionally difficult and you need to be open to hearing new language. One interesting thing was the type of people I met there. After the silence was over I met a nuclear engineer, venture capitalist, computer engineer, neuroscience grad student and various other science/engineering types.

orasis 12y ago

Quite to the contrary. Keeping a meditation journal is an invaluable, underutilized tool that allows students and teachers to see patterns that arise during meditation sessions, diagnose progress, and recommend next steps. If you want to see some people making some seriously fast progress, check out practice logs on these sites: http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/category/2658626 http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/messa... http://awakenetwork.org/forum/kfd-archive-wetpaint http://awakenetwork.org/forum/kfd-archive-wetpaint

xtian 12y ago
His feeling that his thoughts were too precious to let go of might be more important to examine than whatever he wrote down.
- mentat 12y ago
  Absolutely agree with you. The point is to let stuff going, to be in the present.
- stolio 12y ago
  Or maybe the thing to examine is he didn't trust the leaders of the retreat on a fairly small thing, yet he did trust them to lead him through a very dangerous amount of meditation in 10 days.
zaroth 12y ago
Interesting... at first I did agree that the journaling and use of technology seemed to be a direct violation of the ground rules and defeating the purpose. But glancing over some of those logs, I can see how central they were for those students. I'm definitely seeing some Gladwell's "10,000 hour" experts there. This is a very deep ocean of practice with which I have only the most passing level of acquaintance. It's interesting to imagine investing enough time to actually become adept at this, but hard to square with the reality that the business(es) demand 26 hours from every day. I'm not sure I'd trade it for my time spent on HN, it doesn't sound nearly as entertaining!
- orasis 12y ago
  Yes, there are certainly some experts, but also people that have done only dozens to hundreds of hours who have made enormous progress. As for not having time, most of these folks have worked up to 2 20 minute sits per day. Myself, I take a single 40 minute walk and meditate each day. Thats not so much especially considering that I'm also getting exercise.