I Meditated For 105 Hours Over 10 Days. Here's What It Taught Me

Going into the Vipassana, I had very strong opinions about relationships, about routine and contentedness, about personal freedoms and morality. Driving away on day 10, I felt completely detached from so many of these perspectives I’d built my identity upon but it didn’t feel like a loss. It felt like the beginning of a new education.

I had uncovered some deep patterns that begged for my breaking. I wanted, for the first time ever, to confront my aversion with routine and address my insatiable craving for newness and amplification of experience. I had clarity and perspective to challenge my opinions on modern relationships. And I felt inspired by the subtleties that live within that same cup of coffee we taste every morning, the familiarity and comfort of the touch that connects us to those we care about, the frigid winter air we dread confronting, the smile we share from neighboring porches, the frustrations and grudges we nurture, and the range experiences, however mundane they may feel, that make us human.

Complete article: https://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-26886/i-meditated-for-105-hours-over-10-days-heres-what-it-taught-me.html

Northwest Vipassana Center: http://www.kunja.dhamma.org/

More info: http://www.dhamma.org/

My exhausting meditation retreat: 10 days of Vipassana, silence and spiders

I went to New Zealand to break my brain and put it back together, without ever having meditated before. I had no idea what I was in for.

I signed up for a Vipassana course in a moment of quiet desperation. I was coming up on close to a year of insomnia. I found myself exhausted by the anxiety of not sleeping, yet unable to find any meaningful rest. For the first time in my life I was having panic attacks. Nightly, they were triggered by the dawning realization that sleep would elude me yet again.

I was also dealing with chronic pain. A bad accident as a kid followed by a series of rib fractures and back injuries over the years generated a state of permanent hurt made worse with the lack of sleep and an excess of cortisol.

I chose this specific course, which took place in New Zealand, because despite the trendiness of meditation classes and apps, Vipassana seemed to be about equanimity, discipline and hard work – right up my alley. I am not the most woo woo of humans, and the idea of a giant drum circle of positive thinkers made me want to run away screaming.

One year later

The Vipassana did not cure me of insomnia or anxiety permanently. Instead, it provided me with a valuable tool: it showed me that I could manage my mind more than I realized. By doing so, I felt more in control of the catastrophizing, despite the fact that it is always there.

A full 10 days of constant meditation created a barrier between the worrying and me. It allowed me to observe the anxiety more objectively. The whole process calmed me at a deep and inexplicable level; I am still the same neurotic person I always was, but it imbued me with a sense of perspective I now maintain and am deeply grateful for.

Complete article: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/mar/31/meditation-retreat-vipassana-new-zealand-exhausting-silence-spiders

A longer version: https://www.legalnomads.com/vipassana-meditation

More info on the center: http://medini.dhamma.org/

Cross-border meditation

The Pakistani delegation at the Gateway of India—Photo: Arunangsu Roy Chowdhury

“Members of the group hail from Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad, and Rawalpindi,” says Narayan. He has been facilitating cross-border exchanges between artists, musicians, youth groups and intellectuals from India and Pakistan for several years in collaboration with Society for Promotion of Indian Classical Music And Culture Amongst Youth (Spicmacay) and Pakistan-India Peoples Forum for Peace and Democracy.


Complete Article: https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/news/Cross-border-meditation/article14004081.ece

More Info: http://www.dhamma.org/