No talking for ten days! shush!
I'm thinking about going here next month http://www.pakasa.dhamma.org/
Is anyone familiar with this type of "zen camp" thingamajig? any thoughts or shared experiences would be appreciated.
I don't meditate too often ( I can't seem to fit it in to my daily schedule as often as I would like to) and I thought that going to the camp might be a good way to jump start that.
posted by rchinn72 @ Friday, February 24, 2006
7 comments
7 Comments:
Ten days, ten hours a day is a LOT of sitting.
I've only done one three-day retreat, and we only did four or five hours a day. Toward the end, my body was getting pretty worn out, and I had been sitting for a half-hour every day for months before the retreat. Next time I'll bring a softer and bigger zafu, or maybe two of them. Stay away from buckwheat-filled zafus, they are comfy and supportive at first, but seem hard as a rock when you've been sitting on one for hours. Fine for daily practice, but I wouldn't bring it to another retreat. If you don't already have a zafu that just fits the way you sit, go shopping for one with a zipper so you can change the amount of stuffing, and bring that to the retreat after you've got it adjusted to right where you want it by practicing with it at home.
Some discomfort and pain is to be expected, but be careful about your knees, I have heard that they can be permanently damaged if you try to get macho and push through the pain no matter how bad it gets.
If possible, I'd suggest you try a shorter, easier retreat first. Daily practice for a while will help too, it will strengthen your back muscles, and gently teach your body to sit with good posture without muscle strain.
All that being said, if you can't find an easier retreat in your area, I'd say go ahead with this one. It would be a really valuable experience and you would walk out of that place with a whole different perspective on the world.
Helo rchinn72~
In the mid-eighties I lived for six months, full time, in a Soto zen monastery. Every month one week was dedicated to sesshin, a week of non-stop sitting. The amount of time spent in meditation depended on the season (from 10 hr/day to 12 hr/day).
For some it may have benefit. One will only know when one attempts it. That's the bottom line. That's pretty much the objective facts.
You asked for comments. OK. Now my subjective take on things.
On initial examination it doesn't seem like this is a wise direction for you. You don't wanna go from zero to sixty in five seconds. I don't know if it will cause any damage, but it might be more useful for you to explore the deeper motivations behind such a drastic action.
Drastic action? To me, yes. If some doesn't have the ability to meditate on a regular basis - every day ("I don't meditate too often...I can't seem to fit it into my daily schedule"), that person is probably not prepared for a long, intensive retreat. You say you don't have the time: I know people who work two, three jobs. Twelve or more hours five or six days a week. And they find 10 or 15 minutes EVERY day to meditate (perhaps engaging in it on a subway commuting to work if necessary). So why did you want to spent 10+ hours a day doing zazen? What are you hoping to get out of it (besides jump starting something that you seem unable to jump start yourself)? Enforced meditation is pretty useless. (Just like enforced anything is. It can work, on rare occasions, but most of the time nothing valuable comes of it.)
By the way, I got in some real good nap time during those sesshins. :-))))
Other than some excellent zzzzz's, I found little benefit from long arduous retreats. Daily sitting, even in small installments, examining life in thought and non-thought, was, for this bodymind mechanism, a more effective and useful tool for waking up. But I recognize that such is not the case for everyone. There is no "one-size-fits-all." In anything.
Here's a trick for fitting in your daily practice more regularly (at least it worked for me).
I found myself wondering how to sit consistently because timing is always tough with a family of 5 (3 daughters).
I'm addicted to coffee and always get up before everyone else to start a pot of coffee each morning. Then it dawned on me that since I was doing this regularly every day, and it was a quiet time (except for the gurgling coffee maker) why not use that time to sit?
So now I sit everyday thanks to my coffee addiction. It only takes about 10 minutes for a pot to brew but it didn't take me long before 10 minutes felt too short so I've been pushing it to 20 or 30 minutes each day.
Of course this will only work if you do something like make a pot of coffee each morning already.
Also - now that I'm doing this regularly even if I'm somewhere I don't make coffee I feel odd not sitting in the morning. So it's not like I'm tied to this coffee maker. (Now if only I could get a coffee exec, maybe a starbucks guy, to make a commercial with this idea....)
I'm just beginning really sitting though and haven't been to a retreat or temple yet. (I think it was Brad's writing that got me to finally stop reading about zen and start sitting... well, I haven't really stopped reading...)
Thanks everyone! Good comments. lots to think about... or maybe I'll just go meditate!!haha...no seriously I'm going to go meditate!
(easing into seems to be the way to go. baby steps.)
All this talk of retreats has made me want to go again.
I've only done a day (night?) retreat - from 6pm-9pm and then from 3am - 11am, but I found it very gruelling. It helped me through a tough time though and kind of gave me a bit of perspective for a brief time.
Nowadays I tend to sit 10/15 minutes each time, once a day sometimes twice. But sometimes I spend less than a minute :-)I'm not sure how valuable that is but I feel it lets me regain a bit of balance. Just like a reminder. Better than no-zazen, I guess.
But I think it'd cause too much pain in the legs, rchininn72, if you're not sitting regularly now to do such a long retreat...
I think you're right with your baby steps!
After reading the exhaustive content on the Feeling Better thread, ten days of no talking sounds dreamy! Seriously though, whatever your decision, the best of luck to you. I don't think I could do it; at least not yet.
Please note that vipassana is not Zen, and I have to join the chorus that ten days seems a little long. There are plenty of three-day retreats around, and that will be rough for the first day, too. If you go for the ten and it doesn't work out for you, don't give up on practice!
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