pocafey and the kaeptn are back on the road, this time towards switzerland. recalling my third (here is the post on my first retreat in Kathmandu) and pocafey’s first 10-day vipassana retreat, we…
stuck our heads together to give you a testimonial of and where this retreat left us after the ten days. as a sidetone, pocafey has never meditated before and decided to run a marathon without ever having worn a pair of running shoes. 🙂
the rules
there are a lot of rules tying this course into a fitting experience, letting you pretty much live the austere live of a monk or a nun. some of the rules:
- noble silence – no communication whatsoever with fellow meditators.
- 10 hours of meditation per day
- simple, vegetarian food and water
- no touching others
- no smoking, drinking
- no sexual activities of any sort
- no sensual activities
- no sports, yoga or other techniques and rites other than the meditation
having agreed to that and having taken refuge in dhamma (dao, the way, the course of nature) and in buddha and triple gem (sila – morality , samadi – mastery of the mind, and panje – wisdom), we started sitting.
beginner stuff
on the last day I talked to santiago who was doing his fifth retreat and answering my question, how his retreat had passed, he said, well, the beginner stuff falls away.
here the beginner stuff:
the first thirty minutes of the first hour of the first day went just fine. 04:30 in the morning, ready to sit.
after some time, the body announced a veto, nope, I don’t want this.
the mind tuned in to the refusal of acceptance and the gross bodily sensations (aka pain) started becoming mental too, changing from gross sensations to very gross bodily sensations (PAIN!)
pocafey: the first day was by far the worst. I had constant headaches, back pains and stinging pains in my left knee. basically everything gojinka was talking about in the next dhamma discourse, I actually experienced.
kaeptn: I had this stinging pains in my left shoulder blade and it radiated into headaches and lower back pains. day 1 was a catastrophy and at the end of the day, I was completely wrecked. constantly changing sitting positions, trying to flex the muscles during meditation and during recesses, nothing helped.
beginner stuff my ass.
