meditate daily

I’m going to do this for a month longer, starting today, and then mark this “Achieved”.

Finished the 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat, and all I can say is WOW. Seriously, it was an incredible experience. If you are looking to begin or deepen your practice, this is a fantastic way to jump start it.

If you want more detail on how you can attend a course, see my completion entry under “Attend a retreat”. You can also check out the individual websites for the various centers worldwide at dhamma.org.

Since I’ve been back (3days), I have been meditating every morning and evening. I haven’t been doing the recommended hour each time, but have been successful with 30 minutes at a shot. Eventually, I’ll work up to the hour. My goal is to continue to meditate morning and evening through the end of April (and beyond, of course) before I sum this goal up and give it the stamp of completion.

I’m leaving tomorrow for a 10 day vipassana meditation retreat. We’ll be meditating 10 hrs a day for the whole 10 days. During that time they ask that there be no talking, no drinking, no stealing, no lying and no sex.

Yikes.

OK, so I’m fine with the no stealing and the no lying (especially easy since there’s no speaking), but the no talking, a.k.a. “noble silence”, no drinking, and no sex are a bit of a downer. Oh,and no killing other animals, which means 10 days of vegetarian meals. And we’re not talking “vegetarian” as in bean burritos from Taco Bell.

Also no electronic media items allowed: no laptop, cell phone, IM3, camera, etc.

I better bloody well come back enlightened.

This week I am making a point to meditate EVERY DAY. I’ve only been meditating 3-4 times a week over the last month. I have no excuse.

Every year I put this down as one of my New Year’s Resolutions, but haven’t had much success. The inside of my head is like a tickertape parade through downtown Manhattan, and I know that daily mediation would help with some much needed focus.

But I think I’ve found something that will work for me. I’ve been using a couple of different mantras with some success. The vocalization really helps me concentrate on not concentrating… if that makes any sense at all.

I’ve been doing my chosen mantra (one chosen mainly for the fact that I have a very important certification exam coming up) at least once a day for a little over 20 days now.