chubacca_alpaca

We’ve got a builder, we’ve moved out and things are happening! We decided to get a builder to do it pretty much all at once (we’ll do the granny flat and various paving and landscaping later), mainly because I couldn’t handle the thought of working fulltime AND renovating each weekend. (I also do various additional bits of contract work, so it wasn’t really feasible.) So far the house is raised, the slab is poured and the flooring joists for the extention are up. Yay!

since I last used this goal, so I think it’s time to mark it off my list!

from the Vipassana meditation retreat yesterday. What an experience! I would certainly recommend this to others.

However, given my experience, I would also recommend that if possible, a few weeks before you go, try sitting on a cushion on the floor with no back support, completely still for at least half an hour a day for maybe a week. If you find you develop any sort of muscle tension, go see a physiotherapist or someone who can give you some stretching exercises for this tension before you go on the retreat! The hardest part of the experience for me was the physical pain from tension headaches and knotted upper back muscles. Sure, my muscles also got tired and sore from holding the same position, but I found that the “tired” pain didn’t destroy my concentration – and that this pain was relieved by rest. My tension / knotted muscle pain, however, made doing the work almost impossible on some days – and that was pain I could only relieve by continually changing position or by stretching in between sittings. Despite having correct exercises (learnt 10 years earlier), the tension headache reduced me to tears on day 2, after which point the exercises slowly started releasing enough tension to make the headache bearable. It finally left on day 7. The back tension – for which I had no physio exercises – was never brought under control. I just made up some vaguely useful exercises and found different ways of sitting (mostly scrunched over, which wasn’t ideal) to make it bearable.

DESPITE all of that, I did get a lot out of the course. Firstly, I found out a lot about my daily thoughts, behaviours and judgements from living in noble silence (no speech, gesture or eye contact) with people I had barely met. Sharing a small sleeping room with 2 others was fascinating when no communication was possible.

I found the vipassana technique interesting and truly worthwhile. Whilst there is a lot of Buddhist culture presented along with the technique – because, I guess, this is a Buddhist meditation style – I believe that the technique itself is truly non-sectarian. And it was presented in such a way that I found it very easy to extract the pure technique from the cultural elements.

For me, there were no sudden insights or bolts of lightening. However, I can absolutely see the value of this meditation technique for me, and I intend to continue practicing it regularly in my life. Already, I am looking forward to seeing the changes in my life and within myself 1 month, 3 months, 1 year from now.