
'Did I miss anything?': A man emerges from a 75-day silent retreat - svenfaw
https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2020/06/04/did-i-miss-anything-a-man-emerges-from-a-75-day-silent-retreat-in-vermont
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archived22
The mind is difficult beast to tame and Simplicity is hardest thing to
achieve.

Try to sit in meditation and focusing on breathing, first 10-15 minutes monkey
mind does not even calm down and can't sit more than 30 minutes. Back starts
hurting. Sitting on chair for so long and back muscles have become weak.

However, there are so many unprocessed emotions which keeps popping up when I
try to sit down idle or try to 'not think', ranging from things read on social
network (twitter) upto childhood emotion. Total Emotion roller coaster. Plus,
awareness about shallow habit of mind of continuously judging and having
opinion on everything. Worst is realisation that I don't event have control or
influence on what is going around.

Blessed are people who have achieved control over thinking. The momentary
calmness and freedom, I feel is simply liberating. But it does not last long.
How can you live in this world and not be affected but it. It's tough battle
with 'self' for now for getting into bad habits just because of not being self
aware.

For guidance, that quote - "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing
more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away". Getting rid of bad
habit one by one is starting point.

Sigh.. may be someday, will become truly free.

~~~
perfmode
with love,

at each stage, it is fruitful to inspect the rate-limiting factor.

if the body is the limiting factor, then it makes sense to invest in yoga
until it is no longer the thing in the way.

it’s difficult to confront multiple challenges at once (monkey mind and pain
in body), so divide and conquer.

may you find happiness and peace.

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hirundo
"And so, less than two hours after ending his silent retreat, Thorson logged
back onto Twitter."

Like breaking a long fast by binging on candy.

~~~
ykevinator
Right, and if youre doing a Buddhist retreat just so you can tell everyone
about it, you're doing it wrong

~~~
logicprog
Well, at least in modern western society, that usually is the end goal...

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tuesday20
Anyone gone so long on silent retreats? Can you talk about the experience?

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ptenk
During my years as a Buddhist monk, we regularly did two 90 day silent
retreats(Summer/winter) and two 45 days (fall/spring) a year. It’s mostly a
survival type period where you slog through the days, until you have a week or
so of a breakthrough, with hyper awareness and enlightenment-like insights.
They all pass and it’s back to surviving the rest of the retreat.

~~~
AriseAndPass
Very cool to see an ex-monk here. I've had a regular 2hr/day practice for a
decade now but no retreats yet. What kind of meditation did you practice?
Would you say that you achieved some level of Awakening, and that any of these
insights/benefits have improved the quality of your consciousness in a
permanent sense?

~~~
tuesday20
1 hour per day? Wow, that is insane!! In a good way, of course.

How long did it take to reach an hour?

~~~
0zymandias
About 60 minutes

~~~
froh
Brrrm tsss

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lsllc
So he spent 2.5 months locked in a cabin? Sounds ... familiar?

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cordite
For something like this, would you set up power of attorney for anything that
comes up?

