Sunday, November 12, 2006

Meditation Retreat


So we just finished our ten day meditation retreat yesterday. It was at a place called Tushita which is up in the woods above Dharamsala. A really peaceful and quiet place. Basically everyday went as follows:
  • Morning Mindfulness Meditation
  • Breakfast
  • Teaching
  • Yoga
  • Lunch
  • Discussion Group
  • Tea
  • Teaching
  • Analytical Meditation
  • Dinner
  • Analytical Meditation
It was like that until the last two full days in which we meditated seven times of 45 minutes each. I got really good at sitting. It was a Tibetan Buddhist retreat which was cool because up until now I had really only studied Theravadin. It's very different and has a large emphasis of "saving all sentient beings." It's much more of a religion than a philosophy and is full of gods and Buddhas. The evening meditations included elaborate visualizations and cleansing rituals. Our teaher was an Australian monk named Namgyal and was awesome. He cracked jokes the whole time and kept the atmosphere light. It was nice, but now it's back to the noise of the city.

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