The stretches in this video should help you develop a good posture
As for afternoon siestas most retreats take a siesta after the midday meal, this pretty much happens at every retreat I've ever been on. Often over the first few days I'm particularly tired and take a siesta after breakfast also.
After a few days you'll find you'll not need as much asleep.
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Help Me Choose Among 4 Centers For Meditation Retreat
Started by cloud96, 2009-02-09 16:21
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54 replies to this topic
#52
sabaijai
Thaitanium Member Posted 2009-10-04 12:17:02
Wouldn't time spent (with the Abbots direction) on facilitating the optimum sitting position for each individual be better than putting the pain down to mind games? No matter what position you choose, no matter what your posture is, you will experience plenty of physical pain. Holding *any* position more than 15 minutes will produce pain, guaranteed. It does get better with practice as muscles loosen, etc, but I don't believe anyone ever reaches a point where sitting near-immobile for 45 minutes to an hour doesn't get painful after a certain point. So while it's important to find the most optimum posture for you - and it varies from individual to individual (take a look at photos of famous monks in meditation, their posture is all over the place) - I'd say the mental aspect of dealing with pain is far more important. The best preparation is to start sitting at least two hours a day for a couple of weeks beforehand, IMO. At any rate all preparations fall apart by day three or four and it's just your naked mind wondering whether it will survive.  That's the main objective of all that sitting. It's not that the sitting and walking actually accomplish anything in and of themselves. It's a kind of intervention to break down your usual modes of thinking and speculating and daydreaming and see the dhammas for what they are.
#53
rockyysdt
Super Member Posted 2009-10-04 16:17:14
At any rate all preparations fall apart by day three or four and it's just your naked mind wondering whether it will survive. That's the main objective of all that sitting. It's not that the sitting and walking actually accomplish anything in and of themselves. It's a kind of intervention to break down your usual modes of thinking and speculating and daydreaming and see the dhammas for what they are.I'll work on my preparation to minimise the pain, but will expect to face it when it comes. Ashame though. I've never been big on pain. #54
sabaijai
Thaitanium Member Posted 2009-10-04 18:09:44
One of the most practical and usable lessons you will learn in a meditation intensive is that pain is merely nama/rupa; it is not you. If you sit two hours a day for a couple of weeks before your retreat, you could work on that, and begin to sense that. Maybe panna would arise and you wouldn't need to go on retreat at all.
We're always fleeing pain in our daily lives, almost every waking moment; a retreat makes that reality obvious. Once you realise that paramattha dhamma, I don't think you will feel it's a shame at all. It's a suffering that leads to the end of all suffering, as Aj Chah has said. #55
Angelv
Newbie Posted 2009-10-07 00:30:49
Hello,
My name is Angel and I´m from Spain. I´m interested in meditation, in fact, I practice meditation daily. I´ve seen you wrote a post some time ago, where you mentioned these four places: 1) centro de Goenka (en Pachaburi 2) Wat Ram Poeng, en Chiang Mai 3) Wat Doi Suthep, en CM 4) Wat Suan Mokkh Please, I would be very pleased if you could tell me your experience in any meditaiton center. I want to go here = monkchat net They have two-day courses, and four-day courses. As I have never attended any of them, I think four-day course it would fit me ok. My mail is = xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Feel free to write to me. Thanks!
Edited by camerata, 2009-10-07 10:02:12.
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