Hi all,
Well I’m off to a meditation retreat in late August (Dhammakaya Meditation Retreat), with guided meditation sessions provided by two venerable Thai Monks. I’ll stay at the retreat over the weekend (late friday, to late Sunday), and look forward to perfecting my meditation techniques
I noticed something funny when signing the waver of responsibility form, which I need to send back to the retreat:
Did you catch that? I promise not to sue them, if I die.
Also, further down, it says this:
So to paraphrase - If I die, I promise to take full responsibility.
Buddhists sure do think of everything, you can’t even fault them on their views of the delicate and intricate intertwining of the process of reincarnation and the legal system
Has anybody here ever attended a meditation retreat, and what/how much did you learn?
I’ve never attended a meditation retreat, but I feel as if i could do with one at the moment. Even now, I still regret ever stopping with my meditation; once you notice incredibly drastic and positive changes in you life from meditating daily, it’s heartbreaking to go back to how you were before meditating. I’m still getting used to feeling “normal.” It’s not a good feeling after what I was like some months ago, I can tell you.
Yah, it sure does make a difference when you stop meditating (or when you start). I notice that I’m just much calmer and clear minded during periods of time when I meditate - little seems to be able to phase or upset me.
No, I never have. I’m sorry to say that meditation bores me to tears (or, more accurately, to a point of frustration where my blood begins to boil and I have violent urges to jump up yelling my head off), and I’m one of those people who can’t be still until she’s perfectly comfortable curled up on her side asleep. The more they made me meditate in high school, the angrier and angrier I became! Argh!
It’s the least relaxing thing I can think of, to be honest. Sleep, now, that’s different. If only they had just let me roll over, get comfortable and sleep, with no droning voice in the background talking about boring green meadows and boring fluffy clouds (seriously, can you even get more unimaginative than that?), it would have been a hundred times better.
That’s a shame that you were forced into it Stormthunder, I can see why you have such negative associations with meditation. Not really the type of thing that anybody should be forced into. I developed my own interest in meditation while at high school (nobody forced or even introduced it to me!) and am really happy at the progress I have made over the years.
Needless to say, I’m really looking forward to attending this retreat in about a month.
I guess I’m just lucky I live in a large city. Or…not so lucky, if you look at the price we pay for rent and mortgage
On top of that, by the way that StormThunder explained it, they weren’t even teaching actual meditation techniques. It’s much more useful to practice forms of meditation that have been passed down for thousands of years rather than just sitting around and thinking of fluffy clouds. Perhaps the school just had the wrong idea, there.
It was optional! Trouble was, the two other choices were swimming (I LOATHE swimming laps and getting all wet only to have to change back into school uniform again straight afterwards) and AFL, which I have major issues with. I thought at the time: how bad could be meditation be? But oh, was I wrong.
Yes, they would make us lie down on our backs (which is highly uncomfortable for me at the best of times, as I have a sway back) and say things like: “Think back to your favourite place. It could be a beautiful tree, or some green fields. Now, imagine yourself looking up at some fluffy clouds. What shapes do they make?”
… and so on. So there I was, itchy and achey, and more inclined to harbour visions of swashbuckling pirates bursting into the classroom and taking the teachers hostage, and I was being told to think of something as completely dull as watching grass grow and clouds drift across the sky! GRRRRRR, it makes me furious even thinking back now!
I love going for a jog during my lunch breaks, having a shower, then coming back to work. I find it quite refreshing - but I suppose it’s quite different at school.
AFL? Are you reffering to Aussie rules football?? (surely not?)
Yah I suppose so
I am really looking forward to it - I hadn’t heard of this either until a work colleague told me about it a couple of weeks ago. I can only imagine how completely rested I will feel after I return from the retreat.
Funny, we had meditation in school, in 2002 (part of the mandatory program schools must have to tell students not to use drugs, although my school was more like “use drugs wisely”), with the intention of making us get in controlled trance, in a kind of a dreamland, do some stuff there and then discuss it in class—something along the lines of “know thyself.” And it was exactly having meditation in highschool that made me like meditation in the first place!
And I remember pretty much everyone (from goths to nerds to pops to freaks to rebels against society and everyone in between) loved these meditation/“hypnosis” sessions!
Maybe your school did it a different way, ST. I remember we were allowed not to join these sessions, but in the end everyone was too curious not to. Being forced into doing anything is negative, I hope you can get to like meditation one of these days, there are a lot of different types of meditation and I bet at least one would fit your personality and help you in some way.
Oh yes. I know, it’s practically unheard of for an Australian to dislike it, but I think it’s boring. I prefer soccer.
I don’t know… most people loved it in my school, too. All my friends really enjoyed it. But keeping still just makes me restless - even when I go to bed every night, I toss and turn for half an hour trying to get comfortable. Trying to hold it off deliberately is like trying not to scratch an itch - it just makes the discomfort unbearable! I can’t sleep (or relax) at all if I’m uncomfortable, and I have a low threshold for discomfort. You will never see me sleep in a car or plane, or on a soft surface, or on my back, or if it’s too cold, or if my pillow is saggy, or if there are lumps in my bed, or if I’m excited about something, or if I’ve just had a brand new idea, or in any other position than on my side. I can’t sit still for long, and I have to act on my thoughts and ideas ASAP, or I get even more restless.
Honestly, I think that meditation in any form is just not for me.
You know what’s funny? Here in Brazil, a Buddhist retreat contract is allowed to have such a paragraph, but it wouldn’t be valid! People are allowed to make contracts that go against the law, only whatever is against the law isn’t legally valid.
Yeah well, I’m not too concerned about pursuing legal action after my departure from the earthly plane! Let it be said that should I die, I promise not to sue them.
=P I suppose if there were cases where people could sue ridiculously…such as…that silly “I sue Macdonald’s for making me fat and not putting warning labels on their food (wtf)” I’d suppose anyone would be careful~
I don’t think you (heck, anyone O_O) would be in any condition to sue after leaving the mortal coil. =P But…Better be safe than sorry? brought a little bit too far? maybe?
i love meditating. I have never even heard of such a thing as a retreat for it…you are so lucky Snape… 
