12 Hour Birthday Meditation

[MarkusR]

Hello Actualized community!

I'm turning 18 on the 19th of this month, in 3 days. Instead of going out and partying like most my friends are asking me to do, I am considering doing a record length meditation/contemplation to invite this turning of age. The longest meditation I have ever done is 3 hours on a retreat, which was in summer, since then I have reached much greater depths and have been meditating 50 minutes a day now. I want to keep going further though, and I feel like this is a great opportunity as I have a vacation from school.

My plan is to go to my local chapel (Kamppi Chapel of Silence) and to meditate from the opening hours of 8am-8pm, a full 12 hours. I will bring water with me and walk around the chapel every hour or so if my legs begin to ache from the sitting. I will also be fasting the whole time.

I wanted to ask you guys, and people more experienced if there is anything I should do to prepare for this, is it even possible, or will the discomfort overwhelm me. Any tips or advice on the types of meditation, or any other ideas you guys have on this experiment :).

[Max_V]

Cool plan, awesome to see someone of my age also interested in spirituality and meditation. I’d say go do it but ( I don’t know about your situation so take my comment with a grain of salt) also feel free to just let go and go party sometimes. I’m quite the perfectionist so after dedicating so much time every day it can be also good to just give yourself a free pass and just relax. Relaxing once in a while won’t make you spiritualy unworthy  

[Space]

@MarkusR I'd say certainly give it a go if you feel capable, but understand that meditating for 12 hours with only short breaks will be very challenging to say the least. I often find myself overestimating the amount of meditation that I think I will be able to do and you may be falling into the same trap. Or maybe not, I don't know. It's very easy to think about doing a lot of meditation, and in your mind you feel like you'll be able to do it, but when it comes to actually doing it it's a whole different story. Expect a lot of resistance and be mindful of all the tempting excuses your mind will come up with to make you give up and go home.

[Nahm]

@MarkusR If I believed any of this, I would add that you are likely a reincarnated master and are wise to align with your deepest knowing. In reality though,you are the whole thing, and it is so good, so loving, how could you do anything else. Your meaning for surrender is about to realize. 

[LaucherJunge]

Just go for it, even if you just manage to go 8 or 6 hours it will still be a whole lot.

[MarkusR]

Just an update: I ended up going to the temple and meditating for 3.5 hours, much less than I expected to do but felt much shorter than it was in actuality. During the meditation it didn't seem like much had happened, I mostly just focused on silencing my mind and getting into a zone of just being where my thoughts and self-identity weren't manipulating my genuine experience of life and reality. When I left the temple the world was hyper vivid, everything was extremely clear, both in the outside world as well as in my mind. I barely needed to think, I could walk all the way home just observing my experience of life. The days following were very interesting, I had multiple awakening experiences where I had great insights into the reality that everything is made of the same "material" which is this awareness or consciousness, but calling it that seems to undermine what it really is, which is everything, eternity and all of reality. I also had a very intense experience of feeling like I was going to die after smoking weed with my friends, I was laying in bed and just observing my body relaxing, learning from my temple meditation how to let go I slowly began to use the same technique up until I saw an extremely bright white light and felt like my being was going to leave the physical plane, I got very scared so I quickly jumped up and grasped onto my friend. That was the end of that.