Craziest 10-Day Yet!!!

[AdamDiC]

Intro: (If you want the insights scroll down) Excuse the speling.

From June 30 - July 27 i did a vipassana retreat in my city. It was in this old house with creaky floors ants, and roaches. The perfect place to train the mind! But there are also 2 lovely people who teach Vipassana, they have trained for close to 20 years now, and they are happy to share their knowledge.

Going into the retreat i had stopped practicing daily and was in a low place, just helpless and down. My last retreat gave me an over whelming sense of love and joy so i hoped for other insights this retreat. I just wanted an escape from the routine misery of my life. So i booked a 10-day knowing that it would probably be hard and painful.

What is Vipassna?:

• vipassana is just one way to train the mind out of thousands of other meditations
•  in this cult of buddhism, it is beleived that the Buddha himself invented insight meditation and used it to attain enlightenment, you can awaken but it is not that powerful, must become a monk and dedicate your life to the practice
• still a powerful technique for gaining insight, i'd say good beginner practice, although i'd say that you NEED to stick with it for 2 years for it to blossom, you'll be lost and confused for the first couple
• if you dont know, all vipassana is is acknowlegding the present moment, the exercises are leabeling the breathing and body movemebts, when you get distractd you acknowdloge it and return back to the present moment. TA DAAHH just be aware of every phenomena that enters your mind. Your body, feelings, thoughts, and mind objects, very simple but challenging

Insights:

• Intra-Retreat Insights
• Pain is an illusion - the sensory experience of pain is tolerable... your fear of pain is what makes you suffer, the fear that it will you hurt you in the future makes you resist pain and creates suffering, but pain is ONLY felt in the now, so if it is tolerable now - by observation and detachment - then it is tolerable forever.
• Fear is an illusion - similar to pain, fear is the projection of pain or danger into the future...which doesn't fucking exist!!! AHHAHAH. 
• The future doesn't exist - stop lying to yourself, stop projecting even the slightest into the future, you are living just one fluid uncontrollable moment, live within it not in front of it (the past doesn't exist either)
• Happiness is a choice. Accept the NOW or suffer. - Happiness is just the complete acceptance of the present moment. If you look at your surroundings, realize that nothing is "wrong" or "right" it just is which leaves a sense of peace. If you are uneasy in this moment you are clinging to a false notion that something is wrong, needs to be fixed, or broken. In fact happiness has such a bad wrap these days, you can't feel amazing everyday, but you can be O.K. with your life.
• Clinging creates suffering... DUUHHH - EVERYTHING is impermanent. Happiness, sadness, craving, hope, motivation, peacefullness. The present moment is one fluid fucking moment, it is always, always, always changing. Don't identify with any of it. Acnknowledge it and live your life, if it goes away acknowledge it and live your life, if something new comes up acknowledge it and don't cling to the idea that it is better or bad then the previous states. Don't wish to have a different one, because you can't. The more you cling the more you suffer, if you let things go - let them be as they are without changing them -then they will disipate at their own pace.
• Determination is amaaazing at crushing ego scum - What is determination? In Vipassana it is when: for 24 hours you meditate in 2 hour sessions with only 2 meals, and 20 minute breaks in between, and NO SLEEP. So you wake up at 4am, breakfast at 6am, lunch at 12pm, stop the next morning at 4am. So you meditate allooooot, through the night, alone and afraid and restless. This hands down has to be one of the worst moments of my life. The suffering is unbearable. Although, if you surrender to the practice you realize most of the suffering is jsut resistance, you have to let yourself suffer, ehich counter-intuitively makes you suffer less. What i mean is the real suffering is my body aching, hunger pangs, and extreme tiredness. the "fake" suffering is my wanting to sleep, begging for it to be over, biting my nails, being distracted during meditaion to make it go faster. NAAAAHHHH you have to accept your suffering and amazing things will happen. First determination: this was my 5th determination at this centre and the best ever, i had the most insights of my entire life, sober (well meditating) and i just couldn't beleive it was happening. i was in avery high state, almost shroom-like, i was super creative, confident, happy, and hopeful. my biggest problem was not clinging to the insights, no, not even if they were life chaning, i couldn't let them influence my meditation or else i would be practicing wrong. The more you surrender, the more your receive. Truth is not added to you , it is revealed from within or as you. Second determination: yes a second one, right after the other, these guys don't fuck around, this is the middle way lol. Anyway this day was terrible... I was resisting the moment, i wasn't focused, motivated, or hopeful of my success. So i tripped balls until 12am and called my meditation teacher on the house phone to help me out, he lowered my practice and said to gradually raise it, i was grateful. You have to understand that this is basically solitary confinement, you can and will lose your fucking mind if you don't stick to the meditation. Your feet are bruised to the touch, your ass, back, and knees are sore. Your head is spinng, fucking hearing voices and shit. When you close your eyes you are taken away to a land of phenomena unlike any before. You realise you are not in control. But hey, your pain tolerance is sharply increased.
• Higher levels of vipassana lead to enlightenment - during the first determination there was a strange shift in my practice. It no longer felt like I weas meditating or trying to be mindful, no, meditation was doing me lol. I was in unison, flow with vipassana and that is what lead to my insights. and during that i realized that if you would stay in this state of contiously dropping everything, it would lead to the dropping of the self, of the you, i would realize through acknowledging experience that i don't exist as i seem to be. something like that. it was cool and i releaised why the Buddha is so acclaimed, He fucking invented this shit. Mind-blowing, he just saves millions from suffering. maybe...
• Post-retreat Insights
• I am not claiming that I embody any of this - no not even close, these just entered my mind. It's my job to integrate them into my life now, to keep practicing and to keep mindful. Meditation is not action. The Buddha said Knowledge is implementation. You have only learned something until you have acted on it in your life. To Him learning is not theory alone, it is both theory and action. Only then can you call yourself wise
• I am not in integrity with my highest spiritual truths - through dozens of peak experiences via shrooms, vipassana, and contemplation, i have attained a huge vision for my life, a beautifull, loving, free, creative, vision. Unfortunaetly I am miles below ground lurking in the shadows, or so it seems. This lack of integrity creates a lot of suffering for me. Whenever i fail to meet these high standards i suffer, i cling to them like a baby not knowing I need to man up and soberly, slowly, painfully, go through the emotional labour myself to get there. But I have learned to accept my position, without comparison or judgement. I only compare myself to who I was yesterday, and even that can become tricky. 
• I don't take action - Fuck. There's no way around this one. No one teaches you about this, it's unteachable, it is all you, and you are all alone with your thoughts. You need a desire for change and a passion for growth. Things will get worse before they get better, but hat initial suffering is way better then a slow stagnated decline towards death. GOTTA BITE THE BULLET.
• This is gonna suck ass - I'm scared to grow, i'm terrified to be myself, and I am not looking for pity. I'm just sayin'. It makes me apprecaite the value of this work. People are developed, there are thousands of amazing people who have fought their demons, survived and that's amazing.
• My motivations are flawed atm, but thats ok - Look I am not satisfied with my life, nothing wrong with that. I do compare myself with others, nothing wrong with that, it's just my reaction to that that is important. Either I feel envy or lack, or motivated to acheive that same skill. I'm motivated to not live a shit life right now, if it works, it works, when it stops working I'll re-evaluate for a higher consciousness one. I'm kinda brute forcing it. Whatever, it's kinda negative motivation. WHO CARES, IMMA CHANGE U SEE.

So. Words. Haven't done anything but remembered a bunch of ideas, and re-think insights. Slightly helpful to me. BUUUUT i'm also writing to you.  So let me know what you think, I'd love a little ego boost (or sucker punch...). I hope you enjoyed my insights. 

-AdamDiC 

 

Edited July 12, 2018 by AdamDiC