An alternative to solo meditation retreats

[kevin124]

I find it difficult to do a solo meditation retreat that is longer than 5 or 6 days. After about 4 days i often get the desire to just quiet. I get temptations to masturbate to some porn, listen to some music or even go on a long walk somewhere. The first 2 or 3 days on a solo retreat are fine and actually quite enjoyable. But after awhile i just long for it to be over. Is there a different way to go about it?

Maybe dedicating 1 day a week for spirtual practice instead of several long retreats per year could be more enjoyable and suitable considering many people have very limited time that they can take off work. Or perhaps a small 3 day retreat every month or two could be more suitable for many. I know there are group retreats which are seemingly easier than just doing it solo. But these are expensive and where i live i would have to travel abroad to go to a retreat i would like. I would like to partake in 1 or maybe 2 group retreats per year. But probably not any more than that. 

I'm wondering if there is any benefit to fighting the urge to quiet and pushing yourself to finish a long 10 day or 7 day retreat. 

 And Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas for approaching this?

[Michal__]

3 hours ago, kevin124 said:

I find it difficult to do a solo meditation retreat that is longer than 5 or 6 days. After about 4 days i often get the desire to just quiet. I get temptations to masturbate to some porn, listen to some music or even go on a long walk somewhere. The first 2 or 3 days on a solo retreat are fine and actually quite enjoyable. But after awhile i just long for it to be over. Is there a different way to go about it?

Maybe dedicating 1 day a week for spirtual practice instead of several long retreats per year could be more enjoyable and suitable considering many people have very limited time that they can take off work. Or perhaps a small 3 day retreat every month or two could be more suitable for many. I know there are group retreats which are seemingly easier than just doing it solo. But these are expensive and where i live i would have to travel abroad to go to a retreat i would like. I would like to partake in 1 or maybe 2 group retreats per year. But probably not any more than that. 

I'm wondering if there is any benefit to fighting the urge to quiet and pushing yourself to finish a long 10 day or 7 day retreat. 

 And Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas for approaching this?

Vipassana group retreats are free.

[Nahm]

3 hours ago, kevin124 said:

I find it difficult to do a solo meditation retreat that is longer than 5 or 6 days. After about 4 days i often get the desire to just quiet. I get temptations to masturbate to some porn, listen to some music or even go on a long walk somewhere. The first 2 or 3 days on a solo retreat are fine and actually quite enjoyable. But after awhile i just long for it to be over. Is there a different way to go about it?

(An offering of a different way to go about it)

Masturbate, listen to some music, go on a long walk somewhere. Relax as deeply as possible, love yourself, pamper yourself, appreciate every little thing as well as the magic of the whole of your experience. Relish and enjoy your meditations and activities. Recognize something so seemingly simple & mundane as breathing is an impossible miracle that was taken for granted. 

Let go and relax so deeply that it is recognized the ‘push & pull’ experienced here is between feeling and the mind, or, unconditional love & attachment to thoughts. Recognize your conditions...right here right now is perfect as is... and in the awareness of this, in the recognition feeling is paramount, the conditions are already let go. The body will follow by releasing emotional misunderstanding. Forgiveness Meditation can really help this along. Just reading it can trigger releases. That ‘push & pull’ experience is inevitably experienced differently, as it is recognized the mind plays a role in attempting to suppress the emotional release with veils of thought. (Typically thoughts about you in a past or future).  

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Maybe dedicating 1 day a week for spirtual practice instead of several long retreats per year could be more enjoyable and suitable considering many people have very limited time that they can take off work.

Reveal to yourself, or, get in touch with, intuition, your higher knowing, such that it is more & more recognized that any discord in experience is the resistance to the arising thought now, and not the implied content of the thought (you in a future at work etc). This is the freedom if you will, of Now. The liberation from ‘control’ of the finite mind. This opens the door to possibilities & recognitions that you are the creator-creating-creation, and you have a dream in you to experience the actual unfolding of. 

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Or perhaps a small 3 day retreat every month or two could be more suitable for many. I know there are group retreats which are seemingly easier than just doing it solo. But these are expensive and where i live i would have to travel abroad to go to a retreat i would like. I would like to partake in 1 or maybe 2 group retreats per year. But probably not any more than that. 

I'm wondering if there is any benefit to fighting the urge to quiet and pushing yourself to finish a long 10 day or 7 day retreat. 

 And Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas for approaching this?

The desired outcome of the retreats is many releases resulting in mental equanimity and the emptiness / fullness of love. This is available everywhere, always. Notice there is only here, you never experience ‘there’. Notice there is only now, you never experience a then, a past, nor future. Letting go is the profound key, in comparison to pushing ‘your self’. That is the perpetuation of the self referential thought story (thoughts about you) which can be surrendered in the ever present love, peace and understanding you truly already are. 

[Preetom]

@kevin124

Hello. I invite you to take a day off and ponder on this small retreat.

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