Vipassana - Don't Know, Life Purpose, Wish Me Good Luck, I Will Make It

[Ray]

Tomorrow I will go to my first Vipassana retreat (2y of mediation every day right now). I have 20 y old, I struggle a lot w my life purpose and my instinct is basically shouting that I have to get my ass up to create short movies; basically do work on my life purpose. However I caught this opportunity at the last minute of going on the Vipassana. I'm thinking to use the Vipassana as a retreat for visualize the shit out of my life purpose and really getting in touch w my stomach/guts/instinct, even if I can literally physically feel it (no kidding, when I think or hear something that my instinct feels right I have a little air bubble come up from my stomach to my throat, it's like my body tells me "yes"... weird but true -btw if someone knew more about this weird phenomen please let me know  - ), plus rasing my awareness. 

I don't really know why I'm sharing this, I think mostly is because I know I have more important things to do than a vipassana right now (even if meditation is still important) and so I want some kind of approval or support...

I would like some tips for the vipassana, and maybe yes, some encouragement and some "bro if you want to leave it, you can leave it", and some more stories about vipassana experience from you guys... don't really know.

Wish me good luck, I will come back with more clarity about the person that I really am and that I really want to become. Peace <3

Ray

[Prabhaker]

4 hours ago, Ray said:

I would like some tips for the vipassana

The meaning – the literal meaning – of the word Vipassana is  “to look,” and the metaphorical meaning is  “to watch, to witness.”

Gautam Buddha has chosen a meditation that can be called the essential meditation. All other meditations are different forms of witnessing, but witnessing is present in every kind of meditation as an essential part; it cannot be avoided. Buddha has deleted everything else and kept only the essential part – to witness.
When you have become perfectly watchful of your body, mind and heart, then you cannot do anything more, then you have to wait. When perfection is complete on these three steps, the fourth step happens on its own accord as a reward. Suddenly your life force, your witnessing, enters into the very center of your being. You have come home.

Vipassana can be done in three ways. The first is: awareness of your actions, your body, your mind, your heart. Walking, you should walk with awareness. Moving your hand, you should move with awareness, knowing perfectly that you are moving the hand. You can move it without any consciousness, like a mechanical thing…you are on a morning walk; you can go on walking without being aware of your feet.

Be alert of the movements of your body. While eating, be alert to the movements that are needed for eating. Taking a shower, be alert to the coolness that is coming to you, the water falling on you and the tremendous joy of it ― just be alert. It should not go on happening in an unconscious state.

And the same about your mind. Whatever thought passes on the screen of your mind, just be a watcher. Whatever emotion passes on the screen of your heart, just remain a witness ― don’t get involved, don’t get identified, don’t evaluate what is good, what is bad; that is not part of your meditation.

The second form is breathing, becoming aware of breathing. As the breath goes in, your belly starts rising up, and as the breath goes out, your belly starts settling down again. So the second method is to be aware of the belly: its rising and falling. Just the very awareness of the belly rising and falling…and the belly is very close to the life sources because the child is joined with the mother’s life through the navel. Behind the navel is his life’s source. So, when the belly rises up, it is really the life energy, the spring of life that is rising up and falling down with each breath. That too is not difficult and perhaps maybe even easier because it is a single technique.

In the first, you have to be aware of the body, you have to be aware of the mind, you have to be aware of your emotions, moods. So it has three steps. The second approach has a single step: just the belly, moving up and down. And the result is the same. As you become more aware of the belly, the mind becomes silent, the heart becomes silent, the moods disappear.

And the third is to be aware of the breath at the entrance, when the breath goes in through your nostrils. Feel it at that extreme ― the other polarity from the belly ― feel it from the nose. The breath going in gives a certain coolness to your nostrils. Then the breath going out…breath going in…breath going out.