{"id":275,"date":"2012-09-11T22:50:17","date_gmt":"2012-09-11T12:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chuchuva.com\/pavel\/?p=275"},"modified":"2012-09-11T09:18:45","modified_gmt":"2012-09-10T23:18:45","slug":"my-experience-with-vipassana-meditation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chuchuva.com\/pavel\/2012\/09\/my-experience-with-vipassana-meditation\/","title":{"rendered":"My Experience with Vipassana Meditation"},"content":{"rendered":"

I did 10-day Vipassana meditation course in July 2012. Meditation centre was located in Woori Yallock – small town near Melbourne.<\/p>\n

First of all, my notion of meditation was shattered there. In my mind, meditation was sitting quietly and relaxing, something like this:<\/p>\n

\"Meditation\"<\/p>\n

Well you do sit quietly but it is not relaxing at all, at least not in Vipassana meditation. It is hard work. It is simple but not easy at all.<\/p>\n

What helped me is that I decided to allow myself to be a newbie. I said to myself: “It’s OK to do it poorly it the beginning”.<\/p>\n

There were about 40 students total. Men and women were living in separate areas.<\/p>\n

Talking to each other was not allowed. Many people told me that this would be very hard for them. However I didn’t find it difficult at all. Maybe this is because I was not a very sociable person.<\/p>\n

Also there was no Internet, no TV, no radio, no phones, no visitors. I handed in my mobile phone in the beginning of the course for safe keeping. There was no communication with outside world at all.<\/p>\n

We didn’t read anything. There were no writing materials. Actually I missed pen and paper during the first half of the course. I was getting so many excellent ideas during meditation and I wanted to write them down so that I don’t forget them.<\/p>\n

We were spending a lot of time meditating. Here is typical timetable:<\/p>\n