Comments on: My Vipassana experience

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By: Wojtek

Wojtek — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 03:54:04 +0000

Hi Yulia!
Yes indeed, we are quite busy with our child. She was born just last Sunday, 10/01. Although our lives have changed, I try to maintain my meditation practice. Both me and my partner find it extremely helpful to spend some time meditating everyday, and the Vipassana experience helped me to be more diligent about it.
I can only speak from my experience about being ready for a 10 day Vipassana retreat. In my case it wasn’t as much the physical challenge of sitting 11 hours per day, but the mental preparation to face a lot of issues and attachments that I had. And the timing for my retreat was good: I had no other obligations around those dates, and could wholeheartedly engage in it every single day taking as much out of it as it offers.
If you have 7 months to go, than you have a great amount of time to prepare for this to be able to not only be physically fit, but also build up your commitment. You may consider making time to meditate more regularly now: mainly to work on your dedication. In my opinion it’s the mental dedication to practice that at the end is more important than anything else.
If you have more questions feel free to email me at w.materka@gmail.com and we can also have a chat.
Good luck, but from what you write I’d say that you are as ready as you can be, and very fortunate to have this opportunity, so I wouldn’t think more about it

By: Yulia

Yulia — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 09:52:36 +0000

hi Wojtek,

i am taking up the offer on your blog to answer any questions about the Vipassana retreat you recently attended. you are probably too snowed under with the new baby on your hands, but hope will eventually have a moment to reply.

i have read a number of people’s reflections on their 10-day retreat experiences to help me make my own decision to attend. i will be calling the retreat with this question as well, but would also greatly appreciate some ‘peer’ advice.

i can see that most people attending have had some significant meditation experience, like 10 years or so, and still find the retreat a great challenge. i am a beginner meditator and never actually meditated for over an hour (and even that was at a meditation course). i usually do 25 mins and not even every day…

while i am keen to give this a go; more than anything to give me a serious crash course in deeper meditation technique and give me the space of 10 days to do this, which is the luxury i cannot afford while at home.

in your personal opinion having attending this yourself, do you need to be more experienced to attend? is it realistic to do this after about 7 months of much lighter practice (it will be 7 months by the time i attend in april).

i understand that this will be the opinion of one person only, but still would appreciate any advice.

thanks a lot in advance!