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Vipassana-”Retreat” is a Misnomer

My Vipassana retreat… How to succinctly describe  my experience? Can I? I spent ten days in silence, practiced meditation 9 hours of a day, woke up at 4a.m. to be in time for 4:30 practice, and I submitted myself to brutal, deep, piercing self examination. And what did I get out of it? It’s hard to really say, except that all the things I fiercely ignore about myself are clear and present with me every day now. I open my arms wide, and there are my most neurotic thoughts, my deepest insecurities, and my saddest, most lonely feelings cradled there. The most difficult thing is that I am now without the 9 hours of meditation to calmly observe these things. Equanimity is fleeting. But there’s no turning back. I have committed to letting go of my tight grip on the world. I no longer want to spread negative vibrations or to cause my loved ones or myself pain. Instead of throwing blame and fleeing from what I don’t want to know about myself, I turn my palms to the sky and feel the sadness flood me. I am sad, and I am angry. But it is with the realization that I am also liberated from myself. I give myself a break. I am OK.

Lizzy Scully meditating on the Biafo Glacier, Pakistan

Tags: Meditating, retreat, Vipassana

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 27th, 2012 at 12:22 am and is filed under Blog, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.