Guys hiiiiii I am back from the 10 day Vipassana retreat. I spent last week getting myself back into balance by eating loads of junk food and watching Tiktoks late at night. I am now here writing to you, so excited to share, but my brain is exploding there's so much I want to tell you about so bear with... THIS IS LONG (maybe longest yet?), but great. You're going to love it. As discussed before I went in (Growing Up: you must bring forth what is within you) the 10 days looked like: 4am wakeup with the gong, couple hours meditation, breakfast, more meditation, 11am lunch, more meditation, 5pm tea (no dinner, just fruit (after day 3 I just had lemon water because that's what old students do and I wanted to be hardcore like them (although just found out this is not a thing, so maybe don't request it if you ever go!)), more meditation, evening discourse, more meditation, 9pm done and bed. That's 12 HOURS of cross legged meditation, sitting on the floor, 10 days in a row. (Believe me, I counted.) 9 days of noble silence, meaning no speaking to other meditators, not even eye contact. No reading, writing, exercising, TOUCHING (the girls broke this rule on day 10 and a few hugs / hi 5s were exchanged lol... it was EMOTIONAL obviously we are going to hug)... men and women fully segregated etc. Loads to say re my personal experience (it was HARD / crazy / cool / extremely boring at times / beautiful) and what I got out of it but for the purposes of this letter, since we are all here for the IDEAS (i.e. me sharing other people's ideas), I will stick to that. (Feel free to message me of course if you want to know anything else about my personal experience or whatever.) Right, cause there's a lot, going to start with some bullet points about what the retreat actually is:
Mr. S. N. Goenka, the second of three addresses given at the World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland, January, 2000 There are two significant aspects of religion, one of which is the hard core of religion, the quintessence of religion, which is of utmost importance. This is to live a moral life full of love, compassion, goodwill, and tolerance. Every religion essentially preaches morality. This is the greatest common denominator of all religions. A moral life is a life where one abstains from all such actions, physical or vocal, which disturb the peace and harmony of other beings. A moral life is always free from negatives such as anger, hatred, ill-will, and animosity. A moral life is the true religious life where one lives in peace and harmony within oneself and generates nothing but peace and harmony towards others. A true religious life is an “art of living,” a moral code of conduct, and a happy harmonious healthy and wholesome life. A true religious life is always good for oneself, good for others, and good for the entire human society. A true religious person is a pious person, a person with moral life, a person with a well-controlled and disciplined mind. A person with a pure heart always bubbling with love and compassion. A true religious person is an invaluable jewel of the human society. Such a true religious person can be from any country, community, any colour, any sex, rich or poor, educated or uneducated. Every human being is capable of becoming a true religious person. Living a life of morality with a well controlled, disciplined mind and with a pure heart full of love and compassion is not the monopoly of any one religion. It is for all. It transcends all sectarian barriers. It is always nonsectarian. It is always universal. It is always generic. If people practice this quintessence of religion, there is no reason for any conflict or confrontation among the people of the world regardless of their religion. Everyone in the human society can enjoy real peace, real harmony and real happiness by observing this quintessence of religion. But then there is another aspect of religion. It is the outer shell of religion. It involves rites, rituals, ceremonies, etcetera, which are likely to turn into different cults. Each has its own different mythological and philosophical beliefs, each of which are likely to turn into dogmas, blind faith and blind beliefs. In contrast to the uniformity of the inner hard core of morality, this outer hard shell exhibits great diversity. Every organised, sectarian religion has its own rites, rituals, ceremonies, cults, beliefs and dogma. The followers of each organised, sectarian religion usually develop a tremendous amount of attachment to their own rites, rituals, faith and dogma as the only means of salvation. Such misguided persons may not have even a trace of morality, a trace of love, compassion and good will towards others and yet remain under the impression that they are religious persons because they have performed such and such rite or ritual or because they have full faith in a particular belief. They are actually deluding themselves and missing the nectar of the practice of the true essence of religion. And then there is the worst part of this outer shell. People with strong attachment to their own faith have the firm belief that the followers of all other organised sectarian religions are nonbelievers and therefore will never taste salvation. They are fully convinced that to convert others to their religion is a great meritorious deed and hence they apply various coercive methods. Such blind faith of the followers of different organised religions is likely to turn into fanatic fundamentalism. It leads to controversies, contradictions, violent confrontations and even wars and bloodshed resulting in a tremendous amount of misery in the society, wiping away its peace and harmony. And all this is done in the name of religion. What a great misfortune for this human world. When the outer shells of religion become so predominantly important the inner core of morality gets lost. Sometimes people feel that there cannot be a religion without the hard outer shell, however undesirable it may be. But successful experiments were made in the past and are also being made even today where 100 percent importance is given to the inner core of morality, ignoring the outer shell as totally irrelevant. There exists a method to adopt this practice successfully called Vipassana meditation. Okay this happily leads on to the other few points I wanted to make, before I share a fun discourse extract by Goenka on Jesus (with the link to the video so you can see what a joker he is!!) (By the way, it's funny reading the above because it comes from a time (and maybe a place - most of his teaching was done in India) where it's more of a given that morality and piety etc are good things. Whereas now in the West it feels like we're in a more hedonistic maybe (?) or "reject everything" point of the cycle and many would cringe at the idea of "moral code of conduct". But that's a whole other discussion...)
Everything around you is growing, decaying, growing, decaying. On your body, in your body, everything is in flux, constantly. Your hair is growing, cells are doing stuff, blood is flowing, your heart is beating etc. Sometimes you feel sensations in your body. Right? Pain, an itch, your heartbeat, some throbbing, whatever. (Also when you feel an emotion you might become aware of a sensation... we are all familiar with "butterflies in the stomach" or "a pit in my stomach" or an anxious person feeling tightness in their chest... this is really exciting the connection with where mainstream psychology seems to be heading (somatic / embodiment / The Body Keeps the Score vibes) but I will save that for another day.)
Okay now some other clarifying points on the "Buddhist" bit:
Yes, it is widely understood that the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, did not intend to create a religion centered around his own name or person. His primary goal was to teach others how to achieve liberation (nirvana) from suffering through a path of wisdom, ethical conduct, and mental discipline, rather than to be worshiped or deified. Anyway here is a little passage about Jesus from one of the Goenka discourses (video here!):. On devotion:
Someone says, “I am a great devotee of Jesus Christ.” Oh, wonderful—such a saintly person. A prince among the saints, so saintly.
To measure whether someone is really saintly or not, the yardstick is: At the time of death, what kind of mind is this person carrying? And what kind of mind was he carrying? He was tortured to death, crucified. Being tortured, he has not a trace of anger or aversion or hatred toward those people who are torturing him—only love, only compassion: "they don't know what they are doing. Ignorant people. May they not be punished for their bad deeds. They are so ignorant. Only love, only compassion."
A real saintly person.
If someone says "I am a devotee of Jesus Christ" and does not develop even a little bit of love and compassion and goodwill for others, then this devotion is blind devotion.
Someone comes to me and says that "I am a devotee of Jesus Christ because I accept that he was son of the God."
So... what? He was son of the God... as if he wants a testimonial from you? And then he'll be very happy... "well look these people, so many people give me testimony that I am son of the God"... and what sort of Christ is Christ?
We are mad what we are doing...
Is there any doubt that he was son of the God? He was son of the God. After what is God? Truth is God. Love is God. Compassion is God. Purity is God. And here is a product of truth, of love, of compassion, of goodwill, of purity. He's a product of that. He is son of God.
Those qualities are important. And if we try to develop those very qualities in us, then yes we are good devotees of Jesus Christ. Otherwise no it becomes a blind faith, blind devotion... does not work.
So yeah, his whole thing is: anti sects. Suffering is universal, everyone should have access to the technique, Mormon, Sikh, agnostic etc. And anti blind faith. Experience how the technique benefits you, otherwise leave it. Don't blindly follow dogmas. Good stuff. (Funny because the dogma thing ends up being my major issue with this... at the end it's like choose whatever path you want but once you choose a path you must just stick to one. To which I'm like why?? Question for another day.) Okay phewwwwwww that's done. Here's who's been on the pod recently: Last couple of weeks on Growing Up with Delia Burgess She is also a vegan, bookworm, writer, dancer, and entrepreneur who loves: "entrepreneurship, travelling, reading, writing, solitude, nature, walking, learning various dance forms, deep conversations, masala chai (how Indian of me), nurturing close relationships, and spirituality." ranjanatn.com / twitter: @theRJIyer Ep. 119 - Daniel Bradley: sexuality & Christian spirituality Previous editions here. Forwarded this and want to subscribe? Click here. |
Do you want to be more interesting AND attractive? That's exactly what will happen if you type your email address below.
"Many of us prefer to deny that power dynamics exist, outside of games played by greedy, dishonest manipulators. But, like gravity, just because you deny the existence of something doesn't mean it doesn't affect you." Right, so I am reading a veryyyyy interesting book about POWER. It's by a Taoist nun / dominatrix lady. & although the target audience is women (subtitle literally 'a woman's guide to power'), men I think you are going to find this interesting as well so do read on... Unbound: A...
"But if it is an apple tree it will not have the ability to bear pears or plums." Guys hey, By popular demand I am writing more regularly again. So hi! (People actually read what I write? And want more? Crazy I know) I'll make this quickish though as last week was lengthyyyy (here if you missed it: Growing Up: lemme end your suffering real quick & the problem with religion) First up: "There had been a lot of situations where I was essentially told to shut up because I didn't belong to XYZ...
Hi guys, Ahhhh I'm feeling so nervous. I think it's because I'm going on my first ever Vipassana retreat tomorrow... 10 day silent retreat. No reading / writing / speaking / touching... not even a cheeky jog on the spot or a downward dog. 4am wakeup bell (gong?) and then many, many hours of cross legged meditation on the floor... wish me luck!! Can share more when I'm on the other side if anyone's interested... would love to hear about your experience too if you've done one... (more on...