Introduction course to Buddhism and Meditation was ten days short. I had no prior experience with meditation and had only read one book called "The Art of Happiness" by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Dr. Howard Cutler. I was very excited to learn more about the philosophy that I had a positive feeling for.
Vipassana retreats that I knew about where you have to sit for 10 hours per day and meditate. I had felt this is too much too fast for me. This course however had semi relaxed rules. For 10 days one should not leave the territory of the institute nor have any form of virtual contact with the outside world (phone, email, books other than dharma ie Buddhist literature books). As from evening lesson until the lunch lesson the next day one should be silent. Between lunch and dinner, when one can talk, the subject should still be limited as much as possible to philosophical topics. Wake-up was at 6AM and day ended 7:45PM. Three meditations, two teachings and one discussion group per day.
Our group was 16 people, mostly above 25 years old. It was very nice to see and feel how almost everyone there is quite serious about learning and finding the essence of this course for themselves. I think on the second half of the course we really developed this nice group feeling and there was good energy. Our teacher was a monk from Israel, Ven Tingyal. Quite a serious guy mostly, but then sometimes showing a great sense of humour.
It was really amazing to have this chance to take time to think things over with some new philosophical approach. Think about the values, the people around you and your own mind and behavior. I will not endevor to write down the Buddhist ideas that I learned or appealed to me the most. I already feel it quite risky when my friends or family here in Estonia ask me to explain some (which is quite natural request). Having so little insight I should not be giving teachings. So for sure I will not start writing things down here in black and white. But I did think that I'm very lucky to have met all these people throughout the previous year that have inspired me to get to this point where I'm sitting down on my meditation pillow in a Buddhist gompa and listening to teachings and meditating on the essence of things.
The ten days passed very quickly. I did not miss the outside world and facebook. In fact on the last day, when we were able to speak again and everyone started chatting so much, almost all of us felt quite exhausted by the evening, the head buzzing. My flatmate Isabel and I decided we need to go to the gompa again to meditate before going to sleep. So we did so. And it was such a struggle to quiet the mind. On previous days I had of course sometimes thoughts popping up throughout the meditation session, but I was able to keep them on a short leash. Now, it was like sitting in an Indian train station at 5PM. Thoughts ramming each other and popping all over the place. I realised that keeping up the practice outside in the "real world" will be a challenge. But it is a challenge I want to tackle.
Vipassana retreats that I knew about where you have to sit for 10 hours per day and meditate. I had felt this is too much too fast for me. This course however had semi relaxed rules. For 10 days one should not leave the territory of the institute nor have any form of virtual contact with the outside world (phone, email, books other than dharma ie Buddhist literature books). As from evening lesson until the lunch lesson the next day one should be silent. Between lunch and dinner, when one can talk, the subject should still be limited as much as possible to philosophical topics. Wake-up was at 6AM and day ended 7:45PM. Three meditations, two teachings and one discussion group per day.
Our group was 16 people, mostly above 25 years old. It was very nice to see and feel how almost everyone there is quite serious about learning and finding the essence of this course for themselves. I think on the second half of the course we really developed this nice group feeling and there was good energy. Our teacher was a monk from Israel, Ven Tingyal. Quite a serious guy mostly, but then sometimes showing a great sense of humour.
It was really amazing to have this chance to take time to think things over with some new philosophical approach. Think about the values, the people around you and your own mind and behavior. I will not endevor to write down the Buddhist ideas that I learned or appealed to me the most. I already feel it quite risky when my friends or family here in Estonia ask me to explain some (which is quite natural request). Having so little insight I should not be giving teachings. So for sure I will not start writing things down here in black and white. But I did think that I'm very lucky to have met all these people throughout the previous year that have inspired me to get to this point where I'm sitting down on my meditation pillow in a Buddhist gompa and listening to teachings and meditating on the essence of things.
The ten days passed very quickly. I did not miss the outside world and facebook. In fact on the last day, when we were able to speak again and everyone started chatting so much, almost all of us felt quite exhausted by the evening, the head buzzing. My flatmate Isabel and I decided we need to go to the gompa again to meditate before going to sleep. So we did so. And it was such a struggle to quiet the mind. On previous days I had of course sometimes thoughts popping up throughout the meditation session, but I was able to keep them on a short leash. Now, it was like sitting in an Indian train station at 5PM. Thoughts ramming each other and popping all over the place. I realised that keeping up the practice outside in the "real world" will be a challenge. But it is a challenge I want to tackle.
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