Beautiful Insights from a Meditation Retreat

I’ve never been on a meditation retreat but I’ve heard amazing things. A week in silence. No TV. No cell phone. No computer. No speaking. Just you, your fellow meditators, and your own mind. Ironically, the people who think this sounds like a torturous experience are probably the ones who would benefit the most from learning meditation.

Our Aussie friend Kate at One Small Life Blog recently went on a 4 day meditation retreat and shared her experience on her yoga blog. Recapping her experience, she pointed to seven beautiful insights. I connected most with her insights on Oneness:

When you enter into a silent retreat with a room full of strangers something remarkable happens.There is a sharing of energy that transcends talk and personalities and the stories that we tell each other about ourselves. And beyond these nice-enough superficialities we can connect with each other and ourselves on a deep, human level. There is a true sense of oneness with everyone in the room.  And everyone beyond the room.

I identify with this point as I still feel connected to my fellow practitioners from the yoga retreat that Brian and I participated in. In fact, I vividly remember a conversation with Hedda from Norway where she told me about Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village. A meditation retreat in the South of France? At a place called Plum Village? I told myself I would definitely go someday and reading One Small Life’s post about her positive experience just brought me one step closer to going. Ahh, yes. That is connection and oneness at work.

Curious to the typical schedule for a meditation retreat? Here’s a look at a day’s schedule at Maitripa Contemplation Centre:

6.00am Wake-up Bell
6.30am Meditation- Silent Sitting
7.30am Yoga Asana (or your own practice)
9.00am Vegetarian Breakfast/ Free Time
11.00am Meditation – Sitting & Walking
1.00pm Vegetarian Lunch/ Free Time and Optional Teacher Interviews
3.30pm Meditation – Sitting & Walking
6.00pm Vegetarian Dinner/ Free Time
7.30pm Meditation with Talk, Discussion & Chanting
9:00pm End & Repeat

As we explain in the What is Lucid Practice? portion of our site, we had a transformative experience during our first yoga retreat. Knowing how powerful retreat can be, we encourage our readers to participate in yoga/meditation retreat. We’re living proof that a retreat can change your life 🙂

The platform in Thailand. We practiced here every morning and afternoon.

Have you ever been on a yoga or meditation retreat? Where? How was your experience?

Ashtanga yoga works slowly – the improvement is not visible at early stages. However, gradually, you become strong and build strong muscles. This is all possible by practicing regularly. It is said that flexibility in human body can take up to years or even a lifetime to master it.

Self Discovery: 

Yoga is an ongoing process of discovering oneself. There is a very small ratio of people coming to a yoga class happy. After practicing yoga for sometime you begin to experience joy. Ashtanga yoga doesn’t project a fake cosmos of thoughts or overachieving thoughts such as perfection. As human beings we are imperfect, and in Ashtanga yoga you face this truth.

Embrace all the lack of abilities that you’ve felt so far in your yoga class. Remember if you were prefect and proficient at yoga in the beginning of your sessions then there wouldn’t be much room to grow, and without growth what would be the point?

Excerpts from Fitness Republic

We don’t normally post from the same source two days in a row (or should say we have not in the past). But…the BBC posted a massive piece last night covering yoga in prisons, and I think it is worthwhile to continue to spread the amazing message of how the practice is transforming lives.

Check it out — here.

Nick, who spent six years in Villa Devoto, has no scientific evidence to offer. But he’s convinced that yoga saved his life.

“If it wasn’t for prison I wouldn’t have got involved in yoga, I wouldn’t be the person that I am today. I would probably be dead,” he says.

“At one point I actually became grateful for being in prison because I could feel this massive evolution, this change that was happening within me through yoga. So I almost became like a grateful convict, happy to be where I was, paying the time for my crime and rehabilitating myself.”

Via Intent Blog

1. Clean out the clutter both mental and physical. Clutter obscures goals and confuses problem-solving.
2. Make up your mind to be aware. When you find your mind wandering, observe it and don’t judge. Simply bring yourself back to the moment.
3. Bring your attention back to your breath when you feel distracted. Relax your breathing into deeper, slower and shallower breaths. Breathing deeper oxygenates your brain to improve focus.
4. Words are very powerful. They can trigger stress by bringing on a negative mindset, or calm you down and remind you to be present to the task at hand.
5. Have a phrase prepared in advance which accomplishes this relaxation response for you.
6. For most people some sort of exercise triggers mindfulness which then transfers to activities of daily living. Exercising is like a moving meditation and promotes focused attention to all other tasks.
7. When you are involved in conversations, start to really listen. Listening attentively is great training for a sharper focus.
8. No matter how mundane, reinvent the task at hand with enthusiasm to make it new. Imagine how the task is a step to accomplishing a major goal, can heal a nagging thought, or promote a pathway of discipline.
9. Cluster all the single tasks that are in proximity of each other – either physically like in the same neighborhood or mentally because they require the same kind of analytics to achieve them. This is the antidote to multi-tasking.
10. Don’t gobble your food or eat on the run. Practice eating mindfully. Live in greater awareness regarding all things.
11. Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. Distraction begins in the land of shame and guilt.
12. If you daydream a lot when you drive, attend class, or do your work, set aside daily time for daydreaming. If your daydreams are distracting you, maybe they are trying to tell you something. Once you identify the message or see a pattern, your focus will quickly improve.

Via Wildmind Buddhist Meditation:

I often hear from people who are worried because their meditation practice doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. I think it’s good to be aware of the different ways that change happens when we meditate since your practice hitting a plateau may not be a problem, but just part of a natural process.

Read more — here.

Via Big Think:

Another example of a brain hack is that, again on the subject of willpower, that self-control is a resource that can be built up with practice.  And so whether it’s in children or in adults, the idea that we can somehow build up a mental capacity by practicing it, right?  The principle that brains do well with what they do often.  

This piece was tough for me to decipher. It seemed a bit jumbled. But we agree that practice and repetition lead to the steady development of willpower. Willpower and practice, we have been taught, puts the power in our hands to develop responsibility. We hope it continues to take us to incredible levels of self-love.

“You should not be practicing to have a “good” practice, but instead to keep steadiness within yourself. Practice happily regardless of whether it is “good” or not. Sometimes some postures will not be possible, but when you accept the good and the bad and everything becomes equal for you, that is yoga.”

~R. Sharath Jois

Sun Gazing

I have yet to try Sun Gazing but it sounds like a lucid practice from friends who practice and this article. Check out the article for more info….

What is Sun Gazing?

Sun gazing (also known as sun-eating) is a strict practice of gradually introducing sunlight into your eyes at the lowest ultraviolet-index times of day – sunrise and sunset.  Those who teach the practice say there are several rules to the practice.  First, it must be done within the hour after sunrise or before sunset to avoid damaging the eyes.  Second, you must be barefoot, in contact with the actual earth – sand, dirt or mud; and finally, you must begin with only 10 seconds the first day, increasing by 10 second intervals each day you practice.  Following these rules make the practice safe, says sources.

Sun Gazing