Dear reader,
I am quite unexperienced in meditation and over the past years have not been really goal orientated and have been mixing things up a bit. I am reading MCTB at the moment, and this explains a lot but also some questions on my current practice and planned practice have come up.
I will give a short summary of what I have been practicing, my character and plans. At the end some questions that came up after reading MCTB. Any ideas or feedback on this would be highly appreciated.
Over the past couple of years I did two 10 day vipassana (Goenka) retreats, and a mindfulness and mindfulness based compassionate living course. The last 1,5 year I have meditated twice a day, averaging 1 hour a day. I started with bodyscanning for about a year. For the last half year I have been practicing Shamatha (breath as object) as I became a bit frustrated with the scanning. My motivation for meditating was to be happier, and over the past couple years I have overall become happier and less stressed.
I am a highly motivated person, I have a tendency to give myself for 200% when I have goals, also I am a quite sensitive person. (Without going into details my first retreat was rather mind blowing my second retreat which I just complete was much more stable and earthly).
Looking at the maps in MCTB I do not really have a clue where I am or may have been. I am however highly motivated to continue insight practices. I am planning to study MCTB into greater depth the coming weeks, and want to get my current position and goals clearer.
At the end of august I am doing an Mahasi Sayadaw style retreat. In my practice I want to continue with body scanning (one hour in the morning and one hour in evening). After the retreat I want to choose to continue scanning or change to a noting practice (I think noting might be a faster way of gaining insight at this moment).
Any general ideas, advice, or opinions especially on the following questions which I ask myself would be highly appreciated.
- Should I add some concentration practices (and when yes how much and how often) or solely focus on insight meditation?
- Would it be a good idea to already switch from scanning to noting to give myself a head start for my upcoming retreat?
- Would it be smarter to solely focus my daily practice on concentration in preparation for the retreat?
Thanks for reading my first log.
Kind regards!