Freeling:
Kia ora,
This is my first post on Dharmaoverground having just discovered it yesterday.
I live in Aotearoa/New Zealand and have attended two of the Goenka-style retreats at Dhamma Medini and have plans to attend more this year depending on the Covid-19 situation. I am currently practising 2-3 hours a day and feel committed.
I have been reading about other retreat centres in Asia via this website. I feel open to trying other Insight traditions, but also feel some hesitancy. As people on here have noted, Goenka suggests not to mix meditation methods. I still feel like very much a beginner, having only started to develop my home practice this year.
My questions are as follows:
Is it best to develop my practice further in the Goenka tradition before adding new meditation styles?
For those that have been on multiple retreats teaching different styles, how do you develop a sound home practice?
Two hours of Vipassana a day already feels like a big commitment. Do people practice several styles of meditation at home? Does this not get confusing? Surely it is better to focus on one method? Or not?
I'd especially love to hear from people who have been on Goenka's retreats who have made strides in their practice, as I'm feeling a bit uncertain as to whether I should stick to this path or explore other methods such as a noting.
Many thanks
Kia ora, Freeling, and welcome to DhO (as the shorthand for DharmaOverground here goes).
I'm a one-trick pony for a very long time in meditation technique, and so don't know Goenka from a hole in the wall. But I will say, that the longer you stay with one basic method, the more you make it your own. To keep changing techniques, in my experience, is to keep buying into promises of glitter or greener grass. But the real practice begins when the greener grass withers and turns brown. In the dukha nanas, you have to keep it basic, to make it through the winter to spring, when all that brown dead grass is just mulch for the new growth. One trick is enough, done deeply and well. You know every trick your self can play to dodge the shit, and over time, you stop dodging, because one method shows you that there's no escape in the end, except the thing we're all trying so depserately to escape with the carrot eternally on the stick of new methods and "fresh" approaches. Sit down and die: this breath, now. This way. This self. Gate gate gate, megaparamahagate.
Again, welcome. When I think of New Zealand, I can't help, in my relative ignorance and poverty of experience, but think of Whale Rider, one my all-time favorites films.
love,
Tim