Any advice for self guided retreat?

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HouseOnFire, modified 3 Years ago at 2/5/21 10:02 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 2/5/21 10:00 PM

Any advice for self guided retreat?

Posts: 23 Join Date: 10/29/20 Recent Posts
On Monday I’m headed to a retreat center in Wisconsin for my third 10 day retreat. I’ll have access to teachers while I’m there, but it’s not a guided retreat. I’ll be pretty much free to do my thing. So I’m wondering how I should structure things. Normally in an hour sit I’ll start with anapanasati for 20 minutes or so then switch to Mahasi style vipassana, throwing in a few Goenka scans for good measure. On days where I’m practicing a lot I sometimes end the day with some fire kasina as well. 

So I could just keep doing my thing just a lot more of it or I could switch things up. A lot of the time vipassana centers will have you do anapanasati exclusively for a few days and then switch you to vipassana. So it seems like that would be an approach to consider. I could try to get about as concentrated as I think is possible for me then start scanning and noting. 
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Given that I don’t want to do a full on fire kasina retreat would it be beneficial to do it for a couple hours each night or would that be pulling me in too many directions? 

Another idea I’ve been playing with would be to go full anapanasati and see if I can get some experience navigating the jhanas. 

​​​​​​​What do y’all think?
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George S, modified 3 Years ago at 2/6/21 6:55 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 2/6/21 6:55 AM

RE: Any advice for self guided retreat?

Posts: 2722 Join Date: 2/26/19 Recent Posts
I would read Arahatamagga Arahattaphala (The Path to Arahantship) for inspiration! Good Luck 

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