26 days at Wat rampoeng or 60 days Retreat at the Panditarama Forest

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sausan, modified 11 Years ago at 11/2/12 9:00 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 11/2/12 8:55 AM

26 days at Wat rampoeng or 60 days Retreat at the Panditarama Forest

Posts: 6 Join Date: 10/28/12 Recent Posts
Hello hello everyone here emoticon

I am planning to do a long retreat .. and would love to hear some inputs for

Retreat at the Panditarama Forest Center

and

Wat rampoeng 26 days retreat

Anyone attend the 26 days or the 60 days before?

my background in retreats, I did goenka for 3 times and baliusada, www.balimeditation.com for 8 times. never did long reteat before but love to challenge my self. I'm 34 and been meditating since 19 ... and im also becoming a yoga teacher soon.. emoticon

comments much appreciated!



blessings
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Shashank Dixit, modified 11 Years ago at 11/2/12 9:36 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 11/2/12 9:36 AM

RE: 26 days at Wat rampoeng or 60 days Retreat at the Panditarama Forest

Posts: 282 Join Date: 9/11/10 Recent Posts
hmm is the Wat rampoeng 26 days retreat using Mahasi noting style ? I think 60 days is way too long !
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Simon T, modified 11 Years ago at 11/2/12 2:17 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 11/2/12 2:17 PM

RE: 26 days at Wat rampoeng or 60 days Retreat at the Panditarama Forest

Posts: 383 Join Date: 9/13/11 Recent Posts
I can only comment on Wat Rampoeng. They teach the variation of Mahasi style that Chom Tong developed. I think it's a pretty clever technique. You alternate sitting and waking in equal time, starting the retreat at about 20 minutes each up to about an hour. You had noting steps in both walking and sitting meditation. On the last day, you do a 24 hours meditation marathon to get stream Entry. It worked for a guy that was practicing at the time I was there. I was progressing very fast too but sadly drove my self crazy when I felt back in re-observation (I didn't know it was that I the time).

There is interviews everyday but they are very basic since they pretty much follow the recipe no matter where you are on the map.
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sausan, modified 11 Years ago at 11/3/12 2:38 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 11/3/12 2:38 AM

RE: 26 days at Wat rampoeng or 60 days Retreat at the Panditarama Forest

Posts: 6 Join Date: 10/28/12 Recent Posts
Yes , its the Mahasi noting . sure 60 days its a bit too long!

Great! Thank you Simon. Think I've decided . Wat Rampoeng for now

I am going next week during mercury retrograde, think its the time for meditation and reflect.

sorry to hear that u drove your self crazy , but What do you mean by "felt back in re-observation" ? I'm new in this forum and been noticing few words that made my self wonder.. like stream Entry? Dark Night.. ect emoticon

Light
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Simon T, modified 11 Years ago at 11/4/12 10:54 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 11/3/12 11:01 AM

RE: 26 days at Wat rampoeng or 60 days Retreat at the Panditarama Forest

Posts: 383 Join Date: 9/13/11 Recent Posts
How did you end up being interested in meditation Sau? What is your back ground in that regard?

It seems that there is three kind of yogis. The first kind are basically normal people that just want to improve your life a bit, be a bit more mindful and less stressed out. Some of them will have a tendency to turn meditation in a feel-good therapy, get dharmas tattoos and turn meditation into another thing to add to their identity and put on their facebook.

Then, there is people that want really end their existential woes. Some might do so for philosophical reasons but there is quite a few doing so because they are living the sides effects of the dark nights, the the Dukkha Ñanas, which are the difficult stages of spiritual development. We are dharma zombies that I want to be reformed. Daniel's book deal extensively with those difficult stages.

Then there is those poor zombies that will never hear about the cure and never fully understand it, if there is such a thing a zombie can understand.

One of the reason the pragmatic dharma scene take issue with the more traditional dharma scene is that many of its prominent members spent years stuck in Zombieland without much detailed guidance on how to survive in it and get out of it. Hordes of yogis in Goenka retreats around the world are walking there way into Zombieland unknowingly.

The gate at the entrance of zombieland is high enough to keep out most souls but once in a while there is poor little adventurous yogi that ignore the warning signs and really commit itself to practice. He see the warning lights, the bliss and everything but he thinks "No! That's not what I'm looking for! I want to go to Zombieland!"

Monks at Wat Rampoeng and other serious meditation centers assumes you really want to cross Zombieland and they have good techniques to do so. They will never mention it explicitly and they assume commitment and strong will from your part. It seems that it's so obvious for them that this path should be the meaning of one's life that they don't feel communicating it. So backpackers come and go and only a few take it to the end.

If you are already a dharma zombie and you commit yourself to this retreat like you would commit yourself to a psychiatric ward, the odds of getting out of zombieland are very good. If you are not a dharm zombie, your odds of crossing the A&P and finding yourself in Zombieland on a 28 days retreats are pretty high. Then, you don't want to leave before stream entry. In both case, you shouldn't leave early. I repeat: you shouldn't leave early! No matter how bad it gets, entering into zombieland is a commitment to getting stream entry. You might sometimes think that you are too tired to pratice, that your mind is too noisy, that you should go feed the poor instead to get some karma point, etc. Even if you spend entire days in the foetal position crying like you just dropped your loolipoop in the sand, just note it, be accepting of the process, have some compassion for yourself. Let thoughts be thoughts and not carry you away. It's not a time to reflect. Those retreats are entirely geared toward paying attention to everything that arise. It can be arrogance, narcissism, self-pity, pride, despair, etc. Juste note it.

The technique thaught in Wa Rampoeng doesn't allow for much relaxation and is really about strong concentration and will. Here is a relevent post:

http://dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/2812081
Kalyan MitraG, modified 11 Years ago at 11/4/12 10:29 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 11/4/12 10:29 AM

RE: 26 days at Wat rampoeng or 60 days Retreat at the Panditarama Forest

Posts: 16 Join Date: 10/4/12 Recent Posts
If you have not done so, must download and read this free book before you go. You will understand all those words.

Daniel Ingram's MCTB Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, http://www.interactivebuddha.com/Mastering%20Adobe%20Version.pdf

Metta
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sausan, modified 11 Years ago at 11/5/12 3:25 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 11/5/12 3:25 AM

RE: 26 days at Wat rampoeng or 60 days Retreat at the Panditarama Forest

Posts: 6 Join Date: 10/28/12 Recent Posts
Very interesting! thankYOU emoticon

Ive been interested in Meditation since 98,.....
why ?? hmmm.. at start it was more about destress theraphy, until 2 years ago I became really sick from amoeba and apendetics . After the surgery I had to manage the post surgery without pain medication, coz my body refuse to take the kiiler med, never know that im allergic to pain killer but somehow it just not working and made things worse. I had to experience all the intense pain without pain medication.. phew... somehow it reminds me of the pain that i met during goenka sit though this is 77 more intense . So I meditate on the pain and it somehow took me deeper inside my self that I've never been before.... I took It was more like a blessing... and things never been the same again.....

I realized how powerful mediation can be to my reality, my reality has changed, and things that used to be difficult somehow is not that bad anymore, life more simple n light in my world.

Will share as soon as i'm back from the retreat

Light

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