I was told to leave a retreat because of this

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Ben Hudson, modified 8 Years ago at 3/14/16 8:05 PM
Created 8 Years ago at 3/14/16 8:05 PM

I was told to leave a retreat because of this

Posts: 4 Join Date: 11/26/15 Recent Posts
I was at Wat Chom Tong in Northern Thailand, I was 7 days into the 21 introductory course there.
I was really REALLY set on doing the retreat 'well' I had had such problems with attention span and self-dicipline that I had flown to Thailand just to do a meditation course because I knew it'd help me in so many ways. I'd never meditated before.

I'm a singer by profession so sing all the time. I hadn't developed by mindfullness very much and one day my teacher heard me singing. In the next meeting with her she brought it up and I just cried. I don't know why but it struck me like lightning all the way through me and I just didn't stop crying. The teacher didn't really seem to know what to do, I thought at the time that they must be used to this kind of thing. She said to sit and say to myself 'sitting sitting' and I calmed down a bit. After this they told me to just focus on my body. I went from 40mins waling and 40mins sitting to 5 and 5 then 20 minutes walking around and cleaning mindfully. I felt like it drove me mad. I'd walk around the lake focussing on nothing but bodily sensations. but again it was forced it was not relaxed. They always said when I saw them in the meeting: 'Just relax' but I had no idea what they meant. 

I'm pretty sure now, looking back that I was doing dead hard concentration practice with 0% understanding of balancing it with mindfullness.
I was zooming in very very much on the tiniest surface area of the belly rising and falling and seeing how miniscule I could zoom in (I feel like this was wrong and forced now)

I have talked to a friend verse in these things and he called it 'getting tight'? but I've seen nothing about this if anyone could tell me more about balancing concentration with mindfullness I'd be very interested to read about it. 

I had a cricket commentary job for a year and a half before which was pretty much 100% concentration meditation for 6 hours at a time so I feel like my concentration is way out of balance with mindfullness but to be honest I'm not sure what this looks like in a practical and actionable manner. 

I'd really appretiate your help and suggestions. And to be honest I'd like a friend to talk to about this, I've had no-one to talk to about my experience and Im new to this community.

Thank you

Ben

Feel free to add me on facebook: Benjamen Luke Hudson
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Dream Walker, modified 8 Years ago at 3/14/16 10:20 PM
Created 8 Years ago at 3/14/16 10:20 PM

RE: I was told to leave a retreat because of this

Posts: 1657 Join Date: 1/18/12 Recent Posts
Ben Hudson:
if anyone could tell me more about balancing concentration with mindfullness I'd be very interested to read about it.
The way you are using the terms concentration and mindfullness is not very clear. Can you define what you mean by these terms and then ask the question again?
I recomend reading MCTB if you have not yet as the terms and definitions are often used here. MCTB
Link to relevent chapters-
Welcome to the forum
~D

The beginning, the laying down of the fundamentals, was always the worst part, which he supposed was why so few people did it. That was the thing about the world: it wasn’t that things were harder than you thought they were going to be, it was that they were hard in ways that you didn’t expect. - The Magician King

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