Off to Goenka!

On the cultivation of insight/wisdom
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LonesomeYogurt
Posts: 900
Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2012 4:24 pm
Location: America

Off to Goenka!

Post by LonesomeYogurt »

I'm headed off to a Goenka retreat tomorrow and I'd love any advice from those further along than I when it comes to preparation, hints, pitfalls to avoid, etc.

Another thing I was wondering: As I'll be gone from my friends and family for a bit, and I need to let them know why they won't be hearing from me, I'd love to have just a general quote on meditation or non-self to post on Facebook or something as I say I'm leaving. I'm pretty private about this stuff but if I have to mention it, I'd like to have something a little more important to say than just "off for a week, the stream of Huffington Post articles and 80's music videos you've become used to will resume when I get back" haha. Any great, simple quotes about the path that would speak to the people I'm alerting to my absence?

Thanks so much!
Gain and loss, status and disgrace,
censure and praise, pleasure and pain:
these conditions among human beings are inconstant,
impermanent, subject to change.

Knowing this, the wise person, mindful,
ponders these changing conditions.
Desirable things don’t charm the mind,
undesirable ones bring no resistance.

His welcoming and rebelling are scattered,
gone to their end,
do not exist.
- Lokavipatti Sutta

Stuff I write about things.
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retrofuturist
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Joined: Tue Dec 30, 2008 9:52 pm
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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Re: Off to Goenka!

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings,

Get an early night's sleep.

:candle:

Best wishes for your retreat.

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
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Ben
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Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:49 am
Location: kanamaluka

Re: Off to Goenka!

Post by Ben »

Greetings LY
All the very best with your upcoming retreat. I know that before my first 10-day course which was nearly 27 years ago, I filled with fear and trepidation. All I had was the recommendation from a school friend and two printed pamphlets "The Art of Living" and "The Code of Discipline" which are still available from the Vipassana Meditation website.
My first course was really hard but intensely intensely rewarding. Keep in mind that it isn't an easy experience. Apart from some stops and starts - I haven't looked back.
For some people - its too difficult. If you go in with a strong determination to complete it (come what may) and you work as instructed then you will (in all probability) have a good experience. And by "good" I don't mean "pleasant".
If you have any questions or concerns - feel free to either raise them here. You are also welcome to contact me directly should you wish.
with Metta

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

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cooran
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Joined: Tue Jan 06, 2009 11:32 pm
Location: Queensland, Australia

Re: Off to Goenka!

Post by cooran »

Hello LY,

All good wishes - work hard and stay the distance, no matter how you feel from time to time.

with metta
Chris
---The trouble is that you think you have time---
---Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe---
---It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---
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wizi
Posts: 83
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2011 4:47 pm

Re: Off to Goenka!

Post by wizi »

Hi Lonesome Yoghurt, on my first course, I met a dancer who told me on Day 10 that it's better to quietly slip away and not let anyone know you are on a silent meditation retreat. A thousand and one things could pose as an obstacle to getting on a retreat. In hindsight, she's so right. Have a good retreat! :meditate:
All beings like yourself are responsible for their own actions. Suffering or happiness is created through one's relationship to experience, not by experience itself. Although I wish only the best for you, I know that your happiness or unhappiness depends on your actions, not on my wishes for you.
May you not be caught in reactivity.
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