I was talking with somebody tonight about Daoism and he said that in order to become a monk (or whatever is the Doaist equivalent) one of the first tests is to give it all away and eat fruit and drink water for a month whilst stitting around aiming at the sweet spot in your mind.
It got me thinking about the many friends I used to have who swore by taking time out for Vipassna.
Still, if you really wanted to do it hard and find ultimate peace wouldn’t a real challenge be to find that sweet spot whilst negotiating the rat race. I mean sure fruit and water is hard, but there is a lot of much harder shit out there than that.
Imagine finding yourself like that dude does in Platoon, not the William Defoe character but the guy who shoots him.
Should he be denied?
Is he just a preta?
Perhaps he is, but I still think a higher form of enlightenent involves embracing more grit than the dregs of ones’ fruit tea.
Did two ten day sits eons ago. Hellish. However, the combo of a compulsory good diet, no grog, fags or anythng else, and I suppose the process of meditating 12 hours a day for ten days, leaves you feeling unbelievably clear afterwards. Of course you are not supposed to be doing it with the desire for anything. Always intended doing another, but when faced with the option, easing back on a Thai beach won each time.
They have sits in Taiwan, I remember checking it out.
[quote=“Fox”]Has the experience stuck with you HG?
Or did you simply return to your lower self in full knowledge that your higher self was attainable though the path be a bitch.[/quote]
I think it did stick to some extent, but the first one I did at 19, so there was plenty of room for new ideas. I think more than anything the concepts stuck and I can still drag them out from time to time. I’m sure these concepts are firmly in place in your relatively older scone. Mind ou I clarly don’t really buy the full theory on Vipassana.
Funnily enough a mate of mine I used to do the odd meditation with, and a lot more drinking, got excited after he heard I’d done a Vipassana, as he was then getting into a range of different meditations. We drove out to see some monks one day and he asked them if he should do a Vipassana or indeed give up some time to become a monk. The monk suggested that there are many ways to the same goal and that in fact as my mate had a kid, he had a much harder road to hoe just getting by day to day. In other words becoming a monk or sitting the Vippasana were distractions from just improving your daily lot for thse around you. Wise words I thought.
Low life? Ya reckon? Ya don’t come across that way from this end of the screen.
They do have three day sits these days. Might be worthwhile just to pop in for a light tune up.
For me these days I reckon the big upside would be the forced diet, no grog, fags or sundries.
You didn’t see me yesterday when I went to the bank to change some hard earned into Australian dollars and realized that the amount of money I was losing on the exchange rate compared to even just 18 months ago worked out to 8 months worth of work.
8 months of slogging it out in this shit hole. It was like someone shuttered out the light on the horizon. When I think like that and I have that capacity I know I should change tack 'cause I’m thinking like a low life, I’m not engaging my higher self, I’m indulging my darker emotions.
Sometimes the Taiwanese are right, best not to think too much. But eight whole months, eh?Ewwwwwww!
My father’s an old Vipassana hand and he said just before his last sit he’d heard something to suggest the chappy handling his finances had done a runner, or at least screwed him out of a considerable sum (he later found he hadn’t). He reckons he spent the whole ten days plotting murder. So much for letting go of attachments.
That’s what my wife says, but the fact of the matter is, it was a lack of thinking about it that cost me so badly. We’re all in the same boat of course if we are trying to send money back to Australia.
I felt much better about it today. I mean who wants to indulge these thoughts whilst nursing a hangover. In which case, the Taiwanese are probably right.
Your oldman was into Vipassana?
Different worlds. My oldman couldn’t pronouce Vipassana.
