in: Leanimal; Leanimal > 2007-12-08;
| # Posted 2007-12-11 08:17:51 | |
| 'Bent: | I doubt I could handle 6 minutes, let alone 6 hours! |
| # Posted 2007-12-11 10:35:13 | |
| revy: | Did you get to talk or was it enforced silence for 6 hours. We have a friend who went to a three day retreat where there was no talking. I am not sure what made him think that would be fun. |
| # Posted 2007-12-11 16:44:02 | |
| Sherpa: | Yeah....Lee give us more details on this. I don't think I could go 6 hrs without talking. |
| # Posted 2007-12-11 17:11:51 | |
| FB: | I've often gone up to 6 DAYS without thinking... but for me that has never been a precursor to talking ;-) ... yes, definitely more details needed |
| # Posted 2007-12-11 23:45:44 | |
| Leanimal: | Well I am taking a meditation workshop that is 8 weeks long (3 hours every Thursday night) and this was our taste of a full day retreat. So it was silence for 6 hours straight except for our instructor who guided us through yoga and other types of meditation. The course is based on a clinic run by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the UMass medical school and it is super interesting. It's really not that hard to not talk for 6 hours but the "trying to stay present and focussed on the here and now" is really tough. It's amazing how much our mind is everywhere else but "here" 99% of the time. If you haven't ever meditated I think the closest thing I can think of to describe ever having been totally aware of my current surroundings is a couple of days into a long race when you are not sleepy but are physically exhausted.....and just really aware of everything....
The book we are reading with the course is called "Full Catastrophe Living" (I do live with Phatty after all) and it's some really interesting stuff. I looked into this for personal reasons but also because I deal with people in a healing environment and I want to understand the physical presentations of emotional/psychological patterns better. Not that I want to become a psychologist but there are definite barriers to healing that people have and I might be able to point them in the right direction if they need additional help. So there is the longer version of what that was all about and as part of the course we are supposed to meditate for about an hour per day. It's tough to do consistently but what a difference when I do. I highly encourage anyone interested to read the book. Lots of good info. in there on the relationship between diseases like heart disease and cancer and certain personality traits etc. Revy I think the 6 hours was good for me for now but I would love to try a multi-day retreat one time. I kind of thought I would get a couple of comments on this one! |
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