On balance, it's pretty chill. Even the people who totally buy in and devote huge portions of their life to this organization are mostly just really into meditation (as opposed to, say, devotion to the organization or the man behind it). Though some of tactics are kind of strong-arm-y, the emphasis is always on getting you to practice a very simple, effective form of meditation
Have you found a version of this that isn't at all preachy or "strong-arm-y?"
I feel like a huge benefit to meditation is that it allows people to arrive at their own conclusions. But what I worry about is that the "guidance" you'd receive in situations like this is more guidance to a set of predetermined ideals or conclusions, rather than guidance into how best to find your own. It's incredibly hard to do anything so deeply introspective without bumping up against existential issues. I feel like having someone guide you through this process requires a ridiculous amount of trust in how they value your individualism.
As an anecdote, my wife just competed her 200 hour yoga teacher certification which included a two day retreat to an ashram. Like you said about being told that the chanting is not rite or ritual, they constantly said that yoga isn't spiritual or religious. But in surveying the whole of yoga there are definitely parts of it that are at least "mystical" if not religious. For some of it you can just say "they're not being literal, this is metaphorical" but other parts, such as the chakras, are hard to see through that lens [Edit: as another lesser-known example, see mudras, hand [1] or otherwise]. And then even where there isn't any mysticism there is plenty of "holistic" discipline or rigor being taught.
When I went to her graduation ceremony one of the fellow students told me that the biggest thing that she got out of the training was the knowledge that when we die, our energy lives on. While this is literally true, she clearly meant it in a very spiritual sense.
As a complete outsider it's hard not to see this in a religious light. To the issue of trust in those who are guiding your introspective thoughts, I see this situation as a huge barrier.
Are you serious? You need help sitting quietly? What sort of guidance do you suppose someone could actually give you that would take any form other than telling you what to think?
You don't need help to do this. You don't need a magic tree, or to be in India to do this. Just sit quietly and meditate. Quit putting obstacles in your way and just do it. Forget teachers, instructors, gurus, priests, yogis, etc and just do it.
Actually, quiet often I do need help sitting quietly - but that's a tangent I'd rather not get into right now.
While meditation is incredibly simple, it is far, far more difficult than just sitting quietly. Meditation is observing and (hopefully gently) directing your mental focus.
Try it sometime for 10-20 minutes. Sit down someplace quiet, close your eyes, and choose some very simple thought to focus on. Try to keep your mind from flailing about. It's incredibly difficult. There's absolutely no way I could make it through a 10 day exercise like this without guidance.
Some people do this for specific purposes such as working out a problem that they're having, or just promoting attentiveness, and sometimes it's just a matter of exercising general discipline so that other discipline will follow outside of meditation.
In support of my original comment, this is the easiest place I've found to apply the lens of metaphor. People will talk about meditation in terms of energy, vibrations, and flow. If you just think of these terms in the context of focus - the intensity, oscillation, and well, flow of focus, it gets a lot easier to accept.
Edit:
To answer your "what types of guidance" question directly, there are all kinds of non leading guidance to be given. Simple examples include "sit someplace comfortable," and "don't feel guilty should your mind start to wander."
I have done it for 10-20 minutes. I have done it for 30 minutes. And 40. And 45. And 1 hour and half.
It is difficult every time. No one said this is easy.
Over time, I have learned to be able to observe the ... discomfort and "difficulty" as an arising object, and allow that to pass by.
I started from having extreme difficulty sitting for 1 minute.
As for "easier to accept" -- that is not acceptance. Acceptance is acceptance. There is no easy or hard about it. Thinking that something is "easier to accept" is a subtle form of aversion.
Finally, what you talk about with "focus" and "flow of focus" -- that is concentration, that is samadhi. Vipassana is insight, and while it uses a minimum level of concentration, you're not trying to hold a particular focus. You're observing the fundamental nature of reality.
After reading about meditation recently, I felt inspired and have been trying to meditate for 10 minutes every night before bed. I started this around a week ago.
In the last two days I have begun to wonder if I should find a good teacher. I find it _insanely_ hard to hold my focus for that ten minute period. However much I try, I often catch myself thinking about something else - without realising how I got onto that train of thought. I then try to steer my mind back.
The other thing I noticed is that I don't know if I made any progress at all over the last week. I don't know if I am trying the right things or whether just sticking to this will some day bring about an improvement.
This makes me feel that though no one can be _made_ to learn anything, a good teacher can definitely make one learn faster (and in some cases learn what one may otherwise be unable to figure out by oneself).
They're a good secular introduction to mindfulness meditation. (Gil Fronsdal is a buddhist, but in this series he takes great care to avoid mixing the religious aspects with the meditation teaching, to the extent of jokingly referring to the "b-word")
Both of them address the problems you mention. And actually they're not so much problems as your perception of them are - you get better by practising observing and guiding your attention back to your breath (or whatever other object of focus you choose), and you get that practice by constantly losing focus.
Some people will experience it getting much worse after a while, even. After a few weeks I went through a period where I'd get really intense "monkey mind". That is, I'd sit down to meditate, and my mind would go completely crazy. All kinds of things would pop into my head, including totally ridiculous and pointless concerns, and concentration was impossible.
Then I had a period where I'd get an intense feeling that I hadn't set my alarm (I was meditating before I had to leave for work, and this feeling indicated that I was running late, and needed to look at the watch immediately). If I looked at my watch, the feeling would still reassert itself a few minutes later. I had to look at my watch several times, and confirm and reconfirm that the alarm was set and the countdown running before I started meditating to weaken the feeling, and then still spent weeks overcoming the desire to look at my watch before it finally subsided.
But it all passed, and while I don't meditate as often as I like to, it's gotten a lot easier with time. That is not to say it is easy, and as with pretty much everything else, you can always push further into more advanced practices. But you get to a stage where you feel that you are actually meditating rather than fighting off total chaos in your mind, and that makes it a lot easier to want to sit regularly.
Note that I'm not saying you shouldn't find a teacher. By all means. But you can make a good start by yourself, and you can find a lot of good (and free) guidance online as a starting point.
I wasn't saying it was hard either. I was saying it's idiotic to say "it's awfully noisy in my head when I try to meditate, can you quiet it down for me?" If you really think that, then I suggest you've wasted a lot of time pointing at things and calling them arising objects and wasted very little time meditating.
Meditation is hard. Having someone to listen to you and offer gentle encouragement from experience when you run into tough spots can be very helpful. As with everything, there's a balance to it, and falling into a dependent or worshipful relationship should be avoided
Eventually, you also learn how to give yourself encouragement. You learn that the universe itself is giving you encouragement. And you eventually learn that the need for encouragement is itself an arising object that passes in time.
In my experience Vipassana is the version that isn't "strong-arm-y". Your anecdote actually does a good job of illustrating the difference between Vipassana and many other forms of meditation contemporary and historical.
Here is a synopsis of a story that is told on retreat:
A man goes to see the Buddha and says,
"Oh, Buddha I have heard that you are an all knowing sage, I have traveled far to see you. In my village the holy men can't seem to come to an agreement. Some say that after we die we are reborn here or in another realm, they believe that the soul is eternal. Others believe that there is no soul, and that after we die there is nothing. Can you please put this issue to rest, we have agreed that whatever you tell us is the truth and we will stop our ceaseless argument."
The Buddha smiling responded gently,
"Endless are the arguments of the mystics. Do you see the leaves in the forest? They represent the sum total of my knowledge."
The Buddha paused and picked up a handful of leaves from the forest floor.
"These leaves... They represent the knowledge that is relevant to the cessation of suffering in this lifetime. This is the knowledge I teach."
The Buddha as described in Theravada Buddhism was not particularly interested in specific beliefs but rather in providing practices that help humans to suffer less.
The Buddha spent a lot of time criticizing the establishment, and was distrusting of practices that left people with unprovable conclusions (i.e. the knowledge that, "when we die, our energy lives on.")
You're right - any time someone is guiding you through any sort of spiritual process, there is the possibility of submission / sacrifice of individuality. For better or worse the struggle to maintain your individuality without the resistance becoming a barrier to "progress" is part of the process. On the flipside, having zero guidance would make things extremely difficult
I'd suggest you just read some of the free material and/or listen to some of the podcasts available first.
I've left these two URL's in a couple of other comments - take a look at my other comments in this thread for more explanation. But these are gentle, non-preachy and non-strong-arm-y introductions:
I share your scepticism. I'm a lifelong atheists, and though long fascinated by meditation, what kept me away for the longest time was the religious / spiritual baggage that comes with a lot of the teaching resources.
Thanks for posting this. It's nice to know someone had such a similar ride. Makes me wonder if we all were experiencing something similar. I'm considering doing it again, and this reminded me.
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