I just got back from a seven-day Buddhist silent meditation retreat. Ask me anything (or share your own experiences of meditation retreat)
As I mentioned in the screenless day thread I was at Cloud Mountain in the woods between Seattle and Portland. This was my 3rd retreat there, and the longest that I've sat - the previous two that...
As I mentioned in the screenless day thread
I was at Cloud Mountain in the woods between Seattle and Portland. This was my 3rd retreat there, and the longest that I've sat - the previous two that I attended were 2 days and 5 days respectively.
There were two teachers on the retreat, fully ordained Buddhist nuns in the Thai Forest tradition of Theravada Buddhism. Ayya Santacitta and Ayya Santussika were both wonderful.
I spent 8-10 hours a day meditating, split between sitting and walking meditation. Other than that, I ate 2 or 3 really tasty vegetarian meals a day, skipping dinner on the last few days (Buddhist monastics were doing intermittent fasting way before it was cool - only eating between sunrise and mid-day). Dinner is always served, soup and bread, but the monks don't eat, and some retreatants skip it as well. And...not much else. Eat, meditate, sleep, repeat.
It was very well done with respect to covid safety - we all wore masks and social distanced. Everyone on the retreat was vaccinated (and this retreat center is making it a requirement starting in September). They took a vote at the beginning that gave us the option of removing our masks since everyone was vaccinated, but the vote to take them off had to be unanimous and it wasn't, so we all continued to wear them while indoors.