Day: December 10, 2009

[This is a “back-post”;  it is a work-in-progress, so it may change partially or completely, with materials added or taken away, over the next several days or weeks.  This is “day 1(b)” of my stay at the Vipassana Meditation retreat. For general comments and summary, see “day 11.”]

The focus of this first day is to watch our own respiration.  Not control it – simply observe it. Feel the air moving in… out… in… out.  Is it deep breath?  Shallow breath? Is it through the left nostril, or right, or both?  Contrary to our uninformed intuition, we almost always are breathing more through one nostril than the other. I never thought about this before.

So, the question becomes:  which nostril? Today… mostly the left.

[This is a “back-post”;  it is a work-in-progress, so it may change partially or completely, with materials added or taken away, over the next several days or weeks.  This is “day 1(a)” of my stay at the Vipassana Meditation retreat. For general comments and summary, see “day 11.”]

How can I expect to learn a path to enlightenment from such grumpy-seeming people? All the managers and assistants seem way too serious. And the main instructor (slash “founder” of the modern vipassana movement I guess), Mr Goenka… he seems like a very sad man, and almost never smiles in his video presentations. The male manager at this retreat is grim and shifty-eyed. The only person who consistently seems happy is Leslie, the head supporting instructor who leads the group sessions (mostly via running the sound-system that plays Mr Goenka’s guidances, and then providing additional instructions and/or answering questions).

It leads me to ponder: maybe, all-in-all, it’s not the sort of enlightenment I’m interested in?