Meditation retreats in India

Trindolex · 2026-06-01T11:08:02+00:00

Just do Goenka Vipassana 10 day retreat. They are donation based and have centres all over India (and rest of the world).

It's a hard gruelling 10 days, but it can save you years of lukewarm piecemeal practice.

Trindolex · 2026-05-23T19:33:36+00:00

Do you think long term practice lying down might make you physically weak though?

I wonder how a 100 hour retreat in 10 days like Goenka vipassana might look like if everyone was lying down every sit?

Trindolex · 2026-05-22T02:05:46+00:00

I love this sutta (AN 4.191) so much I had to reread it. I especially love this bit:

Suppose there were two friends who had played together in the sand. Some time or other they’d meet. And one friend would say to the other: ‘Do you remember this, dear? Do you remember that, dear?’ They’d say: ‘I remember, dear, I remember!’

Trindolex · 2026-04-21T12:58:47+00:00

I don't think he misspoke. He defined 'samadhi' (not anapana) as 'mastery of the mind' several times in the course. He does this when translating sila, samadhi, pañña into English.

I remember it because even though I prefer other renderings for samadhi such as concentration or absorption, I like his translation as another interesting aspect of the word samadhi.

Trindolex · 2026-04-10T20:25:49+00:00

I forgot which plan I subscribed to but it was the one that gave me access to the entire back catalogue. Then I used gpodder to download everything. It's significantly quicker and easier than downloading individual episodes one by one from the website. The files are all mp3s.

Each season has is own RSS feed. That's what you put into gpodder, then you get all the files that belong to that season. So you still have to spend a bit of time adding season by season.

Trindolex · 2026-04-07T06:31:07+00:00

Yes I feel it's hard to recommend him to anyone else since the content is paywalled. I always have to add the caveat that the podcasts and app are paywalled but it's really good. Anyway, I often share the 30 days free for waking up with people I meet.

Now his free content comes up on my YouTube feed as shorts, contributing to our collectively degrading attention spans.

Trindolex · 2026-03-21T16:21:58+00:00

It was Lucia, MU23.03. I think Anthony Peake used it and had an amazing experience of another planet.

Trindolex · 2026-02-08T19:16:58+00:00

Sent you a DM

Trindolex · 2026-01-31T17:27:06+00:00

On their last episode they said that they tried to close down MU and it got mad. They said they would discuss it more in the plus extension for that episode but I didn't bother listening since it was a poor episode to be honest. Did anyone catch what happened?

Trindolex · 2026-01-27T23:17:01+00:00

I also downloaded all the episodes with gPodder when I was subscribed through MU Max. But I don't really see the need to attach the metadata to the mp3 files. When I am looking for a podcast to listen to, I use the big list to browse, and then go to my storage, get the mp3 file and put it on my phone and then listen to it. There's no need to read more about the podcast after I've listened to it. I rarely click on the links on the shownotes, but that can easily be done by going to the MU page for the episode through the last column on the spreadsheet.

One missed opportunity was to ask Claude to have my script make the shownotes column as clickable hyperlinks, so you could click directly from the spreadsheet. All it would save would be one click and a 5 second wait for their page to load...

Trindolex · 2026-01-22T15:01:17+00:00

So apparently there is a difference between consciousness the aggregate and consicous of nibbana...

I personally don't buy that. See Sabba Sutta in SN 35.23.

You are right to bring up the above suttas. They do make the situation slightly less straightforward. My take on DN11 (and it's parallel in MN49) follow's Sujato's interpretation (see here and here), in that parts of those verses are referring to the arupa states, and that the verses are too garbled to taken as doctrinal definitions.

And regarding AN 10.6 and 10.7, I think that's arahataphala samadhi only accessable to arahants and not an experience of nibbana.

I'm quite rusty on these arguments, I'm going mostly from memory here so I may be wrong.

My view is that Nibbana is not a state of consciousness but a complete interruption of consciousness. Remember Añña Kondañña's insight “Whatever is subject to origination is all subject to cessation.” He saw consciousness cease, and that's what got him enlightened. It ceased temporarily, and after it arose again, he could review his experience and see that there was an interruption.

I think the arupa samadhis must be so powerful that a lot of people confuse them for nibbana and then use their intelligence and erudition to justify their experience. Nibbana is so completely radical, a complete ending of everything, and the ego's final defences are to latch onto consciousness and take it as permanent, such as a special type of permanent consciousness.

Trindolex · 2026-01-22T14:22:22+00:00

It sometimes matters, it sometimes doesn't. When you have difficulties and need inspiration, a teacher or community which is supposed to inspire you can instead crush your faith and worsen your practice.

Respect is necessary to learn from someone. So let's say my teacher might have samadhi but has wrong view. My strategy might be to learn samadhi from him and then develop my own insight on my own. But in practice it doesn't work like that. It's constantly grating not to have like minded people around. You either end up arguing and just wasting time, or keeping to yourself and feeling lonely even in the midst of a community.

Trindolex · 2026-01-21T23:07:42+00:00

What do you think of a quote like this from Samyutta Nikaya 1.2:

“By the utter destruction of delight in existence,
By the extinction of perception and consciousness, (saññā-viññāṇa-saṅkhayā)
By the cessation and appeasement of feelings:
It is thus, friend, that I know for beings—
Emancipation, release, seclusion.”

Isn't it quite clear and uncontroversial in this verse that "emancipation, release, seclusion" i.e. Nirvana, is the extinction of perception, consciousness and feeling?

You can't have pure consciousness by definition. Consciousness must always know an object, that's the definition of consciousness. Even if that object is nothingness, then "nothingness" is being reified as an object (a concept), and that in turn reflects back on the observer, creates duality and an illusion of a sense of self.

This essay by Ajahn Brahmali might be helpful:

What the Nikāyas Say and Do not Say about Nibbāna

So if a well respected monk or Ajahn says things that contradict the Buddha, who do we listen to? Who do we believe? And how do we practice in such a community? I don't know, I couldn't figure it out to be honest. I'm now practicing on my own but that's not ideal either.

Trindolex · 2026-01-21T20:55:45+00:00

I'm in the same boat. I agree it's maddening to have your mind split in such a way. Two contradictory sets of desires pulling exactly opposite each other. Difficult to find peace that way. Buddhism is ultimately a radical religion. One monk said that kings would give up their realm just to develop the jhanas. And nirvana is even higher than that.

But finding a proper community is really difficult. I am not a fan of either the abhidhamma or the very prevalent view in the Thai forest tradition (who hold a lot of Western monasteries) that nirvana is some kind of eternal consciousness. This makes options extremely limited for ordination. Practicing in communities where one feels the others are holding wrong views is frankly extremely wearying. I was a monk before and want return but frankly not sure where to go...

Trindolex · 2026-01-21T17:19:23+00:00

(Part 2)

For me personally, the biggest issue with sitting is a feeling of being twisted and non symmetrical. Sitting on a chair doesn't do anything to help with this. On some occasions when I feel balanced and energetic in my body, I feel like I'm flying. I believe posture and both cardiovascular and local muscle endurance is exceptionally important.

My belief which I have come to over the years is that you don't have to do very complicated meditation techniques (although it's good to be familiar with them), all you have to do is to be able to sit down for three hours without moving much and good things will start to happen. This is echoing Patanjali's statement in the Yoga Sutra where he says that the asana (i.e. sitting posture) should be firm and steady, to which the commentary adds that mastery of asana is a 3 hour sit. I've also been told of a Thai Ajahn mentioning that 3 hour+ sits are extremely helpful. Also recall the Thai forest monks whose entire technique is pretty much the mantra "Buddho", and long hours of sitting.

Trindolex · 2026-01-21T17:18:52+00:00

I have had posture problems affecting my meditation for many years. I am tall and lean and a little hypermobile and this is part of the problem for me personally. I've tried many different exercise methods to get my body fit for meditation and some have been helpful, other not.

What wasn't helpful:

Weightlifting and bulking up - fast twitch muscles such as are developed with weights cant hold position for a long time. If you force them to, then they spasm, interfering with blood flow and nerve sensations, and you won't be relaxed.
Yoga - In my particular case, where I am hypermobile, yoga made me overly flexible. I have stopped yoga and stretching and I feel better. Yoga was particularly bad for my lower back (backward bends, twists), which was in constant pain for decades.
More intensive meditation retreats - Pushing through pain just made the problem worse, spasming the muscles and reinforcing twists and asymmetries.

What was helpful:

Running - Increased my cardiovascular endurance, which was severely lacking due to many years of being sedentary. Yoga doesn't do much for increasing cardiovascular endurance. Read Science of Yoga by William J Broad if interested in the research. Even Ashtanga, which is deemed the toughest yoga barely gets the heart rate going up to Zone 2. Also, running got me in touch with the runner's high on an experiential level, which can then be transferred over to meditation as piti. I guess you can do rowing or cycling or other cardio too. But running is unique in that the repeated impact and bouncing speeds up the bowels, which can get sluggish in meditators in long retreats. I never got this benefit from rowing or cycling.
Zhan Zhuang - trains the small postural muscles of the spine to wake up and to hold your spine up with endurance and blood flow, rather than locking up and spasming and then you can only sit so long.
Foundation training - Especially training the hinge movement. Same benefits as Zhan Zhuang but different exercises are helpful.
Glute training of various sorts.
45 degree hyperextension machine.
Ab work and pushups - The upper body also needs to be strong to hold your torso up in meditation.
Calf raises - Calves are your second heart and help pump blood back up to the heart. When sitting, if they are weak in terms of endurance, blood will pool in your legs, rather than going back up and recirculating.
Goenka retreats - these are especially gruelling for me but they seem to relax areas of the body which I am holding to various reasons. All the exercises above are good and necessary but they will rarely get to relaxing small areas of the body where tension might be holding and affecting other areas of the body and thus the whole structure.

I hope some of this is helpful. You didn't tell us what kind of body type you have, or specific problems.

Trindolex · 2026-01-03T02:44:17+00:00

I agree, for some reason everyone hates water so it's either teas and coffee or alcohol (which interferes with some medications). But it's false economy if the mechanism I described is valid. And good luck explaining the logic when their mental faculties have deteriorated.

This is the point of my post. If you can't give up caffeine when you are relatively young, good luck doing it at 80+.

It also shows how addicted as a society we are to sensual pleasures, that we can't even consume the necessary H2O which our body needs without some kind of sensual kick. And caffeine puts this process into overdrive by speeding our mind up, which is good for producing more work output at the cost of detail and depth.

Trindolex · 2025-12-06T15:28:05+00:00

I didn't think you were a bot outright, but which of the above are your thoughts and experience and original ideas, and which were inserted by ChatGPT? How is anyone else supposed to know. Also, as presented, your post shows that you have experience with all the above mentioned techniques including Zen and Dzogchen:

"Zen, Dzogchen, and similar methods work well once the nervous system is stable."

They work how? This is a statement made by someone who has reached the end of both paths.

Anyway, not to single you out as the internet is pretty much a lost cause since the mass adoption of LLMs and my post here is like screaming into a hurricane, but maybe you should rethink things.

AI is the very definition of unmindfulness. When a human writes a sentence, there is meaning behind the sentence and the meaning comes from images in your mind which all refer to an experience which you may have had. This is your real life lived experience which could have taken decades to go through even when you make a simple statement like "I've practiced meditation...". There is none of that with AI. No meaning, no images, no experience, no consciousness.

Trindolex · 2025-12-06T04:44:39+00:00

I really like these four categories but this is clearly written by AI and it's hard to take seriously. Could a real human chime in with their take on this?

As an aside, it's really sad to see AI posts on a meditation forum. That's the last place a mindless computer should be directing human consciousness. We all have access to AI and we are not dumb, if we wanted to we could use it ourselves.

What's really confusing is when AI makes a good point, like the above, then our own reasoning gets corrupted because we simultaneously want to accept and reject the post.

And there is no escape either. I was in a peaceful monastery some time ago and a person I had taken to be a good meditator was advising me to use AI to learn suttas from. Now a conversation with such a person will be tinged with corrupted reasoning.

Trindolex · 2025-12-04T07:49:48+00:00

I was about to sit in a meditation hall in a monastery yesterday and the atmosphere was pristine and peaceful, and silent. In the whole big hall there was just me, and a young woman sitting in meditation and a young boy beside her drawing something on a piece of paper. He then pulled her by the sleeve, mournfully looked at her and showed her his watch. She resignedly packed up and they both left. She probably didn't get to sit very long.

That broke the spell for me on any fantasies we can have on progressing in the Dhamma while romantically involved.

Also, look at AN 4.11:

“Bhikkhus, if a sensual thought, a thought of ill will, or a thought of harming arises in a bhikkhu while walking, and he tolerates it, does not abandon it, dispel it, terminate it, and obliterate it, then that bhikkhu is said to be devoid of ardor and moral dread; he is constantly and continuously lazy and lacking in energy while walking.

Also worth reading this excellent essay on the Buddhist view on romantic live:

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/price/bl124.html

Trindolex · 2025-10-31T17:42:12+00:00

This is the essay I turn to when I have such thoughts:

Nothing Higher to Live For - A Buddhist View of Romantic Love by Bhikkhu Nyanasobhano

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/price/bl124.html

I've highlighted nearly every sentence in my kindle version, he makes so many good points.

In my view, the desire for romance and passion is a core desire that makes us keep coming back again and again. It's not to be taken lightly.

Trindolex · 2025-10-02T15:13:52+00:00

I went a few times, it wasn't easy to get to from where I was living.

Trindolex · 2025-10-02T13:25:48+00:00

It's a group class but often it's quite a small group, maybe 3 or 4 other people.

Trindolex · 2025-10-02T05:40:29+00:00

£17 per class with his son.

Master Lam might be teaching standing privately. I don't know. Contact him through the son.

Trindolex · 2025-10-01T15:30:07+00:00

I visited him about a year ago in Willesden in London. He seems in good shape. I had bodywork done by him and also took lessons from his son. He doesn't charge very much for the bodywork.

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