Going on a 10-Day Silent Meditation Retreat

Kitty and I, along with six other members of our Las Vegas group, are heading out this morning for a 10-Day silent meditation retreat. The event actually spans 12 calendar days as today is Day 0 and the last day we only meditate for about two hours. So there are ten full days where we meditate for about 10 hours and 45 minutes, mostly in one hour chunks. Accommodations are rather Spartan, although when you have your eyes closed and are completely silent for most of the waking day it doesn't really seem too important how posh the setting is as long as it's warm and dry.

The dining schedule is rather minimal, with breakfast coming at 6:30, which is 2.5 hours after we wake up. Lunch is very light and there isn't really a dinner other than some fruit. I suppose when you are very sedentary for that long you really don't need to eat much. I've done a 9 day Master Cleanse diet and during that I realized that it was mostly a psychological thing. But that was done as I was fully integrated in my normal life and the challenge was adapting not having to eat into my normal life. This may be even easier as our schedules will be completely new to us so there won't be nearly the integration issue. We'll see.

The retreat is called Vipassana and can be discovered at www.dhamma.org. It is a free retreat run by donations from past members and volunteers who have previously completed the 10-day course. My company has been very gracious in rearranging my schedule to allow me to come on a retreat of this length. I am very grateful for this as well as my ex-wife who has been awesome about watching Tristan the whole time. Thank you, thank you, I'm so grateful.

I've gone into this with complete detachment. I have neither anticipated it nor have I been concerned about it. I'm not doing this intentionally, I really have had no feeling about it as it has been approaching. I meditate quite often and do a lot of introspection, so I'm looking forward to what may come. It will be very interesting to observe my perspective on it when I get back. Full details to come here on my blog, be sure of that!

Imagine: Me. Silent. For ten days. Go figure!