Deadly? Diary of a Buddhist Yogi: retreat

• What is Buddhist "mindfulness," Ven. Analayo?
• Beware: Wrong mindfulness can be bad (Psych Today)
• 10-day silent meditation retreat experience 🧘‍♀️
• Two people have died after attending ‘vipassana’ retreats with intense 11-hour meditation in silence
• 5 mind-blowing vipassana meditation facts that will change the brain forever
• Vipassana Walking Meditation at Wat Pa Tam Wua, Mae Hong Son, Thailand

Diary of a Buddhist Yogi: Vipassana Meditation Retreat

Diary of a Buddhist Yogi (Kindle Edition)

Author Dhammaloka ("Dharma-world" or "Dharma-light or white") Viriya ("energy") knows that liberation (vimutti, moksha, vimokkha) from the cycle of rebirth (samsara) comes from the Awakening (bodhi-ification) of the (ennobling = enlightening) Truths.

To be awakened, one needs to practice mindfulness-meditation (satipatthana) by relinquishing attachment to the six senses, which will eradicate the clinging to all [of their attendant] phenomena, before the Dhamma (Truth, Teaching, Doctrine) eventually reveals itself to the practitioner.

Once the practitioner catches a glimpse of the Dhamma, the Ultimate Truth, through direct knowing-and-seeing, the practitioner will know there is no more falling back into the mire of this mundane world.

The Buddha pointed out the way to end of all suffering through mindfulness (sati) practice, and many practitioners since the Buddha’s time have reached that bliss and release from practicing in accordance with it.

• Who is S. N. Goenka, and what course did he set up at countless meditation centers?
• What to expect at a Ten-Day Silent Goenka Retreat #vipassana
• Vipassana (bare awareness) meditation anytime anywhere, starting with the breath right here right now
• 10 days as a lay-monk | vipassana meditation | Dhamma Khetta, Hyderabad, India (Goenka course, dhamma.org)
• Julia shares her first vipassana (insight) meditation retreat | Wellbeing Journeys

However, in the author’s observation, although practitioners in this age find the practice fulfilling, they do not experience the awakening moment and therefore do not see the fruition as they hope to.

• What are the challenges of an intensive insight meditation (vipassana) retreat?
• What enables a practitioner to experience bliss (piti) from meditation?
• What does the practitioner experience when the Dhamma finally appears as direct knowledge and vision?
• Vipassanā ("special seeing") Meditators’ Questions

Find out in this book, which is the first-hand experience of a yogi ("practitioner") who went through the trials and tribulations of a vipassana ("insight") meditation retreat at a forest monastery to see for himself the ultimate truths of

1. non-self (that all phenomena are impersonal),
2. disappointment (that all phenomena are unsatisfactory and unable to fulfill),
3. impermanence (that all phenomena are constantly hurtling toward destruction).

Directly knowing-and-seeing these Three Universal Truths produces a life-changing experience.

• NOTE: Not all vipassana meditation retreats are affiliated with Indian S. N. Goenka (dhamma.org). Burmese monk U Ba Khin's star student and businessman just popularized it worldwide with a free, volunteer-based, 10-day structure.

You can do "mindfulness" wrong? - Yes.

WISDOM QUARTERLY COMMENTARY

There are dangers in this Wheel?

The Buddha in the usual list we call the Noble (Ennobling = Enlightening) Eightfold Path called one of those factors samma-sati not sati. What's the difference? One might think one is being mindful, but is it what the Buddha or the noble ones call "right" mindfulness? (If there's a right, that implies there's a wrong way to go about it or fool oneself that one is doing it at all). If "mindfulness" only meant awareness, then I'm being "aware" (conscious) right now, right? Yes! Am I being mindful? Probably not. There's a difference, a big difference. Retreat leaders and personal teachers should talk about it more and stop taking it for granted that one will just figure it out or that it is so patently obvious that it needs no defining or delimiting. It does, at least for over-thinkers. Sure, there are some people who will just take to it like guppies or ducklets to water. (They've likely extensively and successfully practiced in past lives).

• Wrong mindfulness can be bad (Psychology Today)

We don't know what we're doing, but we got a groupon

Therefore, the most important thing before embarking on a vipassana retreat (whether it's Goenka-based or not), know that it is being defined as satipatthana. That means the fourfold setting up of mindfulness, which is explained in great detail in two sutras (Pali canon discourses or suttas). However, and this is the maddening part, almost nothing is said to define mindfulness (Buddhist sati). That is the most important thing to know, but it gets taken for granted. Or very weak definitions are offered, such as defining it as "awareness." We are aware right now, and more than 99% of us are not being mindful about it. For an extensive definition, see the academic work of Western Theravada professor-monk Ven. Analayo.

The Buddhist version of "mindfulness" called sati, as we understand it, is "bare awareness" with detachment, looking on, dispassionate watching. Sounds easy, but it is very hard because it goes against our deeply ingrained habits and traits. Usually when we are aware of anything, we taint that awareness with the Three Poisons of the heart/mind: liking, disliking, indifference (from the roots of all bad karma poorly translated as "greed, hatred, and delusion."

Three Poisons mutually supported wheel hub

Look up lobha, dosa, and moha. And what becomes apparent is that Pali and Sanskrit terms have wide valence, a range of meaning for a single word. "Greed" or lobha does not mean our idea of greediness. It means liking, preferring, welcoming, grasping, attaching, and getting clingy about pleasant phenomena. "Hatred" or dosa does not mean intense fury or anger; it means disliking, having an aversion to, fearing, avoiding, repressing... It is our customary reaction to any and everything we find unpleasant.

Then there's "delusion" or moha, the worst one, the most embedded one, the hardest one to see. It refers to all the wrong views we hold, consciously and unconsciously, distortions of reality, perversions (seeing what is unpleasant as pleasant, what is repulsive as attractive, what is transient as lasting), confusion, not knowing, not understanding, not fathoming, not knowing, not seeing. This is practically our whole existence, if we think about it, but it might be summarized as failing to notice the Three Characteristics of Existence in all things -- that they are ultimately radically impermanent, eventually disappointing (unable to ever fulfill us), and (no matter how impossible it is to conceive, believe, fathom, or accept) altogether impersonal.

I think I get it, Lisa. - Beginner's luck, Bart!

So to be mindful (to see clearly, which is to practice vipassana) is to look on, watch everything without giving in to the unconscious pull of these old habits. Just watch. Just notice. Just maintain attention. Note how when something is pleasing, greed for it arises. When something is displeasing, aversion with regard to it arises. When something is neutral, dull, confusing, hard to grasp, or boring, delusion arises, which is to say we space out, fall asleep, wander to something more interesting, even if it is a very unpleasant memory. Better than boredom. We do everything but be here now when this is the only real place there is to be. There's only now. The past is done. The future will take care of itself. But all our power is here, now. Let's attend to it. Let's finally see it for what it has always been so as to be liberated by the truth. The truth will set us free. What truth? The Truth, sometimes summarized as the Four Noble (Ennobling = Enlightening) Truths, the ultimate (paramattha) Truth, the true nature of existence (personally penetrating the Three Marks of Existence already mentioned). Need a list? There are the 37 Requisites of Enlightenment (the bodhipakkhiyādhammā). That Truth sets one free here and now, immediately.

But there's something every and anyone who embarks on Buddhist meditation needs to know beyond a good grasp of the meaning of "mindfulness" (sati). And that is that one will meet Five Hindrances whenever one tries to sit still or rest the mind or walk and move about with constant attention to the here and now, which does not involve "thinking" about the here-and-now, just watching it dispassionately.

How Siddhartha reached enlightenment? Details all wrong but nice point @DroppingInPodcast

The Five Hindrances one will meet in meditation (and their antidotes)

This is stupid! It doesn't work! Buddha was wrong!

The historical Buddha taught that there are Five Hindrances (pañca nīvaraṇa, Pali pañca nīvaraṇāni), mental factors that hinder, obstruct, derail progress in meditation and ruin daily life [1].

The Theravada Buddhist tradition identifies these factors as specific obstacles to "meditation," which is defined as jhāna (eight stages of stillness, unification, samadhi, concentration, coherence, superconsciousness) in practice.

Contemporary insight meditation teachers identify the Five Hindrances as obstacles to mindfulness meditation and obstacles to samma-samadhi ("right concentration," though "concentration" is problematic because we have many assumptions about what that means). "Stillness" is better, when the heart/mind has settled out, is silent, lucid, observant, directly knowing-and-seeing. But concentration is sometimes useful because ekaggata (singlepointedness or one-pointedness) is a factor of jhana.

The Five Hindrance are part of two types of obstructions (Sanskrit āvaraṇa, i.e., obstacles to insight, realization, awakening, buddhahood), afflictive obstructions (Sanskrit kleśā-avaraṇa, which include the Five Hindrances) and cognitive obstructions (jñeyā-avaraṇa, which bodhisattvas are trying to uproot) [2].

The classic list of Five Hindrances is [3, 4, 5, 6]

1. craving, desire, lust (kāmacchanda): seeking pleasure through the five senses of sight, sound, smell, taste, and tactile sensation
2. aversion, ill-will, annoyance, anger (vyāpāda, byāpāda): feelings of hostility, resentment, hate, bitterness
3. sloth-and-torpor (thīna-middha): mental-and-bodily lassitude, laziness, weakness, lack of energy to strive, half-hearted action with little or no effort, attention, concentration
4. restlessness-and-worry (uddhacca-kukkucca): the inability to allow the mind/heart to calm down, relax, become tranquil (passaddhi), serene, unflappable, steady, restful, undistracted, attentive, and focused, diligent, vigilant, energetic
5. Skeptical doubt (vicikiccha): lack of confidence, conviction, faith, trust that one has understood the instructions, the path, or one's abilities to successfully proceed. More

The antidotes are called the Five Factors of Absorptions, the jhana-anga (limbs or factors). By the way, right mindfulness immediately dispels delusion instantaneously.

• 10 days of silence, self-reflection, and inner peace at the Dhamma Laddha Vipassana Meditation Centre in Leh, Ladakh, Buddhist India, Himalayas, near Tibet. #Vipassana
• Five-day Vipassana Meditation Retreat in Umbria, Italy
• 55 years of Dhamma - First Vipassana Retreat - Dhamma Arunachala (3/7/24-13/7/24)
• Meditation Center in India #Dhamma Giri Vipassana Meditation Center, Igatpuri

• Vipassana: How Buddhist meditation helped me heal from trauma and loss
• Insight meditation in India | Dhamma Sota Vipassana Center in Delhi, India
• I cried intensely during my last sit at a 10-day Silent Vipassana Retreat
• 💵💰💴But how much does this experience COST? They are all FREE 10-day courses. What you need to know #free #dana #bydonation

Bring your beloved truck to the retreat

Or psycho girlfriend might try something crazy like (pushing it off cliff to convert to ad campaign)

• Dhammaloka Viriya (diary); Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson (commentary), Ashley Wells (editor) and Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation) selection of video shorts, Wisdom Quarterly

CIA Operative Gloria Steinem dies at 92

We need a women's movement, not a CIA op - When The System says it "frees" us

(AniDom/Family Guy) Mrs. Lois Griffin (born (Jewish Lois Patrice Pewterschmidt) discovers the art of self-pleasure and starts dating neighbor Mrs. Bonnie Swanson (Wheelchair Joe's wife), a woman who understands her the way CIA Liberator Gloria Steinem taught. Lesbianism or a political statement on the patriarchy and its privations?

George Carlin on CIA, U.S. government, media - Lois was bullied by girls in school

• Gloria Steinem defended her long history with CIA, which funded Ms. Magazine, but admitted it in memoir
• Gloria Steinem was funded by the CIA as an agent of cultural change. #feminism #history

Gloria Steinem, the CIA, and the plot to destroy the Dem Party and family

Jewish operative, asset, and possible CIA Agent Gloria Steinem was one of the CIA’s biggest internal recruiters

(Dead Kennedys) "I am the Owl" about CIA/FBI spies like Gloria Steinem and other intel assets

Owl/spy employed by CIA for at least 4 years - Female career comics against feminism?

• Gloria Steinem ran a CIA cutout, recruited students, and many other secret operations, then tried to deny it, then confessed in her memoir
• Steinem and the "liberal, nonviolent, honorable" CIA 🙄

• Feminist icon and activist Gloria Steinem dies at 92 (NPR)
• Charlie Kirk was starting to wake up and notice Zionism, Bibi's IDF genocide in Israel, as he explains to Patrick, so had to be eliminated. Right, CIA? 😳

How can Americans bad mouth our super heroine and CIA feminist icon?

LSNTV (YouTube), Sept. 4, 2026; edited by Wisdom Quarterly

Member of CIA and Illuminati?

Gloria Steinem, the iconic feminist, women's rights, and abortion-rights activist, worked for the CIA from 1958 to 1962, which would seem to make her an "agent."

The Independent Research Service, largely financed by the CIA, is how they got money and instructions/directions/orders to her.

She has defended the CIA as not the murderous, amoral, Orwellian intel Company we all know but as "liberal, nonviolent, and honorable."

Dave Chappelle: one LGBT Car, many movements - US🇺🇲 ranking Top 2 sexist jokes ☠️

The CIA runs the world? - It tries to

The question is unavoidable: how does her later role as a leader of the ever-popular sexual revolution and abortion-rights movement fit with the Agency's Cold War mission?

John-Henry Westen traces CIA Asset Gloria Steinem's personal and political history, attempts to murder her fetus, her successful 1957 abortion, her involvement with the radical feminist group Redstockings, and her eventual CIA-staged emergence as a prominent advocate for women's liberation.

The argument connects the CIA's opposition to Soviet communism with an eagerness to promote social changes that strengthened American capitalism which necessitated weakening traditional family structures.

Thank Goddess for American feminism and the women's movement

(Bernard) Why it sucks to be a rented wife (in Song Dynasty China)

CIA is the Secret Police for capitalism/Zionism

A list of alleged communist objectives -- weakening the traditional American family, promoting sexual permissiveness, promoting abortion, expanding divorce, influencing education and media, undermining oldtimey traditional morality -- resembles developments associated with Gloria Steinem's activism.

Steinem's CIA-backed influence on the abortion debate is enormous: she promoted the Orwellian euphemism "reproductive freedom," co-founded feminist organizations and the CIA's Ms. magazine, and advocated for abortions for decades.

The connection raises questions that American culture has refused to ask: Were the social revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s organic, or were they engineered by the CIA?

The answer may be more disturbing than the culture is willing to admit. The question is whether anyone will ask it.

Ana Kasparian to Piers Morgan 🔥 #Zionism - Michael Knowles vs. feminist morality/delusion

Grooming AOC to undermine us?

‘The tide is coming’: Fiery AOC sends defiant message, unloads on Trump

AOC? Rodgers connects American Uniparty dots