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Free Buddhist Meditation Retreat – Vipassana

If you ever wondered and wanted to do a meditation, but found that it costs a lot of money to learn the benefits of meditation?

Then read the information below about a FREE Buddhist Meditation that is available all over the world and one in Merritt, BC, Canada. I have a first hand experience in Vipassana meditation (insight meditation) as taught by S.N. Goenka. I have done 4 10 day meditation retreats and had an honor to volunteer as a cook on a 10 day course.

It is FREE and based on donation that is given from the depths of your heart. Dana – a donation is accepted from students at the end of the meditation to provide others to experience this meditation as well. You can read more about the schedules (runs every 10 days in Merritt, BC), the code of conduct, etc on their website at Vipassana Meditation Centre of BC.

Today, I would like to take this opportunity to provide my personal experience and why I think that is a great opportunity on your spiritual path.

I was looking for a meditation course that is both affordable and focused on ‘my’ experience and no dogma, no cult and no gurus. I simply wanted to learn the meditation technique and have the opportunity to do it. I found it in Vipassana Center in Ontario.

My first 10 day Vipassana meditation retreat was 7 years ago. Vipassana meditation helped me to become more peaceful and to find my path and later to change my whole life style from a Corporate Senior manager to a person who lives his life as simply as possible and spends more time being mindful and helpful to others.

Vipassana mediation is insight meditation and it allows you to be a neutral observer and understand complex universal truths using your own body as a scientific lab. You accept only what you have experienced. The first 3 days focuses on training your mind to be still (Anapana – one pointed meditation). The remaining 7 days are Vipassana mediation (insight meditation).

During the 7 days – you have an opportunity to observe all emotional and mental phenomena and subsequently mindfully “let it go.” The latter phase became a popular phrase by many teachers, but many people understood this as an ‘intellectual concept.” It is easier said than done. Vipassana meditation allows letting go by doing it ‘experientially.’ You walk the talk and truly let go. Actually, you do not let go – you simply ‘observe’ thoughts and feelings, which as all phenomena ‘rises and passes away’ (anicca – impermanence).

Everybody’s experience will be different after the 10 day meditation retreat, but many would have experienced deep peacefulness, equanimity and glance of awakened state.
Until you experience the 10 day meditation retreat, which I call lovingly call, a Buddhist meditation boot camp, the concept of ‘letting go’ will remain simply a concept.

Vipassana meditation taught to over 100,000 of people all over the world and system has become so efficient to anticipate all the challenges for mediators. Qualified assistant teachers (ATs) are there to support and to help guiding you.

What makes Vipassana meditation the best for me is that it is not a cult or a particular Buddhist school. Rather it is a meditation technique based on Buddhist principles. It focuses on helping you to find the answers within using Vipassana meditation. It is not contemplation or guided visualization, but simple observing breathing and all rising and passing things as pertaining to your mind and body.

For 9 days you would take a vow of silence to help you go insight and Assistant Teachers have 1×1 times to answer ALL questions regarding meditation techniques. They will not answer any philosophical questions since it is not a focus of Vipassana meditation.

All vegetarian food from different cuisines is served by volunteers who are former students. They prepare each food with loving-kindness and thus make it tastier during your stay at Merritt, BC Meditation Center. I was a volunteer cook there too.

I found Sylvia Boorstein summarizes nicely what I experienced during my 10 day meditation retreat.

“Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the present experience.
It isn’t more complicated that that.
It is opening to or receiving the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant, just as it is,
without either clinging to it or rejecting it. “

So, check out their website to get more details about the schedule, what to expect, etc and start your path today towards liberation – ‘to see things as they are – nothing more or nothing less.” Buddha said that “Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without”.

You are the one who will discover peace within you and no teachers or gurus will bestow this upon you and no quick workshops will illuminate and make you enlightened. There seems to be no quick shortcuts towards liberation.

Vipassana meditation is one such path that is based on full experiential immersion and to understand ‘power of now’ as described by Eckhart Tolle.
If you have done a 10 day meditation, very good for you and I hope you have gotten most benefit.

I will leave with you another saying by a Tibetan monk – Choguyam Trunpa:

“Anything that is created must sooner or later die.
Enlightenment is permanent because we have not produced it; we have merely discovered it.”

I hope you will have discovered a glance of enlightenment and you are on the path.
I conclude with loving-kindness mantra I use during my transformational massage and healing and while I walk on the streets of Vancouver.

“May you be happy, content and fulfilled
May you be healed and whole.
May you have whatever you want and need.
May you be protected from harm and free of fear.
May you be awakened, liberated and free.
May be peace on earth and throughout the entire universe (Lama Surya Das)”

With loving-kindness,
Spencer Isaac, a.k.a a monk at heart
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Massage Therapist in West End, Vancouver, BC

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