My First 10-Day Vipassana: A Date With Truth

[ZenSwift]

If you care about developing yourself to any degree, you would be so stoned not to consider seriously, a 10-day Vipassana for yourself. 

 

      I cannot believe I have been sleeping on Vipassana for so long. I can't believe how long it took me to really open my mind to Vipassana. I was so addicted to stimulation that I could not even see the value of Vipassana. It took years of personal development work to consider Vipassana. The amount of understanding of the mind that you get is irreplaceable with any other experience. I have a significantly deeper understanding of why I distract myself so much, and how happiness works. I also received a significant degree of purification of my mind. Mastery of mind is a real value of mine, and this was a very real way to put some points into that basket. The amount of happiness and purification of mind that comes along with it, and the insights to the direct truth of reality, direct experience, sitting with truth, that is something that you cannot buy. It's one of those things in life where you're not gonna believe how you lived without it for so long.

 

Date Attended: June 24 – July 5, 2026. Even though it is a 10 Day Vipassana, it is a 12-day commitment. 

 

10-Day Vipassana Report

Before arrival at the vipassana center, I had a good amount of fear come up in my body, the same type of fear that would come up before taking a psychedelic. Usually this fear is an indicator that some part of me was going to die, or I was about to partake in something that was emotionally difficult that was going to grow me.

 

The Timetable

• 4:00 a.m. -  Morning wake-up bell
• 4:30–6:30 a.m. - Meditate in the hall or in your room
• 6:30–8:00 a.m. - Breakfast break
• 8:00–9:00 a.m. - Group meditation in the hall
• 9:00–11:00 a.m. - Meditate in the hall or in your room according to the teacher’s instructions
• 11:00 a.m.–12:00 noon - Lunch break
• 12:00–1:00 p.m. - Rest and interviews with the teacher
• 1:00–2:30 p.m. - Meditate in the hall or in your room
• 2:30–3:30 p.m. - Group meditation in the hall
• 3:30–5:00 p.m. - Meditate in the hall or in your room according to the teacher’s instructions
• 5:00–6:00 p.m. - Tea break
• 6:00–7:00 p.m. -  Group meditation in the hall
• 7:00–8:15 p.m. - Teacher’s discourse in the hall
• 8:15–9:00 p.m. - Group meditation in the hall
• 9:00–9:30 p.m. -  Question time in the hall
• 9:30 p.m. -  Retire to your room; lights out

 

Like for many people, the first day was very difficult. It was very long, very boring, consisting of a lot of surrender to the eternity of meditation. I meditated for probably roughly 9-10 hours that day. I did not keep that pace, I ended up prioritizing sleep because drowsy meditation is miserable to do, and also ineffective. 

 

By the fourth day, I found myself into a sleep schedule where I would skip the first two hours of meditation to give my body more sleep, I would lay down after breakfast, and I would lay down after lunch, and try to sleep for an hour. As the days went on, I needed less naps in the afternoon. Some days I would go to my room to meditate, I would be too sleepy, I would lie down for a bit, then get back up to meditate, going back and forth like this. On day four, they encourage you to perform strong determination sits. I was actually quite pleased to have heard that. You don’t get taught the Vipassana technique until day 4. The first 3 days were just training your concentration. 

 

I meditated an average of 7.5 hours a day. I tracked it with a stopwatch throughout the day. Tracking with a stopwatch kept me motivated to meditate more.

 

In my experience, the first 3 hours of meditation in the day are tricky, the rest are much easier.

 

Falling In Love With The Painting And Not The Person. 

There was a story shared where there was a painter that fell in love with a portrait that he painted. And this man was deemed to be mad. But that is exactly what we do every day. That story of falling in love with a painting that you painted is exactly what you are doing with other people. You have created a painting of other people in your mind of who you think they are and who they “should” be. We will fall in love with an image of who we want someone to be, rather than seeing it as it is. Your parents raised you, and will likely always see you for the image that they hold in their mind's eye, while doing very little to update that story. The friends that you've had for 5-10+ years, you likely hold an image of them in your mind that you might need to update. This idea teaches me to sit with presence a lot more, and wipe the slate clean of who I think people are. Stop making assumptions of who people are and stop making assumptions of who you need people to be for you. The more intimate the relationship, the more your bias creeps in and the more you will likely fall in love with the painting of the person in your mind rather than the true nature of the person itself. To really love the true nature of someone is a very deep form of love that is very rare to see. 

 

Furthermore, our bias has us falling in love with the picture of how we want things to go in reality rather than simply opening our mind to what is actually going on. This goes right down to ontology, the belief systems that you have, the sensemaking systems that you have are water droplets distorting the image on your lens of reality. 

 

Everything is Impermanent

The teaching of vipassana is the teaching of impermanence. Everything you see, every state of consciousness you have, will change. The unpleasant survival situations you find yourself in will change, people that are alive around you will change. And people's personalities and identities are always changing. Your loved ones around you being alive will change, you will likely outlive your mother, your mother being alive will change. 

 

Whatever good thing that is happening in your life will also change. Counter-intuitively, acknowledging that the highs will change and letting go of needing it to persist will allow you to not feel as low when it does change. Additionally, the low points in life will burden you less as you understand the truth of impermanence.

 

Eventually my mother being alive will change. Just like how my dog being alive has changed. He was euthanized in June 2026. Furthermore, who my mom is today has changed. I need to reintroduce myself to what my mom actually is. I have this image built up in my mind across the lifetime of the 26 years of being raised by my mother. And I have this image of who my mom was when she was 40 years old. That was 20 years ago.

 

I need to update this image I have of her and meet her for the very first time again in a way. Same with my father and my friends. People change all the time, and often we are holding an image of who they once were in our minds, even if it has already been a decade. 

 

This will help me renew my understanding of who all these people are in actuality today. To see things clearly. To understand who people are as it is, not as I want them to be. 

 

The core of Vipassana is to see reality as it is, without manipulation, and without any projection of how you want it to be. 

 

Sensations in the Body

All of your motivations and mind arise out of craving and aversion for sensations in the body. Craving for something is rooted in suffering, Having an aversion to something is also rooted in suffering. 

 

4 Attributes of the Mind - (Relative to the Goenka tradition)

• Consciousness - - Existence
• Perception - Bias - Ego
• Sensation - Felt in the Body - Craving & Aversion
• Reaction - How we are reacting to felt sensations in the body. 

 

Vipassana meditation in its essence is deconditioning the mind to stop reacting based on sensations in the body. The metaphor used for deconditioning the mind was the imagery of a thick line being carved into stone. When you have a situation happen, there is a hard-carved pattern of reaction to it. As you meditate more, you decondition the mind more and more, and eventually it starts to look like a line drawn in the sand. And eventually it will look like drawing a line on water, where the impacts dissipate immediately. Very much along the lines of training your brain to be a superconductor of emotions and experience, and not being at the mercy of them. 

 

Equanimity 

Maintaining equanimity of mind is defined as not wanting the good sensations to persist and not wanting the bad sensations to go away.

 

The Instruction

The Instruction primarily consisted of watching these recorded lectures of S.N. Goenka. Which was at 7pm. The teacher, S.N. Goenka has definitely liberated his mind significantly. That much is very believable. I appreciate the teachings, the wisdom, and the storytelling. 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPJVlVRVmhc4Z01fD57jbzycm9I6W054x

 

In addition, there was audio instruction at the beginning of each collective sit. The instructions were simple reminders to focus on what was taught, with a few words of affirmation to “work diligently, patiently and persistently, patiently and persistently,” etc. Which was appreciated.  

 

The only thing that I would modify from the experience is to take out the singing that is not in English. After some point, each collective sit would start with an audio of him singing in a different language, and then the sit would end with him singing again as well. This was not useful at all for me and was an unwelcome distraction from the work. Simply wasted time that I could have used towards meditation. The only useful cue was the mantra of “Anicca” (impermanence). Why the hell force the students to listen to sounds that make no sense? This is unintelligent. 

 

All of the gaps in my understanding about the technique were answered during the 9pm question slot by the teacher. Later on, the other participants in the course thanked me for having such illuminating questions about the technique, so that was a little feather in my cap. 

 

Metta Bhavana (Loving-Kindness Meditation)

Towards the end of the course, at the end of the Vipassana sitting, S.N. Goenka leads a practice of generating a state of consciousness of loving-kindness. As the mind is purified of craving and aversion, the mind has greater access to love & intelligence.

Love and compassion are said to flow naturally once you purify the mind. When you train your mind to stop reacting to the vicissitudes of life with craving and aversion, you are filled with more and more love and compassion, and this manifests naturally, and these are things that you do not have to force.

• The technique is to sit for a few minutes and intentionally direct positive thoughts of love, compassion, peace, and goodwill towards all beings. With the goal to share the peace and harmony you just developed during your vipassana meditation practice. 

I wish they went into a little bit more detail into this technique. It felt like a quick tag-on at the end. To generate love and to feel love for all beings and to wish peace and happiness amongst all beings. “May all beings be peaceful and happy” was a perfect mantra. When you sit for an hour in meditation, this state of consciousness becomes easier to achieve.

 

I deeply appreciated S.N. Goenka's storytelling ability. 

• There's a lot of deep stories from Buddhism that I must memorize myself, as I want to utilize these storytelling practices in my own practice, in my own public speaking. Such deep wisdom, and such beautiful storytelling ability from Goenka, using the skill of giving dialogue, reenacting the story. So entertaining, so funny. I now understand so much the value of storytelling, telling a story and telling some lessons, telling another story, telling some lessons. It is so beautiful. I am enamored when a teacher is so masterful, so calm, and so precise with words.  It is a skill that I want to devote myself to, it's a quality I want to devote myself to develop within myself.. 

 

What does Devotion mean?

S.N. Goenka describes devotion as being inspired by the qualities that one exhibits, and then being motivated to develop those very qualities within yourself. 

So in that way, I find myself devoting myself to Leo; to devote myself to the qualities that Leo demonstrates, such as taking epistemology seriously, living a contemplative lifestyle, taking awakening seriously, taking self-deception seriously, etc. I feel in a similar way of devoting myself to Wayne Dyer; letting go and being with the flow of life, choosing to reframe reality into positive perspectives, trusting that the obstacle is the way, embodying Taoist attitudes towards life, etc.  

 

Buddha’s Last moments

The story of Buddha’s devotion to Dhamma (the law of nature, the absolute truth, impermanence, etc.), right to his last breath, was very inspiring for me. The idea of selfless service, despite the discomfort, serving people to the end. https://youtu.be/u4twJT1RfiM?t=2183 ( Timestamp 36:23 - 39:26)

 

 

The Story of Gifts of Anger

Timestamp 47:00 Story of a Visitor bringing you a gift of anger

https://youtu.be/Us5Iq302eNU?t=2820

Cravings for Sex

      One thing that constantly came up again and again and again was the theme of sex. So much fantasy of sex was pummeling my mind, distracting my mind from my practice. I would get lost in one fantasy after another. I was so curious why so much of this was coming up? Why was this coming up? I start combing through my memories across my life and I see how much in my life I have been denied opportunities for sex, and ultimately, was denied from that man-to-woman connection. Yet the cravings for this remained so deep. How much I wanted a girlfriend for a long time for over 15 years and not having that. I look at so many decisions I have made in my life and I realize they would have been different if I had a good relationship with a woman. To this day I have not had a proper girlfriend relationship, and I grieved that. I never really acknowledged that for myself. It started making more sense why getting rejection is so painful now, like I’ve trained my mind to feel pain from such an experience. There would be so much aversion to this that I would check out of dating altogether. I believe that doing pickup for a number of months, going out every week a couple nights a week, may have unintentionally created deep impressions in my mind to have an even deeper fear of talking to women. During that time, the fear of rejections was getting stronger, not weaker. What I really should have been doing was practicing vipassana, letting those reactions become weaker and weaker, not allowing them to get stronger and stronger. 

I believe Vipassana must be practiced parallel to a practice that is emotionally difficult for you, such as pickup. Sitting for an hour in strong determination really sorts out a lot of stuff quickly. Meditating in this way for an hour will be able to process emotions that 10 hours of YouTube distraction could never do.

 

Short-Circuiting Addiction

I believe a Vipassana practice can short-circuit a lot of addictions. I wasn't quite aware of just how many gross feelings I am dealing with in my body on a day to day basis. Throughout my entire life, I have unconsciously reacted to these sensations in my body by distracting myself from it; whether it was with some form of media addiction or pornography, I would distract myself endlessly from these feelings that I had in my body. It now made so much sense how all of my addictive behaviours were just distracting my mind from fully feeling the present moment. 

I am in a place in my life where I have an attitude of destroying all of my addictions to stimulation entirely. I don't want to be addicted to any form of stimulation that's not going to ultimately serve me. I want to perform exclusively healthy activities, such as reading, writing, exercise, and socialization with people. No more endless YouTube binges or Instagram Scrolls. I am so unbelievably conscious of the hollow nature of these distractions, yet I have found myself to forget that and I have found myself getting fooled into these addictions to stimulation again and again.

 

Phone Shut Off At Night

One thing that I learned was that I am far healthier when I turn my phone off in the evening, especially when it comes time to go to bed. This is something that I couldn't do in practice before this Vipassana. Now, being forced to learn how to go to bed without my phone, I was forced to face sleep without distractions. Historically, I have been too scared to sleep without a phone distraction. I also realized that I actually perform most of my emotional processing during the evening. This emotional processing is at emotionally uncomfortable and at times scary, which is why I reached for phone distractions so often. I also noticed that whenever I'm tired, I'm not motivated to do anything but look at my phone. To this day, I'm still working to figure out how to have a healthy relationship with my phone and internet use, watching YouTube videos and stuff like that. I noticed that when I am in an unorganized environment, this is my biggest contributor to disorder in my habits and my life. My phone usage for distraction has become a clear barometer for me in recognizing when I am not saying yes to the challenges in life. Creating a 9PM Phone off rule will be a life changing thing for me, if I chose to consistently follow through with it.

 

Meal Times Are Best For Sleep

Fasting before bed. Last meal at 5pm is an intelligent habit that I would like to adopt because it becomes one less set of tasks that I have to worry about if I do not have to feed myself in the evening. One additional large contributor to a poor sleep schedule is waiting till the end of the day to eat. Also putting stress on the digestive system disrupts sleep, and makes you sleep at a lower quality.

 

A Vipassana Retreat is Supercharged when You’ve been doing Leo’s Work

Funny enough one of the biggest things that motivated me to attend a Vipassana Retreat was Leo just directly saying that the most powerful techniques to raise your Consciousness are 1) Hardcore meditation Retreats, 2) Psychedelics, and 3) A Consistent Kriya Yoga Practice. I would not have attended a Vipassana Retreat if it wasn’t for Leo’s work. I recently euthanized my dog in June 2026, and this experience reminded me that the only game in town is raising your consciousness. (I think Leo needs to remind people of this a lot more.) Everything around you will change, but what will stay consistent and build across the lifetime is the raising of your consciousness and the development of your mind.

 

Strong Determination Sitting

Even though I dropped my meditation practice a number of years ago, I still remember having experience doing strong determination sitting, thanks to Leo's lectures and teachings. 

I was pleasantly surprised to have such a depth of understanding of the teachings of S.N. Goenka. I'm pretty sure that it was only possible for me to appreciate it at that depth because I have been studying Leo’s work for so long. Adding all my experience with psychedelics, and even the two years where I did 20 minutes of meditation every day. I would not have even tried meditation if it wasn’t for Leo convincing me of the benefits. 

 

If I Only Started Sooner…

If I was to go back in time, and attend a meditation retreat way back in 2019, when I was first getting into self-improvement, and kept up going to 2 Vipassana’s a year and maintained a consistent meditation practice, I would be a completely different human today. Let me not make that same mistake.

If I had taken a practice like vipassana meditation so seriously, or kriya yoga so seriously, to still the mind, to process the emotions, to rid the mind of impurities, if I had done this a decade ago, how different I would be if I had kept that practice up for the last ten years. Let me not make the same mistake. I will plant that tree now, nurture that seed now, such that by the time I am age 36, I will have eradicated so much of the impurities of my mind, so much of the craving and aversion of my mind, such that I am so equanimous with reality. I realize that maintaining equanimity is going to help me awaken so much, so deeply.

 

The Greatest Things to Pursue in Life

• Mastery of your mind. (This is paramount.)
• Raising your consciousness. (The only game in town in life is raising your consciousness. )
• Mastering a skill. (This will help you master survival, and give you deep satisfaction.)
• Mastering your sensemaking process. (Otherwise you will be self-deceived.)
• Cultivating a profound connection with Truth.

These appear to be the greatest things to pursue in life, alongside the core dish of awakening to God, connecting to realizing the beauty of reality, the beauty of God. Devoting yourself to Truth, Mastering your mind, raising your consciousness, developing yourself, developing valuable skills, awakening to God, is there anything else more valuable than these?

 

Raising the Bar for Meditation

Performing a 10-day Vipassana raises the bar for your meditation ability. I am no longer afraid of sitting for an hour in meditation. When you’re pushed to meditate all day every day for 10 days, all of a sudden 1-2 hours a day doesn’t seem to be so bad. Also, doing nothing but meditation, really allows you to give the technique full justice. 

On Day 11, I noticed myself being filled with sadness and depression. I've learned that I've been sad and depressed for a long time, very long time. And it has impacted me much more than I have realized, which is also why I must have a strong meditative practice. I don't want to be unhappy anymore. It does help a lot to remind myself of the beauty of Anicca, the beauty of the impermanence of reality. Everything will change, reminding myself that this sadness will change.

I recognize so much of the presence that I want in my life is really just the presence of calm, loving, meditative people. I want to cultivate a loving presence in the same manner as Wayne Dyer. Wayne Dyer meditated for 40 minutes in the morning and 40 minutes in the evening. It makes sense to copy this devotion to a meditative practice. I didn’t understand why a practice had such importance, now I understand at a greater depth. S.N. Goenka recommends one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening. And the argument is that you will have so much energy from that practice, it will make you even more disciplined, you'll have more energy for work, and you will let go of so much energy that does not serve you. It will free up energy within you to do more. People wrote letters to S.N. Goenka, detailing the results of having a daily meditative practice after Vipassana. Through direct experience, I will solidify the understanding of having such a strong practice in my life. I also want to join communities to carve out a group of friends to help encourage a devoted meditation practice. I think this would be a very healthy thing for me.

There is so much power in being able to sit and still the mind, and to operate from that place, and to operate from such a deep place of love. It's something that I just want so much. I want to be able to operate from that place of love like Wayne Dyer appeared to show in his talks and interviews.

 

Segregation of Males & Females

I am so glad for the segregation of men and women during the Vipassana. The last thing you need during a Vipassana is having some girl's beautiful body and juicy ass in your field of vision; distracting you from your meditation practice. (Side note: Women will never understand how distracting a beautiful body is to a testosterone-filled man. Especially given that men are easily aroused visually, and women not being aroused to nearly the same degree.) 

 

No Talking, No Eye Contact

A vipassana is a PhD in minding your own business. I didn't even know what people's faces looked like until day 10 when you break the vow of silence. 

Early on, I realized the wisdom of the no interaction rules of the Vipassana retreat; no talking, no eye contact, no touching. If there was, we would straight up kill each other. We are all facing our own demons and discomforts directly, making us irritable and potentially hostile if the wrong situation sets the fuse. No talking, no eye contact, no gesturing, this cuts down so many potential situations where people can create conflict. Because everybody is facing their demons, and all this stuff is gonna be projected on you, and you're gonna project all your stuff onto other people. I didn't even know what people's faces looked like until day ten, when the vow of silence was broken.

Funny enough, I spoke every day. I spoke at the end of the day to ask questions to the main teacher, and I was in constant verbal contact with the male assistant teacher throughout the entire 10-days for logistical concerns and whatnot.

 

 

Change, Change, Change

The most important lesson from the journey is that everything changes. To have samadhi with this truth produces great liberation.

 

Control Your Media Diet, Reduce What BS You’re Exposed To

Through observing the mind, I realized that we give our mind so many pseudo-experiences  through scrolling one video after another on the internet. And filling our mind with all these contexts and stories is scrambling your mind. This endless distraction is messing with your peace of mind. This endless distraction is seducing you away from pursuing deeply fulfilling endeavors. It has become even more abundantly clear to me just how important it is to be so mindful of your media diet. And feed your mind with positive grist for the mill. Studying high quality sources, high quality books, let deep ideas of epistemology swirl in your mind, not some bullshit from the internet. 

 I only want things swirling in my mind that are of importance, like epistemology, like some sort of philosophy I'm trying to crunch my mind on, or some sort of truth of reality I'm trying to penetrate into. That is what I want my mind swirling with. Not some bullshit that's gonna get me nowhere. This is something I must devote myself to, a truth I must really honor, to not fill my mind with garbage, and to only fill my mind with juicy content that will deepen my understanding of reality. I have been reminded the importance of living the life of a scholar. I want to connect more with deep, disciplined learning projects.

 

Boredom is a Sensation

One beautiful insight that I got from direct experience is that boredom is simply a sensation. 

• Not wanting to do something is simply a sensation. Laziness comes from sensation. 
• Aversion is a sensation. Craving is a sensation. 

When you can recognize that these are simply sensations, you can break the cycle of being completely subject to them, being completely victim to them. Once the cycle of being dependent on your sensations is broken, that is when true mastery of the mind can be achieved, and true mastery of oneself. That is when true discipline can be achieved; making deep decisions, and being able to follow through and hold yourself to it becomes more accessible. This is the core of discipline. As my value of focus, concentration, and discipline increases, I have less and less of an interest to pollute my mind with stimulation that will ultimately dilute my concentration ability. 

 

We Only Admire Ourselves

From the lectures of S.N. Goenka, there was a story of the realization that we don’t love others, but we love others for the qualities that we admire ourselves and the qualities that we want within ourselves. Whether it is the physical attributes, what someone owns, how funny they are, or what experiences they have. So much of what we love about others is simply a reflection of what we want ourselves.

 

Stop Pummeling People with Truth, Nobody is Interested in Truth
One of the traps I have fallen into is unconsciously believing that I should always tell the full truth. I value hard truths, and not wasting time with falsehood that feels good. However, I also need to understand each person’s readiness for the truth. Everyone can only receive truth at the level they are currently prepared for. Sometimes a deeper truth may be available, but sharing it prematurely could feel like a blow to the person and create more harm than understanding. I realize that it is not actually truthful or wise to communicate everything I see. If saying something pulls a person out of harmony, they’re not going to like me or want to be my friend. The truth I need to accept is that pointing out someone’s self-deception is more often than not, a fool’s errand. Unless that person really wants the truth, they will not want to hear anything that doesn’t make them feel good. This has been very hard for me to accept, and has also has created a further degree of isolation between me and other people. People want fantasies, falsehood, and illusion. 

 

Only Speak from a Seed of Love

Feel the sensations  creating the motivations towards what you want to say to people. You can notice that there is a difference between a seed of love and a seed of separation behind what you say. Stop speaking to people coming from sensations of craving and aversion. This is a neurotic tendency of the mind. Rather than facing the sensations within our body, we will distract ourselves from it by talking to other people, asking things of people, where ultimately the solution is to just sit with that sensation in solitude.

 

The Golden Buddha Statue

I finally understand the metaphor of the golden Buddha statue. This is the pose that you sit in to liberate your mind, to liberate yourself, and to eradicate your suffering. This is also the state when you do not move, sitting in strong determination, truly being a selfless watcher. Like God; not having aversion nor craving towards whatever pleasant or unpleasant sensory experience. You are not even manipulating the breath to distract yourself. You are facing all the sensations in the body, and you are equanimous throughout the entire meditation. Equanimous like a selfless mind.

 

Things I Noticed When Coming Back

Checking your phone IS the pulling of attention off of your body. It’s a natural behaviour to take your attention away from gross feelings in the body through distraction. 

Increased body awareness. I did not realize how important body awareness was for me in the context of socializing. There are a lot of gross sensations of aversion in my body when socializing cold-approach style. 

 

A Vipassana is Perfect for the Addicted Mind

Addictions to any stimulation and distraction are faced so directly on a vipassana. Just forcing yourself to sit and observe, this is what purifies your mind so much of these cravings and aversions. 

 

A Vipassana is Perfect for Grief

From what I understand, processing grief just requires sitting with it. I thought I grieved my dog's death sufficiently, there were more tears to shed, just a couple. He came to me in my dreams several times. When something did come up, it was processed rather quickly, which was rather surprising. 

 

My Bag Of Insights

I did not bring a journal with me, and I wish I did in retrospect, but what I ended up doing instead was I wrote down my insights using whiteboard markers and paper towels. Then I would fold it up and put it in a ziplock bag. Then I had a bag of insights lol.

 

Here are the insights from that bag of insights: 

• As impurities are pushed out, deeper awakening is possible. Each psychedelic, each meditation sit; clears out the dirt to reveal the gem of God, Oneness.
• I can notice when my body starts drifting off into sleep. It's very subtle when it switches to that "sleep mode" and you are on track to falling asleep. 
• It took me years to open my mind to see the value of a 10-day meditation retreat. To be able to see the value of something past the initial appearance of pain is where wisdom is. It was merely a process of opening the mind to get  myself to do these 10 days of meditation. 5-MeO-DMT will be the same. Just opening the mind to taking a proper dose is all there is to it. Awakening really is just a process of opening the mind. Opening the mind to contemplate deeper, opening the mind to read deep spiritual books, etc.
• I have been sexually repressed my whole life. For one reason or another, I did not get the sex that my body has been naturally craving for over a decade. I have been craving a relationship with a woman for over 15 years, and I have never had such a relationship. There was a lot of grieving of this fact. I realized that this was never really acknowledged by anybody, and I finally just gave the acknowledgement to myself. 
• Vipassana is watching reality as it is with no manipulation. 
  • Key insight: No manipulation. No manipulation of breath to distract your attention from a painful sensation. No manipulation of mind, let the mind think anything. This is the way the selfless mind of God observes Reality. Because there is a recognition that reality is perfect. One who has realized the perfection of reality doesn't need to manipulate it. Manipulation is the ego painting its image of itself on the canvas of reality.
• The Ego-mind projects itself onto reality, & loves that image only. Only loving what is a reflection of its ideals. 
• Loving reality requires selflessness. 
• Loving reality requires death. Since love and death are identical.
• Awakening requires Death. 
• My body is the number 1 priority, I have been putting off a heavy metal detox for too long. 
• CREATE VALUE: I need to deeply focus on creating value. Once I create value, advertising will be far easier. All I need is a one hit wonder of virality to advertise it significantly to create financial freedom. Similarly to how Jordan Peterson had loads of lectures for people to show up to when he first became viral online. This skyrocketed his online presence, because he had a nest egg of value from his lectures, just waiting to be discovered. 
  • I need to have online content, finished books, finished done-for-you pieces of value for people to see my work and to be able to reap the benefits from it. 
  • I need to center my life around finishing one project after another. 
• Take Practicing how to be funny dead seriously. 
  • This will pay dividends in all areas of my life. Social and personal. Really learn to appreciate this skill and take it seriously. It will get me friends, girls, business, and help my personal attitude towards reality. TRAIN THIS SKILL!
• I teach people how to run through the brick wall of their mind. 
• Guard what Enters the Mind: If I have less things to think about, then I will have a reduced burden on my mind. Scrolling, letting all sorts of stories, narratives, ideas and situations enter my mind is to choose to torture my mind with it. Only feed the mind intentional, pure ideas, pure situations, pure people, pure experiences.
• Make sure anything you speak to people is coming from a seed of love, and not a seed of malice. This will correct a lot of your speech. Oftentimes we are talking to people in order to tell people what to do, when that is not what they need to hear right now at all.
• Learn to sleep in a slightly fasted state. As this will help to create mastery in sleep. Eat at a similar schedule to the vipassana retreat where you are only eating lightly in the evening to make sure your stomach is not digesting a lot of food such that you can fall asleep more efficiently. 
• 9PM ALL SCREENS // ALL Electronics OFF > Make this a HARD RULE. This will force you to face fear and the problem of sleep. Sleep is everything, sleep is to be protected. Sleep is facing truth and mastery of mind. No longer will I distract myself with ineffective coping mechanisms. Having a hard rule like this will encourage me to process my emotions in a mature manner, rather than distracting myself endlessly. This also encourages me to fall asleep on time and wake up earlier because I am making my evenings intentionally low stimulation, and possibly even boring, where if I want the stimulation of the screen I will have to sleep tonight and get it in the next day. 
  • “Sleep is God. Sleep is Truth.” All I mean by this is that sleep is the time where the reality of your day sets in, and oftentimes this is the time that people don’t want to digest and accept what happened in their day. 
  • I have struggled with sleep my entire life, and this vipassana taught me directly how to face truth and sleep without any distractions. This may be the most valuable thing that the 10-Day Vipassana has taught me. 
• Maintain equanimity during fear experiences on a psychedelic to awaken. 
• You only love the images of “self” that you create in your mind. You hate what destroys that image. - - We will deceive ourselves to preserve this image we want to see and to hide the image we don't want to see of ourselves. This is self-deception 101. To see the truth is to see yourself regardless of how you want to see yourself. 
• “Truth Armour” - People have what I am coining as “Truth Armour.” It’s all the defense mechanisms someone has in their mind that prevents them from seeing a truth clearly. After working with several people 1 on 1 in a therapeutic/ counseling setting, I have noticed that it is a significant challenge to get people to open their mind to truths that will ultimately help them. My question now is; How do you assess whether someone is ready for a truth? I’m considering developing a system of sorts around this, which may run parallel to the developmental models of psychology: 9 Stages Of Ego Development and Spiral Dynamics. Abraham Maslow says the work of a therapist is to prepare a client for a truth. How do you know what depth of truth one is ready for?
• I am intrigued to read the books: Thought As A System by David Bohm, Zen Body Being by Peter Ralston, and books written by Wayne Dyer.
• People are deceived about their capacity for truth. - I fool myself by thinking people would resonate with this truth-seeking lifestyle. Big mistake. You have to be pursuing truthful living, sober living for a long time to really get a taste for it. 
• You have to seduce people into pursuing truth. The most powerful, liberating practices are simply unappealing to the ego. Nobody cares about Truth. 

 

 

Tips for Your First Vipassana

Important things to Bring

• A Digital Alarm Clock. - Having my own alarm clock and my own timepiece was a godsend. Being able to set alarms for yourself so you can nap for a short period of time was such a huge advantage. I also sleep better with ear plugs, but that blocks out the bells that would chime over the intercom. The alarm clock cut through that. So I could not listen to my neighbour making noise in the next room, and I can wake up on time for the mediation in the hall.
• A Copy Of The Schedule In Front Of You. - I never memorized the schedule, and having the schedule in front of me allowed me to set alarms strategically for naps. Which ultimately led to a stronger meditation practice. 
• A Digital Watch. - I bought a digital timepiece that clipped on the belt loop on my pants. Being able to track the time allowed me to wander further outside during my breaks, granting me more freedom.  It also helped me during meditation to sit for longer, being able to sneak a peek at the time on the meditation mat. Rather than adjusting for the pain in my legs, I would just look at the time and say: “Yeah I can sit with this pain for 15 more minutes.”
  • Using a stopwatch feature to track the total amount of time in the day motivated me to sit more.
• Several Pairs of Earplugs. - You will sleep better, you will meditate better.
• A Yoga Mat for your room. - Learn some basic Yoga, it will help your body when it’s feeling so stiff.
• Vitamins to Boost Your Immune System - You don't want to be distracted from being sick. Especially considering that you are in close proximity with a bunch of other people.  
  • https://www.actualized.org/insights/boost-your-immune-system-now 
• A container filled with salt to gargle with every day. Also helps with electrolytes. I brought some basic electrolyte powder, and that helped.
• Ibuprofen for the occasional headache from sitting in meditation all day. + Any other medications that you may need, such as for allergies, nausea, heartburn, diarrhea. Etc.+ Bring Creams for rashes or whatever you may run into.
• AfterBIte Cream to help with mosquito bites. 
• Bug Spray

 

Stretching

• Learn how to Stretch your Back!
• Learn The Floor Trap 3 Raise for your back (LIFESAVER) https://youtu.be/MXvTkMpx59k 
  • 2 sets of 6. 
• Learn the QL Stretch for your back. 
  • The goal is to feel the QL Muscle stretching and strengthening to come back up. 15 repetitions per side.
• Easy Version
  • 
• Deeper Stretch Version
  • 
  • Try to get right to the floor.
• Learn the Elevated Pigeon Pose. / Learn how to do The Piriformis Pushup on the floor and on your bed. Also known as the 90/90 Stretch. 
  • ATG Piriformis Pushup: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4_-XNRGOIko 
  • Elevated Pigeon. https://youtu.be/qQfaW6MberU 
• Learn The Seated Goodmorning Stretch. - Learn to do it with your hands behind your head. 
  • https://youtu.be/egyqEAhQ2QM
  • https://youtu.be/UhLHD6zxuBI
• Learn how to sit in meditation properly. https://www.actualized.org/insights/sitting-posture-for-yoga-meditation 
• Memorize the Knee Ability Zero protocol to mitigate knee pain during sits: 10 minutes of Reverse Walking, 25 Tibialis Raises, 25 FHL Calf Raises, Another 25 Tibialis Raises, 25 KOT Calf Raises, 25 Patrick Step-ups, 5 sets of 5 repetitions of ATG Split squats, 2 sets x 30reps Elephant Walks, 2 sets x 60 sec L-sit, 2 sets x 60 sec Couch Stretch.

We were not allowed to stretch directly outside the mediation hall, which I thought was a silly rule. You NEED to perform yoga to prepare the body for long meditation sits.

 

Lessons in Buddhism (with some AI help)

Define Vipassana

• > To see things clearly. To see reality directly AS IT IS. No manipulation, no projected interpretation, just seeing things as it is. 

 

Define Meditation

• Meditation here is being defined as the deliberate training of attention and awareness.
  • Samādhi means training the mind to become steady and focused.
  • Vipassana means observing experience clearly, especially bodily sensations, while practicing equanimity instead of craving or resisting.
• Meditation is practicing how to observe your mind and body with greater awareness, stability, and less automatic reaction.

 

What is Dhamma?

• The Law of Nature. Truth. Reality as it is. The truth about how the mind works, how reality works.
• An understanding that everything continually changes. This is anicca, impermanence.
• An understanding that clinging to pleasant experiences and resisting unpleasant experiences creates dukkha, suffering or dissatisfaction.
• An understanding that experiences arise according to causes and conditions, rather than being controlled by a permanent self. This is anattā, non-self.
• A way of living based on awareness, morality, and wisdom
• The practice that leads out of suffering
• Absolute Truth. The truth that can be experienced directly, rather than merely believed. 

The Three Pillars of Dhamma practice are:

1. Sīla 
2. Samādhi 
3. Paññā
    

1) Sīla (Morality or Ethical Conduct) - Sīla steadies your life. 

• Living in a way that avoids harming yourself and others. This includes Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Livelihood. Ethical conduct creates a stable foundation for meditation.
• It makes sense how Morality is really acquired through raising your consciousness.

2) Samādhi (Mental Concentration) - Samādhi steadies your mind. 

• Training the mind to become steady, focused, and calm. In the Goenka tradition, this begins with observing the breath (Ānāpāna) to sharpen awareness. A concentrated mind is capable of seeing reality more clearly. 

3) Paññā (Insight) - Paññā frees your mind. 

• Direct experiential wisdom gained through observing reality as it is. This is developed through Vipassana by observing bodily sensations with equanimity. Wisdom arises from seeing the three characteristics of existence: impermanence (anicca), unsatisfactoriness (dukkha), and non-self (anattā).

 

A Vipassana Practice is Deconditioning the Default Pattern of the Mind
The practice of Vipassana is the gradual deconditioning of the mind. Every experience gives rise to sensations in the body, and the conditioned mind habitually reacts to those sensations with craving or aversion. These reactions strengthen old patterns (saṅkhāras) and create new ones.

Through systematic observation of bodily sensations with equanimity, we train ourselves not to react automatically. Instead of feeding old conditioning, we allow it to arise and pass away naturally. Over time, deeply ingrained patterns lose their strength.

A traditional analogy is that our reactions become progressively less enduring. At first, they are like a line carved into stone, remaining for a long time. With practice, they become like a line drawn in sand, fading much more quickly. Eventually, they become like a line drawn in water, disappearing almost as soon as they arise.

As equanimity deepens, the mind develops greater mastery over its habitual patterns. Thoughts, emotions, and impulses may still arise, but they are no longer compelled by unconscious reactions to bodily sensations. Rather than being driven by conditioning, there is increasing freedom to respond with clarity, wisdom, and compassion.

 

The 4 Attributes Of The Mind

• Consciousness (>Existence, Being, ISness)
• Perception (>Bias, Ego, Separation, Distinction, Self. Telling you what is good and what is bad)
• Sensation (>Felt sensations in the body)
• Reaction (>Reactions to these sensations in the body with craving and aversion)

This is a framework commonly emphasized in the Vipassana tradition of S. N. Goenka to describe how the mind operates moment by moment. In Pali, they are:

1. Viññāṇa (Consciousness)
   • The bare awareness that something has happened.
   • It simply knows that there is a sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, or thought.
   • Example: You hear someone say your name. Consciousness registers, "A sound has occurred."
2. Saññā (Perception)
   • Recognizes and labels what was experienced.
   • It compares the experience to memory and assigns meaning.
   • Example: "That sound is my friend calling my name."
3. Vedanā (Sensation or Feeling Tone)
   • Every experience is accompanied by a bodily sensation that is pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral.
   • In Vipassana, this is considered the critical link because sensations are where conditioning becomes visible.
   • Example: You feel warmth, tightness, excitement, tension, tingling, or calm somewhere in the body.
4. Saṅkhāra (Reaction or Mental Formation)
   • The mind reacts to the sensation with craving or aversion.
   • This reaction creates new conditioning and reinforces old habits.
   • Example:
     • Pleasant sensation → "I want more."
     • Unpleasant sensation → "I want this to stop."

This sequence happens extremely quickly:

Event → Consciousness → Perception → Sensation → Reaction

For example:

• Someone criticizes you.
• Consciousness: You hear the words.
• Perception: "This person is insulting me."
• Sensation: Tightness in the chest, heat in the face.
• Reaction: Anger, defensiveness, resentment.

The purpose of Vipassana meditation is not to stop consciousness, perception, or sensations. Instead, it trains you to interrupt the automatic fourth step. By observing sensations with equanimity rather than reacting, old conditioning gradually weakens.

Over time, the chain changes from:

Event → Consciousness → Perception → Sensation → Reaction

to:

Event → Consciousness → Perception → Sensation → Equanimity

This is why so much emphasis is placed on observing bodily sensations. According to this tradition, the deepest habits of craving and aversion express themselves at the level of sensation, and freedom comes from learning to experience those sensations without automatically reacting.

 

The Five Friends (The Five Spiritual Faculties)

These are the qualities that support meditation.

1. Confidence - Trust that the practice is worth doing, without blindly believing everything.
   • Saddhā - Confidence based on experience.
2. Effort - The energy to keep practicing, especially when you do not feel like it.
   • Viriya - Persistent, balanced effort.
3. Awareness - Remembering to notice what is happening in your body and mind right now.
   • Sati - Continuous awareness of the present moment.
4. Focus - The ability to stay with one thing instead of constantly getting pulled away.
   • Samādhi - A steady, unified mind.
5. Wisdom - Understanding from experience that sensations, thoughts, and emotions arise and pass.
   • Paññā - Seeing impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and non-self directly.

These balance one another: Faith balances wisdom. Energy balances concentration. Mindfulness keeps everything in harmony.

 

The Five Enemies (The Five Hindrances)

These are the main obstacles to meditation.

1. Craving - Wanting pleasure, comfort, attention, food, entertainment, or some experience to continue.
   • Kāmacchanda - Wanting pleasant experiences.
2. Aversion - Anger, irritation, resentment, or wanting an unpleasant experience to go away.
   • Vyāpāda - Anger, resentment, irritation.
3. Dullness - Sleepiness, heaviness, laziness, or mental fog.
   • Thīna-Middha - Sleepiness, dullness, lack of energy.
4. Restlessness -  A scattered, agitated mind that keeps jumping around, worrying, or replaying things.
   • Uddhacca-Kukkucca - Agitation, anxiety, regret.
5. Doubt / Obsessive Skepticism (“Does this work? Will this work for me?”) - Constantly questioning the practice, yourself, or whether it is worth continuing.
   • Vicikicchā - Indecision and skeptical wavering that prevents practice.

Every meditator encounters these. The goal is not to fight them but to observe them with equanimity until they pass.

In plain language, the five friends are the mental qualities that help you practice, and the five enemies are the states that pull you away from clarity.

Friends: trust, effort, awareness, focus, wisdom.
Enemies: craving, resistance, dullness, restlessness, doubt.

 

The Ten Pāramīs (Ten Perfections or Noble Qualities)

The Ten Noble Qualities (The Ten Pāramīs: ten qualities developed on the path of Dhamma)

1. Dāna: Generosity - Giving time, help, attention, knowledge, or material support without selfishness.
2. Sīla: Ethical Conduct - Living in a way that avoids harming yourself and others.
3. Nekkhamma: Renunciation - Letting go of unnecessary craving, attachment, and dependence on pleasure.
4. Paññā: Wisdom -  Seeing clearly how the mind works and understanding impermanence, suffering, and non-self.
5. Viriya: Effort -  Steady energy and persistence in doing what is useful.
6. Khanti: Patience - Tolerating discomfort, delay, criticism, and difficulty without reacting blindly.
7. Sacca: Truthfulness - Being honest in speech, action, and intention.
8. Adhiṭṭhāna: Determination - Making a firm decision and staying committed to it.
9. Mettā: Loving-Kindness - Wishing well for yourself and others, without hatred.
10. Upekkhā: Equanimity - Remaining balanced when pleasant or unpleasant things happen.

In the Goenka tradition, these ten qualities are often emphasized as naturally developing through sincere meditation practice.

 

The Three Characteristics of Reality

Insight practice is aimed at directly observing these:

• Impermanence (Anicca) -  Everything changes. Sensations, thoughts, emotions, relationships, bodies, and circumstances all arise and pass away.
• Unsatisfactoriness (Dukkha) - Because everything changes, clinging to pleasant experiences or resisting unpleasant ones creates stress and suffering.
• No-Self (Anattā) - There is no permanent, independent self controlling experience. What you call you is not one fixed, independent, unchanging thing. Sensations, memory, consciousness, arise on their own, without your control. What we call “self” is an ongoing process shaped by body, memory, perception, habits, and conditions. Nothing is fixed.

Self is made up of: 

• the body
• sensations
• perceptions
• thoughts
• emotions
• memories
• habits
• intentions
• consciousness

All of these things change, and none of them is ultimately under your control. 

What you are is a process, with no permanent controller behind this process.

 

The Noble Eightfold Path 

• Right View: Learning to see reality more accurately, rather than seeing everything through craving, fear, habit, and personal stories. Right View is seeing how reality and suffering actually work, so you can stop feeding the patterns that create unnecessary suffering. 
  • > Learning to see reality without bias. Becoming conscious of truth.
• Right Intention: Choosing the direction you choose to point your mind before you think, speak or act.
  • Having the intention of letting go: Not being controlled by craving, possession, pleasure, status, or attachment. Not needing things in order to feel okay. 
  • Having the intention of goodwill. Wanting well-being for yourself and others rather than revenge, humiliation, or punishment.
  • Having the intention of non-harm. Choosing not to cause unnecessary physical, emotional, or psychological suffering. Before acting, you consider what effect your behaviour may have.
  • > To me it appears to be creating Sovereignty of mind.
  • Noticing thoughts and making a conscious decision on what thoughts to strengthen.
• Right Speech: Using words in a way that reduces harm, confusion, and unnecessary conflict.
• Right Action: Behaving in ways that reduce harm, protect trust, and keep your own mind clear.
• Right Livelihood: Participating in survival, earning money in a way that does not depend on harming, deceiving, exploiting, or corrupting other people, animals, or yourself.
• Right Effort: Using your energy wisely to shape the mind instead of letting habits run automatically.
• Right Mindfulness: Clearly remembering to observe what is happening in the present without immediately identifying with it or reacting to it. Being aware in a way that supports wisdom, ethical conduct, and freedom from craving and aversion.
• Right Concentration: Training the mind to stay steadily and clearly with one object, without being pulled around by craving, aversion, dullness, or agitation.

These are often grouped as:

• Wisdom: Right View, Right Intention
• Ethics: Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood
• Meditation: Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration

 

Closing Thoughts

• If you haven’t done a Vipassana, do it. 
• If you like personal growth, do a Vipassana.

 

“You know exactly what to do.” - David Goggins

“Stop looking for the secret, you know exactly what needs to be done. It just sucks doing it. There are no shortcuts, hacks, or time-outs in the game of life. The choice comes down to embracing 'the suck' or staying exactly where you are.” - David Goggins

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DDr5lKB1H6E

https://youtu.be/viJDjpVbcNk?t=100 (Timestamp 1:40)

https://youtu.be/-nMxwlqdl7I?t=177 (Timestamp 2:57-3:07) 

Edited 1 hour ago by ZenSwift

[Leo Gura]

Awesome work! Love to see it.

[Michal__]

Nice. They didn't let me to attend because I mentioned I am on antipsychotics haha.