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Tarzan

Vipassana or solos retreat?

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Hello.

I am considering doing a retreat this summer and am wondering whether to go for a vipassana retreat abroad or do a solo retreat at home. I am a newbie and haven't done any practice for the past 10 months for practical reasons (mandatory military service).

I did about 6 months of meditation prior to military, mostly do-nothing, mindfulness, and some 10 minutes concentration practice. I got up to 40 minutes of do-nothing a day over a couple of months and then alongside do-nothing tried mindfulness meditation that Leo described in his video. When I started doing do-nothing an hour a day it started to become really difficult for me.  Concentration practice was so-so, distractions and phasing out was common but I usually noticed myself distracted quickly and went back to the object. Concentration was mostly back-and-forth noticing myself distracted and going back to 1-pointed focus on the object and it felt like it didn't improve that much as the weeks went by.

As far as I have learned about meditation it seems that retreats 7+days can really kick up progress. Since my practice wasn't very high quality and I feel that developing better concentration skills through a retreat would benefit a lot.

What are the pros and cons of Vipassana and solo retreats? Which is better for a newbie? Would it be better to progress more smoothly rather than abrubtly go from 1-hour/day practice to 10 days constant meditation?

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I would say definitly vipassana is better especially for a newbie

Because you will have everything prepared for you and a good environement

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Yes vipassana retreat for sure if you're new, even if you're not new a group retreat is recommended.

If you know for sure that you want to do a solo retreat, that's when you do one, otherwise I'd recommend a group setting.


How to get to infinity? Divide by zero.

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