Hm. I followed a link from what I’m told is your blog to a site for finding vipassana courses, and did a bunch of reading there. Some of the details made me quirk an eyebrow, but they could have just been poor presentation, so I went looking for more information elsewhere. I found, among other things, this thread talking about some very negative experiences with that particular organization (as well as some reminders that the organization does not represent the method).
The biggest red flags which went up while I was reading about that organization were the amount of sleep (posted schedule in the application I saw allows for a max of 6.5 hours/night), lack of real engagement with teachers, and pressure not to leave the course. Again, I realize the one organization doesn’t represent the practice, although apparently they think they do:
Needless to say, as I was re-stating that I was leaving and that nothing would stop me, I was (kindly??) reminded that by leaving I would end up on the list of people who would never be allowed to sign up for a Vipassana course anywhere in the world. When I suggested that there might be other organisations than S.N. Goenka’s teaching Vipassana, I was flatly told that there were no other possibilities.
(From the same link as above.)
Clearly some of the people didn’t know what they were getting into, and yes, I realize it’s not supposed to be easy, but that’s still a whole pile of concerning things in one place. Have you attended a course run by the organization at dhamma.org? If so, where, and did you feel physically and mentally safe while there?
I didn’t come away from that thread with only negative impressions, but the negative impressions are the ones I’m looking for responses to. The nearest courses to me are still far enough that I’d need to get a ride with someone else, meaning that while there I would be unable to leave on my own. This calls for a lot of caution about what I’d be getting myself into.
It could be amazing if we organized a vipassana course for rationalists.
We’d meet at a cabin in the woods. For 10 days we would meditate for 8 hours a day, take breaks by walking in the wilderness, and cook our meals together at night. It might even be beneficial if it wasn’t entirely silent; we could discuss at night any insights we’d had that day.
Moving us one step closer to Bayesian Buddhist Conspiracy.
Seriously, any rationalist vipassana masters out there want to help make it happen?
As an on-again off-again vipassana practitioner (I managed to maintain a regular practice while I was living in Boston, but that was largely due to the fact that the CIMC [1] was on my walk to/from work), I would love to get involved in a rationalist meditation group. In my experience it is much easier for me to maintain a regular practice with a group, but simultaneously difficult to become a real member of that group as most tend to approach meditation as a religious ritual rather than a worthwhile practice in its own right with practical value. Having a group of people to not only meditate with, but actually have productive conversation about the experience of meditating with would be phenomenal.
I think the tricky part would be finding a cluster of interested people who are able to convene at the same place—especially given that they’d need both the ability to take ten days off normal life, and presumably money for the location, food, etc. (It’s pretty easy to have free time or money, but tough to have both.)
Personally, I’m interested, not at all experienced, not able to travel far from the east SF bay (barring a carpool with someone local), and can’t contribute funds, although I am willing and able to cook and do other work to help out, and it’s not too hard for me to have ten days available.
there at least used to be regular vipassana meditation sessions led by monks from Abhayagiri and hosted at the Berkeley Zen Center (I think that’s what it’s called) on MLK near the Ashby BART station. Abhayagiri is a monastery in the Thai Forest tradition led, I believe, by a former student of the late Ajahn Chah; in my experience that’s usually a pretty good indicator of a very result-oriented approach to meditation that eschews the supernatural talk in favor of the pursuit of practical goals (though in their case the ‘practical goal’ is enlightenment, so take that as you will).
Do you mean the Thai Temple, on Russell? (That’d be a block north of Ashby, and just off MLK behind the tool lending library.) Very distinctively temple-looking? If so, I know the place, but I haven’t been there. Thanks for the heads up. :)
I believe it’s actually right down the street from the Thai Temple. Much less official looking. I haven’t actually been though (always intended to go, and then ended up moving away before I did).
I can only speak to my own experience. I sat a 10 day course at one of the S.N. Goenka Vipassana centers in North America. At no time was my safety or comfort in question. The volunteers there are passionate in their benign-ness, and their desire to do no harm.
The whole teaching is predicated on the idea of reducing suffering, and the center that I was at was run very much with this idea at the core of everything. It is inconceivable to me that somebody could feel threatened or unsafe at this center.
With respect to leaving early: My understanding here is that every single student wants to leave. My mind was screaming in resistance. There were moments where I wanted to leave with every fiber in my being. I’m pretty sure that every student goes through this. If they didn’t take a tough stance on this, then many more people would leave and lose the benefit that the center and the courses are specifically designed to bring.
It takes a strong determination to sit one of these courses.
My brother is actually also a long-term student (now volunteer and course manager), as is another more distant relative, so I have further insight into how deep the positivity is at these centers.
As for myself, I have continued practice (it has only been 1.5 months), and I have seen the benefits slowly rolling in. Significant benefits. My awareness increases by the day. Simply walking down the street, I remember more and more to de-clench my jaw, and to stop (and start observing) my unconscious reaction patterns.
The meditation is difficult. The rewards are tremendous. And the center was spectacular. I implore every human being to take a 10 day course, and give the technique a trial.
I didn’t address this in my comment above but I’ve had a wonderful time volunteering for these courses. The people I’ve met there were super positive and altruistic, and it was really refreshing to be around them. I think that also speaks to the atmosphere in these courses.
I enjoy meditation very much and I think a 10 day course would really help my meditative practices become more apparent in my everyday thinking. That said, my sleep schedule is naturally utterly chaotic, and for this reason I think the course would be impossible. I am rather negatively affected by lack of sleep, moreso than most. Do you think there are any alternatives or allowances that could be made for me?
As I mentioned in another comment, the Goenka courses actually easily accommodate up to 9 hours of continuous sleep at night, from 9:30PM to 6:30AM. The pre-breakfast meditation is encouraged, but entirely optional. You could even nap for another hour after breakfast. There’s also an hour to hour and a half of nap time after lunch.
I personally get 8-10.5 hours of sleep a day when doing a Goenka course. I go to bed at 9:30, have an alarm that wakes me up at 5:30, nap after breakfast from 7 to 8 and nap again after lunch from 11:30 to 1PM.
Have you attended a course run by the organization at dhamma.org? If so, where, and did you feel physically and mentally safe while there?
Yes. I’ve taken 5 (or 6?) courses, all at the Dhamma Dhara center in Massachusetts. I did feel physically and mentally safe there. I’ll try to address the red flags you mentioned.
First it should be noted that the centers are somewhat independent, even though the
course is quite standardized. They are run on volunteer donations and time, and
as a result the set of people working there changes often. Most just come to volunteer for a single 10-day course. Therefore your experience will be partly dependent on the volunteer pool for that center. Some geographical locations will be probably better than others.
Now to your red flags:
amount of sleep
The course schedule does indeed indicate that you should get 6.5 hours sleep, but you don’t have to. I’m fairly sure a majority of students skip the first meditation session (from 4:30am to 6:30am) and simply get up for breakfast at 6:30am, allowing for 8.5 hours of sleep. Personally I didn’t have much trouble getting up for the early session.
lack of real engagement with teachers
This could be a problem. The teachers seem to mostly parrot Goenka’s instructions,
even though they have extensive meditation experience. It’s unfortunate. I didn’t feel the need to ask many questions during my courses so it wasn’t a major issue for me. More personalized instruction would be better and could allow for faster progress.
pressure not to leave the course
As I’ve never tried I can’t speak to this personally. At the start of the course they do encourage you not to leave until the end. I’ve volunteered for some courses at the Massachusetts center and I’ve observed the procedure there. If you want to leave a volunteer will first ask you about the problem you’re having. If they can address it they
will, otherwise they’ll ask you to talk to the teacher about it. I think the teacher usually encourages you to stay for one more session or something, since the desire to leave could be the result of a transient emotional storm. If they still want to leave, volunteers will help them get their stuff (and a taxi if need be). Again, your experience will be partly determined by the people who happen to be there.
In my experience the dhamma.org courses provided a positive and supportive environment. You will have to endure some (but not too much) dogma/garbage, which will probably also be the case in courses elsewhere.
Thank you, that’s very helpful. Do you agree with eternaltourist saying that “everyone wants to leave the course,” because it’s so mentally difficult, but only a few give in to that urge?
Yes, I think the thought probably crosses most people’s minds. I thought “Damn, this is HARD”, but didn’t ever seriously consider leaving. My guess is that the social support gives people strength they wouldn’t have alone.
Some random data: during my experience volunteering I saw that 2-4 men left on average from an initial group of around 50.
I did leave one course years ago, after the third day. I spoke to the teacher and then I was allowed to leave. I met some resistance, a reasonable and understandable one in my opinion.
The memory the course has left is one of the fondest of my entire life. Since then I sworn to myself to attend again, this time successfully. In fact I have recently applied to a course for early 2011.
As for the critiques I have seen so far in this thread, I concur with many of them at an intellectual level, but the bottom line is that you have to try, on your own, on the field, with a critical mind of course, but also an open heart.
My guess is that the social support gives people strength they wouldn’t have alone.
What I read (both site rules and participants’ experiences) suggests that people are to behave as much as possible like they’re alone—not only not speaking, but not really looking or interacting either. Did you not get that impression, or did the feeling of social support occur despite that?
Can you articulate what about it is difficult? The focus and mental effort in general, or the psychological experience? “No” is a valid answer to this, but I’m hoping not the only one. :)
Some random data: during my experience volunteering I saw that 2-4 men left on average from an initial group of around 50.
That matches the estimates I found. Of course, mostly it’s those two guys who go post on messages boards about it later.
Did you not get that impression, or did the feeling of social support occur despite that?
It occurred despite that. You don’t interact with other people, but you do meditate in the same large room, eat in the same room, and follow the same schedule. The videos at night discuss problems that most students have, which also helps build social support. Knowing that many people are going through similar difficulties is empowering.
Can you articulate what about it is difficult?
Sustained mental effort, unpleasant emotional experiences, unsavory personal realizations, and physical pain. Straight head-butting your mental habits.
unpleasant emotional experiences, unsavory personal realizations
These occur in the vipassana stage, after the anapana? I think I have a good idea of where my various faults are and possible ways to fix them, having tried to work with them in the CBT framework. I tend to be rather harsh on myself, so I’ve had a quite a few unsavory personal realizations. Do you think there are likely to be more such realizations than I anticipate? Basically I figured I’d attacked myself from every which way already. :)
In my experience, anapana is more difficult and brings up more stuff because, unlike vipassana, simply focusing on the breath doesn’t provide a way to deal with the stuff that comes up.
The thing to remember, though, is that you are trying to focus on breath (anapana) and body sensation (vipassana). Specific thoughts are more or less a distraction. Of course, your thoughts and mental state are tied to the sensations you experience, but because staying equanimous to the sensations is the tool your are using, the actual content of the thoughts are not something you are trying to focus on.
In my experience, anapana is more difficult and brings up more stuff because, unlike vipassana, simply focusing on the breath doesn’t provide a way to deal with the stuff that comes up.
Hm, what does ‘deal with’ mean here? To me it brings to mind ‘apply rapid fire cognitive behavioral therapy techniques’, but that would require conscious deliberation on the thought. Perhaps the difference is that anapanasati is (or can be) just concentration where vipassana is concentration and mindfulness, and only the mindfulness part helps in dealing with stuff that comes up?
Their attitude towards donations: if you feel that you’ve benefited from the course and would like others to be able to do so in the future then you can give a donation. The donation shouldn’t be given for the purpose of paying for the benefits you’ve received.
IIRC they don’t ever explicitly ask you if you want to give a donation. At the end of the course there is a visible table set up where you can give donations if you want to. They also have forms you can fill out if you’d like to get emails about volunteer opportunities.
Just to add to Luke_Grecki’s comment (which is spot on), at some of the old student courses it’s not even mentioned. The Goenka centers are remarkably passive about donations.
Some geographical locations will be probably better than others.
This may only be significant if you’re considering taking courses in different countries. The only negative experience I’ve personally heard of occurred in a center in India.
I’ve been doing Vipassana via Goenka for over 10 years, have gone to courses at a few of the NA centers, have done a satipatthana sutta course and other shorter old student courses. I can confirm the comments by Luke_Grecki and eternaltourist.
There is no big secret behind how they are run. It’s exactly the same whether you are just starting it or have been doing it forever. There’s no pressure to donate. They mention it at the end of each 10 day course and that’s pretty much it. At some of the short old student courses they don’t even bring it up at all.
The centers are safe, the people volunteering are there to make sure your basic needs are met so you can meditiate without distraction. The centers are run by normal people who volunteer. The center trust meetings I’ve attended are just like practical, run of the mill board meetings.
Regarding the specific concerns, you can actually sleep up to 9 hours easily if you skip the sittings before breakfast. The first required sitting is after breakfast. The sleep thing is really a non-issue. When I’m at a course, I pretty consistently sleep a full 8 hours from 9:30 to 5:30.
The assistant teachers are mostly there to try to nudge you in the right direction. All you are doing is focusing on breath or body sensation, so there simply isn’t much to teach outside of goenka’s instructions. It’s more a matter of just doing it. I suspect that some people have difficultly with the lack of human interaction and try to use the assistant teachers as an outlet for it, but it’s counterproductive since it breaks deep concentration and distracts the mind.
As for leaving, eternaltourist’s comments are spot on.
This doesn’t directly answer your question, I know, but there are quite a few meditation groups based in Second Life. The ones I’m aware of all either assume that their members already pretty much know what they’re doing or stick to very basic techniques, but I can ask around for ones that do instruction.
Hm. I followed a link from what I’m told is your blog to a site for finding vipassana courses, and did a bunch of reading there. Some of the details made me quirk an eyebrow, but they could have just been poor presentation, so I went looking for more information elsewhere. I found, among other things, this thread talking about some very negative experiences with that particular organization (as well as some reminders that the organization does not represent the method).
The biggest red flags which went up while I was reading about that organization were the amount of sleep (posted schedule in the application I saw allows for a max of 6.5 hours/night), lack of real engagement with teachers, and pressure not to leave the course. Again, I realize the one organization doesn’t represent the practice, although apparently they think they do:
(From the same link as above.)
Clearly some of the people didn’t know what they were getting into, and yes, I realize it’s not supposed to be easy, but that’s still a whole pile of concerning things in one place. Have you attended a course run by the organization at dhamma.org? If so, where, and did you feel physically and mentally safe while there?
I didn’t come away from that thread with only negative impressions, but the negative impressions are the ones I’m looking for responses to. The nearest courses to me are still far enough that I’d need to get a ride with someone else, meaning that while there I would be unable to leave on my own. This calls for a lot of caution about what I’d be getting myself into.
It could be amazing if we organized a vipassana course for rationalists.
We’d meet at a cabin in the woods. For 10 days we would meditate for 8 hours a day, take breaks by walking in the wilderness, and cook our meals together at night. It might even be beneficial if it wasn’t entirely silent; we could discuss at night any insights we’d had that day.
Moving us one step closer to Bayesian Buddhist Conspiracy.
Seriously, any rationalist vipassana masters out there want to help make it happen?
As an on-again off-again vipassana practitioner (I managed to maintain a regular practice while I was living in Boston, but that was largely due to the fact that the CIMC [1] was on my walk to/from work), I would love to get involved in a rationalist meditation group. In my experience it is much easier for me to maintain a regular practice with a group, but simultaneously difficult to become a real member of that group as most tend to approach meditation as a religious ritual rather than a worthwhile practice in its own right with practical value. Having a group of people to not only meditate with, but actually have productive conversation about the experience of meditating with would be phenomenal.
1 http://cimc.info/
I support this.
I think the tricky part would be finding a cluster of interested people who are able to convene at the same place—especially given that they’d need both the ability to take ten days off normal life, and presumably money for the location, food, etc. (It’s pretty easy to have free time or money, but tough to have both.)
Personally, I’m interested, not at all experienced, not able to travel far from the east SF bay (barring a carpool with someone local), and can’t contribute funds, although I am willing and able to cook and do other work to help out, and it’s not too hard for me to have ten days available.
Not entirely relevant to this conversation, but:
there at least used to be regular vipassana meditation sessions led by monks from Abhayagiri and hosted at the Berkeley Zen Center (I think that’s what it’s called) on MLK near the Ashby BART station. Abhayagiri is a monastery in the Thai Forest tradition led, I believe, by a former student of the late Ajahn Chah; in my experience that’s usually a pretty good indicator of a very result-oriented approach to meditation that eschews the supernatural talk in favor of the pursuit of practical goals (though in their case the ‘practical goal’ is enlightenment, so take that as you will).
Do you mean the Thai Temple, on Russell? (That’d be a block north of Ashby, and just off MLK behind the tool lending library.) Very distinctively temple-looking? If so, I know the place, but I haven’t been there. Thanks for the heads up. :)
I believe it’s actually right down the street from the Thai Temple. Much less official looking. I haven’t actually been though (always intended to go, and then ended up moving away before I did).
Oh okay. I’ll look around. Thank you.
Edit: Found it—you’re right, it is just up from the temple.
I can only speak to my own experience. I sat a 10 day course at one of the S.N. Goenka Vipassana centers in North America. At no time was my safety or comfort in question. The volunteers there are passionate in their benign-ness, and their desire to do no harm.
The whole teaching is predicated on the idea of reducing suffering, and the center that I was at was run very much with this idea at the core of everything. It is inconceivable to me that somebody could feel threatened or unsafe at this center.
With respect to leaving early: My understanding here is that every single student wants to leave. My mind was screaming in resistance. There were moments where I wanted to leave with every fiber in my being. I’m pretty sure that every student goes through this. If they didn’t take a tough stance on this, then many more people would leave and lose the benefit that the center and the courses are specifically designed to bring.
It takes a strong determination to sit one of these courses.
My brother is actually also a long-term student (now volunteer and course manager), as is another more distant relative, so I have further insight into how deep the positivity is at these centers.
As for myself, I have continued practice (it has only been 1.5 months), and I have seen the benefits slowly rolling in. Significant benefits. My awareness increases by the day. Simply walking down the street, I remember more and more to de-clench my jaw, and to stop (and start observing) my unconscious reaction patterns.
The meditation is difficult. The rewards are tremendous. And the center was spectacular. I implore every human being to take a 10 day course, and give the technique a trial.
I’m open to questions.
I didn’t address this in my comment above but I’ve had a wonderful time volunteering for these courses. The people I’ve met there were super positive and altruistic, and it was really refreshing to be around them. I think that also speaks to the atmosphere in these courses.
I appreciate that. Most of my questions wound up in a thread with the OP; if you have anything to add to his answers I’d love to hear it.
I enjoy meditation very much and I think a 10 day course would really help my meditative practices become more apparent in my everyday thinking. That said, my sleep schedule is naturally utterly chaotic, and for this reason I think the course would be impossible. I am rather negatively affected by lack of sleep, moreso than most. Do you think there are any alternatives or allowances that could be made for me?
As I mentioned in another comment, the Goenka courses actually easily accommodate up to 9 hours of continuous sleep at night, from 9:30PM to 6:30AM. The pre-breakfast meditation is encouraged, but entirely optional. You could even nap for another hour after breakfast. There’s also an hour to hour and a half of nap time after lunch.
I personally get 8-10.5 hours of sleep a day when doing a Goenka course. I go to bed at 9:30, have an alarm that wakes me up at 5:30, nap after breakfast from 7 to 8 and nap again after lunch from 11:30 to 1PM.
Maybe we could organize our own.
Yes. I’ve taken 5 (or 6?) courses, all at the Dhamma Dhara center in Massachusetts. I did feel physically and mentally safe there. I’ll try to address the red flags you mentioned.
First it should be noted that the centers are somewhat independent, even though the course is quite standardized. They are run on volunteer donations and time, and as a result the set of people working there changes often. Most just come to volunteer for a single 10-day course. Therefore your experience will be partly dependent on the volunteer pool for that center. Some geographical locations will be probably better than others.
Now to your red flags:
The course schedule does indeed indicate that you should get 6.5 hours sleep, but you don’t have to. I’m fairly sure a majority of students skip the first meditation session (from 4:30am to 6:30am) and simply get up for breakfast at 6:30am, allowing for 8.5 hours of sleep. Personally I didn’t have much trouble getting up for the early session.
This could be a problem. The teachers seem to mostly parrot Goenka’s instructions, even though they have extensive meditation experience. It’s unfortunate. I didn’t feel the need to ask many questions during my courses so it wasn’t a major issue for me. More personalized instruction would be better and could allow for faster progress.
As I’ve never tried I can’t speak to this personally. At the start of the course they do encourage you not to leave until the end. I’ve volunteered for some courses at the Massachusetts center and I’ve observed the procedure there. If you want to leave a volunteer will first ask you about the problem you’re having. If they can address it they will, otherwise they’ll ask you to talk to the teacher about it. I think the teacher usually encourages you to stay for one more session or something, since the desire to leave could be the result of a transient emotional storm. If they still want to leave, volunteers will help them get their stuff (and a taxi if need be). Again, your experience will be partly determined by the people who happen to be there.
In my experience the dhamma.org courses provided a positive and supportive environment. You will have to endure some (but not too much) dogma/garbage, which will probably also be the case in courses elsewhere.
Thank you, that’s very helpful. Do you agree with eternaltourist saying that “everyone wants to leave the course,” because it’s so mentally difficult, but only a few give in to that urge?
Yes, I think the thought probably crosses most people’s minds. I thought “Damn, this is HARD”, but didn’t ever seriously consider leaving. My guess is that the social support gives people strength they wouldn’t have alone.
Some random data: during my experience volunteering I saw that 2-4 men left on average from an initial group of around 50.
I did leave one course years ago, after the third day. I spoke to the teacher and then I was allowed to leave. I met some resistance, a reasonable and understandable one in my opinion.
The memory the course has left is one of the fondest of my entire life. Since then I sworn to myself to attend again, this time successfully. In fact I have recently applied to a course for early 2011.
As for the critiques I have seen so far in this thread, I concur with many of them at an intellectual level, but the bottom line is that you have to try, on your own, on the field, with a critical mind of course, but also an open heart.
What I read (both site rules and participants’ experiences) suggests that people are to behave as much as possible like they’re alone—not only not speaking, but not really looking or interacting either. Did you not get that impression, or did the feeling of social support occur despite that?
Can you articulate what about it is difficult? The focus and mental effort in general, or the psychological experience? “No” is a valid answer to this, but I’m hoping not the only one. :)
That matches the estimates I found. Of course, mostly it’s those two guys who go post on messages boards about it later.
It occurred despite that. You don’t interact with other people, but you do meditate in the same large room, eat in the same room, and follow the same schedule. The videos at night discuss problems that most students have, which also helps build social support. Knowing that many people are going through similar difficulties is empowering.
Sustained mental effort, unpleasant emotional experiences, unsavory personal realizations, and physical pain. Straight head-butting your mental habits.
These occur in the vipassana stage, after the anapana? I think I have a good idea of where my various faults are and possible ways to fix them, having tried to work with them in the CBT framework. I tend to be rather harsh on myself, so I’ve had a quite a few unsavory personal realizations. Do you think there are likely to be more such realizations than I anticipate? Basically I figured I’d attacked myself from every which way already. :)
In my experience, anapana is more difficult and brings up more stuff because, unlike vipassana, simply focusing on the breath doesn’t provide a way to deal with the stuff that comes up.
The thing to remember, though, is that you are trying to focus on breath (anapana) and body sensation (vipassana). Specific thoughts are more or less a distraction. Of course, your thoughts and mental state are tied to the sensations you experience, but because staying equanimous to the sensations is the tool your are using, the actual content of the thoughts are not something you are trying to focus on.
Hm, what does ‘deal with’ mean here? To me it brings to mind ‘apply rapid fire cognitive behavioral therapy techniques’, but that would require conscious deliberation on the thought. Perhaps the difference is that anapanasati is (or can be) just concentration where vipassana is concentration and mindfulness, and only the mindfulness part helps in dealing with stuff that comes up?
I see. Okay, that’s all I’ve got for now; thanks for being patient with the third degree. ;)
Their pages mention that they are funded entirely by donations from past students.
After you’ve taken the course, how much do they contact you (to solicit donations or otherwise)?
Their attitude towards donations: if you feel that you’ve benefited from the course and would like others to be able to do so in the future then you can give a donation. The donation shouldn’t be given for the purpose of paying for the benefits you’ve received.
IIRC they don’t ever explicitly ask you if you want to give a donation. At the end of the course there is a visible table set up where you can give donations if you want to. They also have forms you can fill out if you’d like to get emails about volunteer opportunities.
Just to add to Luke_Grecki’s comment (which is spot on), at some of the old student courses it’s not even mentioned. The Goenka centers are remarkably passive about donations.
This may only be significant if you’re considering taking courses in different countries. The only negative experience I’ve personally heard of occurred in a center in India.
I’ve been doing Vipassana via Goenka for over 10 years, have gone to courses at a few of the NA centers, have done a satipatthana sutta course and other shorter old student courses. I can confirm the comments by Luke_Grecki and eternaltourist.
There is no big secret behind how they are run. It’s exactly the same whether you are just starting it or have been doing it forever. There’s no pressure to donate. They mention it at the end of each 10 day course and that’s pretty much it. At some of the short old student courses they don’t even bring it up at all.
The centers are safe, the people volunteering are there to make sure your basic needs are met so you can meditiate without distraction. The centers are run by normal people who volunteer. The center trust meetings I’ve attended are just like practical, run of the mill board meetings.
Regarding the specific concerns, you can actually sleep up to 9 hours easily if you skip the sittings before breakfast. The first required sitting is after breakfast. The sleep thing is really a non-issue. When I’m at a course, I pretty consistently sleep a full 8 hours from 9:30 to 5:30.
The assistant teachers are mostly there to try to nudge you in the right direction. All you are doing is focusing on breath or body sensation, so there simply isn’t much to teach outside of goenka’s instructions. It’s more a matter of just doing it. I suspect that some people have difficultly with the lack of human interaction and try to use the assistant teachers as an outlet for it, but it’s counterproductive since it breaks deep concentration and distracts the mind.
As for leaving, eternaltourist’s comments are spot on.
This doesn’t directly answer your question, I know, but there are quite a few meditation groups based in Second Life. The ones I’m aware of all either assume that their members already pretty much know what they’re doing or stick to very basic techniques, but I can ask around for ones that do instruction.
Thank you, but my only computer is an Eee 1000HA; I haven’t actually tried running SL on it but I have an idea of how that would go.