I suppose you could do it from a book. But i dunno if a good enough book on it does exist at all. Also, it might be comparable to getting a long distance online academic degree thru Phoenix University. Interactive teaching from a good Uni is better - no?
Morover, when you travel to attend a course, the motivation levels are maximum and distraction is minimum. So the experience is always more rewarding - IMO - unless you have an iron will, which i don't. I find i need a lot of reinforcement and will power to follow any strict routine....exercise, meditation, writing...
About the experience...let me put it this way....
I went there to experiment.......i was totally distraught at the time...my cousin had told me about them some 8 years ago, but i had laughed at him....couldn't see myself in that primitive setting....it took a bottom for me to reach out to them. The inner strength i gained from 10 days of silence and guided reflection, was was a total turnaround....
About donations...no pressure at all...they don't even mention it more than in passing...they tell you the cost per person at the end of the course, and leave it at that...the donation is not a payment for the services YOU received but for you to help others receive the same benefits that you recieved (thru someone else's donation for you).....some donate as little as $40 for the course, some donate hundreds of thousands, i donate somewhere in between. They have a rule about donations, they don't accept donations from people who have not attended the course and cannot comprehend the benefits.....no fundraising, no charity, no religious affliations, no grants, no commercialising, no selling anything at all. Its truely unbelievable but they have a reason why they don't accept payments towards courses attended...and they explain that to you during the course.
The courses are run thru volunteers who have previously attended the course and are interested in providing benefits to others. They also claim, and rightly so, that thru volunteering, you reinforce the sense of giving, but they don't enforce it.
Around 130 students attend the California Vipassana Centre at any given time. The dwellings are very humble, not uncomfortable but humble...so don't expect 5 star treatment.
I took three last year. And volunteered over numerous weekends. Its time for me to go again but I'm tied up with the kids. Re the enforced silence - well i thought it would kill me, but it was strangely therapeutic. I was a compulsive extrovert till the course. I started loving my own company subsequent to the course - I love silences now. And no, its not difficult, its just so exhilerating to be able to be allowed to empty your mind (of course mine was already empty, but you know what i mean). And the best thing are, they're totally non religious, so no religious crap to wade thru. I'd have found that very difficult to deal with.
Yes, its an investment in time and effort, but you may find it well worth the effort.
Ciao. |
