Altitude's Practice Journal Prior to Month-long Retreat

If all goes as planned, I will be attending a month-long retreat in March. I am a householder but am fortunate enough to work for a company that is willing to let me go away for a month -- despite my obligations to running a corporate function with over a dozen people in it. I'm starting this journal thread, so that I have a public place to check in with, as I ramp up to the month-long. I've practiced a lot, but I have never attended a retreat of such length. I may ask to do a few sessions with Kenneth over the coming months; that is still TBD.

I will say up front, that inasmuch as it is practical, I intend to avoid most conceptualizing in discourse, using terms such as jhana, jhanic, insight maps, enlightenment, paths or other such language. While I have used such language in the past and do currently, here I intend to remain much more spare -- at least for the time being.

With loving kindness for KFD and all beings,

Altitude

Welcome altitude,

Could you give us the lowdown on what your practice entails at the moment? Looking forward to hearing about your long course prep.



Nick

Hi altitude

I have just returned from a month long solitary retreat (about which I will post something soon - want to have another session with Kenneth first). I actually had a couple of sessions with Kenneth during the retreat which I found invaluable, and if you could organise that I would highly recommend it.
Also, be very clear about what practices you are doing before you go and commit yourself to just them.
And be very clear about any conceptual knowledge ie: descriptions of jhanas etc have any knowledge at your fingertips so when things arise in practice you don't have to think of them.
Will there be any expectations to practice in particular way? Or take guidance from a teacher?
Very glad you have you have the opportunity. These things are the chance of a lift-time and if used correctly can led to very big shifts in practice.

Rich.

Sure. Here's some background: I have lost track of how many retreat days I've been on over the last eight years or so; some years it was zero and other years it was twenty-five. Most of those retreat days were logged at Spirit Rock, so mostly vipassana. Nine or ten of those days were done on a concentration retreat.

My practice is inspired by Mahasi and Pandita, but it tends to be done without any explicit noting, as the pace of things coming and going outpaces the noting to such a degree that the attempts at explicit noting just seem to get in the way of seeing things clearly. Practice seems to be going just fine, paying attention to the granularity of things coming and going very rapidly in the body. These days, there is increased attentiveness to and awareness of space beyond the body (or lack of distinction between what is body and what is not body) -- again without explicit noting. This current practice tends to be done while active in the world or during quiet, still moments, but rarely engaging in any formal practice. In creating this journal, the intention is to return to more formal practice.

The upcoming retreat will be at Spirit Rock, and the hope is to work with John Travis, who I have worked with many times before. Each retreat tends to take on its own flavor... It often seems that some residual and specific momentum from the last retreat carries over into the current retreat... and the nature of the momentum seems unpredictable but somehow related to the previous retreat.

Thanks Rich. Look forward to hearing more about your recent experiences. I agree that it's a rare opportunity or at least it seems that way with all of the worldly obligations; I've wanted to do this for many years.

Hope these responses help answer the above questions.

Altitude