Meditating With 43 Friends, For 10 Days! :)

Jan 8, 2017 | permalink

Forty-three of us went together for a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat in Igatpuri, at the start of the new year.  The campus organizers said they had never seen such a large group of friends voluntarily sign up to do a course together!  When we finished on Day 10, many said it was a life-changing experience.  Some first-timers shared classic stories that made all of us laugh to no end.  In the end, most of us returned back into the world a little bit lighter.  And grateful.



At one point, I spotted a beautiful bodhi leaf fallen on the ground. With great joy, I remembered how Guri was once meditating under the Bodhi tree where Buddha was enlightened -- and a leaf fell and swayed perfectly into her lap. She kept it as a sacred reminder to cultivate. And then, for one of my birthdays, she gifted me that leaf -- and with it, the spirit of cultivation.

I bowed to the kindness of so many blessings that gives me the will to meditate in this way.