International Buddhist Centre Wat Phra That Doi Suthep
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Quick note: This article is for educational purposes only and reflects personal experience—not medical or mental health advice. Please consult a qualified professional if you have mental health concerns.
Do I recommend it?
If you think you should do it, then yes I’d recommend it*
*see disclaimer about mental health
picture of the location, amongst beautiful nature
Pros
- You can get VERY deep, quickly with this method
- Super close to Chiang Mai (can take a taxi about 45 minutes – 1 hour)
- In the mountains – beautiful landscape
- Tons of experience – They clearly have a path and methodology they’re following, which predicts quite a few struggles
- Very close to a major temple / civilization – so if you’re really struggling, going out and hearing people talk and live “normal” lives can help calm you down
Cons
- Much more self-guided than I had thought – There is general guidance given to all students, and it’s the same guidance given to every student based on how many days they’ve been in the course. While this can be difficult, ultimately it was a gift to better build my own sustainable practice without requiring a guru; more on this in the article.
- The Monks English can be hard to understand – It’s 100x better than my Thai – but still tough to understand
- Rooms are rustic – I think that this was actually a benefit, but it can be tough for people used to a certain level of accommodation
What to bring
- White Clothes for each day (Shirt that cover your shoulders and Trousers that cover your knees). they do have laundry on site
- Bring your own toiletries like Soap, Shampoo, Towel, Brush etc.
- Bring a Countdown timer and an Alarm Clock – you can use your phone for this, but personally I think best to use this time to take a break from your phone.
- A white Scarf or a shawl from October to February.
- An umbrella during the rainy season
- A headlamp – saw some others with this one – solid call
Who Would likely Struggle The Most?
Can’t speak on Vipassana generally, but for this specific retreat here are some personality aspects that could make it more difficult.
- Being a perfectionist/optimizer – There is no way to be perfect at meditating, and paradoxically – the harder you try, the harder meditation is.
- Requiring lots of feedback/input – This is largely self-guided, it’s meant to be that way. In the words of the head monk “I am not here to be your psychologist, I’m here to show you how to be your own psychologist.”
- Analytical-Heavy Mind – This is going to be tough; you will likely get the most out of something like this, but it will likely be more difficult for you than for other, more emotionally-based folks.
- History of mental health issues – Please consult a qualified professional if you have mental health concerns – see complete disclosure below.
Daily Schedule & Guidelines
Quick Stats From My Stay
- 4 days (10 is the traditional, full-time period, but you can stay shorter)
- 1.25 Panic Attack (nothing too serious, I was given the tools to learn how to handle them better, so only .25 on the second one 🤣)
- 0 Regrets
Some quick tips
- If you’re more of an analytical person like me, use the meditation to try to distance yourself as much as possible from entertaining all your thoughts. Then afterwards go outside and walk around, allowing your brain to wander and start to understand what just happened.
- Cold showers are a great way to get back in your body if you’re feeling like you’re flying in outer space.
- Every obstacle, inconvenience, or issue you have at the retreat is your responsibility; it’s not the fault of anyone else.
- Make your primary goal to finish – then have some secondary goals, but above and beyond all goals, you need to finish.
Pre-retreat notes
In a couple hours, I’ll be in my first Vipassana Retreat
In a buddhist temple in the mountains
Complete silence
No phone
No labtop
No books
No journals
Nothing but my thoughts and the teachings from the monks
The traditional length is 10 days, while I don’t have the courage to do the full 10 days I have enough to do 4.
The goal is to make sure this is a good fit, and if it is, maybe do one annually.
I signed up for one back in Bali – and while I had a good excuse for not going, the real answer is because I was afraid.
I was afraid, and I was finally given an excuse not to go.
I have a list of pretty severe mental health issues on my dads side of the family, so I have some fear of how my mind could end up.
I recognize that fear isn’t rooted in much reality, and I trust this retreat will shed light on that.
So What Are My Intentions?
To get to that I need to give some background on how I view intentions/goals.
I learned a lot from cycling
When you’re riding up a mountain your mind is doing everything it possibly can to get you to quit.
It searches and searches for anything it can cling to to bring in doubt.
If it can get you to doubt even a little, it can get you to quit and return to a more comfortable state.
When you’re trying difficult things, doubt is the killer.
One way your mind can bring in doubt is over-analysis.
One way you can over-analyze is by trying to balance too many objectives.
Complication = Room For Doubt = Quitting
So what do I do?
Prioritize my goals
So What Are My Prioritized Goals?
- To Finish
- To Create More Space Between My Thoughts & My Reactions To Them
- To Better Understand Myself
- To Find Ways To Integrate this into a daily life afterwards
If I’m feeling miserable and wanting to quit, I will return to goal #1, and only when I feel confident in goal #1 do I move onto the other goals.
Am I Afraid?
The 4 days makes it seem much less daunting by comparison, but yes I’m still quite nervous.
There’s still a part of my brain that would love for something to go wrong and have an excuse to not go.
Seeing as I’m only a couple hours away, I don’t think that opportunity is going to come.
My Mantra
This is another thing I learned from cycling.
1 hour into climbing up a mountain, struggling to breath, my entire body hurts, my lungs are burning, and my vision is blurred
I’ve found a mantra works wonders
In cycling it’s
- Breathe – get in control of my breath
- Ass – focus the movement more in my ass (there’s more power there)
It keeps things simple, doesn’t complicate, and ensures I finish.
I don’t know my mantra yet, but I’m sure I’ll come up with one quickly.
I Have Faith
I have faith in the process
That is a huge reason I quit things – losing faith in what I’m doing.
Well it’s not really working, or I’m doing it wrong, or I’m wasting too much time, etc.
I won’t entertain those thoughts, and I will choose to have faith in the process
I Don’t Really Know What To Expect
And I’m okay with that, in a way it makes it more exciting
I have faith that the process will work
And if it doesn’t
Then I will still finish it and make sure I know 100% that the process doesn’t work for me.
my time at the retreat
The first day
Is relatively short, I got there around 1pm, everything starts at 2:30
The chanting class was a test in patience
You’re chanting in Thai, and most of the songs have 0 discernible rhythm
At the beginning, as time goes on you start to catch on
Then meditation
I didn’t set any goals around my meditation, which I think truly helped me
I didn’t allow my inner perfectionist to take control
Then get frustrated when I didn’t manage to meditate “correctly.”
The first night, though, I hardly slept
I knew that nighttime would be the most difficult part for me
I usually go to sleep with videos playing
To help me block out all my thoughts
No videos up here
And no one to talk to
No distractions
Hardly any sounds
You are alone
In the darkness
A terrifying idea for someone who’s been sleeping with videos on in large cities
Panic Attack #1
So it’s the middle of the night, alone in this tiny room with zero decor or distractions
And I start to feel the anxiety rise
Then that frantic aspect of me is crawling through my environment and thoughts to find something to freak out about
It finds it
My thoughts felt like they were short-circuiting
Many of my thoughts would come up, then about half-way through would just fall away.
Dude you’re losing your mind!
I try to stay as calm as I can
I finally got outside and started walking around in the moonlight
At least I’m not trapped inside that empty room anymore
After the panic passes,
I realized the meditation is actually working
I’m not being carried away by random thoughts that come to my mind
The “Monkey mind” is losing it’s grip, and yes that’s going to be a bit scary
But ultimately that’s why I’m here
Now I can understand all of that
But I didn’t have the mental equanimity to manage the anxiety I was feeling
So I ended up sleeping maybe 1.5 – 2 hours
In addition to this, when I’m trying to meditate, it feels like I’m going to asphyxiate myself.
Every 15 seconds I need to take a deep breath to get enough air to feel okay.
But I remembered my #1 goal to finish
So I focused on all I could to just get to the first check-in with the monk
You have a daily 1-on-1 check-in with the monk
He’s a Monk after all, could you think of a better, more compassionate person to help you through this?
He’ll be able to tell me that everything’s okay, what I’m going through is normal, I’m not losing my mind, everybody has problems sleeping, and my breathing issues can easily be fixed, etc.
So I made that my north star
I don’t need to worry about the finish day
I just need to get to my check-in
Then everything will be resolved.
So I get to the check-in
It’s in the same room where we do our chanting
There are no private rooms
Just a group of us waiting for our turn on the benches in the back of the room
The people who had been here for a few days go first
I notice none of them ask any questions
And I hear the same script being read off to each of them
Hmmm…
Weird
Surely it’s because these guys are already well into the practice and don’t need more feedback.
I finally have my turn
This is what I’ve been waiting for since midnight
A lifeline
Someone to keep me from drowning
He goes through the same script he did for the others who started the same day I did.
I realize there’s a clear process here, depending on how many days you’ve been at the retreat.
He starts by asking how I am
Just as I finish my response, he cuts in
“Yes so today the…” and goes off on the same script that he had told everyone else.
I struggle to understand what he’s saying, his accent is very strong
Essentially “focus on your breathing – whatever comes up – breath deeply into your stomach and feel your stomach with every breath.”
Rising…Falling….Rising….Falling….
Rising…Falling….Rising….Falling….
“And then I’ll see you tomorrow with next steps, thank you.”
“can I ask a question” I insert
Then I explain one of my concerns.
He cuts me off and riddles off the same advice
“focus deeply on your breath…. Rising… Falling… etc.”
“Thank you”
I left the room feeling very hurt.
Why didn’t he want to help me?
His response implied the hardest thing for an American to accept
- You are not unique
- Your needs aren’t more important than anyone elses
I walk through the trees and remember my friend Oliver’s advice.
Oliver runs an ayahuasca retreat in Medellin, and I asked him the night before how best to prepare.
“Anything that comes up at this retreat is your responsibility.”
As dejected as I felt I knew Oliver was right
This is on me
There is nothing wrong with anything at this retreat.
I chose to come here, they have been doing this for a long time, and I hold the problem and the solution
I focused on my breathing Rising…Falling… and it fixed the asphyxiation issue, and I slept much better the second night
His advice actually worked – look at that
In the Monk’s next talk
He says
I’m not here to be your psychologist. I’m here to teach you how to be your own psychologist.
He adds to this
The longer you spend dwelling on something, the more power you give it
It made me wonder
How many mental health crises could we fix in the United States with these two approaches
If someone came into a therapist’s office and the therapist tells them
You need to
- exercise
- eat healthy
- spend more time with family and loved ones
- Find a way to self-regulate your emotions
- and find a purpose to work toward in your life.
This week we’ll start with exercise {gives advice on how to start exercising}
Then ended the session
“See you next week”
Not allowing people to sit and dwell in their neuroses
In their traumas
In their stories
Inviting them to dig deeper into the quicksand that is childhood trauma
“Getting to the root of the problem” by analyzing it and re-analyzing and re-analyzing ad naseum.
Giving so much juice to the story in your head.
I am somebody unique. I have a unique history. My pain is unique, and requires a unique, arduous approach to fix
Ram Dass talks at length about this in his Experiments In Truth
“If you’re not attached to your somebodyness, you don’t suffer;“
A picture of Ram Dass
Learning about grace
I was in the meditation room
A shared room where you can meditate together
I was really struggling to keep my mind calm as I sat with my legs crossed
My hips feeling like they’re about to tear, and my feet were going numb below them
I did my best to keep my mind calm and made it until my alarm went off.
I sprawl out on the floor, stretching out my hips and getting sensation back in my feet.
I look over and see a girl scrolling on her phone.
I couldn’t believe it
I had to quadruple-check that I was actually seeing this.
People brought in phones to use for timers, but weren’t supposed to use them for anything else.
And here she was, in the middle of the meditation room on her phone.
“Seriously?”
I didn’t motion toward her or anything, just sat in indignation
How could she so brazenly break the rules?
That night, there was an event at the temple
The monk invited us to join (of course, remaining silent the whole time)
An older couple that’s in the retreat with us pulls out their phones and starts taking photos and videos.
This is a couple that even talked to each other from time to time
It made me super uncomfortable.
Then I looked out at the event.
A temple to my right, and a huge pagoda in the center with people all around
A photo of the temple and pagoda
This was a Thai event
But still had plenty of foreigners.
The foreigners were doing all of the procedures wrong.
All the small things we learned in the first few days you’re supposed to do at the temples
They did none of them
But you could tell they had a genuine interest in what was going on
And the Thai people there, following every rule, never said a word to any of them
They let them be
As we carried our flowers around the pagoda chanting, a tear came to my eye.
I can feel the pressure in my throat now, remembering this
Jesus
One of the guys there had long, dirty blonde hair and looked a bit like Jesus, so I called him Jesus
If you were to imagine the stereotypical cult leader, this guy would check all the boxes.
- Long hair
- Short, slightly unkept beard
- Berkinstock leather sandals
- Long flowing clothing
- Slow, methodical steps, with one foot placed carefully in front of the other
He annoyed the shit out of me
One day I was walking around the forest during the meditation time.
While you’re allotted about 10 hours a day to meditate, it’s all self-guided
There’s no one looking over your back or making sure that you’re utilizing every moment.
Furthermore, I don’t think they’d care if you were meditating or not
It’s on you at this retreat.
As I walk up through the forest, I see what appears to be a woman from the silent retreat.
Dressed in all white (like all of us)
But with a long red shawl covering her head
An amount of covering that would pass the test for most traditional muslim women
You could only see her hands and feet.
As I got closer, I realized it wasn’t a woman
It was Jesus
I walked past him, smiled and nodded
No response from him
I continue walking through the forest for about 30 minutes, stopping to look at the birds and butterflies.
I turn around to go back and pass by him again
He’s close to the same spot.
I realize he is doing walking meditation
Walking meditation is a type of meditation that is done via slow-motion walking
Where you focus on every minute movement of your body as it trudges forward in 10X slow motion
I was the one slacking now
He was utilizing every moment of the meditation time to meditate
And I was out there just walking around enjoying nature.
I was reminded of grace
I came up with a line
Everyone’s just doing the best that (they think) they can do
Myself included
Better to just let others do things their own way, if it’s not hurting you
As I thought about how ridiculous Jesus was, I came to a realization
What if he were my brother?
Which led me to my next thought
I find him annoying, and that’s my fault not his
And maybe for everyone who isn’t a friend or family member
If they find me annoying that’s their fault, not mine.
3 hours later at the dorms I saw Jesus approaching
Still in walking meditation, like a slug slowly chugging along toward the building
For most people, we were doing 10 – 45 minutes of walking meditation at a time
Jesus had just done about 4 hours
Legend…
The Stories I Create
Being in complete silence, unable to talk to others
I became acutely aware of the stories I come up with in my head
Stories about who does and doesn’t like me
Stories about why someone had “slighted me”
The silence really sheds light on the absurdity of these fictions
The stories I created in my mind about Jesus, the others, and even about myself.
It’s All Silly
The walking meditation that Jesus was doing looks just as goofy as it sounds
It’s incredibly powerful
But it’s goofy
From time to time, I’d zoom out and look at what I was doing from an outside perspective
And realize how ridiculous most of this looks from the outside world.
I’m dressed in all white, a 34-year-old man standing in the same place, staring at butterflies for 20 minutes with a tear rolling down my eye
Jesus, slow-motion walking through the forest for 4 hours
One of the guys at breakfast sat and stared at his food, motionless for 15 minutes
And we’re all in complete silence – not because we need to be
Most of us aren’t even religious
Most of these guys are taking vacation time to come out and do this
One night, I had one of these zoom-outs
Thinking about how it would look from the outside
It was midnight, I was in the forest, in all white, staring up at the moon
Then I hear a sound
My neck slowly, methodically shifts toward the sound
My upper eyelids are drooping slightly
My calm, emotionless gaze stares off into the wilderness
What a great opening scene for a horror movie
I started chuckling at how ridiculous this all was.
Then I thought about the real world
Where I worked on a piece of metal
A piece of metal that’s attached to a mysterious web of information that floats around between other pieces of metal
I work on virtual “pages” that appear on this metal device.
And I do it so I can see the digits go up when I log in to my bank account on the screen of my metal device.
It’s All Silly
But The Real Good Stuff Doesn’t Start Until After Day 4
I was speaking to a friend about this retreat (he may even be reading this – what’s up man!)
And he told me he had a friend do the full 10-day retreat
His friend told him, “all the good stuff starts really coming after day 4”
And of course, I was only doing a 4-day retreat
I doubt he remembers mentioning this in passing while we chatted
I must’ve had this line come up at least 100 times while meditating
“The real good stuff doesn’t start until Day 4”
Then, if I wasn’t careful, my mind would wander
“You’re not even doing this correctly man. You’re only here for 4 days. They shouldn’t even let you do it this shortly.”
At the beginning, I couldn’t figure out why this pissed me off so much, and why it kept popping up.
Then, while in walking meditation, it hit me.
I need people to think I’m worthy and valuable.
And that means they need to be impressed with my achievements
When they tell me that my achievements aren’t really mine, or don’t really count, etc. it drives me absolutely nuts
It was my biggest gripe with far-left politics in university
Being told that whatever I achieve is because of my gender/race, and without that I wouldn’t achieve the same level of success.
When someone implies that I’m not successful or important
Or that my success isn’t 100% attributable to how inherently superior I am – it really pisses me off.
Maybe being more aware of that, I’ll take less offense
That would be nice.
Her Ankle
There was a girl there
I didn’t find her very attractive
But she was the most attractive (to me) of all of the women there
So naturally, my mind would wander to thinking about her
I have a long-term, healthy relationship – but dude, you’re alone with no one to talk to, and nothing but meditating to do 24 hours a day
Your mind needs something to distract itself
I wouldn’t entertain these thoughts much, but they would come up from time to time
I recall one intense one
She was sitting on the other side of the room
And I could see her ankle from between her pants and her socks
It was this beautiful curve that then disappeared into her pants
Very clearly defined, but still soft and effeminate
I’m not into feet, and I don’t think I’ve ever noticed a woman’s ankles in my life
But her ankle mesmerized me
Fuck you, you fucking asshole
On the second-to-last day I was beginning to quiet my brain quite a bit
As it got quieter, I felt this intense pressure
The pressure became a pain in the front part of my brain
I was sitting there, trying to remain in meditation
And I heard this loud voice in my head
“FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!”
It felt like my “monkey brain”
Incredibly angry that I wasn’t entertaining his thoughts
That he was losing power
The last morning
The last night I didn’t sleep at all
My heart was pounding really hard for most of the night
Maybe it was the part of me that yelled earlier
Still fighting back(?)
I lied down and did all I could to sleep, and nothing…
In the morning I had so much pent-up energy, I felt like I was going to explode
They recommend against calesthenics / yoga or any other practices while there
I wanted to follow the rules
But it felt like there was this boiling geyser of energy within me that was going to blow
Furthermore, I had given in to analyzing, and giving more juice to it
And now it felt out of control
I remember at one point yelling under my breath
“JUST HAVE A FUCKING HEART ATTACK ALREADY, I’M FUCKING SICK OF THIS!”
Then, like any logical, sophisticated individual, I gave in to the energy
And started doing pushups
I was trying to keep my grunting and noises to a low
But I’m sure the other ones heard me
As I channeled all of my anger and energy into doing as many push-ups as possible
“Come on you fucking bitch, you got all this energy and anger, use it for something. Fuck you.”
Very healthy inner dialogue
This was pretty early in the morning
Like everything, it eventually passed
But getting wrapped up in it gave it a much longer life than it needed to have
Post-retreat notes
I just got out of the retreat this morning.
I left and then noticed I had forgotten my water bottle
Then returned for it
Thank god I spent the last 4 days practicing mindfulness 😂
There’s a trail nearby that takes you down to Chiang Mai, beautiful trail.
On the hike, I felt fine
Honestly didn’t feel like re-integrating would be difficult at all
Then, when I met up with my girlfriend and Mom in Chiang Mai, things got a bit more difficult.
Navigating the busy streets here is not an ideal place for slow, pensive, mindful thought.
While walking, I see this rather ordinary business sign
But I study the print and admire how well-made it is
“There is a lot of incredibly well done design in today’s marketing dang….”
Design I wouldn’t have thought twice about before the retreat.
Amidst my admiration for the sign
Bam…
I ran into my mom in front of me
There’s a car that just pulled in front of us, and another motorcycle behind us pulling up quickly
Even at my sluggish walking pace, I ran into her
There are cars, motos, other pedestrians and massage parlor girls yelling out in a symphony of sound and stimulation.
My head felt the same intense pressure from before
I had worked so hard to slow down my mind
And now in this fast-paced environment, it’s struggling to keep up
I also didn’t sleep, so that’s likely playing a role
Gisel, my girlfriend, whispers in my ear
“maybe we should have a place in the countryside for a week or two if you do another one of these.”
I agree.
LAter in the night
We went out again to a market
While things still felt very quick, and I lagged a bit
I felt pretty close to normal
The Day After
Woke up today, I’m normal again.
Incredibly normal
While the temple is only 40 minutes from here, my retreat feels like a dream.
My soul yearns for the peace and tranquility of that place.
I feel a deep sadness thinking about the other practitioners still back there while I’m out here.
Out here in a world that moves so quickly
That feels like a completely different planet from there
It’s a bit disheartening how easily I could drop right back
Right back into impulsive, stress-laden days
I could literally go right back to how I was before if I’m not careful.
Fortunately, I’m being pretty careful about it.
my plan to integrate my learnings into daily life
- Rising…Falling… – Just watching my breath while meditating, feeling my belly rising and falling. When I notice I’m feeling triggered, stressed, angry, etc. I put my focus into my stomach and say gently in my mind “rising…..falling…” it’s absolutely helped
- Morning Meditation – 4 – 7x a week. Pretty light stuff, 10 minutes walking meditation and 10 minutes sitting meditation. I find I can get back into that serene state pretty quickly as long as I keep the practice up.
Relaxed ≠ Lazy
This was something the monk had said
That being relaxed does not mean you’re lazy
I’ve actually seen a bit of the inverse effect
Having more patience and understanding for situations and discussions appears to help my career even.
Ironically, I feel like my mental work capacity has increased
I don’t feel so exhausted by the day-to-day setbacks and BS of running a business.
Hopefully, that continues
I finished meditating this morning, and left the room feeling a very subtle, calm euphoria
A euphoria that felt too slow for the fast-paced world I exist in at work
However, I feel confident that the calmness may actually help me, not hurt me
We’ll see if I can pull it off.
Meditation as a conversational framework
Allowing thoughts to come and go
That’s what you learn meditating
Allowing them to rise and fall without either thinking more on them, nor trying to push them away
This is a great way to deal with the frantic mind
You really can’t reason with it
Just sit there, offering awareness – not trying to reason with it, nor ignore it – neither of those works
I’m realizing that when I’m conversing with someone who’s in a frantic mindset, I should treat it the same as if I myself were there
Don’t allow myself to get caught up in it, but also don’t ignore it and push it away
Just sit there, be aware of what’s coming up, and how I’m feeling
I don’t need to fix all of my loved ones’ problems
Most of the time, there’s not much “fixing” to be done
Offering an ear to listen, while remaining equanimous
This tends to get better results (probably not always, but a lot of the time)
The Spider web
There was a single thread of a spider web that hung in the doorway of the building of the dorm I stayed in.
It had a leaf attached to the end, allowing it to hang on the left side of the doorway
You had just enough space to walk by it without knocking it down
But if you walked straight through the doorway, you would hit it
During these retreats, you get this intense awareness of all life around you
Even that of insects
For this reason, everyone allowed the thread of the spider web to hang there
We didn’t want to disturb it
That spiderweb became a bit of a “test” for me to see how mindful I was when I walked through that door.
If I hit the dangling spider web – I knew I was probably not as mindful as I should be
That gave me some immediate, concrete feedback to get back in the moment
I’m finding things like that in my day-to-day life now
Things that I often do that can serve as a check-in to see how mindful I am that day
- Remembering the towel when I go to shower – I always forget this, but did remember this morning, so good sign!
- Walking into a room, forgetting what I’m looking for – this is a pretty big sign I need to slow down
- Opening an application/web page and trying to remember why I wanted to open the app/webpage – this is another pretty big one
I think these small checkpoints and warning lights serve to keep me present long after my morning meditation is gone.
Quotes From The Monk / Thoughts I Had During The Retreat
Monk Quotes
- You shower everyday, you are angry – you shower, you are stressed – you shower, you are busy – you shower. Meditation should be similar
- Negative thoughts towards others hurt you first
- A snake bite’s venom will kill you in 20 minutes – 2 hours. The venom from negative thoughts will kill you in 10 – 15 years, so no one notices
Random thoughts I had during
- Everyone’s a hypocrite, you only notice if you don’t like them
- It’s nice to feel connected to everyone around you, but in a massive city – where you interact / pass by hundreds of people everyday – how do you treat them all as your brother and sister?
Full Disclaimer Educational only
This article is provided for general educational and informational purposes only and reflects personal experience and opinions. It is not medical, mental health, legal, or professional advice, and it should not be relied on as a substitute for guidance from a qualified professional.
Vipassana retreats and other intensive meditation experiences can be physically and psychologically demanding, and individual responses vary. I am not endorsing Vipassana or any specific retreat as appropriate or safe for everyone. Do your own research, review the retreat’s rules and requirements, and consider your personal circumstances before participating.
If you have a current or past mental health condition (including anxiety, depression, PTSD, bipolar disorder, psychosis), are experiencing significant distress, have a history of panic attacks or trauma symptoms, are taking or changing psychiatric medications, or have any concerns about your mental wellbeing, please consult a licensed clinician or qualified healthcare professional before attending, Personally I even double-checked with a therapist before enrolling.
By choosing to act on anything discussed in this article, you acknowledge that you do so voluntarily and at your own risk. To the fullest extent permitted by law, Digital Nomad Lifestyle and its owners, contributors, and affiliates disclaim responsibility for any loss, injury, or harm (physical, psychological, financial, or otherwise) arising from your use of this content or your decision to attend a retreat. Any third-party references or links are provided for convenience only and do not constitute endorsement.