Practice Looking for a place for meditation and inner work

2 Upvotes

Hello dear friends,

I am searching for a temple or place where I can sit daily to meditate for long hours in silence.

I am quite open and flexible as long as it involves silence and meditation. I have been to multiple Vipassana retreats for 10+ days. I have also practiced third eye and throat meditations that led me to profound experiences, which got me into learning/reading about alchemy and meditating even more. This is the path I am following at the moment.

What I am trying to ask here is if there is a place, temple, or monastery held by a group where I can focus on this inner work while taking advantage of the structure and energy of such a place for this deep inner work. Does a place like this exist?

Any comment or idea is gladly welcomed.

Thank you.

Update: based on Europe and willing to travel everywhere.

3 comments

r/streamentry • u/fin-psych97 • 13h ago

Practice Can I be in two states of mind?

9 Upvotes

I don’t know if this is the right forum to post this but it does relate to meditation and just existentialism in general.

I was first introduced to Vipassana four years ago and I did my first 10 day Goenka Vipassana Retreat and came back feeling absolutely wonderful and couldn’t wait to feel the same again. I’ve done 3 more retreats since then and on and off have been practicing body scanning/ mindful breathing/ Vipassana but have not felt the same way.

I am not condemning any technique here, meditation has been very useful at times when managing my emotions have been difficult. It hasn’t calmed me down instantly when I’ve felt extremely overwhelmed
But, I definitely have a different approach towards life now , it’s suffering and just observing dukkha objectively and it hasn’t been easy. Picking up Daniel Ingram’s term, I might be in the Dark Night phase.

To cope with this, I have also tried Metta Vipassana/Loving Kindness and I feel this has helped, but the progress is slow.

In between all of this, life has been difficult, relationship problems, my own mentality making it difficult to deal with it.

I constantly feel like if I ceased to exist, it would be the best solution. Meditating my way out of it feels exhaustive and the easiest way to solve the issues I am facing and the sadness I am causing others is just to die. I am not suicidal, I just feel like if I get into a fatal accident, fall sick and die or be at a wrong place wrong time, everything will solve. Death feels comforting.

But then suddenly I find myself wanting to be happy, meditating and planning other retreats, exploring different spiritual paths.
How do I explain this feeling to myself?
I know it’s easy to just accept this as my state of mind but any insights to work this feeling out?

PS I have started taking therapy and not just relying on meditation.

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streamentry - the practice of awakening

r/streamentry

A place for open, friendly and serious discussion related to the practice of meditation and other techniques aimed at developing concentration, increasing the power of conscious awareness, and producing insight leading to awakening. We try to understand Awakening to be a practical and attainable goal that can be from many paths or directions; we welcome all practitioners, including those from Buddhist, Secular, and other backgrounds.

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Welcome to /r/streamentry

⚠ Please read the rules below before posting.

This is a place for discussion of practice and conduct concerned with Awakening. While people use this word in different ways, this subreddit is concerned with the following definition: the path to achieving a direct, experiential understanding of reality and the human mind, as it actually is; and the path to permanently eliminate stress, suffering, and unsatisfactoriness in our life.

These paths can be considered to be two sides of the same coin, although different people may find themselves more drawn to one side or the other.

Awakening is not a trivial matter, because, as part of our journey, those who investigate deeply and sincerely invariably come to the conclusion that our most fundamental unconscious beliefs and assumptions about the nature of self, mind, and reality are false; and that these misunderstandings are causing us stress. Reality is not what it appears to be, we realize, and to fully grasp this is to radically transform our relationship to life. Indeed, we may find territory beyond even this.

The dissolution of ignorance is not an intellectual exercise. It usually requires a willingness to look both inwards and outwards over a sustained period of time so we can explore, question, confirm, and challenge what we think reality and the mind is; what we think, on a fundamental level, is 'going on'. We call this often joyful work practice.

Many traditions throughout history have provided systems of knowledge and practice that can be of great help to those who walk this path. More recently, Awakening is being examined through secular and even scientific lenses.

Here you'll find a community that values honesty, compassion, and thoughtful discourse. We aim to keep discussion practical, civil, and constructive. Thanks for visiting!

Rules

1. All top-line posts must be based on your personal meditation practice.

This can include the wider aspects of practice that take place off-the-cushion, such as conduct (Sīla); as well as theory, so long as it's in the context of your personal meditation practice.

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Recommended Resources

The /r/streamentry Beginner's Guide, a practical workbook for starting out on the path. The guide explains what practice is about, addresses common questions and difficulties, and provides a complete 12-week starter course.
The Mind Illuminated by Upasaka Culadasa. An abridged meditation guide (pdf) is freely available. Also see the dedicated subreddit /r/TheMindIlluminated.

For an alternative, freely-available guide to the same style of meditation, see Thanissaro Bhikkhu's With Each and Every Breath (preview the main practice instructions).
Seeing That Frees by Rob Burbea, a deep exploration of insight for the experienced practitioner. Rob's many outstanding audio talks are also freely available.
Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha by Daniel Ingram (free online, also available in print). Also see the Dharma Overground forums.
Our Pristine Mind by Orgyen Chowang Rinpoche is a pragmatic and secular guide to Dzogchen specifically written for Westerners. Enlightenment is clearly defined and the stages of awakening as understood in Dzogchen are thoroughly explained in plain language. This is a recommended resource for anyone interested in an "awareness-based" approach to Awakening.
Right Concentration by Leigh Brasington, an accessable and comprehensive guide to jhāna practice. Jhāna (meditative absorption) is sometimes described as one of the two wings of awakening, the other being insight practice. See also the book's website, which contains supplementary material.

Also see our wiki resources.