Silacarini Reflection

This year’s Silajarini was no different to the last. I knew what I was getting myself in for as I had already experienced it last year. I told one of my friends about the retreat and he said it would be easy just to sit and meditate and do nothing all day. For those people who have never experienced Vipassana meditation before, I can assure them that it is not as easy as it seems. For example the daily routine consists of getting up at 4:30 am, meditating up to 7 hours a day and going to bed about 11:30 pm every night.Sitting and walking meditation was quite hard to adapt to at first. But as time went on, it became more manageable with the pain from sitting for hours and constantly acknowledging the ‘raising’ and ‘falling’ of every breath you take and with everything you do. It is very hard to train the mind as it often wonders off thinking about all sort of stuff. Even when I felt down and tired, I told myself that I would never give up and continued with the practice of mediation.

The accommodation was very basic, as you would expect it to be. I was in a room with my Mum and two other girls. People that attended the nine day retreat were all very nice. We all grew to be like one big family where we helped and, looked out for, one another.

Local Buddhists were kind enough to get up early in the morning to prepare our food and were fully supportive of the 53 nuns. Vegetarian meals were eaten twice a day, firstly at 07:30 and then again at 11 am. The helpers offered to get things for us with no charge, which was very generous of them.
Going to the nine day retreat was one of the best things that I could have done with my life. As I am 17 years of age, going through the study period can becomes very stressful. Teenagers can often lose sidetrack of what is really important in their life and so make the wrong decisions and subsequently regretting it. However I will use lesson learnt at the temple and use that for my everyday life.