A week to the day after completing my trek, I walked to the Ganden Yiga Chozin Buddhist Meditation Center in the northern section of Pokhara's Lakeside district.
I wanted to find out about the 3-day meditation course they offered. My timing couldn't have been better, as it was a weekend course set to start in 30 minutes.
The residential course is taught by an American monk, Venerable Losang Yeshe.
Participants spend at least Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in dorms, however since the class was abnormally large (13 people), there wasn't a dorm available for me.
While Friday and Monday were half days, they followed the same schedule as our two full days.
We had a 30-minute meditation at 6:30am, followed by breakfast, Hatha yoga, a teaching, lunch, group discussion, 2nd meditation, dinner, and 3rd meditation at 7:30pm.
After our evening meditation, we were to remain silent until the completion of the following morning's meditation.
We were to refrain from listening to music and using the internet as well.
This was a bit harder for me since I had to walk back to the busier part of town each evening.
All of our meals were vegetarian…and quite tasty!
Overall, I enjoyed the meditations (it's been awhile). It felt really cool to do our evening meditation by candlelight due to the power outages.
I kept my eyes slightly open for them so I could enjoy the environment inside the gompa.
The introductory teachings were a good refresher, plus I liked watching others grapple with concepts like reincarnation and karma, and spending time with a great international crowd open to new ideas.
Switzerland, Holland, Israel, England, and the USA were represented.
On the last day, a bunch of us went out to dinner at the Boomerang restaurant (while their nightly cultural song and dance performance occurred) and drinks at the ever-popular Busy Bee (cover bands nightly).
I continued to spend time with several of the people I met through the class over the following week.
Dave is the Founder and Editor in Chief of Go Backpacking and Feastio. He's been to 66 countries and lived in Colombia and Peru. Read the full story of how he became a travel blogger.
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dna
Friday 29th of October 2010
I really liked your blog! It helped me alot...
william smith
Monday 18th of January 2010
Everyday people are reporting their wonderful experiences on health benefits of Yoga, the transformation of being, taking you beyond the here and now. In one wonderful session of Yoga, people get to practice a number of things, some Yoga poses (asanas) breathing exercises (pranayama), meditation and chanting. In Yoga you get to learn basic terms like Mudras, Bandhas and Chakras. Best of all, Yoga is fun and relaxing while, at the same time, being delectably challenging to beginners.Derived from the Sanskrit root “Yujir Yogey� meaning to unite, to yoke, to join, to put together, Yoga is not about mind over body. On the other hand, Yoga is about developing harmony between them. In Yoga, you use your mind to perceive (diagnose) and guide (heal) your body. Never control, let alone force it!
Jodi
Thursday 1st of May 2008
How totally awesome! If I ever become independently wealthy, (and don't kick the bucket 3 days later, which is just about my luck...) I want to visit all the beautiful places of the world - and this is definately one of them. Since it'll probably never happen, thanks for sharing your experience & the beautiful (again) pics! BB dawtch
Christine Gilbert
Thursday 1st of May 2008
Everyone looks so happy! I'm making Tibet my new 'happy place'...
Stu
Thursday 1st of May 2008
That sounds really cool Dave. great experience. I'm getting more into Buddhism lately, deciding that its my 'path' still doing lots of reading etc but have realised it is 'right' for me.