Vipassana, Ecstatic Dance, and Espresso Tonics [May 24]
Recommendations from Me
Sorry for the delay in posting this one! I’ve just gotten back to the UK after 5 months away. A theme cutting across my recommendations this month is meditation, in its different forms.
One of the very most impactful experiences of my life so far was the 10 day Vipassana meditation retreat I attended in 2021. The style of retreat I attended was designed by the late S.N. Goenka. This is probably the best known type of Vipassana retreat, and it has a well-earned reputation for its gruelling difficulty: no talking, no eye contact, 10+ hours of sitting meditation a day, final meal at 11:30AM. At the time, it was probably the hardest experience I’d ever chosen to undergo; it was also the most beneficial. I didn’t have a consistent meditation practice before attending, and I don’t have one now, but in those 10 days I saw a marked improvement to: my reaction to physical pain and emotional distress, my patience, and my sensitivity to the experiences of other people. The Goenka-style Vipassana retreats are free to attend, and there are centres in many different countries, see here. That said, I would recommend reading about different types of Vipassana retreats before deciding on one.
I really enjoyed reading Hermann Hesse’s 1922 novella Siddhartha, which illustrates the many lives of a single man in 6th century BC India. With a great deal of sympathy, Hesse sketches the character’s path from ascetic monk to lustful courtier, from rags to riches, and riches to rags, from restless wandering to the patient life of a ferryman. You can read this gentle treatise on life in a day.
I’ve always thought of myself as clumsy, and while this hasn’t presented a challenge in most aspects of my life, it has often made me intimated to dance — at least whilst sober. Three years ago I bit the bullet and went to my first ecstatic dance session. While ecstatic dance, or dance meditation, has roots in many different traditions (think Sufi Whirling Dervishes, or Cuban Santeria), the contemporary ecstatic dance sessions I have attended in the UK, Belgium, Taiwan, and Mexico, were all very similar. Aside from a few general principles — sobriety, no talking, no phones — participants face few restrictions, and are welcome to react to the music in any way they want. My experience of ecstatic dance has been so overwhelmingly positive, that dancing is now close to my favourite thing to do in the world. You can find some sessions here, or here.
During the years of my undergraduate degree, I used to organise art conferences, where I asked friends to bring workshops. In one session my friend Vynn asked the participants to sit in pairs, and in silence, hold eye contact for 10 minutes. I was surprised at how challenging this was at first, and how close the pairs felt after the end of the exercise. I think eye contact is a very wonderful way of relating to other people. I would recommend trying this exercise with a friend, or a partner.
Recommendations from Others
Yuan 2024
‘High contrast, black and white photography masters: Garry Winogrand, Lee Friedlander, William Klein, Daidō Moriyama, Shōmei Tōmatsu, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bruce Gilden.’
Lluvia 2024
‘You don’t attract what you want, you attract what you are.’
Francesca 2024
‘The room in the MOMA in NYC featuring ‘amateur art;’ crying when it feels right; espresso tonics; buying your boyfriend flowers; playing with your friends' hair; dancing with children.’
Tony 2024
‘Two Cuban films: Inocencia (about the execution of 8 medical students in 1871,) Habana Blues (great Cuban music film.)’
Dexter 2024
‘Drinking beer at concerts is a recipe for pee, not fun.'
