ommm

So, I have an admission. I really really like Taylor Swift's album, Fearless. It's actually, genuinely good. I know, some of you (one of you) is probably rolling your eyes. But psh, whatev.

On another note, I've been seriously considering doing a Vipassana meditation course. I used to think meditation was kind of.... weird. A little too new agey and.... weird. But I've been reading and learning more and more about what it's all about and it makes so much sense to me it's just crazy.

Vipassana, in Sanskrit, means insight. Mostly, insight into the nature of reality. The goal is to see the impermanence in reality, and to explore yourself so that you can detach yourself from it. The whole idea being that everything is transitory and the nature of a person is selflessness.

The more I read, the more it makes sense, and the more time I spend meditating (I'm still a total beginner and am not yet very good at it - I get distracted) the better I feel, just in general.

Vipassana is a technique you learn through a ten-day course. It's pretty much ten days of pure meditation. The first three, you just learn to focus on your breathing as a way to calm your mind, and then you do the more introspective meditation. You don't speak to anyone, you eat an entirely vegetarian diet and you have no communication with the outside world. No reading, writing, anything. Sounds pretty intense.

You can apply and if you're accepted, it's completely free. It's funded by people who've finished the course. Pretty cool.

I'm reading Letters From the Dhamma Brothers and it's got me interested. It's mostly letters of thanks from prisoners who've done the course.

Pretty interesting stuff. I'm feeling pretty sickly, so that's all for now.