Z Meditation Center experience: I also spent 5 days in Dharamsala in a
silent retreat for beginner meditators. I actually learned quite a bit about
some types of mantra meditations (using English phrases) but we didn’t
actually practice much during the time at the center. Mostly, the one
instructor, an Indian guy, would just talk for 1 hour and 20 minutes of the
1hr 30 minute sessions as we all fidgeted around on the floor with no back
support. I ended up being rather glad that it was a silent retreat as the
fellow nine attendees were young Israelis who preferred speaking in Hebrew
except for one guy from England. I wasn’t too glad to share a room with 4
other women in which we slept on single mattresses set upon 6 foot long
concrete bunk beds. At least the all veggie meals weren’t bad and I was able
to fulfill my personal promise to not smoke for one week.
The Acupuncture Session: Surprisingly, I’ve never tried acupuncture until I
went to Dharamsala. I had already promised myself that I wouldn’t violate
the meditation center’s non smoking policy so when I struck up this
conversation with this woman at the bookstore who turned out to be an
acupuncturist from Seattle (staying in Dharamsala for a year to study Tibetan medicine) two days before the retreat was to start, I decided I would try it to see if the acupuncture could help ease the expected nicotine cravings by pushing the nicotine out of my system. So, I ended up getting very thin, fairly short needles stuck into my wrists, my ankles, my ears and a bigger one into the center of the forehead for about 45 minutes. They didn’t hurt at all and I was relieved to hear that I had strong qi. Would I do it again? Sure, but I think I would do it for a more identifiable problem but then I
don’t know how much it really helped with the cravings as I was already down to three a day before the retreat. BTW, for all you really anti-smokers who harass me from time to time, I’m back smoking but try to limit the intake to six short cigarettes a day unless I’m on the road that day. Then, all bets are off.
