Parvati Magazine December 2014/January 2015: Consequence/Beginnings | Page 16

MEDITATION

DIFFICULT EMOTIONS NO MORE
Four Questions to Free Yourself

I

first started meditating in 2006 during my solo travels throughout Southeast Asia. At that
point I had been practicing yoga for six years, was newly vegetarian, and felt that meditation was a practice that would lend itself easily to my new lifestyle. I soon found myself on
a monastery in northern Thailand, all dressed in white, sleeping in an empty khuti (hut) with
only blankets and a plastic patio chair as furniture, and a meditation schedule that had me
practicing up to 15 hours (sometimes more) each day. After eight years, it is an understatement when I say meditation has changed my life in ways I could have never imagined.
Since then, I’ve more or less only practiced Vipassana Insight meditation, although I have
dabbled in a few different approaches. My understanding thus far is that the teachings are
based on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, particularly the first two (mindfulness of the
body and its senses, and mindfulness of feelings), with an emphasis on cultivating concentration.
Last year I traveled to Burma to practice with the revered Sayadaw U Tejaniya. The approach taught at his monastery, Shwe Oo Min Forest Meditation Centre, was also Vipas-