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Sam Aldridge's avatar

Thanks for this great post, Eden :) I really enjoyed your descriptions of tantra--a loom, a warp, harmonizing opposites--and it sounds like this retreat in Thailand was profound and opening. Cheers to more discovery!

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Chad O's avatar

I just started going through a vipassana class. It’s a series on YouTube put out by John Vervaeke. I think he blends other practices into his version of it? To really understand Metta, he said there are no good books in English, and maybe read a book about it by a particular Buddhist author and then a book by a particular Christian author about contemplative prayer and triangulate between those two. And Metta seems to be all about compassion! And acceptance. The whole series so far has encouraged befriending yourself. So it’s interesting to hear vipassana described as being about renunciation! Obvs I haven’t gotten to the end of the course yet and obvs there are different versions, so maybe that’s mostly right. Especially compared to Tantra, which sounds really fun and silly and challenging and rewarding! I actually went to the first night of a weekend workshop once—which I was told was going to help me learn about a certain anarchist community project but ended up mostly being attended by poly folks who wanted more relational tools; I was one of two monog people in attendance—that incorporated the eye contact practice you described. I wonder if I made people feel vulnerable or if I sparked a protective urge. I don’t remember feeling either of those, for the other people 😅

This also makes me think of acroyoga, which I love but currently don’t practice (there are no regular classes I can take for it in my current city 😞). My wife would object when I invited her to class with me, “I do not want to touch strangers that much.” I would reply, “they don’t stay strangers for long!”

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