I attended a ten day meditation retreat by teacher S.N. Goenka. http://www.vri.dhamma.org It was good but they were very rule oriented. Actually, they drove me nuts. I would be off in my little head and someone would come and tap me, scaring the hell out of me, and tell me to remove my glasses. Or you would be sitting and waiting for lunch, and they would tell you with hand gestures that you had to move. Why? Who knows. We were supposed to be silent. The food was good. My little private room was Spartan but great. We even had hot water in the morning. It was cold, because of the nice ventilation.
I didn't really care for the meditation method taught. One problem is that I didn't know where we were going with it so I was forced to just do as they told me. Not easy for me. I had learned the hard way to follow along. In Thailand, I did not and ended up feeling continually in a quandary about what method should I be using. At Dhamma Giri, I also felt like the leaders had no experience with any other methods and therefore were unable to guide us accordingly. I felt like they could only repeat the answers from an FAQ list. Beyond that they couldn't or wouldn't say. However, overall, I would recommend it, especially since the price was right - free.
I did have a very humbling experience there. The day we checked in was a bit annoying. We had to fill out this form and that form. Wait in this line and that line. People were even butting in line at this holy place. It was an authentic Indian experience. While I was waiting in line to check in my valuables, practically everything I owned, these Indian women of course felt the need to butt in front of me. I decided to just let it go, let them go. I was starting a spiritual retreat after all but I was still annoyed in an eye rolling kind of a way. The woman directly in front of me turned in her valuables which looked like at most 600 rupees, about $15. She had it folded in quarters and handed it over like it really was her life savings, very carefully and with a bit of a glance over her shoulder. They put it in a paper bag which she had to sign. It broke my heart. Here I was not even checking in all my money because I what's 500 rupees here or there. It didn't mean anything to me. I did check in some of my money, hundreds dollars, credit cards, passports, a really expensive cellphone, and a camera. And I would've been upset if I lost them but not devastated. And the money, I really wasn't that concerned about especially the few thousand rupees that I had tucked away here in there in my bags and clothes. And here was a woman, maybe 10 years older than myself, relinquishing 500 rupees like it was the most money she had seen in a very long time. It was precious. I was ashamed.
