MEDITATE WITH BALI USADA

I Want to Meditate

I have always been drawn to Buddhism, even though I was born Hindu. For many years, that attraction remained largely academic, shaped by more than a decade of studying religion. In 2024, when I was formally initiated into Buddhism, my relationship with the tradition shifted. The focus moved from understanding ideas to engaging in practice, especially meditation, which I see as the Buddha’s most fundamental training in mindfulness.

As my studies deepened, I also became increasingly uneasy with the idea of God and with forms of worship mediated through clergy. What I was searching for was not belief, but a direct way to work with the mind, a form of spiritual training that placed responsibility back onto the practitioner. Meditation, approached seriously and with discipline, felt like the clearest path toward that goal.

This search led me to Bali Usada, a retreat and training center known across Bali for its rigorous approach to meditation. Its founder, Pak Merta Ada, is widely respected for teaching meditation and mindfulness through radio sessions and long-standing training programs. Bali Usada represented a form of retreat that emphasized restraint, silence, and sustained practice rather than comfort or spectacle. I did not want to treat meditation as a casual habit or experiment on my own. I wanted proper training, starting from the foundations, within a structured retreat environment.

I have long believed that meditation and mindfulness offer a direct way to work through past trauma and even karmic results that have yet to bear fruit. With this intention, I finally chose to join the Tapa Brata Level 1 meditation training at Bali Usada in August 2025, to experience for myself how disciplined retreat practice could support my own personal spirituality.

Initial Impressions

I finally set aside seven days of my life to be quiet and be by myself, but I arrived feeling nervous. The reality of being in a retreat center for a full week with no talking, no reading, and no phones was confronting, as was the thought of meditating for hours each day. We woke up at 4 a.m., and the day did not end until 9 p.m. Even though there were around thirty of us in the training, the strict, pin-drop silence made it feel like a deeply individual journey. In many ways, it was daunting, the idea of having to face everything on my own.

And yet, looking around, I realized I was not alone. Many of the other participants were not regular meditators at all. My roommates included a factory worker in sales and a business owner managing multiple ventures in Bali. They were around my age and had never imagined themselves attending a meditation retreat or mindfulness training. In contrast, I came from a spiritual family where meditation was part of daily life. My parents meditate every day, and I have worked in the yoga and meditation world for years. Entering this retreat, I carried familiarity alongside fear, while those around me arrived as complete beginners. That contrast shaped the first days of the retreat, reminding me that this training was not about prior experience, but about showing up and sitting with whatever arose.

The Daily Sitting

Each day followed a steady rhythm centered on meditation. None of the meditation sessions were excessively long, usually lasting around an hour, and each was supported by an audio guide that gently led us through every step of the practice. During the first three days, the focus was on establishing awareness: observing the breath, becoming conscious of posture, and working attentively with the chakras. On days four and five, the meditation shifted toward healing, turning attention to different parts of the physical and mental body with a quiet, deliberate focus.

Between meditation sessions, we practiced light stretching exercises designed to realign the meridian pathways. These simple movements worked wonders. Despite sitting for many hours each day, there was remarkably little pain or physical discomfort. Alongside the practice, we also had lecture sessions where Pak Merta Ada shared his own experiences and explained the theoretical foundations behind what we were doing, grounding the retreat in both lived knowledge and clear understanding. And then there was the food. Entirely vegetarian, home-cooked, and deeply satisfying, the meals became something we all quietly looked forward to, offering warmth and nourishment in the midst of an otherwise austere retreat.

The Inner Healing

Although it is described as a meditation retreat, Pak Merta Ada’s approach is fundamentally oriented toward healing. From day four onward, we were taught how to work on ourselves mentally and spiritually. Guided through the chakra system, we were instructed to enter the body and bring awareness to areas marked by physical illness or mental discomfort. The instruction was simple but demanding: do not resist the pain, do not dramatize it, simply observe it through the wisdom of impermanence.

As the days progressed, the effects became tangible. Subtle yet profound changes could be felt within the body. I personally struggle with my throat, having damaged my vocal cords due to chronic acid reflux, and I chose to focus my meditation there. During practice, I felt a distinct cooling, whooshing sensation circulating around my throat, as if the throat chakra itself were enveloping and protecting my physical larynx. It was striking to experience how intentional awareness could influence the body from within.

What this retreat revealed to me is how often our intentions and our bodies work against each other. Through meditation, these layers begin to align: intention, subtle body, and physical body moving in the same direction. That alignment brings a quiet sense of control and trust in one’s own capacity to heal. Many people come to Bali Usada seeking this kind of healing. In my group, there were older participants who had lived with chronic pain for years, ranging from joint problems to cancer. Others came hoping to overcome addiction, depression, or insomnia. Everyone carried different burdens, yet the method offered to all was the same: turning inward and taking responsibility for one’s own healing.

Becoming My Own Healer

I happened to be part of batch 999, just a week before Bali Usada’s 1,000th retreat celebration. There was something quietly striking about witnessing a healer so willing to give away his own knowledge. Pak Merta Ada is known for his ability to heal others, to immediately sense imbalances in the body and identify them with remarkable precision, yet his response is always the same: meditation. More than that, he teaches us how to meditate in order to heal ourselves. In this, I saw a deep compassion, a refusal to make others dependent on him or on any healer, and instead an insistence that we learn to take care of our own bodies and minds.

Thousands of people have benefited from this training, and I was simply one among them. Everyone arrives with different stories, wounds, and motivations, and it is remarkable that a single, standardized course can meet such diverse needs. Yes, it is a course. Yes, everything is structured and set. The techniques and guided meditations have remained unchanged for years. And yet, the experience felt profoundly individual. I realized that this was because I was finally spending uninterrupted time with myself. Bali Usada did not provide answers; it provided the technique, the time, and the supportive environment for me to do my own inner work.

Meditation Retreats in 2026

Interested in joining the Usada Tapa Brata? Visit Bali Usada’s website for more detailed information about the trainings, or click this link to view the 2026 schedule. Courses marked “Eng” are conducted in English, while the remaining courses are taught in Bahasa Indonesia.