A vipassana retreat is typically ten days, in silence, with roughly ten hours of sitting daily, no reading, writing, or eye contact. The technique varies by lineage — noting mental events, or systematic body scanning in the Goenka method — but the structure is consistent, and it is deliberately harder than most people expect. It is one of the few religious practices that has spread widely as a technique detached from its doctrine, which teachers within the tradition regard with mixed feelings.