vipassana-timer 1.0.2

A small meditation timer for vipassana

vipassana-timer

Meditation timer for vipassana (insight meditation) with different postures

Requirements

• simpleaudio

Installation

pip install vipassana-timer

or

git clone https://github.com/toxicologist/vipassana-timer
cd vipassana-timer
python setup.py install

Usage

>meditate -h
usage: meditate [-h] [-t TIMES] [-a] [-s]

Simple vipassana meditation timer

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -t TIMES, --times TIMES
                        Times for each meditation
                        posture (format: 'p5w30s30')
  -a, --accurate        Use accurate datetime for
                        countdown instead of time.sleep
                        (leave this on if you're in a
                        hurry)
  -s, --show_end_times  Show expected vs. real time
                        delta at the end of the
                        session. Useful if you're using
                        time.sleep, to see how delayed
                        the countdown is

The script takes inputs for the three postures: prostration, walking, and sitting - represented by the letters 'p', 'w', 's', each followed by the desired time, in minutes.

For example, if you wanted 10 minutes walking and 10 sitting:

# example usage
>meditate -t w10s10

#or
>meditate
Enter times (format: 'p5w30s30'): w10s10

#result

Times:
Walking: 10
Sitting: 10

Walking: 10:00 remaining

Or, if you only want to do 35 minutes of sitting:

>meditate -t s35

Times:
Sitting: 35

Sitting: 35:00 remaining

-a uses accurate datetime.datetime instead of time.sleep() for the timer.

• Since time.sleep() can be affected by system load and other variables, it often results in a slight elongation of the timer.
  • If you want to test how long the delay is for your machine, you can use the -s flag, which will show the difference between expected vs. real time delta, after the end of your session. Ofc this only makes sense if not using -a.
• With -a your timer will finish at exactly the time you set it to, which can be useful if you have a tight schedule.
• Otherwise, it is recommended to stay at the mercy of your CPU speed, and have a slightly longer meditation session!

If you want to add your own posture, just edit the POSTURES variable in __init__.py.

Good luck meditating! :)