| What is Vipassana Meditation? Vipassana means ""to see things as they really are"; it is the process of self purification by self observation." Vipassana meditation has been documented as far back as 5000 years. It was revived by the Buddha, Sidahartha Gotama 2500 years ago in India, and was the technique he used to become enlightened. Over time it thrived in India and was established in other countries. Through the years it fell out of practice in India and most other places except for Burma (Myanmar). Through the generations in Burma it was passed down via a verbal tradition in it's pure form. S.N. Goenka, who was born in Burma and is of Indian descent, was taught the technique by one of these teachers.. As a business man and house holder, he had experienced stress and unhappiness in life which resulted in a rare form of migrane headaches. Not able to find a cure through the best medical services through out the world, he was challenged to try the Vipassana technique. Skeptical at first, he tried it and found it to help him greatly. As a student, he studied under his teacher for 14 years. In the late 1960's he was granted a rare visa to India to instruct a course for his family. A three month visa turned into a longer and longer stay as the goodness of vipassana was spread by word of mouth and more and more course were conducted. It is now taught all over the world with nearly 10 centers in the U.S. It is taught as a universal techinque to people of all faiths, race, age, gender, and economic status. It is not a religion, but a philosophy/psychology about how to live a happy, balanced and equonimous life. To learn more, check out their webpage at: www.dhamma.org It is a sitting meditation that involves "annapanna" which is the observation of the natural breath. This piece is taught and practiced for the first 3 days. You begin by observing the flow of natural repiration through the nose. At first you just observe the breath and then you systematically narrow your observation of this breath. The second day you focus on the sensations that your breath creates in the triangular region including the nose and upper lip. As you do this you are constantly being forced to calm the mind. It wanders on to thoughts and memories and your goal is to keep focused on the respiration and sensations created in the triangular region of the nose. This is a difficult task at first as we are so accustomed to allowing our brains to flow from topic to topic. This is the sign of an untrained mind. As you progress you get better at noticing your brain moving off at earlier periods until you able to meditate for an hour with complete observation of the breath and the resulting sensations. Next we narrow the region of our focus down to the upper lip and the entry point of the nostrils. Now the focus is souly on the sensations created by the incoming and out going breath. If you wander, you start again by focusing on the respiration, and then again to the sensations. This process trains the minds abilitiy to focus on smaller and smaller parts for longer and longer periods of time. With the observation of the sensations of the breath well established, you begin to work on the awarness of the sensations generated by the body. Starting at the head, the body is scanned, section by section, with complete awarness of the sensations that are occurring. You may notice the touch of your clothes, feel a slight tingle, or tension. As you progress in the ability to notice your body's sensation you move into a flow of the entire body. The psychology: The way our body comes into contact with the universe is through our senses. This includes sight, sound, touch, smell, taste, and Vipassana also includes the mind. When any one of these is activated a sensation occurs in the body. Following this sensation, we attach a feeling or emotion to the contact which ultimately results in an aversion or a craving to the contact. Over time these reactions become continuous and unconscious. Before long we are not in control of our mind, but continously reacting in a way the creates more of the things we crave and moving away from those that are averse. In Buddhist terms this generates suffering because of the attatchment we gain to the clinging and aversing. The natural law of life is that nothing is permanent. With the fact that everything is always changing, we experience pain as we cling to things that are not permanent. This is an experiential learning process and that is very important. By meditation, one feels sensations of pain and pleasure, and as we observe them they change. If we experience pain in the leg (from sitting) we become averse and immediatly want to switch our postion. By changing the position, we are reacting. By observing this sensation of pain, with the realization that everythings is changing, we notice that the pain is not permanent, and have no need to react. The sensation of "pain" becomes just a senation and then rises and falls. This also goes for pleasureable sensations. By observing the sensations with equanimity we neither become attatched to the good sensations or averse to the bad sensations. Through this process we a training the mind to do as we say. As you meditate and are able to experience your body's sensations with equanimity you purify the mind. By not reacting with aversion and craving the sensation rises and passes. As the sensation rises and passes it make way for more sensations, which are attatched to craving and aversing. A continous process of rising and passing occurs which cleanses us of all of past patterns of negativity. With a calm and eqounimous mind we now experience lifes activities with out unconsciously reacting, which means we are always in control of or actions, speech and intentions. Whether we experience pain or pleasure in our daily lives. We also carry with us the experientially learned knowledge, that nothing is permanent. "Vipassana is an art of living which frees the individual from all the negativities of mind, such as anger, greed, ignorance, ect." "It is a practice which develops positive, creative energy for the betterment of the individual and the society." click here to go back to the journal |