Vipassana: 10 days of solitude and insights gained from it
curiousjuice.com
curiousjuice.com
In every retreat, I experience the most mind-numbing boredom, severe burning fiery pain, full body bliss the likes of which I cannot even recollect properly and a huge gamut of sensations in between all of these extremes. I've misinterpreted the extreme experiences at given times and each retreat learn a little bit more about their true nature. I can then apply what I learn to my life when I experience boredom, pain and extreme joy and learn to experience each "properly".
The trick is finding the ardent awareness that allows you to stay there, on the path, without distraction. And then to learn how to stay that ardently aware as you go through life. Hopefully the retreat doesn't stay an isolated 10 day experience but its import, particular the technique itself, is something you can cultivate throughout your life, while sitting, walking, standing and lying down.
5th result on google for "vipassana retreat, bay area"...
The meditation methods used there would be the same as the above.
An experience gets memorized based on its emotional strength, so, for example, a strong negative experience (a trauma) will get memorized quite well. Later on, in a sort-of realed situation one gets to recall and relive such stored experience - the brain sort of "believes" it's important to remember. If the re-living is also strongly emotional, the memory gets "hardened", but if the reliving is less emotional the memory gets "softened". As you go through life, most negative experiences gets softer and softer with each recall until each one disappears altogether for lack of emotional response, and thus subjective importance. However a small number of such memories become immortal - each re-living of one such memory is as emotionally strong as the previous one, and so the memory of the pain never weakens. Such stored memory is called "Sarkana". The problem with carrying around too many Sarkanas is that eventually any event in your life brings back a negative memory from the past, so you spend your life reacting to something that happened long time ago and bears only superficial resemblance to the present situation.
The immediate purpose of the Viapssana meditation is to learn the ability to direct your attention where you want it to go, not where the pain pulls you, to learn dispassionate observation of your own suffering. Bi learning to ignore an itch on your nose, you also learn to ignore an itch in your soul. The less emotional response you generate, the softer the memory becomes, until it evaporates altogether. When completely through (a multi-year process), you only react to the present situation, not to any ghosts of the past.
You can make a surprising amount of progress in 10 days, but you have to keep at it to maintain the gains. I found it impossibly hard to keep meditating on my own.
> I found it impossibly hard to keep meditating on my own
Couple things to keep in mind:
1. Daily practice in some form is the real key. Just get up and do it.
2. There will be ups and downs, high and lows in meditation.
3. Vipassana is a pretty austere form of meditation. You are directly confronting the mind with little outside aid or warmup. Other forms of meditation leverage breathing techniques, concentration techniques and other practices that gradually bring the mind into submission, making the no-thought part somewhat more easy to achieve. Search around or shoot me an email if you want to know some other approaches.
I was referring more along the lines of pranayamas, mantras and other techniques that drive the mind into submission. The mind will be completely stunned after 10-20 mins. Look into any tradition be it buddhist, yoga, tantra etc and you find some other options.
These techniques must put pressure on some deep, otherwise unconscious levels of the mind, and then produce responses closer to the "hardware" level. I'd love to see more research done in this area.
(Note: I don't practice Vipassana, but different, yet overall somewhat similar, techniques of a school of yoga - and I mean yoga in the traditional sense, not the bastardized "female yuppie gymnastics".)
I meditated for a few months back in 2006 and it was fantastic. I, too, have trouble maintaining it. What other sorts of practices would you recommend?
Regarding the austerity of breathing: I've found that not forcing the eyes closed does the trick. It is far easier for my mind to wander, at first, with my eyes closed. With eyes open, but relaxed enough to close on their own (and they usually do) I get a constant reminder that I'm meditating not just day dreaming.
(And, if you read the Satipatanasutta you'll notice that the Buddha never instructs the meditator to close their eyes. :)
My practice has definitely had its ups and downs over the years. In my experience the most significant contributor to a strong, consistent practice is to regularly sit with other people. Like weekly, or a few times per week if possible.
Glad to see some talk of meditation here on HN — I've always felt that programmer-types would dig Vipassana. Buddha was a hacker.
Then there is also an expansion, a feeling of infinity, eternity and something that could hardly be described by "radiant space like consciousness" or "luminous mind" which is really what meditators are after. This experience is the enlightenment sought by all religions and spiritual paths. You doubt it's existence? Just remember what your brain and body can do: bliss (orgasm), body buzz (marijuana high), extremely intense feelings of love (young people in love have this sometimes), total serenity (right after we when we wake up, before we start thinking about stuff), dissolution of the ego (we can all have this if we simply participate in a large gathering of people in an emotional state, like, a protest or a football match). Imagine an experience of which bliss, serenity, buzz, inner light are just aspects.
We do have the hardware for enlightenment, we just don't know the API. Vipassana is such an API.
The course is almost entirely rational and in the spirit of honest scientific inquiry. The rules seem arbitrary and silly but they are very helpful in quieting your mind, and enabling you to focus entirely on the practice at hand. It took me until Day 3 to let myself relax and enjoy the absence of tweets, posts and text notifications rather than feel anxiety about being disconnected. Assuming one is there for 240 hours, I only have an issue with ~5 of those hours being a bit ‘woo-woo’ as The Amazing Randi would say. I think of Goenka (the videos used in the evening lectures are available on youtube) as a kindly grandparent who just wants the best for you but occasionally tangents into bullshit. Despite his continual admonishments to only believe what is rational, he seems to genuinely believe the magical stories surrounding the Buddha, and it was distracting to have to segue from ‘this is a genuine insight into how the mind generates its own suffering’ to ‘oh wait he is talking BS’. If one replaces some of his more magical terms that are almost Freudian (ie Sakarnas) with 'Maladaptive neuronal connections' they actually make sense.
The sheer number of hours one is able to practice in this setting really accelerates the development of concentration/mindfulness. I think of the ~110 hours spent meditating during the course as equivalent to 220 days worth of 30minutes/day practice, and feel like I have ‘time traveled’ past 60% of a year of training. Happy to answer specific questions if anyone is considering attending a course.
One way I describe it to my friends is a "meditation boot camp." They break you down so that you can build yourself up. It's not that they break you down, but the environment (no speaking, reading, writing, etc...) is one where you are stuck in your own head for 10 days without distraction - so a lot of your "issues" come out. And you then learn to deal with them through mindfulness.
I had panic disorder before going and nothing really helped. During my 10-day course I had really bad panic attacks often. But meditation has pretty much "cured" me of them, because I now know how to observe them without reaction.
Before the course I was more or less haphazardly trying a breathing meditation where you count your breaths (say 5 or 10), and with a bead necklace I would count how many cycles of 10 I would manage in an hour. If my mind wandered during the 10 seconds then I would start again from 1. I averaged perhaps 20 successful cycles in an hour. I know this sounds, and probably is, atrocious. It was a sobering insight into how distracted I was by the rush of thoughts despite my own deliberate efforts at modulating those thoughts. Additionally, I would feel compelled to re-position my body every few minutes. The slightest pain or itch was enough to break my will and force me to readjust the pile of pillows I relied upon, again despite my own conscious desire to not move or scratch.
After the course, I can now sit comfortably on a simple Zafu cushion for an entire hour without losing awareness of my breath more than a handful of times, and certainly without having to move a muscle.
I don't expect my own anecdotes to convince anyone of the efficacy of these courses. I can only strongly encourage anyone interested to 'walk the path' by attending a formal course to give it a try. I have already signed up for another course to further my own practice.
To anyone interested in the practice, i can recommend reading [0]. Personally, i started by reading this book and doing some practice at home. After about half a year i attended the retreat (same as uberuberuber). Those retreats are offered worldwide, follow the same rules and are all donation based. List of centers in north-america at [1].
[0] http://vipassana.org/meditation/mindfulness_in_plain_english...
That's a mouthful, and just as obscure for most people. Might as well go with "Sarkana" - it's easier to pronounce. Besides, the script worked well for a few thousand years now, there is hardly a reason to change it now.
But yeah, if you're scientifically inclined and the ancient Indian mythology is rubbing you the wrong way, you can safely skip it, and it still makes perfect sense in the end.
I'm not in favor of change for the sake of change, but when better reasons are available to describe a phenomenon, I think we should adopt those reasons. Surviving for thousands of years is not a virtue when it comes to the validity of ancient texts or the actions of (historical?) individuals (Buddha, Jesus, Big-Mo, etc.).
Sit long enough, and you will encounter all the interesting attachment surrounding the notion of rationality.
> Besides, the script worked well for a few thousand years now, there is hardly a reason to change it now.
Imo, that is a big fallacy. I believe religious beliefs can no longer provide sound ground for adjustment in today's world. It is harmful to have within your semantic environment both "spiritual" factors such as the notion of "aetheric body", and scientific factors such as the notion of "space-time" (which currently shape our civilisation). This is because the two belong to inconsistent sets, so they conflict.
Edit: For a more relevant example, consider the implicit assumption of many "spiritual" doctrines that there is a "soul", which is separated from a "mind", which is separated from a "body". This contrasts with our modern scientific assumptions, that there is just an organism-as-a-whole-in-an-environment, which functions as such. The word "organism" is more recent than "Sankharas"! As such, it doesn't carry with itself the older metaphysics.
Also, consider our modern scientific perspective that we don't drop into this world from a vacuum – we come from an environment, the uterus. This, again, stands in sharp contradiction with many "spiritual" doctrines.
The rubber hand illusion shows that mind and body are far from unified.
Harmful to what? Prove it—and not from first principles, because the human mind seems to have no trouble at all with combining arbitrary and contradictory concepts into one big mushy whole. Ask any non-programmer for software requirements, or really anybody why they did anything and not something else.
The only tangible harm is that it annoys people who attempt to apply logical reasoning to every situation and interaction, even where other human faculties are obviously more appropriate.
You are applying logical reasoning at any given time. What varies only are the assumptions you're concsciously or unconsciously making about yourself and the world.
As time passed by, humanity made various conscious and unconscious assumptions about the structure of the world. These assumptions got captured into language, which enabled passing the assumptions from one generation to the next. This is what happened with words like "soul" and "mind" (which assume possibility of absolute separation between elements). But as scientific revolutions occurred, assumptions were revised, and we created new terms, like "network" (a very important term from the semantic pov, as it assumes connectedness). Unlike thousands of years ago, today (year 2013), we know that the impossibility of absolute separation between elements is a fact of the world in which we live. By subscribing to the older systems of thought, you are going against scientifically (i.e publicly) accepted facts in your thought and actions.
>human mind seems to have no trouble at all with combining arbitrary and contradictory concepts into one big mushy whole.
The "mind"? Yes, maybe. The nervous system? Not so sure.
We know from neurology101 that observations are given by impulses received from the senses and processed in the thalamus. The cortex enables more abstract processing of observations (i.e interpretation, ideas, theories, etc.); the impulses reach the cortex after they have been processed by the thalamus. The entire thing is cyclical [1]. As the brain is one connected whole, it is neurologically important that the cortical and thalamic processes remain coordinated. This means it is undesirable that ideas are in a mushy relationship within themselves and with the empirical observations. If they were, this would essentially disconnect the activity of the brain. A very handy example of this is (my Western understanding of) mantras: they are not words, yet they are treated as if they have meaning (i.e, if I start repeating a mantra, I will deal will purely cortical products, instead of starting from observations and facts – that is, starting with thalamic products, and afterwards proceed by processing those cortically).
You have two things you have to prove. One, that it is neurologically important that these processes remain coordinated. Two, that unscientific thoughts somehow cause them to become uncoordinated. I'd settle for any sort of proof that thinking unscientific thoughts has any sort of detectable physiological effect. From there, I'd want to see that the effect is meaningful.
I expect your definition of "logical" is gerrymandered to include certain kinds of illogical thinking of which you approve and ignore others. People engage in superstitious behavior constantly despite it being illogical, even after having the illogicalness of the behavior explained. This doesn't seem to cause them physical harm. Your allegation that people are always being logical seems incoherent in the face of your allegation that holding inconsistency in the mind is detrimental--either we can do it or we can't.
I'm not especially open to continuing the debate. If you have proof of whatever these effects are bring it, but I'm not otherwise interested in continuing a conversation about your weird pseudo-scientific mysticism. I'm happy you found something that works for you, I guess.
The Buddha himself rejected to answer metaphysical questions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_unanswerable_questions
Buddhism puts the emphasis on direct experience of impermanence and how it leads to suffering.
Apart from that, most people have not trouble believing in contrasting theories or living by contrasting morals ;).
Please see my reply to fusiongyro, which is currently below yours.
To me, it seems like 10 days can barely begin cracking the ice, so to speak. I think even more powerful results would be achieved by removing yourself from your normal environment for 10 days (just go somewhere else and do something unusual), and then go and do the 10 day meditation boot camp.
But of course, very few people can afford the luxury of spending so much time away from work, family, etc. That's just an unfortunate fact of life.
I have an acquaintance who meditated in the East for some years. He told me that one of the biggest disappointments was that monks who spent years of their life meditating, could be very arrogant and selfish.
I also know of persons who meditate regularly, but never or rarely attended retreats, who seemed very enlightened.
Daily life and retreat may be a false dichotomy, I think the latter group of people were able to see every single moment of life as practice.
Vipassana is about directly seeing impermanence, dissatisfaction, and lack of self in all sensations. The point of practice is to elevate your skill in seeing those. Because direct comprehension of the so-called three characteristics can reboot the mind in a way that is very analogous to how we reboot the computer and remove malware.
Vipassana is not about helping you deal with your psychological issues at the level of content. Its not a therapist-substitute. In fact it will often make matters (temporarily) worse, if you actually follow the instructions and do the practice.
Spending your meditation time pondering your "issues" is the biggest rookie mistake you can make. People can do this for years, and never get anywhere in their practice.
If you want to spend some time alone and contemplate your life, thats great and quite possibly useful, but don't call it Vipassana.
This is worth repeating. This is a silent practice, and while thoughts may arise (and very interesting ones, too!) learning to let them go, and remain (mentally) silent was perhaps the biggest obstacle to progress for me personally. Not sure if mental silence is a cause or effect of meditation, but it's the closest thing to real happiness I've experienced.
>> practically the whole notion of "intellect figuring out and resolving issues", seems now completely a misguided process"
Makes me feel like all the book learning I ever did was all for naught (aside from technical learning that helps me do my job).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sa%E1%B9%85kh%C4%81ra
Nothing woo-woo about "conditioned phenomena". And it's not really a "Vipassana" term as much as a philosophical term in general. That's just the Pali name for it.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrift:_76_Days_Lost_At_Sea and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Callahan
even though you don't talk to or engage with people, the experience does not ring of aloneness actually. i felt incredibly connected to other participants and at the end when you begin talking again, there's a wonderful sense of camaraderie. made a bunch of new friends.
I didn't mind: - Goenka parables.
I didn't like: - After suddenly switching to raw/vegetarian food - you'll be running to the bathroom for an explosive, nasty dragon fart breaks day and night. - No clear plan to maintain gains. They suggest 1-2 hours daily meditation afterwards which is impossible to maintain.
Overall: five stars (Quebec mountains location)
That said, gym is a very therapeutic experience for me. It helps me empty my mind of all stress-causing stuff in my life (e.g. work) and I get to focus on just one thing: lifting weights. I also gain additional benefits such as being strong as hell and looking great. ;)
Exercise is very important for me, too, and I do it almost every day. I also meditate an hour every day. It just means I have an hour less of watching tv or browsing facebook, or something like that.
What made me stick to it, and mostly what made me realize its importance, was I made it a new year's resolution in 2011 to meditate every day for 30 minutes. It had such a huge impact on the quality of my life that I haven't stopped, and I've increased it to an hour a day.
I had the exact same experience with lifting.
But I've found an even more powerful vacuum-cleaner for the mind: racing sportbikes. Squeeze the throttle, hear the engine climb above 10,000 RPM, and feel the mighty rush of speed, and poof! your mind is crystal clear, free of all the daily junk.
http://florin.myip.org/blog/engines-joy
But meditation is better than all of the above. It seems like it tinkers with the hardware directly, whereas the other methods are more round-about.
30...60 min twice a day to maintain gains or continue progress seems to be the norm in any meditation system anywhere.
To maintain living status you need to keep breathing 24/7, every single minute, continuously.
A theory I have been developing is that perhaps meditation that achieves a no-mind state for a long period of time, may allow the practitioner's brain and body to enter the same kind of restorative repair cycle that it normally only enters during unconscious sleep (the only time a normal person's mind is truly shut-off).
A variety of experiences have lead me to suspect this, most profoundly being the night AFTER my 10 day retreat ended, when I was quite tired from a long day, having stayed up past midnight, despite having gotten up at 4:30 am that day for the final day of the retreat.
When I lay down to sleep, exhausted, I fell into a deep meditative state. I got up and opened my eyes, took a walk around the block, went back to try and sleep, and immediately was back in a meditative state. Gave up and just went along with experiencing being in that state all night, since I was totally aware, yet in the morning felt very rested despite having not slept a wink.
I got extremely sick from a combination of rhinovirus and detox (I had been smoking regularly); and left on the 5th full day.
My experiences with meditation had been primarily pleasant. I learned accidentally following rote instructions at 18; and meditated regularly on and off (mostly off as years went by) until I heard about this course (which is free, including room and board), and it took just over a year until I sorted out the opportunity to go.
I honestly feel/felt scared/respectful of the whole endeavor. Meditation is what it would be like to learn to breathe underwater, if it were possible.
Our bodies know intrinsically we can't breathe water in; so when you are under water you don't breathe. When oxygen levels are high its not really a thought, but even with oxygen levels are low there is an inherent aversion to sucking/breathing in the water.
Meditation is like that, in the sense our commitment to sit for ~60 minus (or 10 hours a day) is akin to committing to keep our heads under water. The difference is with meditation, the only thing limiting how long you can sit is your will.
By sitting and not reacting to our thoughts we are eventually shown this "layer" where we are unconsciously "holding our breath" in the same way we do when we are under water with high levels of oxygen. Meditation effectively "reduces the oxygen" thereby increasing the signal on the "i need oxygen" circuit, so in the same way that being under water when oxygen is running low, what was previously so subtle as to not be noticed consciously there is now this new, apparent phenomena we can't help but be made aware of.
This is the mechanism, in my estimation, that meditation gives its benefit. Essentially the 'secret' learned while meditation is that "you can breathe underwater" and all this aversion you were feeling was a total waste of energy; energy you didn't even now you were expending.
In some ways, this method works well to prepare people for vipassana. Yes, yes, I know, you can always note any experience out; but some people are so habituated to their trauma and were never put into a situation where they dedicate themselves to doing nothing and observing everything. They will stare at you incredulously as we babble on how awesome vipassana is.
http://andyjiang.posterous.com/vipassana-meditation-ten-long...
Humorous account of the ten days.
"He sees the impermanent form thus “impermanent”.This is his right view.Seeing correctly he becomes disenchanted.With the waning of delight wanes passion. With the waning of passion wanes delight. With the destruction of delight and passion the mind is de-tached. “Fully de-tached” thus it is said. (Nandikkhayasuttaṃ, Samyutta Nikaya)
At first, things were fine. I adjusted to the silence quickly enough, the food was simple but nutritious, and didn't mind the meditation (other than the pain in my legs and back, but my request to sit on the back wall was granted). However, mid way through (I think the 5th day), I went to sleep and experienced a sensation I had never (to my memory) had before... as I closed my eyes, I'd experience bursts of not too pleasant images (some of a sexual nature, some more grotesque, etc...). Each image would last roughly a couple of seconds, before moving onto the next. When I opened my eyes, the images were gone, when I closed my eyes the images reappeared straight away.
At this point, I freaked out. I was worried that I'd done damage to my brain. Unable to sleep, and feeling like I had to make conscious effort to breathe, I contemplated what I could do. I didn't want to turn on the light (I had a roommate), nor did I want to spoil the course for anyone else by making too much noise, so I just stayed in bed, awake, for as long as I could (I calmed down a little in this period). I eventually struck up the courage to get up and speak to one of the course supervisors. Speaking to him helped, he advised me to try to rest and he'd arrange for me to speak to the course teacher in the morning... eventually I did get some sleep.
I spoke to the course teacher. He reassured me this was all part of the process (such visions are not unheard of, but of course I can't say for sure if you'll get them too), the way its sold is that its part of your body letting go of these thoughts. I was not convinced. Furthermore, whilst I saw the people running the course (including Goenka) were kind hearted people, I felt isolated, unable to talk to those with a more neutral perspective.
Later on, I also took unkindly to the late night teachings, which again were well intentioned and in some ways comforting, but occasionally said subtly hurtful things. For example, love between couples was described as a business arrangement (I'll love you if you love me). If you weren't paying attention such comments would slip by, but at this point I was trying to fend for my own sanity so I was paying more attention to such things.
That being said, I do believe meditation can be beneficial, just not in the way the course was led (this is just my experience, other people found the course beneficial). If they had taught the technique alone, and asked you to practice it (without trying to tell you what it all means, about your ego slipping away, etc...), then I think I would've taken to it more kindly. Buddha was supposed to have emphasised experience over verbal teaching, so I personally believe teaching the technique with simpler guidance would be appropriate. I also believe meditation is a good way to come to terms with the eventuality of death.
Again, I cannot tell you what you'll experience, and as you can see from comments here it worked for others, but just in case you try it and it doesn't work for you, please know you are not alone.
That freakout, and that worry (which you apparently have since discovered was unfounded, I hope :) is precisely what the meditation helps you deal with, among other things.
And yes, it kind of sucks that the teachers can't speak more at liberty with you. But there's a lesson there too: in the end, the answer to any trouble you might have is to simply find the craving and the aversion. Find the ignorance in your misery. You were safe and taken care of, and you felt you were at risk. You were wrong.
Blaise Pascal famously claimed that all of man's problems stems from the inability to sit quietly in a room, alone. And we are not able to do it, either. Vipassanna is the rather upsetting path toward learning to be able to sit quietly in a room, alone. And it's very simple, but not at all easy.
"Vipassanna is the rather upsetting path toward learning to be able to sit quietly in a room, alone." If that's all it was, I would've been happier with it. Being told you create misery, that your love (unless you follow the path) is shallow, that your ego will disappear, being told that Buddhism is 'scientific' and then being told the smallest particles in the universe are 'kalapas' of earth, air, fire, etc... wasn't exactly reassuring. I also disliked the chanting (you don't have to do it, but I personally found it off-putting to listen to).
I actually enjoyed practising anapana and vipassana (less so the third type, can't remember the name), though of course you're not meant to enjoy it. Becoming aware of the extra sensation you have of your body was pretty interesting.
If the path you've chosen works for you, great, but please open your mind to accept it might not work great for everybody. One of the saving graces of the vipassana course for me is they didn't expect you to believe what they were saying, but rather believe in your own experience. That sort of honesty I can respect.
Yes! I really dug this about the Vipassana teachings. They also emphasize that you can "leave out" (per the "black stone in the oatmeal" analogy) any of the intellectual aspects that don't sit well with you.
I suspect that for most of us, just sticking with a regular practice of breathing (anapana) and sensation observation (vipassana) is enough to keep us busy for the rest of our lives, without adding on intellectual components like kalapas, what happens after we die, etc.
"I was worried that I'd done damage to my brain" implies that you believed your brain was at risk from meditation. You continued through the course, and yet your brain still functions. You assessed the risk to your brain as "high", you came out of it (presumably) without brain damage, ergo your threat assessment was wrong.
To put it another way, you were describing your mind state in a point in time which was incorrectly assessing itself. It turned out that you did not do damage to your brain. You thought your brain was at risk, and your own experience showed that you were wrong to assess the risk so highly.
Yeah, I have (strong) disagreements with the discourses - not just the kalapas thing, but the reference to higher- and lower existences, not to mention the dogma of rebirth. It's mentioned in passing, but it contradicts earlier claims of "non-sectarianism". In fact, it left such a bad taste in my mouth I left my first course (5th night). I went back and almost left again, but mastered my anger. The third time I was less angry. Now I just laugh - the Buddha (and Goenka) are just products of their time, communicating as best they can with the tools they have. The core observations, the core practice, doesn't require any of it.
I am not a Buddhist, but I have some trouble imagining that what the Buddha intended to create was something for people to get all aspirational about acquiring, even if it is a skill rather than a material possession. I also think most things, pushed to the extreme, tend to become their own opposite.
However, in defence of buddhism, it seems to me Buddha didn't want acquistion of a skill or material possession, but rather for people to rise above misery and be at peace and happy. That's a fine goal in my opinion, and I wouldn't want you to feel discouraged from learning more if it interests you, just trust in your own guide above any others.
Here's a link to a list of our Meditation courses in the USA:
I'm quite surprised that no dissenting opinion has yet surfaced on the topic of Goenka's courses. Most of the commentor's opinions here seem over-enthusiastic, describing the Goenka retreat as 'the best thing in [their] lives'. To me, this is a serious warning sign.
I have attended a 10-day retreat, which ended prematurely (on the evening of the 8th day) because of my refusal to watch the evening lectures. While I must agree with the commentors' positive opinions on the meditative experience, I feel compelled to inform any potential attendees that despite claims of 'scientific rationality', the Goenka group is a regular religious sect.
When the course begins, the Vipassana technique is presented as an objective tool to achieve insight into the workings of one's own mind and emotions. Mr. Goenka presents himself as someone who merely happened to learn of the technique and is now passing it on.
As the days progress, the scarce sleep and food schedule begins to take its toll on the participants' bullshit detectors, and subtle religious notions are slipped into the agenda. These include:
* The primacy of Vipassana over other religions * The unreasonableness of other religions * The unquestioned truth of reincarnation * The fact that our bodies are made up of some kind of vibrations
I remember finally 'snapping out of it' when Goenka started talking about bubble chambers( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_chamber ) and the depressed scientist who made them. My bullshit detector went on overdrive and I thought about all the things that had been said up to that point during Goenka's video lectures and his taped talks. I realized that I had been subtly manipulated into accepting certain ontological truths, such as the above. These were not things I would have readily accepted coming to the retreat.
I also realized I had been planning to continue with Vipassana practice and make it part of my life. Maybe help organize retreats in my home country. Become part of this 'wonderful' movement headed by Mr. Goenka. This was definitely not something I had in mind when I signed up for the course.
I know I will not convince anyone who is already engaged with the Goenka group to rethink how they got involved, but I would like to sincerely warn anyone who is considering attending:
You will not be alone with your thoughts and emotions during these ten days. You will be accompanied by THE RECORDED VOICE OF GOENKA, for 2-3 hours of each and every day. Every meditation will start with his talks and chants, every meditation will end with his talks and chants. From what I understand, but have obviously not experienced firsthand, the grueling 9-day course ends with a Love-bomb (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_bombing). I believe these 'free' courses are set up to lure susceptible people into the organization.
Please look into some critical views on any religious group before engaging with one. On the internet, smears abound, but you may also find some grounded critique that may shine light on the structure and purpose of the organization.
The nightly videos start out objective and practice-focused, but by the middle of the course Goenka suggests quantum-scariness explanations for the sensations meditators are feeling.
As one retreat participant noted, in one of the nightly video talks [0]:
> [Goenka] mixes quantum mechanics with "psychology of enlightenment"
What makes it a bit more of a breach of trust is that by the time he breaks out the full-on woo-woo, you're deep in the process—the days are flying by—you purposely don't have your critical thought facilities active.
Aside from that sour note, I'd still suggest this course to others. Hitting a stride with practice and tuning your ability to focus your attention on minute sensations is a fascinating experience, especially if you've taken any courses on proprioception, sensation and perception.
If you're a rationalist who already firmly rejects the ideas of mind-body separation and reincarnation then you have nothing to worry about.
[0]: http://www.vipassanaforum.net/forum/index.php?topic=1871.0
However, the evening talks also point out that we should mentally "leave aside" any of the intellectual stuff we don't agree with, and instead focus on what our own experience with the technique reveals.
The technique itself — actually sitting still and observing breath and sensations — is the important part, not the stuff about bubble chambers, etc.
As far as being a rationalist goes, I'm not confident that I can always keep my mind free from unwanted social/religious influence, or allow myself to be influenced in a controlled manner. I'm glad that this one off-hand remark about bubble chambers actually awakened me from a cognitive stupor, but I can't be sure that, under slightly different circumstances, I wouldn't have ignored the doubts and the red lights going off somewhere in the back of my head.
Cognitive blind spots are a real thing, and my guess is that many Eastern religious groups are very sophisticated in how they use these blind spots to appeal to intelligent, but unsuspecting, individuals. Eastern techniques of religious indoctrination greatly differ from the guilt-based Christian approach that most of us are familiar with.
I stand by my position: these retreats are not simply meditation courses. They are a religious ritual held by a well-organized religious group. Moreover, they are deceptively advertised as non-religious, and herein lies my problem with them.
If someone wishes to learn meditation from a religious source, I think it is wise to refer to an organization that is overt in its practice and beliefs.
Additionally, most of the old students I observe during the course meditate straight through the evening discourses. They are not treated as breaks. Noticing this, I took to meditating through the evening discourses myself and found that the meaning of Goenka's lectures increases dramatically, especially at the end when he concludes ardently wishing that others may find real joy, real happiness, real peace.
Not once in the course does Goenka exhort the mediators to unquestioningly believe in reincarnation or the vibratory nature of the body. On the contrary, he, like Gotama the Buddha, encourage one not to take anything on faith but instead to find your own answers.
There's no manipulation going on during any of the recorded information played at the course. You are only asked to follow the time table, the precepts and hopefully to "work seriously".
I am sorry you had to leave the course early and that you had a sour experience. May you find Dhamma again!
As for dhamma matters: So far this year, I've been able to keep up with daily meditation practice, so not all is lost.
A bunch of people are taking the vow already, and I'm excited and hoping it works for them and is the beginning of a more zen life. We'll see. I welcome everyone to try.