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Vipassana Meditation
Hi people !
I just got back from a 10 day long retreat of Vipassana meditation, and as I have some time today, I figured I'd make a résumé for you
Just know that I'm speaking from an ordinary consciouness point of view, I have not made any peak state work yet !
So, Vipassana is a Buddhist tradition, transmited from Myanmar/Birmany by sir Goenka. It is said to be the most profound meditation, the original and pure one that led the Buddha himself to Enlightenment.
I was attracted to discover meditation for some time, as I'm passionate about exploring the mind (I'm a hypnosis practitionner). But I didn't know what meditation would be the best for me. I heard about Transcendantal Meditation, but i didn't wanted anything too exotic, religious or "new-age". I have been told by several yoga teacher that Vipassana was the purest one, with no religious doctrine, and everyone got benefits from it, so I went for it.
Of course, numbers of meditation pratices claims to be the pure legacy from the Buddha teachings. But Goenka's Vipassana has a strong reputation at least from what I heard. It originated the Mindfullness approach of Jon Kabat-Zinn. I don't know if it has relation to Zen or Tibbetan pratices.
So, the goal of Vipassana is to totally eliminate suffering from human experience. The teaching is called the Dhamma (or Noble Path). It is supposed to make you get Enligthenment / Awakening like the Buddha.
The retraet asks you to respect certain conditions :
When you become something of an information from the outside world (visual, sound, touch, smell, sensation or ideas), your mind react to it by creating a sensation on the body. Then if the sensation is agreable, you develop attachment to it, and become to crave more. Negative sensations creates aversion, and you try to escape from them and avoid them. Then, you become dependant on the outside world. Each time you react to a body sensation, you create a Sankara, a positive or negative attachment.
The goal of Vipassana is to stop creating new sankaras by staying totally and profoundly equanimous when observing them. Because every sensations is temporary : it comes and go.
Then, your old stock of accumulated sankaras start to dissolve progressebely. You then experience a disparition of gross sensations ang beginning to feel a free flow of subtle energy. And then, an old, deep-rooted sankara emerge and you experience gross sensations angain. You have to go on and on until dissolving all the sankaras you had accumulated (including your past lives, thus the concept of Karma).
So you are sitting straight for 1 to 2 hours and scan your whole body while not reacting to sensations. You can have tremendous pain due to your posture. You can experience drowsiness, willingness to leave, and all kind of resistances. But as long as you stay perfectly equanimous, you are eradicating sources of suffering.
Even when you experience ectasy due to free flow, you have not to attach yourself to it. You just have to observe the reality as it is, while not reacting.
During the process, a lot of people experience intense emotions and dissolutions of them : pains, diseases, fears, depression, nighmares, etc...
I personnaly experienced a nightmare, a vague sense of solitude, a kinesthesic hallucination on the mouth, and a strong willingness to leave at the 8th day. But it dissolved with more Anapana and Vipassana. I also had strongly vivid and colored phantasmagoric dreams, a sense of euphory (I think it could be an Optimum Life path experience) at the 5th day. But I had no big abreaction nor bliss during meditation.
Nevertheless, I see that I am now calmer, more centered, more at peace, with a slightly decreased mind chatter and agitation, and I have a tendency to be equanimous to life's vicissitudes. For instance, if I have a bad news that generate fear or anger, the sensation usually fade very quickly. Just like I have an unconscious pattern of not reacting to it now. It makes me just happier and more peacefull !
I just got back from a 10 day long retreat of Vipassana meditation, and as I have some time today, I figured I'd make a résumé for you
Just know that I'm speaking from an ordinary consciouness point of view, I have not made any peak state work yet !
So, Vipassana is a Buddhist tradition, transmited from Myanmar/Birmany by sir Goenka. It is said to be the most profound meditation, the original and pure one that led the Buddha himself to Enlightenment.
I was attracted to discover meditation for some time, as I'm passionate about exploring the mind (I'm a hypnosis practitionner). But I didn't know what meditation would be the best for me. I heard about Transcendantal Meditation, but i didn't wanted anything too exotic, religious or "new-age". I have been told by several yoga teacher that Vipassana was the purest one, with no religious doctrine, and everyone got benefits from it, so I went for it.
Of course, numbers of meditation pratices claims to be the pure legacy from the Buddha teachings. But Goenka's Vipassana has a strong reputation at least from what I heard. It originated the Mindfullness approach of Jon Kabat-Zinn. I don't know if it has relation to Zen or Tibbetan pratices.
So, the goal of Vipassana is to totally eliminate suffering from human experience. The teaching is called the Dhamma (or Noble Path). It is supposed to make you get Enligthenment / Awakening like the Buddha.
The retraet asks you to respect certain conditions :
- Respect total silence, with no communication at all (even looking or gesture)
- Observe morality : no killing, stealing, etc...
- No distraction at all. No reading, phone, sex, or whatever : just meditate, eat (a bit, and vegetarian) and sleep (a bit less)
- Give trust and conform yourself fully for 10 days to give a honest try to the technique
- First, the Anapana meditation asks you to focus purely on the sensation of the air passing in and out the nostrils.
The goal is to help you master your mind by stopping/ignoring mental chatter/ideation and maintening concentration. Then, the technique aims to help you get an increased capacity to perceive subtles sensations. That is, at the begining you hardly can feel the air passing through the nose. Then, you differenciate right nostril / left nostril. Then, you focus on the very surface below your nose. And finally, the front of the very entrance of the nostril. So almost the same surface as a pencil leadI recognize this meditation helped me decrease mind chatter, get a lasting feeling of calm, and increased my ability to focus. They strongly emphasize the fact of observing the reality as it is, and not as you want it to be. Thus, you have to sit calmly, relax and do nothing but observe.
You are strongly told not to use visualisations or verbalization ! Only sensations.
- Secondly, you are taugh the Vipassana meditation.
Using the skills you acquired with Anapana (focus and subtelty of sensations), you are taught to observe the sensations on all parts of the body, from head to feet and feet to head. You have to do nothing but observe them. You try to get more and more sensation just by focusing your attention on it. If nothing appears after a minute, you go to observe another part of the body. At first, you are going to feels gross, solidified sensations such as pressure, muscle tensions, heat, cool, tickling, feeling of the clothes on the skin or air around, etc...The explanation behing it is that suffering comes from 2 things : desire and aversion.
After a time, you experience more subtles sensations, until subtles 'energy' flowing through the body. But is is not necessary. Your goal is to develop equanimity regarding thoses sensations. You just recognize they are here, but do not react to it, be they agreable or not.
Little by little, you are going to experience more and more subtles sensations. Eventually, good meditators experiment atomic particles and quantic vibrations.
When you become something of an information from the outside world (visual, sound, touch, smell, sensation or ideas), your mind react to it by creating a sensation on the body. Then if the sensation is agreable, you develop attachment to it, and become to crave more. Negative sensations creates aversion, and you try to escape from them and avoid them. Then, you become dependant on the outside world. Each time you react to a body sensation, you create a Sankara, a positive or negative attachment.
The goal of Vipassana is to stop creating new sankaras by staying totally and profoundly equanimous when observing them. Because every sensations is temporary : it comes and go.
Then, your old stock of accumulated sankaras start to dissolve progressebely. You then experience a disparition of gross sensations ang beginning to feel a free flow of subtle energy. And then, an old, deep-rooted sankara emerge and you experience gross sensations angain. You have to go on and on until dissolving all the sankaras you had accumulated (including your past lives, thus the concept of Karma).
So you are sitting straight for 1 to 2 hours and scan your whole body while not reacting to sensations. You can have tremendous pain due to your posture. You can experience drowsiness, willingness to leave, and all kind of resistances. But as long as you stay perfectly equanimous, you are eradicating sources of suffering.
Even when you experience ectasy due to free flow, you have not to attach yourself to it. You just have to observe the reality as it is, while not reacting.
During the process, a lot of people experience intense emotions and dissolutions of them : pains, diseases, fears, depression, nighmares, etc...
I personnaly experienced a nightmare, a vague sense of solitude, a kinesthesic hallucination on the mouth, and a strong willingness to leave at the 8th day. But it dissolved with more Anapana and Vipassana. I also had strongly vivid and colored phantasmagoric dreams, a sense of euphory (I think it could be an Optimum Life path experience) at the 5th day. But I had no big abreaction nor bliss during meditation.
Nevertheless, I see that I am now calmer, more centered, more at peace, with a slightly decreased mind chatter and agitation, and I have a tendency to be equanimous to life's vicissitudes. For instance, if I have a bad news that generate fear or anger, the sensation usually fade very quickly. Just like I have an unconscious pattern of not reacting to it now. It makes me just happier and more peacefull !
- Thirdly, you practice Metta meditation
It simply is a feeling of love and compassion you wish to all the world : may every living being be happy, find peace and harmony, etc...
Unfortunately, the theaching doesn't give any practical technique for this. You just have to wish it whole-heartedly.Then, you have to pratice 2x1hour per day every day, and make longer retreats (10 to 45 days) to have more and more benefits.
Comments
Even though I didn't really
experienced WHH with an institute praticioner (starting soon !), I found
interesting comparison points.
In my opinion, Vipassana helps you
stay in-body, focusing on your body sensations, and with the tip of
staying equanimous, you feel them completely.
It seems quite similar
to WHH, as you feel body sensations completely until it fades. The
difference is here, you focus on every sensation on your body, then
erasing mind-body's sankaras of attachment to desire or aversion. It
looks a bit like you are in fact healing physical artifacts of traumas
on and on. It is a fully unconscious process, as it is hard to
consciously know what you are working on (unless you stop meditation to
think about it, and then intellectualize it of, for instance, solitude,
or fear, etc...).
Then, you might be healing on and all your life positive and negative body sensations. But maybe it is not.
Why I liked it ?
I liked it because :
You
can have a skeptical approach and leave aside theoretical explanations.
As long as you pratice correctly, you will get results.
Link with Peak States
Looking for
Enlightenment can indeed be regarded as a religous/spiritual research,
or with the eyeglass of peak states. Vipassana doesn't really describe
the state your are aiming. Few people in the organization might actually
describe it. Is just said that you are totally free from suffering and
develop no more cravings for positive feeling nor aversion toward
negative feeling. It greatly increase your relationship positiveness and
compassion.
Also, the tradition doesn't seem to recognize there could be several different states. There is only one goal.
Then, the main goal could be the Inner Peace/Beauty Way State. It also could be the Self Neutralization State, because it make you very neutral and equanimous toward life events (or lack of events). Or maybe it is related to the Essence of Self state ?
Secondary, the technique indirectly encourage other states :
state is indirectly produce with the decrasing of mind chatter during
Anapana. However, it is not suppose to be permanent or full. In fact,
you can even have mind chatter while focusing on body sensation. The aim
of Anapana is to make you focus on the body and develop your accuracy
at watching little, subtles sensations.
state, even though it is not coming from back to front. I haven't
experienced it (yet). Others described it as close to what you
experience during "chakra breathing" active meditation found in Tantra
pratice or Kundalini yoga.
Moreover, the technique put an emphasis on developping the quality of morality, goodwill, love, compassion, kindness, respect, and gratitude. Then, it has a relation with Brain Light state, Loving-Kindness and Gratitude. It is quite likely, from the descriptions and stories, that the Buddha has those states fully.
I also noticed a decrease in the amount of time of sleep required. But maybe it is just from moving less and releasing tensions.
What did I dislike ?
I disliked a certain number of things however :
though it is not religious nor sectarian, the discourse have a tendency
to ask you to believe buddhists concepts such as past lives, karma. It
encourage a little bit of proselytism, gratitude if not reverence or
devotion, faith and ask you to donate or become a servant.
But it is completely normal, isn't it ? Maybe it is just my long-lasting anti-religion reactings speaking here
are not garanteed to get the Enligthnement : you might have to many
sankaras to dissolve, so it might take more than one life (this is where
past lives / future lives is beneficial to the theory !).
encourage you to seek better behaviour and inner value, and at the same
time teach you to not seek it (stay equanimous), so it is a bit tricky.
to pleasure, not pleasure itself. Although it is perfectly logical to
me not to develop bad feelings when things go wrong, the opposite
(seeking pleasure) is very counter-intuituve. This would eliminate
desire, wouldn't it ? Then eliminate our willingness to progress, to be
better, no ?
Hopefully, it is a progressive process, and
even a little practice brings you benefits. So you can leave alone the
goal of becoming a buddha !
It is quite a demanding process,
so I don't encourage you to do it if can have peak state work instead.
But at least, it gives you a good life philosophy. It can be a good
experimentation also, if you work in the field of consciouness and
healing. I guess the process is very usefull for healing addictions, as
it is supposed to eliminate cravings.
However, if you really want to try it, I'd recommend peak state work before, like Silent Mind, it would be helpful
Doing some yoga or even rolfing to strenghten your back and spine and open your hips would also be a good idea !
Also,
it is a good healing process, but I wouldn't recommend it first for
this purpose. The benefits seems permanent to some degree, but the
healing is undefined, non-specific : you don't know what is being healed.
I think I will continue to practice it, and hopefully it will help me monitor my progress with peak states work !