ABOUT VIPASSANA
What is Vipassana?
Vipassana, which means to see things as they really are, is one of India's most ancient techniques of meditation.
Vipassana Meditation
Vipassana was rediscovered by Gotama Buddha more than 2500 years ago and was taught by him as a universal remedy for universal ills — an Art of Living. This non-sectarian technique aims for the total eradication of mental impurities and the resultant highest happiness of full liberation.
Vipassana is a way of self-transformation through self-observation. It focuses on the deep interconnection between mind and body, which can be experienced directly by disciplined attention to the physical sensations that form the life of the body, and that continuously interconnect and condition the life of the mind.
It is this observation-based, self-exploratory journey to the common root of mind and body that dissolves mental impurity, resulting in a balanced mind full of love and compassion.
The scientific laws that operate one's thoughts, feelings, judgements and sensations become clear. Through direct experience, the nature of how one grows or regresses, how one produces suffering or frees oneself from suffering is understood. Life becomes characterized by increased awareness, non-delusion, self-control and peace.
Lineage and Tradition
Since the time of Buddha, Vipassana has been handed down, to the present day, by an unbroken chain of teachers. The current teachers in this tradition were appointed by the late Mr. S.N. Goenka, who was Indian by descent but was born and raised in Burma (Myanmar).
While living there, he had the good fortune to learn Vipassana from his teacher, Sayagyi U Ba Khin, who was at the time a high Government official. After receiving training from his teacher for fourteen years, Mr. Goenka settled in India and was authorised by Sayagyi to begin teaching Vipassana in 1969.
During his life he taught tens of thousands of people of all races and all religions in both the East and West. In 1982 he began to appoint assistant teachers to help him meet the growing demand for Vipassana courses. Before he passed away in 2013, he left behind a comprehensive system for training and appointment of future teachers in the tradition.
Ten-day Courses
The technique is taught at ten-day residential courses during which participants follow a prescribed Code of Discipline, learn the basics of the method, and practice sufficiently to experience its beneficial results.
Course Details
10-day residential format
Noble Silence observed
Vegetarian meals provided
Accommodations provided
No fees charged
Donation-based
The course requires hard, serious work through the three steps to the training. The first step is, for the period of the course, to abstain from killing, stealing, sexual activity, speaking falsely, and intoxicants. This simple code of moral conduct serves to calm the mind, which otherwise would be too agitated to perform the task of self-observation. The next step is to develop some mastery over the mind by learning to fix one's attention on the natural reality of the ever-changing flow of breath as it enters and leaves the nostrils.
By the fourth day the mind is calmer and more focused, better able to undertake the practice of Vipassana itself: observing sensations throughout the body, understanding their nature, and developing equanimity by learning not to react to them. Finally, on the last full day participants learn the meditation of loving kindness or goodwill towards all, in which the purity developed during the course is shared with all beings.
Experience Vipassana for Yourself
All sincere people are welcome to join a Vipassana course to see for themselves how the technique works and to measure the benefits. All those who try it will find Vipassana to be an invaluable tool with which to achieve and share real happiness with others.