QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

ANNUAL MEETING: Dhamma Giri, India March 3, 1989

Question: It is said, "Ātmā is immortal." What happens to ātmā after nirvāṇa? If it does not exist after nirvāṇa then the belief that ātmā is immortal is wrong. Would you throw some light on this issue?

Goenkaji: Believing that Ātmā is immortal is a philosophical belief. First one has to believe that there is an ātmā, a soul, and then one has to believe that it is immortal. Both these beliefs are strongly interconnected. If ātmā, or the soul, is not immortal then ātmā is useless to me. I accept ātmā simply because somebody says that it is immortal, and by ātmā I understand it is "I." If somebody whispers in my ear, "Well look, everything is mortal, impermanent in this world, but you are permanent, you will always remain," I feel elated by this belief, "Wonderful, I will remain! Everything, the body, mind and the entire universe passes away, but I will remain!"

The tremendous amount of attachment that ignorance helps us develop to "I" is strengthened by this kind of belief. There is a reason behind the formation of all

these philosophical beliefs. Our job is not to say, "No, it is wrong," to give reasons why, and get involved in debates and arguments that won’t help. Neither should we confirm the belief.

Leave it aside. All right, if the belief is that there is a soul that it is immortal, then let me investigate this belief. Vipassana is nothing but investigating the truth pertaining to oneself within the framework of the body. The first thing that you come across is your bodily structure. By Vipassana, as you keep moving from the gross to the subtle, to the subtlest, you will reach a stage where you will start experiencing every tiny subatomic particle which is arising and passing. And you will realize, "Well this is not ātmā, because ātmā is immortal and this is not immortal."

Similarly, you keep on observing the entire mental structure. As you observe from the gross to the subtle, to the subtlest, you will reach the stage where you will find that the mental structure is also nothing but wavelets arising and passing. By this experience you are investigating, like a scientist, what the truth is. When you reach the stage where the entire mind and matter phenomenon is just arising and passing—and in that whole process the impurities are eradicated—then a stage comes where you transcend the field of mind and matter and you experience something which is called nibbāna, where nothing arises, nothing passes away. You may say it is immortal. But when you reach that stage there will be no "I." That stage has to be experienced by each individual. Without that, again it will become just a philosophy.

Accept only the reality pertaining to the truth that you experience within the framework of the body and keep moving. The answer will come, Vipassana will help to supply this answer. 

Question: Why is it important to sit two full hours every day?

Goenkaji: As it is essential that you give material food to your body every day, a minimum of twice, to keep it healthy and strong, similarly you have to give some food to the mind to keep it healthy and strong. And with these two hours of sitting, you give food to the mind to make it strong and healthy. §

Everything in the world is impermanent. Yet certain principles contained in the scriptures and in the law of mathematics are always the same, such as two plus two makes four. Then how can everything be impermanent?

Yes, everything in the field of mind and matter is impermanent and this impermanence is permanent. It is permanently impermanent. Things keep on changing. So far as matter is concerned, it keeps on changing. So far as mind is concerned, it keeps on changing. The nature of change cannot be turned into a nature of non-change. It will always be changing.

There are four, basic, ultimate truths. One ultimate truth pertaining to matter; another ultimate truth pertaining to the mind; a third ultimate truth pertaining to the mental contents; and the fourth ultimate truth, the nibbānic stage. All of them are permanent. The first three are permanent in their nature of change. And the fourth is permanent in its nature of no change—there can’t be any change. So everything is, in this respect, changing and non-changing.

Emphasis is given to that which constantly changes because out of our ignorance and madness we develop attachment to that which will change, and once it changes we become depressed. The attachment brings misery. For that purpose the whole teaching of Vipassana is to keep understanding that whatever is changing is permanently changing. This nature of change doesn’t go away, but our attachment to it has to go away, otherwise we will suffer. Vipassana is for that purpose only, not to establish any philosophy. 

Question: What is the value of attending group sittings?

Goenkaji: Whenever a few people sit together, whatever they generate in their minds permeates the atmosphere. If five, ten, twenty, or fifty people meditate together, the vibrations of one or two amongst them might be good vibrations and it may help the others meditate better in that atmosphere. This is the reason. 

Question: I still get a lot of pain even when I meditate at home. What should I do?

Goenkaji: Meditate. What else can you do? Now you have a wonderful object with which you can take out all your habit patterns of aversion. Whenever you feel something unpleasant, the old habit of the mind is to react with aversion. Vipassana is to help you to come out of all such conditionings.

Your aversion towards unpleasant sensations cannot be eradicated unless you face them and change this habit pattern. So welcome all these objects which help you to come out of your old habit of aversion. The whole purpose of Vipassana is to change the habit pattern of the mind; neither have craving towards pleasant sensations nor aversion towards unpleasant ones. When you have pleasant sensations observe them without attachment, without reaction, understanding they are anicca. Good, now unpleasant sensations have come; make use of them, work with Vipassana. §

Question: For a period after each course I can meditate okay. Then it becomes harder, so that I cannot even pass my attention through the body. What should I do?

Goenkaji: Continue to work. Keep on fighting your battle. When you come to a Dhamma environment like this, the entire atmosphere is charged with vibrations which are anti-craving, anti-aversion, anti-ignorance. In this atmosphere you can work better, and you gain strength by your practice here. With that strength you have to face the world outside. After all, you have to live in the world. You can’t live in a meditation centre all the time. You go to a hospital to gain health, not to live there. So gain strength here and then live in the world. After some time you may find that your meditation is again becoming weaker. Understand the reason: The whole atmosphere outside is charged with the vibrations of craving and aversion, and you are doing something which is anti-craving, anti-aversion. The outside atmosphere starts overpowering you and you become weaker. You have to keep on fighting.

For this fight you are given two tools in this technique. The first tool, Anapana, is specifically for that purpose. Whenever you find you have become so weak that you can’t work with the body and bodily sensations, come back to Anapana. Breath is something which you can intentionally make harder. You work with it and you can’t feel your breath—make it a little harder. You can intentionally make this object a little more gross. Work with that; the mind becomes calm and you will reach a stage where you can again start working on the body.

Question: Why is it harmful to mix techniques?

Goenkaji: Every rite, ritual or ceremony is nothing but a corrupt form of pure Dhamma. If people keep this corrupt thing along with the purity of Vipassana, the rituals will again become predominant in their mind, "That is more important. I am a traditional Jain, Hindu, Buddhist, so that must be there." They can’t get the real benefit of Vipassana.

Another reason is that from one enlightened person to another there is a big gap. During that gap the technique disappears, but the words somehow remain, though the real meaning is lost. And without practice even pure Dhamma taught by an enlightened person will slowly become a sect.

For the head of a sect, the number of followers is important and the aim is to increase this number. Whether people get real benefit or not is unimportant to him. If one of the followers asks for a technique, he will explain the words that remain in his own way, and give a technique without understanding the real meaning of those words. His wish is to keep the followers happy within his sect. And now that starts and people get very attached, "This is given by our wonderful ācariya who is definitely in contact with an enlightened person, so what he says is perfectly all right."

Dhamma becomes polluted because things are started by these people who know nothing of how to purify the mind at the depth. They find some formula here or there, and start these things. If these are added to Vipassana it will get polluted. Then the efficacy of this pure Dhamma will definitely be lost.

Now what will be added? If somebody wants to calm the mind, he will be told, "All right, you’d better recite this word." And the word given is the name of the one who started this particular sect, "...because he is an enlightened person." So every sect will repeat a particular name. Now, one becomes calm because this word is repeated. They think, "Ah, our tradition is wonderful. It gives such peace." But they have missed the real essence of Dhamma.

Question: What is Dhamma? 

The purpose is to come out of the wheel, the process of birth and death. Every time you generate a saṅkhāra by reacting to a pleasant or unpleasant sensation, you are giving a push to this wheel. If you don’t reach that place where craving and aversion originate and instead you work at the surface level, then the process of multiplying your misery, your craving and aversion, goes on. When you recite a word only the surface level of your mind is reciting. Deep inside the whole process is the same.

Now if you add this to Vipassana, what happens? Every word has its own vibration, and if you keep on reciting the same word your entire body gets engulfed in the vibration that you have created. It is good at the surface level; it works like a shield

so that no bad vibration can enter. But you have forgotten to work with your own vibration.

The technique of Vipassana is to change the habit pattern at the deepest level of the mind. When you are repeating a word you are not changing the habit pattern, because you don’t know what vibrations there are when something is either pleasant or unpleasant. You don’t know how you are reacting to the natural vibrations which keep on working deep inside your body and mind. You have just put up a good shield of created, artificial vibrations. You have created a hindrance for yourself.

What other kinds of pollution are there? You can sit down and imagine something, and your mind gets concentrated with this image. Now how will you reach the stage where you observe craving and aversion arising at the deepest level? You have diverted your conscious mind to an imagined object, and forgotten all about your unconscious mind.

There is another difficulty: The whole technique is to examine the reality within yourself by disintegrating the entire mind-and-matter phenomenon. Only then can you reach the stage which is beyond mind and matter. And now you are creating another illusion, an imaginary shape which is integrated, and you don’t do anything to disintegrate this. How can you come out of ignorance? All this integrated reality is ignorance, it makes you feel that this is "I, mine." Only when that gets disintegrated and dissolved can you understand it is all subatomic particles, wavelets, vibrations. When you reach that stage you find that the entire mind-matter structure is essenceless.

So those who understand Dhamma properly must be careful. You should not add anything simply to please the followers of traditional beliefs or philosophies.

The Dhamma is so complete; there is nothing to add kevalaṃ paripuṇṇaṃ. It is parisuddhaṃ, that is, there is no question of taking out anything. Keep it paripuṇṇa and parisuddha and you will get all the benefits. §

Question: How can a meditator deal with grief over the death of a loved one?

Goenkaji: A meditator should be very wise and understand the law of nature. In spite of all your crying and prayers, there is no possibility that this person will come back. You have to accept the fact that this person has gone forever.

Understand that whenever you generate a vibration of sorrow and misery while remembering someone who has passed away, the vibrations will reach wherever this person may be, and will make him or her unhappy. No-one wants a near and dear one who has passed away to be unhappy. We would certainly like the person to be happy, peaceful and liberated, yet you send vibrations to this person which will make him or her more unhappy. You are harming the person whom you want to be happy. Another harmful aspect is that while you are crying, remembering the near and dear one who has passed away, you are sowing seeds of saṅkhāras of misery. You are becoming miserable and a seed of misery will bring nothing but misery in the future. Nature will not differentiate whether you are sowing the seed because of this or that logical reason. No, the seed is of misery and it must bring misery.

After all, what is a seed? A seed generates and creates a habit pattern of the mind. And now you are supporting the habit pattern of the mind by becoming more miserable, due to this or that reason. This habit pattern will bring more misery in the future; so you have started harming yourself and the dear one who is gone.

And the third harmful aspect is that this sensation of misery that you are generating by this saṅkhāra starts permeating the atmosphere around you. Everyone else in the family around you will become depressed, because you are generating that type of sensation. You have started harming yourself, those around you who are alive, and the dear one who has passed away. This action of yours is harmful in three ways.

If somebody works wisely and understands the law of nature, then as soon as you remember the one who has passed away, if even slight sorrow starts in the mind, you immediately calm down and start generating vibrations of mettā, love, "May you be happy, wherever you are. May you be happy, may you be peaceful, may you be liberated." Your vibrations will reach this being and he or she will feel happy. These vibrations are full of happiness, peace, harmony. You are generating a saṅkhāra at that time of harmony and peace. This seed will bring fruit to you of peace, harmony and happiness. And this vibration will permeate the atmosphere and make it peaceful and harmonious. You have started helping all three the loved one who has died, yourself, and your family in the proper way, in a Dhamma way.

Vibrations do work. Even to those who have passed away, wherever they may be, the vibration that we generate whilst remembering them will certainly reach there, strongly or mildly, according to the strength of your mind.

Many times in your own life you will find that, although there is no reason, nothing has happened outside, you start feeling depressed. Certain vibrations from outside are coming in contact with you. A vibration of depression makes you depressed. Similarly often you will find that, without any reason, although nothing has happened outside, you feel happy. Certain good vibrations of happiness are reaching you. This is the law of nature. If you are near a burning oven, its vibrations will bring you heat. If you are near a refrigerator, the vibrations will bring you coldness. The earlier one understands the law of nature and starts applying it in this life, the better. So this is the best way to act at that time. §