Vipasana Gyan

The following has been translated and adapted from a discourse by Goenaka ji to about 5000 Vipassana practitioners at University Ground, Nagpur in October, 2000. My dear Dhamma sons and Dhamma daughters, I am very happy that we have sat together and practiced pure Dhamma. Meditating together is of great importance. As the Buddha said:            Happy is the arising of the Buddhas in the world.              Happy is the teaching of pure Dhamma.             Happy is the coming together of meditators.             Happiness is meditating together. Two thousand six hundred years ago, Gotama Buddha arose in this country and taught pure Dhamma resulting in great happiness for the world. People started living in accordance with this teaching. They started meditating together just as we have done today: there is no greater happiness than this. If one med...

        An Interview with S.N. Goenka by Alan AtKisson (Part 2) Question: Many people come to something like Vipassana because they feel they are suffering in some way. But what about the person who doesn’t feel he or she is suffering, who feels quite happy and satisfied? What motivation would they have to do this work? Goenkaji: Generally speaking, we can say that Vipassana helps everyone. One may be at any level in life, but one can-not say “there is no room for any improvement in me.” One may be a very peaceful person, one may be a very intelligent person, very wise, very successful. There may be no obvious miseries in one’s life. And yet, if one starts Vipassana, one starts improving—one becomes a much better person than before. Experience has shown this.But frequently, when somebody says “there’s no misery in me,” this is only a delusion. This person does not know how much agitation there is inside. One remains deluded, in this sensual pleasure, that sens...

      An Interview with S.N. Goenka by Alan AtKisson (Part 1) Introduction: I can’t tell you anything about what vipassana meditation feels like, because i’ve never done it. But while definitions are tricky, what we call “spirituality”—the reaching of human awareness and conduct toward “that truth which passeth all understanding”—seems basic to meeting the enormous challenges of our times. Which is why i accepted an invitation to interview s. N. Goenka during his 1992 visit to the seattle area, where i was living at the time. Goenka—a leading teacher of the ancient vipassana meditation technique—is not spiritual “leader” in the sense one usually means by the term, for he has no “followers. ” he would likely prefer to be described as a scientist who researches the relationship of mind, body, and matter via insight meditation, and teaches others how to do the same—directly, for themselves. A former wealthy industrialist, born in burma to parents of indian de-scent, g...

The following has been translated and adapted from the seventh in a series of 44 Hindi discourses broadcast on Zee TV. It was originally published in the February 1999 issue of the Vipaœyan± Patrik±. The goal of vipassana meditation is to purify the mind com-pletely by eradicating all mental impurities such as anger, hatred, passion, fear etc. For this, one must gain complete knowledge of the body, of the mind and of the mental im-purities at the experiential level, which is done with the help of respiration. if one wants to understand one’s own physical and mental nature, one must use a pure object of concentration—natu-ral, normal respiration. One should not try to regulate the breath or do any breathing exercise. Nor should one repeat any word or mantra or visualize any shape, form or imagi-nary object along with awareness of respiration. One should observe bare respiration, as it is. when one observes respiration, one begins to understand the nature of the mind. One reality...

I n 198 5 a st uden t a s ke d G oenka j i whe t he r i t i s pos s ib l e t o f e e l s ensa ti on s a t t h e ti m e o f dea t h . I n r e p ly , h e r e l at e d t h e f o ll o w i n g st or y abou t h i s adop ti v e m o t he r ’ s dea t h ( p r ev i ous l y pub li sh e d i n t h e Apr i l 199 2 is su e o f t h e V i pas s an a N e w s l e tter ) . I a m on e o f s i x son s . I w a s adop t e d a t a youn g ag e b y m y unc l e a n d aun t , M r . Dw a r kada s an d M r s . Ra m i dev i G oenk a , w h o a t t h e ti m e ha d s i x daugh t e r s bu t n o s o n . M y adop ti v e mo t h e r w a s a devo t e d st uden t o f m y t eache r Say a g y i U B a K h i n . S h e m ad e g r ea t prog r es s i n h e r yea r s o f p r a c t i c i n g V i pa s san a und e r Sayagy i ’ s gu i dance , an d Sayagy i w a s qu it e fon d o f he r . A s f a r a s i s known , sh e wa s ...