Vipassana

Vipassana. Several of my friends in the 1980s studied Vipassana meditation in India just before I arrived there in 1985 and some also studied Vipassana after I left.Here is a quote from "Eat Pray Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert that describes it quite well.

Begin quote page 172 middle of page "So, that evening, I tried something new. I'd recently met a woman at the Ashram who'd been studying Vipassana meditation. Vipassana is an ultra-orthodox, stripped-down and very intensive Buddhist meditation technique. Basicaly, it's just 'sitting'. An introductory Vipassana course lasts for ten days, during which time you sit for ten hours a day in stretches of silence that last two to three hours at a time. It's the Extreme Sports version of transcendance. Your Vipassana master won't even give you a mantra; this is considered kind of cheating. Vipassana meditation is the practice of pure regarding, witnessing your mind and offering your complete consideration to your thought patterns, but allowing nothing to move you from your seat.

It's physically gruelling too. You are forbidden to shift your body at all once you have been seated, no matter how severe your discomfort then you are supposed to meditate upon that discomfort, watching the effect that physical pain has on you. In our real lives, we are constantly hopping around to adjust ourselves around discomfort--physical, emotional and psychological-- in order to evade the reality of grief and nuisance. Vipassana meditation teaches that grief and nuisance are inevitable in this life, but if you can plant yourself in stillness long enough, you will, in time, experience the truth that everything(both uncomfortable and lovely) eventually pass.

'The world is afflicted with death and decay, therefore the wise do not grieve, knowing the terms of the world,' says an old Buddhist teaching. In other words:Get used to it." endquote.

There is some kind of similarity between Vipassana and Dzogchen. However, to practice Dzogchen successfully one must be empowered by initiation from an empowered Tibetan Lama who is therefore qualified through both lineage and empowerment to empower you.

However, if you want to practice Vipassana anywhere on earth and you feel you are physically and psychologically balanced enough to do that then sit and look for the source of your thoughts. This is used instead of a mantra. You see the mantra is a way to divert the mind from its normal thoughts so enlightenment and understanding can occur. However, in this case one looks only for the source of ones thoughts. In the process of this one doesn't try to stop any thoughts being vomited up from the subconscious. This purging of thoughts and emotions can be very freeing in addition to enlightening. If you are terrified or enraptured by what comes up out of you and your mind and emotions continue the discipline of searching for the source of your thoughts. I have found this in the long run to be a very healing type of meditation.

The people I have personally noticed that tend to benefit from Vipassana meditation the most tend to be single people or people in more loosely knit relationships (not marriage) and those not married with children. The yoga of marriage and raising children tends also to force adult beings to: "Get used to it." If one cannot get used to it ones children either don't prosper or don't survive. I guess what I'm saying is that if you have young children sitting doing Vipassana 10 hours a day usually isn't an option.