My original motivation for writing about Vipassanā Meditation was to share detailed instructions of this meditation technique with others and to describe the healing mechanism underlying the technique. On the first night after returning from my second course, I jotted down as much as I could remember about the technique, the ancillary guidelines and the landmarks along the journey. The process of weaving these into an article helped me in many ways.
First, I realized that the instructions use quite a few concepts which can be grasped only by actually learning the technique from a course or from a teacher. Some of these concepts may not make sense unless sufficient progress in Breath Meditation has been made, which is a prerequisite for Vipassanā.
Second, since I am far from being a qualified teacher, there is the danger of writing something that is incorrect.
Third, I ran into difficulties with Pali words like saṅkhāra. Such words are central to Buddhist philosophy and are used many times by S N Goenka in his discourses. By browsing the web, I realized that many authors refrain from substituting certain Pali words by English words or phrases because none is a perfect equivalent. The word saṅkhāra is such a word. It has multiple shades of meaning.
Finally, I realized that I have a broad overview of the healing mechanism, but I do not understand the details. From personal experience, I can vouch for its efficacy. However, to write about the mechanism clearly, I ought to make further progress with regular practice and I should familiarize myself with Buddhist literature.
Despite the above handicaps, I would like to present an overview of the technique and the healing mechanism in my own words. Hopefully, you will get a glimpse of what it is all about and get motivated to attend the 10-day course.
Progress is Breath Meditation is essential to start learning Vipassanā Meditation. What do we accomplish through Breath Meditation?
Concentration: In Breath Meditation, we pay attention to natural breath in the nose region, as it flows in and out. After a day or two, we are encouraged to narrow down the area of attention to the outer nostrils. If possible, the area may be narrowed down to something even smaller: an area equal to the size of a fingertip (a small-sized 'point', as small as possible). By focusing our attention to our natural breath in a small area, we develop 'concentration' / 'one-pointedness' / 'sharpness'. Such concentration keeps on improving hour by hour, day by day, as we continue to practice Breath Meditation.
Awareness (of sensations): After a couple of days, when some progress has been made in breath meditation, the instructions change: we are asked to observe any 'sensation' occurring in the triangular region comprising the tip of the nose and the endpoints of our lips. If we're not able to observe any sensation, then we must pay attention to the 'touch of breath' as it makes friction with the outer nostrils. Note that touch of breath is also a sensation. But we must keep repeated attempts to observe other sensations in the triangular region.
The goal of Breath Meditation is to make our mind sufficiently 'concentrated' / 'one-pointed' / 'sharp' that we can begin to feel subtle sensations that naturally occur on the surface of our body. Breath Meditation also gives us 'tranquility' but that's not really the goal; the real goal is to be able to observe naturally occurring, subtle body sensations. In this sense, Breath Meditation helps us develop 'awareness (of sensations)'.
Awareness (of other phenomena): The goal of Breath Meditation is to develop awareness of naturally occurring body sensations. However, as a side effect, awareness of many other phenomena increases. For example, some people report that they start seeing colors more vividly. Some say that they notice many more things around them because they are less lost in thought after they start practicing Breath Meditation. Some say that time slows down for them as they notice more things. All of these are side effects. The main objective of Breath Meditation, as taught at the 10-day course, is to develop the ability to see naturally occurring body sensations, especially the subtle ones.
During instructions and discourses at the 10-day course, S N Goenka spends quite some time explaining the concept of 'sensations'. It's actually a very simple concept. A sensation is anything that we can feel on the surface of the body part that we're paying attention to. It could be heaviness, dullness, point pain, dull pain, itching, tingling, the feeling of 'ants crawling', heat, cold, touch of air, touch of cloth, pressure, and so on. Many sensations don't have corresponding words in language. Even a 'somewhat vague awareness' about the existence of a body part (that 'something is there') is a sensation.
S N Goenka explains that a small number of people mistake 'sensations' for some 'esoteric, mystical experience' … because they are expecting something special, something unusual to happen during the 10-day course. What are examples of special experiences that some people expect? Witnessing 'light' of some type ('divine light'), visualization of a deity or a spiritual being ('bhagwan ke darshan' in Hindi), or hearing 'divine voice', and so on. But it must really be understood that bodily sensations are ordinary, mundane phenomena which are naturally occurring on the surface of our body.
S N Goenka narrates an anecdote to explain the above point. In the 1970s, a good friend of his did the 10-day course with S N Goenka's teacher (Sayagyi U Ba Khin). When Vipassanā started and instructions were given to pay attention to sensations, his friend was quite frustrated because he could not feel any sensations anywhere on his body. So he had a conversation with the course teacher. The teacher noticed, 'Right now, you're perspiring a lot! Do you feel heat?' The friend replied, 'Yes! I'm feeling so hot! I feel sweat all over me.' The teacher smiled, 'then those are the sensations that you're feeling right now: heat and sweat'. The friend replied, 'Did I come here to see heat and sweat? I could do this at home! If you could show me some divine light or make me see a deity or God, then it makes sense to come to this 10-day course!'
The story above illustrates that some people fail to grasp the concept of 'sensations' because they are predisposed to looking for something special. It should be understood that sensations are mundane things like heat, cold, touch of air, dull pain, itching, tingling, and so on.
Vipassanā meditation is taught on the fourth day at the 10-day course. The instructions are fairly complex. I might not be able to do justice to them because I'm not sufficiently skilled in this meditation technique myself. Still, I would like to provide a high level overview of the technique so that you get inspired to learn it.
Paying attention to sensations: At the 10-day course, Vipassanā is practiced by paying attention to naturally occurring sensations on the surface of the body. Advanced students may pay attention to sensations inside the body as well. As beginners, we restrict ourselves to the surface of the body.
Types of Sensations: Sensations are of three types: 'gross solidified sensations' which are unpleasant, 'uniform subtle sensations' which are pleasant, and 'blind areas' (body parts where no sensations can be felt). Among the pleasant and unpleasant sensations, there would be degrees of pleasantness and unpleasantness. However, Vipassanā instructions don't divide sensations into sub-categories depending upon the intensity of a sensation.
Part by Part: On the first day, we don't pay attention to sensations on the body as a whole. We divide the body into parts and pay attention to them in sequence. For example, we may begin by paying attention to sensations at the top of our head, then to the sides of the head, the back of the head, the back of the neck, various parts of the face (left ear, left cheek, left eye, nose, chin, and so on), left shoulder, left upper arm, left forearm, left hand, right shoulder, right upper arm, and so on. In this way, we move our attention from head to toe, 'part by part'.
Equanimity: Equanimity is a super-important aspect of Vipassanā. It is explained in a section by itself below.
Blind spots: We may not feel any sensation in some body parts. Such areas are called 'blind spots' or 'blind areas'. Encountering blind spots is a common experience. We are asked to spend some time (maybe 10 seconds to a minute?) before moving on to the next body part. We should make sure that no body part is skipped.
Focused attention: When we pay attention to a body part, our entire attention should be on that body part. We should not pay attention to any other body part, even if there is a gross solidified sensation arising in some other body part that starts distracting us.
Every body part: We must make sure that we don't skip any body part. We might have an urge to skip a body part that was a 'blind area' or presented a 'gross solidified sensation' in the past; that must not be done.
Keep moving: Pausing at some body part for an overly long time is not recommended. We should keep moving, no matter what sensation we encounter at some body part. For example, if we encounter a blind spot, we may have an urge to keep paying attention until we feel something. Or we may have an urge to keep paying attention to a pleasant sensation for as long as possible. Or we may have an urge to keep paying attention to an unpleasant sensation at some body part that has given us discomfort in the past. Instead of getting fixated at a spot for a long time, we must keep moving.
Sequence: Any sequence is okay as long as we make sure that every body part is scanned. No part should be missed.
Variations on scanning: Initially, we are asked to scan our body from head to toe, part by part. Later, some variations are introduced: we scan our body from head to toe, then toe to head. Later, we also scan 'in parallel'. For example, both shoulders, both upper arms, both forearms, both hands are scanned together.
Random sequence: As we move from one body part to another, we may get a strong sensation in some body part that we just scanned a few seconds ago. We should not move our attention back to that body part; just keep moving forward, to the next body part in our sequence. If we were to start paying attention to the most prominent sensation in our body, then we would not be able to pay attention to subtle sensations in other parts of the body. It's important to pay attention to all parts of the body.
Free flow: At any point of time, if we experience 'uniform subtle sensations' in some part of our body, we should scan that area in 'free flow'. Free flow is different from 'part by part'. In 'part by part', we move our attention from one part to another part in discrete steps, as if we are laying bricks. In 'free flow', we move our attention rather smoothly over a body part, as if we are painting with a brush. Whether we should move our attention 'free flow' or 'part by part' depends on the sensation being felt. If the sensation is 'gross solidified' or 'blind area', we move 'part by part'. If the sensation is 'uniform subtle', we move 'free flow'.
Smaller and Smaller Parts: With practice, the ability to observe sensations in smaller and smaller parts of the body shall be acquired, as small as a fingertip! When we sit and practice Vipassanā, we're either calm or agitated or somewhere in between. Our level of calmness (one-pointedness / sharpness / concentration) determines how small an area we are able to sustain attention to. If we are quite agitated, then we may use a large body part (the entire head, the entire face, and so on). If we are quite calm, we must strive for reducing the size of the area that we scan, making it as small as possible.
Least perceptible sensation: Gross solidified sensations tend to occur over large surface areas. Interestingly, if we start focusing on a smaller area within that larger area, the sensation would very likely be different! At the 10-day course, we are encouraged to pay attention to the subtlest sensation that we can perceive. These subtle sensations occur in tiny surface areas.
Revert to Breath Meditation: If our level of calmness is super-low, then we cannot really practice Vipassanā; we should revert to Breath Meditation. If Breath Meditation itself is becoming a challenge, we should figure out what is causing the difficulty. Maybe the difficulty that we're facing is one of the Five Hindrances.
Instructions for Advanced Students: Advanced students may start inspecting the inside of their body for sensations. There are further instructions like 'spot checks' and carefully scanning the spine, which I don't remember. I'm not an advanced student; I am a beginner.
Questions: Students at the 10-day course have many questions related to the technique. Popular questions are addressed in the hour-long discourses in the evenings. Specific questions may be posed to teachers who are available for 1 hour every day for Q&A.
Summary: Vipassanā meditation is a complex technique. Hopefully, the above description has given you some idea of its complexity. Instead of trying to learn Vipassanā from the instructions above or from some book, please learn the technique properly from a qualified teacher or a 10-day course.
Equanimity is a super-important concept when practicing Vipassanā. The success of the entire technique depends on how well we can practice equanimity when we are paying attention to naturally occurring sensations. But what exactly is equanimity?
In Vipassanā, we keep paying attention to naturally occurring sensations that arise on the surface of the body (advanced students may pay attention to sensations inside the body as well). These sensations could be unpleasant ('gross solidified sensations', as S N Goenka calls them) or pleasant ('uniform, subtle sensations'). Sensations may also be absent ('blind areas'). No matter what sensation is being felt (or not felt in the case of 'blind areas'), we must observe these sensations (or their absence) with equanimity.
What is equanimity? Equanimity is the absence of craving and aversion. When we are paying attention to any sensation, we lose equanimity if we respond by craving for a pleasant sensation that no longer exists, or by aversion to an unpleasant sensation that exists in that moment. This is a key point — the cornerstone of Buddhist philosophy.
Equanimity is so important the S N Goenka keeps reminding us to practice 'no craving, no aversion' dozens of times during the course.
Awareness and Equanimity: Together, 'awareness' and 'equanimity' are two wings of a bird; both are important for flying.
- Breath Meditation teaches us 'awareness' (of sensations); we develop the awareness to see body sensations which naturally occur on the surface of our body; many of these sensations are subtle, so a very calm mind (concentrated / one-pointed, sharp) is needed to be able to notice them.
- Vipassanā Meditation teaches us 'equanimity': the ability to remain calm no matter what sensation we experience at any point of time.
As we continue to practice Vipassanā in our lives, we experience a series of landmarks / 'stations' along the way, many of which are pleasurable. None of these landmarks is the goal! It is important to understand this point. Otherwise, there is the danger of falling into the trap of wanting to experience these landmarks again and again. The Healing Mechanism explains the purpose of doing Vipassanā.
No blind areas: When we get started with Vipassanā, it is not necessary that we feel sensations in all parts of our body. Eventually, a day shall come when sensations can indeed be observed in all parts; there shall be no blind areas. This is an important landmark. However, it is not permanent in the sense that blind areas might emerge the very next day, or within the same meditation session.
Uniform subtle sensations everywhere: With further practice, a day shall come when 'uniform subtle sensations' shall be felt everywhere. This landmark is also not permanent in the sense that the very next day or in the very next scan, we might encounter 'gross subtle sensations' or even 'blind areas'.
The landmark of experiencing 'uniform subtle sensations' everywhere is an important landmark. But it is also a dangerous one! S N Goenka explains that some students keep coming for courses to get this 'special experience' of feeling 'uniform subtle sensations' everywhere. That's not the goal at all! What's the goal of coming to 10-day courses and practicing Vipassanā? The Healing Mechanism offers explanations.
Dissolution: Eventually, there shall be a day when 'dissolution' (bhaṅgānupassanā ñāṇa) happens - I don't quite understand what this means. It is an important landmark in the journey. However, this is not the final goal either.
S N Goenka emphasizes that these landmarks should not be mistaken for goals of any kind, as some students do. In one of his last discourses, he mentions that the journey is very long. A detailed discussion of various landmarks along the journey may be found at The Sixteen Stages of Insight.
On the last day, the third and final meditation technique is taught: mettā-bhāvanā (cultivation of loving-kindness). The idea is quite simple: we end our meditation by radiating feelings of love, peace and happiness towards everybody for two to five minutes. However, this meditation must be done only if we are feeling calm inside, without an iota of negativity.
Buddhist articles often talk of 'mindfulness', a term that was never used during the 10-day course. Mindfulness is explained in the Satipatthana Sutta whose literal translation is found here. Briefly, the Sutta describes mindfulness of four things: body, feelings, mind, and mental contents.
A couple of excellent books that explain mindfulness in plain English:
- Practical Insight Meditation (16 pages, 1944) by Mahasi Sayadaw explains mindfulness practices in simple English. The book is quite short: only 16 pages long.
- The Miracle of Mindfulness (140 pages, 1999) by Thich Nhat Hanh is a beautiful book. Written in simple English, the book explains how to apply mindfulness in our day to day life.
At the 10-day course, we practice mindfulness of body sensations only; we don't practice mindfulness of feelings, mind and mental contents. Even after returning from the 10-day course, we practice mindfulness of body sensations only in our day to day life.
What is the purpose of sitting for Vipassanā meditation and paying attention to naturally occurring sensations on our body, day after day? How does it help? We explore these answers in the next article: The Healing Mechanism.
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