A
story with Vipassana
Vipassana is one of Meditation technique that was
actually used by Buddha to get Enlightenment. Before I explain what’s the core
philosophy of it, it is important to mention that one of organisation which
have preserved this tradition (of meditation) exactly it was around 2500 years
back is Goenka organisation. Which at present is operating all around the world
completely on Donations from the followers.
It was one of those
time when you are fed up with the monotony and you have this big requirement of
a refresh, kindof formatting our system, provided all the old drivers are saved
J
Joining the Goenka centre is very easy, we have to
register in the upcoming course (10 days) in their simple yet effective
website. And then we’ll get a confirmation reply from them whether they have
seat available or not.
Before we jump to the meditation technique one
more important thing to understand is one of Buddhist core philosophy i.e
Anicha (In pali) and in Mahayana tradition this philosohpy is called
“Impermanent nature of reality” It says .. all
conditioned existence without exception is in constant state of flux, in lay
man’s language everything in this world is impermanent, in a state of change..Whether
it is material or an emotion it is completely impermanent. (It’s a good
news!!). One analogy could
be a light from a Fluorescent bulbs, to our naked eye it appears to be a
constant light but in reality it is blinking at 40 khz per second i.e 40,000
blinks in one second it’s continuously changing but it appears to be constant
light to our naked eye.
So cutting further crap lets jump to the core
process to which we call Vipassana. It is a meditation technique where we focus
on our thoughts; any thought could be a positive or negative one. In our everyday
life if a thought is positive (or pleasing) we tend to cling on it for more
because it makes us feel good. A positive thought could be a desire for a
choclate to thought of some sensual pleasure or something else which makes us
become slave of it by clinging on to it, and negative (Unpleasant) thought
could be dislike for a particular person, place, thing or a feeling to a
thought which is so unpleasant that we better not think of it, which completely shakes us or takes us into
some darkness, so in our daily life when we come across such negative feelings
we tend to avoid it.
So when we sit for Vipassana meditation, when
these two thoughts come into our mind. Unlike our everyday life neither we
cling to positive (pleasant) feeling/thoughts for more nor we avoid or shoo
away the negative (unpleasant) feeling. We just let it come to us and observe
it. We let it stay, without attaching or detaching from it, knowing both the
thoughts can’t stay forever based on Buddha’s (or nature’s) “ Impermanent
nature of reality”. We try to be equanimous on this pleasant and unpleasent thoughts
(sensations they call) giving a neutral reaction to it.
So in very short this is what Vipassana is all
about giving a neutral (equanimous
as they call) reaction to these thoughts, living in complete equanimity. So that
next time in our mundane life, when we come across both unpleasant and pleasant
we can maintain an equanimous life i.e
not easily elated or depressed.
So next time when we face serious/shocking news or
accident we can have a calmer reaction to it, or when we get this job you
always dreamed for we will not get too excited with it and handle it with a
calm mind.
Arvind Kejriwal of AAP is practioner of Vipassana,
atleast that we can make out by his calmness, Abhinav Bindra (Indian famed
shooter) is also very old practiioner of Vipassana, SECMOL Sonam Wangchuk also
practice Vipassana, Priyanka Gandhi Vadara and there are many who are serious
practioner of Vipassana.
