Is Vipassana meditation a fast track to liberation?* Part IV

Practical advices

Here are some practical advices below that might be helpful.

1.    Choose the place of Vipassana retreat and book it in advance.

a.    Some places such as Himalayas are booked pretty fast

b.    Not all courses have a teacher, the smaller retreats have only an assistant teacher.

c.     Check the annual temperature on the retreat. During some months, the warmth or rain could be unbearable.

2.    Support your physical fitness by exercising yoga asanas (stretching). Practice a butterfly asana regularly.

3.    Prior to attending the session, regularly sit on the floor in a meditation posture, keeping your back straight whether listening to music, watching TV, etc.

4.    Before your session, try to reduce the amount of meat you consume if you are not a vegetarian.

a.    Avoid eating meat every second day at first, slowly reducing the amount of the meat, replacing it by legumes.

b.    Fasting 24 hours once per week would be beneficial.

c.     Acquaint yourself with Indian cuisine at local restaurants. And, why not try to cook some Indian dishes at home?

5.    Apply the same rule (see number 4) to alcohol, smoking, and drugs — reduce them steadily but surely.

6.    It might be useful to acquaint yourself with any meditation methodology prior to the entering the course, however, it's not essential.

7.    To prevent unnecessary worries, prepare your relatives and friends that you are going to be away from any communication means for 10 days. Create an automatic reply on your email and/or phone.

8.    If you have time and budget travel through India’s spiritual places. I will provide a number of the spiritual places in India with hints and tips in a separate article.

9.    You can use your normal prescription medications from your doctor. In the case of the serious health problems, contact the training center for advice prior to arrival.

Where to go for retreat

·      India versus homeland

Thanks to Mr. Goenka, Vipassana meditation has been spread all over the world, and people can attend the training even in their own country. However, due to continuously increasing popularity of the technique, there might be a problem to book a place in your own country. In some countries. the places are all gone in the first 20 minutes after the opening a registration.

Personally, I prefer to get the meditation technique in the country of origin — India.

                                                                                                            Vipassana retreat near Pushkar, India

·      Big versus small size retreats

There are tens or maybe hundreds of Vipassana meditation centers throughout India, and I divide all of them into two main groups: the smaller meditation centers and the bigger ones.

In the small meditation centers, such as Pushkar, there are around 50 men and 25 women. The advantages of a smaller place are: cozier atmosphere with less noise, perhaps bigger space for fresh-air walking, and more time of an assistant teacher to dedicate to each student. The food preparation is outsourced, which is also positive because of reduced extra activities around you and noise.

The advantages of a bigger center are: larger variety of the people with different geographical backgrounds, you will be taught by a fully credentialed teacher (not an assistant teacher) with his high spiritual awareness in the Vipassana.

·      Himalayas

Very many foreigners, as well as locals, are attracted by gorgeous views of the Himalayas, nice weather and desire to participate to Vipassana meditation there. However, please be aware that the retreat is closed for the winter season; it might be not as warm as you think in spring and autumn seasons, and during the summer, the premises are pretty badly infected by mold.

*Note:  This article is based on my personal experience and thoughts after my first 10-day meditation course of Vipassana, and is not presented to be an absolute truth. – Jacklyn A. Lo

Next article will tell about which things to take with you to Vipassana and after the course.

Is Vipassana meditation a fast track to liberation?* Part III

Terms and conditions

In order to achieve the objectives of Vipassana meditation, a student should follow the terms and conditions of the course.

There are five important precepts included in the Code of Discipline for new students:

1.    To abstain from killing any being.

2.    To abstain from stealing.

3.    To abstain from all sexual activity.

4.    To abstain from telling lies.

5.    To abstain from all intoxicants.

In addition to the Code of Discipline, a student is expected to accept a teacher (or assistant teacher), the Vipassana technique, and execute all other meditation techniques, rites, and/or any form of worship. Religious objects, crystals, and talismans are strictly prohibited during the course, as well as any form of intoxicants and drugs.

Clothes worn during the meditation should be clean, modest, and comfortable. Music, reading, and writing are not permitted.

Meditation hall

All students must observe Noble Silence. The Nobel Silence has been invented in accordance to prevent telling lies. The Noble Silence will be started at the end of zero day and ends at the afternoon of day ten. During this time you will have a right to communicate with teacher (or assistant teacher) during two periods per day. In the case of questions concerning practical issues, you will have the opportunity to make a written request and leave it in the appropriate place. The usage of cell phone, Tablet PC, laptops is strictly prohibited.

The Noble Silence is not as awful as it might seem. In fact, it helps to save your energy for concentration on the training.

Costs

The Vipassana meditation courses, accommodations, and food are free of charge. A small expense fund is required if you are going to outsource your laundry or purchase bottled water or juice.

Vipassana courses depend on voluntary donations from the people who have attended the course. You can use donation boxes for donations in smaller amounts of money, or deliver a donation to administrator who will be on the premises on the last day of the training. 

I advise you to ask for a receipt for your donation and prepare a printed visit card with your name and email address, because he might tell you that he will send the receipt by email. Ask him when he will be able to send the receipt and take his personal telephone number to call him in case he forgets to do it.

Constraints

The most critical for me was the first day of the course. I choose the Vipassana meditation center close to Pushkar, Rajasthan State, and attended the course at the end of September.

I wasn’t used to the heat at over +35 degrees C (+95 degrees F) overall, and especially in the premises without air conditioning. The temperature one degree higher would make impossible for me to continue the training.

Another huge constraint for me was long hours sitting in the meditation postures. I used to stay in meditation postures for 30 minutes or so, but a 12-hour training session at the Vipassana felt like torture.

So, to be able to successfully succeed in a Vipassana course, it’s essential to start preparation for it as early as possible, at least one-month prior.

*Note:  This article is based on my personal experience and thoughts after my first 10-day meditation course of Vipassana, and is not presented to be an absolute truth. – Jacklyn A. Lo, Author of Redemption novel, http://rbjal.com/

Next article will tell about practical advices and where to go for retreat.

Is Vipassana meditation a fast track to liberation?* Part II

Side effects
As anything in this non perfect world, there can be negative side effects of the Vipassana meditation technique too.
During the meditation, a Vipassana student receives fine (pleasant) or rough (disgust) sensations of the body. His/her main task is to stay indifferent to them. Just as a person sitting on the riverbank observes the river’s flow, this is the same way the practitioner of Vipassana should observe the flow of sensations of his body without any reaction to them, whatever they bring with — pleasure or disgust.

To stay indifferent to the body’s sensations is the biggest challenge for students, and, unfortunately, some people are becoming addicted to the sensations. If the sensation of the body is pleasant, they enjoy it. If the sensation is rough, they hate it. Coming back to the Vipassana courses to enjoy those sensations, the students receive extra negative karma, which course a delay of liberation.

Organization of the training

While there may be a lack of organizing and planning skills generally in India, the Vipassana course is organized very well.

There are ten full days in the training. You will come on the first day or “zero day” for registration, introduction lecture, and other practical things. One of those practical things is delivering your valuables and all communication means to storage.

There is a wake-up ring at 4 a.m. with a following ring of a servant at 04:25 a.m. The training starts at 4:30 a.m. sharp in the main meditation hall.

This is the most intensive course that I have ever attended. A training session lasts 12 hours per day. Ten hours is dedicated to meditation and two hours for a lecture. You will have a chance to ask questions from a teacher or an assistant teacher during lunch and before sleep. You will have time for a nap after a breakfast and a lunch break. There are also additional five-minute breaks available after each one-hour meditation. The ring for a sleep is at 9:30 p.m., and lights must be switched off.

Food is provided three times per day. It’s purely vegetarian, and legumes are served at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Animal protein is available only in yogurt and hot milk with butter.

You can get drinking water from the big water tanks installed to the roof, however, the taste of that water is not the same as we are used to. Bottled water is available at your request, and you can pay for that at the end of the course.

Accommodations

The Vipassana retreat territory is separated in two main areas — one part with housing for women, and another part for men. The canteen has the same principle — men and women have meals in separate rooms.

You will be given a private room or a room with a roommate. The room is humble with a little window, two simple beds, and bathroom with toilet and a limited shower. There is no air conditioning, but a mechanical fan provides an air circulation. You have to have your own lock for the door of your room.

Language

The course is available in English and Hindu. However, even if you know English very well, some words of the English vocabulary that are used in the Vipassana session might be unknown to you, and a misunderstanding of a word might lead to the collapse of understanding the concept of the whole lecture.

Many meditation centers offer language translation devices that are easy to use. Ask an administrator of the meditation center where you are planning to attend if they have an audio device in your native language.

  

*Note:  This article is based on my personal experience and thoughts after my first 10-day meditation course of Vipassana, and is not presented to be an absolute truth. – Jacklyn A. Lo, author of Redemption novel.

Next article will tell about terms and conditions on the Vipassana retreat, costs of the training, some constrains and preparation for the meditation.

Is Vipassana a fast track to liberation?

Twenty-six centuries ago Gautama Buddha designed a meditation technique that has been helping people not only train their minds to stay in balance, but also to liberate them from Samsara (reincarnation chain).

Gautama used to say that there were Buddhas (enlightened people), there are Buddhas, and there will be Buddhas after him, but his role is to provide an efficient meditation technique that could help people reach liberation (moksha or nirvana) in the present life that will allow one never to come back to the materialistic reality and to experience suffering again.

Before the invention of his own meditation technique, Gautama had tried different meditation methods designed by others, but he never was satisfied by the quality and deepness of them, so he invented his own, which is known as the Vipassana meditation technique.

What the Vipassana technique is about

In short, the Vipassana meditation technique is about getting rid of addictions that we have accumulated during innumerable materialistic existences. These addictions (filth and/or imperfections) are hidden in the deeper mind — our subconscious.

In the beginning of the Vipassana meditation course, a student’s goal is calming down his or her mind by focusing on breathing and clearing the mind from thoughts.

Then, the students do meditation exercises for activating the subconscious. The access to the subconscious is going to provide an option for self-healing, first of all — a physical body, and later on — a soul.

The subconscious is like a dark room, and concentrating on breathing shall light it, making the previously hidden sins (addictions) visible.

We experience those addictions through the sensations of our bodies.

The goal of these exercises is to keep us indifferent to those sensations.

Why Vipassana

Imagine yourself as a traveler who came to this world with a heavy luggage of karma and a desire to make it lighter.
The project named Your Life is already designed for you, and everything that you need can be found by following the Your Destiny script. Your Life project is interactive, and your task is to correct your sins (imperfections) that you have done during your previous existences and to make your luggage lighter.

You could succeed with this job and return back to Your Home with a smaller bag, or you could fail, generating extra negative karma and return home with a larger bag than before. The smallest group of travelers will come home with no luggage at all. This group of people are the luckiest ones — burning away all sins (negative karma), they generate no reason to return back to Samsara.
One of the techniques that help people grab this good fortune is Vipassana. 

Benefits of Vipassana

The students who are following the Code of Discipline and precisely heeding the teacher’s instructions are getting a chance to get great benefits from the Vipassana meditation.

These benefits are:

·      To train a mind to stay balance in everyday life.

·      To increase the energy level of the physical body.

·      To study the philosophy of Gautama Buddha in the interpretation of his loyal follower, S.N. Goenka, the influential Vipassana meditation teacher.

·      To get in touch with your own subconscious.

·      To get healed.

·      To obtain a release of the old hurt.

·      To get the ability to transform negativity into positivity.

·      To receive a supernatural experience.

·      To network with like people.
·      To reach the ultimate goal of a human being - get redemption from Samsara - an endless cycle of births and deaths.

*Note:  This article is based on my personal experience and thoughts after my first 10-day meditation course of Vipassana, and is not presented to be an absolute truth. – Jacklyn A. Lo.

The next article will tell about possible side effects of the Vipassana, the organization of the training, and accommodations in the retreat territory.