One of our main goals here at Meditation Techniques, is to offer all different kinds of meditation. Today it’s Vipassana meditation techniques explained.
In particular, we are looking at the insight meditation technique taught by S.N. Goenka. This method of meditation is taught all over the world, and many meditation teachers have taken the challenging 10 Day Meditation Course created by Goenka.
In this article by Viral Mehta, the well-known meditation teacher Dr. Paul Fleishman explains his views on the Vipassana meditation techniques he learned from SN Goenka.
Vipassana Meditation Techniques Explained:
SN Goenka has been teaching and explaining vipassana meditation techniques for many decades
How would you define meditation?
First off, I’d like to clarify that whenever I talk about meditation, I’m really talking specifically about my own experiences with a technique called Vipassana, which I learned in 1974 from Mr. S.N. Goenka, and have been teaching since 1986 under his guidance.
Meditation is a form of self observation.
In Vipassana meditation, the unique feature is to observe oneself at the level of sensation. Or more specifically, it is to cultivate the capacity for relatively constant, thorough observation of the arising and passing of body sensations. Along with that observation is a concurrent understanding that these body sensations that are arising and passing are sharing the property of all reality. All reality is the aggregation of smaller things into bigger things, followed by their disaggregation.
Things are in a constant flux. So in meditation, first, one is cultivating a capacity for self-observation with increasing ability, and as one develops this ability both in body and mind, one begins to observe universal principles in the context of one’s own mind and body.
Are you experienced in Vipassana meditation?
If you are, we would love to hear from you. If you are not experienced, here’s what Dr. Fleishman has to say so that you really see how vipassana meditation techniques are explained.
Beginners and Vipassana Meditation
Can you start by describing what actually happens when someone tries to meditate?
What actually happens when you try to meditate is you daydream an enormous amount. And you don’t do what you’re told to do, and almost all your daydreaming has two qualities: fear or desire. Whether it’s a delightful reverie about something you do want, or a fear of something you don’t want, in each case you’re generating an anticipatory future fantasy and then having an emotional reaction.
The reaction is to the fantasy that you just generated, and in either case, you aren’t aware that you are living in a fabricated world. That is, not until you come back to the undeniable truth of present moment, reality, manifesting in the arising and passing of sensations. That’s actually the real state in which those fantasies are arising.
Another way to describe what happens is that meditation is a stormy, colorful, highly-personal creative effort. It’s creative because you have to find your own way through this kaleidoscope of mentation — mental fabrications of desire and fear. And you have to find your way through it back to the basic reality of truth — our notion of self is actually an aggregate of little things compounded into a temporary system.
So the process varies from person to person and is filled with daydreams and fears but also the meditative emotions of calming, soothing, cessation of that mental instability. Read the entire interview here
If you wanted Vipassana meditation techniques explained, I think this article is a really good start.
Are you interested in learning more about SN Goenka and his Vipassana meditation? I did my first 10 Day Vipassana course in 1995, and have done it three more times in the years since. As a senior editor for Meditation Techniques, this is my 10 Day Vipassana Course Review.
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