Post #7: What Is Vipassana?

3 May 2023

Vipassana means “to see things as they are” in Pali, the language of the oldest extant Buddhist scriptures.* Beyond its literal meaning the term also refers to a technique of meditation and the tradition around it associated especially with the late S.N. Goenka and his Burmese teacher Sayagyi U Ba Khin—though the Vipassana family tree has many other branches, some also going by the name of Insight Meditation or Satipatthana (establishment of mindfulness).

What all variants of Vipassana have in common, in distinction to other traditions, is an emphasis on the importance of meditating on one’s bodily sensations. Anapana, mindfulness of breath, retains the respect it enjoys in all Buddhist circles, but it is not considered the main technique by Vipassana practitioners, nor the predominant one endorsed by the Buddha, as many other schools would have it.

Putting it very simply, the logic of Vipassana practice starts from the premise that all thoughts and feelings in the wider sense—all human experiences that pass through the mind—are reflected at the same time, on the reverse side of the coin as it were, in the form of extremely nuanced bodily sensations of which we usually become conscious only in their crudest manifestations, while their subtler aspects elude us altogether. Vipassana training therefore aims, first, at sharpening the mind sufficiently to become aware of these sensations in their full range, and second, at teaching oneself no longer to react to them blindly, because such habitual non-reaction is what brings ever-elusive equanimity, true mental balance and calm, to the very depths of the mind.

Doctrinally this approach is connected to an understanding of dependent origination—presented by the Buddha as practically synonymous with the Dhamma—that stresses the link in the chain of becoming between contact (as the senses meet the outside world) and the sensations that inescapably result, on the one hand, and mental reaction, on the other, as the obvious place to break the perennial cycle. Therapeutically it is grounded in the insight that our mental patterns require constant feeding, so that if we learn to observe rather than to reinforce them all the time, they will gradually fade and lose their hold over us. A sustained course of mere observation during a silent Vipassana retreat is therefore eo ipso a course of mental purification.

My quick sketch may give Vipassana a simple and innocuous appearance, but it does not capture, for those unfamiliar with the process, the sometimes violent ways in which deep (and often very troublesome) old mental habit patterns tend to unwind themselves once they rise to the surface of the mind like pus from a festering wound that is finally cut open. A spell of quiet relaxation in the ordinary sense, like a vacation at the Buddhist-inspired spa, it most certainly is not. Not that the way of Vipassana does not also have a pleasant, sometimes even blissful dimension; the relief alone can be extraordinary when a particularly nasty complex passes through and out of the system at last. But pleasantness is not the point; purification is. Delightful episodes, even ecstatic flashes of insight and moments of profound inspiration, may occur as part of the journey, but the main purpose is something else: the mental cleanup, the consequent unburdening, and the greater mental balance and kindness towards others that should ensue.

The Vipassana technique is traditionally taught in ten-day silent retreats (nine of them without any talking at all, the tenth with many opportunities for sharing your impressions with your fellow meditators) that are as tough as they sound, although the edges are softened in practice by informal flexibilities that don't show up on paper. Still, no phone, no reading, no music, nothing of the sort, plus getting up at 4 am and eating only two meals a day, though with a bit of fruit at night, and a heck of a lot of sitting every day, whichever way you turn it. Loneliness, sadness, regret, guilt, lust, food cravings, anger, boredom, frustration, anxiety, not to mention physical pain from all the sitting on the floor—you'll get them all, sooner or later, with not much to be done but to observe and let the storms come and go in one foul and flotsam-littered wave after another. The contrast with the demonstrable safety and tranquility of the environment is shocking, and the experience can be just as brutal as I am making it sound; the misery is real but therapeutic at least, and when it is done you really do feel much better, though it can take a few days for the open heals to close properly. In a word, though one wouldn't do it for fun, it's good for you, even very good, at times exceptionally so, and after all people put themselves through marathons and Iron Man competitions for less worthy reasons and with less to show for it afterwards.

How such a Vipassana retreat will play out in detail depends on such a complex web of personal circumstances and conditions that it is impossible to predict.There is, nonetheless, much else that could be said about the retreats in more general terms, or based on one’s own specific experience, but I want to be clear beyond any possible misunderstanding that I am not a Vipassana teacher (though I have always practiced in this tradition, as the reader may have guessed), and so I will refrain from elaborating for now. I would be happy, upon request, to recommend further resources to anyone looking for more guidance in preparing for a retreat or perhaps digesting its after-effects.

Readings: Majjhima Nikaya 28:29 (Dependent Origination). For the official account of Vipassana Meditation as taught by S.N. Goenka in the tradition of Sayagyi U Ba Khin, see www.dhamma.org and The Art of Living by William Hart.

*Scholars such as the formidable Bhikkhu Bodhi insist that Pali as we know it was never a spoken language, but rather an amalgamation and standardization of several related Northern Indian dialects that underwent various changes over time. They also tell us that the Pali scriptures comprise different layers of texts that cannot all be dated to the same period, let alone to anywhere near the Buddha's lifetime; that they are, like Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, replete with mnemonic devices that were needed to help with transmitting them orally for centuries before they were written down; and that they were partially Sanskritized over time for greater elegance. The traditionalist view that presents the resulting patchwork as the exact words of the Buddha is therefore no more tenable, from a scholarly point of view, than similar literalisms in other traditions. On the other hand the Buddha would have probably spoken several of the dialects from which Pali seems to have been derived, so while his original words would not have been identical to what has been passed down to us, the most salient ones, in his last days for example, would probably not have been very far off from what was remembered and eventually recorded for posterity.