Hello,
I joined the puredhamma.net forum recently, and am happy to come upon this forum. Starting in 2003, I attended courses, read (and reread) Goenka’s discourses and books related to this tradition, got to know many “teachers” well and the training they went through.
I put “teachers” in quote not out of disrespect, since the only teacher was SN Goenka (affectionately known among students as Goenkaji). I’ll elaborate at the end as I describe the format of the course (for those who have not attended one).
I’d like to give a brief description of the technique taught in the course, the rationale behind it (as I understand it), and then I really want to get your take on it as to whether the rationale is sound.
—DESCRIPTION OF TECHNIQUE
Most courses are residential 10-day courses (there are other courses of varying lengths).
The course starts on Day 0 with the formalities: taking refuge in the Triple Gems, taking the 5 precepts, and making a formal request to the teacher to teach the technique.
— Days 1-3: “anapana” practice.
I put “anapana” because it is taken as breath meditation here. Goenka calls it respiration – natural, pure, uncontrolled respiration, nothing but respiration.
A few points about the “anapana” phase:
— Observation is at the nostrils, of natural respiration (exclusively); no imagination, no inner verbalization (such as a mantra). And also, no controlling the respiration of any kind (such as in pranayama)
— Gradually, observation turns to physical sensations (if any) in the small area below the nostrils, above the upper lip.
Attention is kept at the nostrils area to sharpen the mind; the smaller the area, the sharper the mind. The abdomen, for example is too big an area.
This phase is also considered the samadhi part of the eightfold path, along with sila, which is observing the 5 precepts.
— Days 4-9: “vipassana”
In the afternoon of day 4, we switched to “vipassana”, and this is considered entering the part of paññā. In vipassana according to this course, the object of observation is physical sensations (at first on the surface of the body) from the top of the head to the tips of the toes.
One moves his attention in order, from the top of the head, part by small part, to the tips of the toes. The reason for this is to eventually feel sensations, gross and subtle, all over the body. Also, one observes with an attitude of equanimity – no craving for pleasant sensations nor aversion toward unpleasant sensations.
What is the basis for this technique, and how is all this related to tilakkhana?
This is based on the mahasatipatthana sutta, and for practice, kāyānupassī, vedanānupassī, cittānupassī, dhammānupassī are reduced to vedanānupassī, and vedanā is taken to be physical sensations.
For kāyānupassī, observing kaya means observing what arise in kaya, and that is physical sensations. For the other 2 (citta and dhamma), observing physical sensations imply observing (indirectly) citta and dhamma, because of this verse:
“vedanā-samosaraṇā sabbe dhammā”, translated as “Everything that arises in the mind starts flowing with a sensation on the body.”
(See this verse in the satipathanna discourses in below, in the “Sources” section).
For this technique, anicca means the arising and passing of physical sensations – pleasant and unpleasant. Gross, unpleasant sensations arise, stay for some time, and disappear. For pleasant sensations, they are ultimately tiny wavelets, bubbles, arising and passing very rapidly. (Just do a search for “wavelets” in the link to the satipatthana discourses).
At this stage, one realizes that there is no “I”, “mine”, “myself” behind these wavelets, and hence anattā (here meaning “egolessness”).
Finally, the mind can be so sharp that it transcends this field of sensations to go “beyond” – to non arising and passing. Nibbana!
This is just a summary of the technique (leaving out many details, even though I’m already long-winded), but I hope I got the gist of it, and now I can’t wait to ask my question (a question also asked of me many times):
Is there potential in this technique in removing defilements? Is there a sound foundation for it in the tipitaka?
— Day 10: metta
Students keep “noble silence” during the course from days 1-9: no talking to each other (asking the teacher questions is ok), no reading, no communication with the outside world. Roughly 10 hours a day are spent in sitting meditation, starting the day at 4:30 am.
On day 10, students break silence and learn metta bhavana. On day 11 they leave the course.
—FORMAT OF COURSES
Lal asked whether anapana was brought to the teacher as being other than breath meditation.
In the course, meditation instructions are audio from SN Goenka, who is really THE teacher. The people sitting in the front, on the “Dhamma Seat”, are assistant teachers (ATs) who conduct the course by playing the tapes of instructions and answering questions about the technique itself.
These ATs are from various backgrounds (e.g. the AT in my area is Hindu). They answer questions mostly about the technique, with or without mentioning Buddha Dhamma at large. Some even have just canned answers such as: “Just set that aside, just observe sensations with equanimity”, etc. On the question of anapana, all the ATs I personally know take that to mean breath meditation.
The most common course is the 10-day course. Another course is the Satipatthana course (7 days), in which students learn the sutta as explained by SN Goenka. (See the discourses on Satipatthana below). There are longer courses too: 20-day, 30-day, 45-day, 60-day courses. In these courses, oftentimes a third (typically the 1st third) is spent on “anapana”.
—SOURCES
I was a little hesitant to put these links here, since non students are not encouraged to read these without attending the courses (no context), but since these are in the public domain from VRI, I feel better.
Discourses on Satipatthana
http://www.vridhamma.org/Printversion/Discourses-on-Satipatthana-Sutta
Discourses in a 10-day course
http://www.vridhamma.org/The-Discourse-Summaries