Reply To: Goenka´s Vipassana

#34828
raj
Participant

Mr. Goenka teaches the students to practice samphassa-ja-vedana in ones daily activities.
The meditation prepares one for the daily encounters in life. He says when we have an encounter
with (lust, anger ect.) to watch the breath and the sensations in the body.
If somebody yells at us, we get angry, but with that anger we can see a change in our breathing
and it is accompanied by a sensation. He tells his student to be aware of that.
Initially one may fail to do so, but by practice one becomes conscious of what one needs to do.
In the initial stages one may get angry but the cooling down happens relatively quicker. As one
advances one will see the change. After an episode, one might have been miserably for many hours,
the duration is reduced and a point will come that the meditator will not react at all.
I presume that just as during ones meditation, one learns to watch the sensations without reacting, similarly in ones day to day activities one learns not to react to sensations influenced by external inputs, and I presume this is done intuitively due to the practice.
He says that it is not an overnight process but could take years. I presume, it depends on the individuals karma and the dedication to the practice of meditations and following the precepts.