Thank you. You are spot on with the quackery! This matches my experiences in participating in a course in Germany.
> Maybe try hanging out with people praising homeopathy and not saying a single negative word as preparation for the kinds of things you're going to feel?
Honestly, the day when silence is broken was hard to grok. The vast majority of participants were deep into esoteric and quackery themes and had a religious admiration for the teachings. Critical discussion is not exactly forbidden but usally swept away.
It's also powerful, I remember speaking that day to someone more sceptical than me at the time and trying to calm him down. In retrospective he was right and I turned into an advertising machine the following weeks - I realized that only quite a while later.
The topics and language used in the course also had a lot of pseudo-scientific topics (even quoting engineers) that are hard to dismantle on first sight.
That beeing said, it's still worth the experience and it was comfortable but be ready to get exposed to all kinds of quack.
At first the supposed religiousness of it annoyed me too - but over time it sat ok with me. If you think about it, the audio course they use for the sessions was recorded back in the 90s, and back then this was refreshingly religion free. Lots of the work on meditation (things like Search Inside Yourself) which have completely reduced the amount of religion in it, are very recent compared to Goenka's course, so I think you have to take it as a product of its time. With a partial Indian background, a few times I've tried Indian writing on meditation, etc, and it is so seemingly intricately bound up with religion (almost to the point of superstition), that to extricate it as much as Goenka did for the vipassana course I think is still great work.
Unfortunately I have to agree that it does attract a lot of participants who want to believe in magic and superstition. I was very disappointed when the course was over and I found this out. Perhaps that is why Goenka is very clear in the recordings to be skeptical and only take what one finds useful from the practice.
The important distinction between the Goenka retreats and other dogmatic religious organizations is the instructions to only accept what you find palatable...you're free to pick and choose what you find valuable and what you can validate through personal experience and ignore the rest. If you'll remember the story of the kheer and the cardamom seeds, it's meant to encourage you to be as skeptical as you feel you need to be to get value out of the retreat.
Also, your comment on the sleepless nights makes me realize that you misunderstood the non-meditation periods in the same way that I misunderstood them during my first 10-day. I thought if I wasn't meditating, I was 'off' and mostly just passing time until the next session. But what I realized in my second 10-day was that there should be no down time. If you're not sitting and meditating, you should be walking and meditating, eating and meditating or showering and meditating or whatever and meditating. If you're lying in bed and can't fall asleep, you meditate. And what I found was that it didn't matter how much I actually slept because lying prone and meditating was as restful as sleep. If you ever try it again, try doing it without the notion of any down time...meditate through all of your actions as well as the prescribed meditation periods.
But I agree that the anti-science (and pseudo-scientific) parts were unfortunate. I served a 10-day after having attended twice, and was somewhat upset to see that they only made available traditional Chinese medicines to students and wouldn't even allow basic Western medicine (aspirin, immodium, etc). At one point, we had an elderly man who ran out of his high blood pressure medication. During a meditation session, his pulse rate spiked (~190 bpm) and he started freaking out. After following the teacher's advice and trying a traditional Chinese remedy (which, of course, did nothing), I finally suggested something with an actual basis in science (dipping his face in cold water to activate the mammalian dive reflex). That got the situation under control until an ambulance could arrive.
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> it's meant to encourage you to be as skeptical as you feel you need to be to get value out of the retreat.
On the other hand, if you're spotted walking slowly back and forth along a line, you'll be criticized for introducing walking meditation. So while Goenka retreats might encourage skepticism (this has not been my experience), they severely discourage experimentation. They are highly authoritarian environments.
>you're free to pick and choose what you find valuable
This is what they say, and sure, they cannot force you. But if you do this, they criticize and condescend, telling you you're like a child not eating all his food and that when you grow up you'll find everything they say is correct.
And Goenka is very clear that the goal of Vipassana is improving reincarnation.
There is one point where they say something, maybe literally "we do not teach dogma, only truth". Saying it does not make it so! They'd be much better off not trying to convince people they aren't pushing such beliefs than being misleading about it.
As far as sleep, I tried meditating. Both there and afterwards. I do not find it as resting as sleep, and found myself drifting off while meditating during the rest of the time. What happens in my case is that I'll be awake in bed until 3-4am then finally sleep. This is fine if I don't need to get up at 5-6. But I understand this is personal and I should have fixed my sleeping habits before arriving.
For students, they seem far more tolerant of medication, probably for liability.
I also went to the one in Quebec!
I couldn't agree more. At one point they try to assert that the technique is completely scientific, and has been proven by some physicist.
I took it all seriously because I wanted to see how deep I could go. The effects were pretty far out, but I can't say that they were beneficial.
10 days of camping will be far more beneficial.
> The moment I first sat. . . well, here is the type of sound they pump in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqEWTlaweaM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqEWTlaweaM
It would be torture if I were forced to listen to this. Apart from all the religious baggage involved, the vocals are incredibly pitchy. For the minute I tried listening to this, I twitched at each phrase. This won't be calming for the soul at all.
I did a dhamma retreat in India in 2008. I did not notice any of the things you mentioned. I don't know whether they changed any of the instructions in the meantime, but for me it was an immensely insightful, at times painful and scary experience. Learning about Buddhist philosophy was a side bonus (although I don't remember much of it), which I always understood as imparting lessons and enriching my own mental models (why did they reach conclusion x or theory y?) but not necessarily literally true. There was no nlchsnzing back then (except for saying "Sadu Sadu" to express to oneself knes whic's compassion for all licing creatures. Maybe local versions are different despite the recordings?
I have to laugh a bit when you guys complain that they talk Buddhist metaphysics at Buddhist meditation retreats.
For a view on what the Buddha himself suggested about how to evaluate claims, see the: Kalama Sutta[1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalama_Sutta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalama_Sutta
Fwiw, not all Buddhist monasteries or organizations do anything like this. I've been to retreats at a Shambala center and at one of the monasteries in Thich Nhat Hanh's Plum Village network and they were very secular.
No, the complaint is that they make a big point about only being pure technique, no faith, dogma, etc. Then they act like any other place. If they were honest about it from the get-go, then it wouldn't be worth mentioning.
Everything in the Goenka system of Vipassana is "open source". You can listen to the discourses and decide for yourself whether it feels too much like a sect.
And this is precisely what makes it friendly to the Hacker mind-set.
Thank you. Your experiences seem to mirror my own, I was very disappointed when I learned that the vipassana course was full of woo-woo, despite proclaiming not to be. In addition, it kind of messed me up for quite a while afterwards, so I could not recommend it, despite finding some of the sensations I experienced during the course to be interesting. There are almost certainly going to be meditation retreats that teach you the same techniques without the religious indoctrination, which is what I wished I'd found.
Leaving on day 6 was probably a good move. I stayed the full 10 days but the course didn't get any better by the end.
For those that haven't done it before, there are three types of meditation that are taught at a 10-day Goenka Vipassana retreat. The first two, Anapana and Vipassana, are both very interesting and are experiences I would recommend, but the third, Metta, is basically in woo-woo territory. Metta can be described as "positive thoughts" meditation, as opposed to Anapana and Vipassana (which are both about increased self-awareness). Close your eyes, wish for world peace, now you're doing Metta. If you can find a meditation retreat that teaches Anapana and Vipassana without religious dogma then I would recommend giving it a go, but I could not recommend going to a retreat led by Goenka. YMMV.
I was also angry about the religious content. I almost left the course on day 3 because of it. Then I realized that I wasn't really angry at the course. I was re-living my anger at my parents who indoctrinated me with their religion when I was a child. Then I decided to work hard on the technique, since it is a way to deal with anger. I'm glad I did.
I'm sorry that you left on day 6. Day 7 is when I started to make real progress. In one of the recordings, the dude (Goenka) says that your first 10-day course is like lancing open an infected wound, letting all the pus out; painful but ultimately beneficial. That is an accurate description of my experience. Starting on day 7, I was finally able to reduce the negative emotions associated with certain ideas and memories. So I let myself touch those ideas and memories and worked hard to apply the technique. This was extremely unpleasant, but I could feel myself healing emotionally. It was the most difficult experience I have ever voluntarily gone through. But it was worth it. I'm much less angry now. In the year since I took the course, my life has gotten a lot better because of the skills I learned in the course.
I found Metta to be very difficult. And several weeks later I realized why: I couldn't bring up kind thoughts toward anybody, even toward myself. I have been judgemental my entire life, toward everyone and especially toward myself. It's the result of strict authoritarian parenting. After becoming aware of my judgemental tendencies, I've noticed that they cause a lot of problems for me. I'm still really bad at Metta, but I think it helps me be less judgemental. If you can't do Metta, then you will benefit from finding out why you can't do it.
Thank you for writing this. Echoes my thoughts but I never bothered to write it down. I participated in a 10 day retreat in California, and was also turned off by the pseudo-science and science-bashing. I almost started back on day 4, but stayed on because my friend who had come with me stayed on. In the end, I am glad I completed it. But the pseudo science bits left a bad taste in my mouth, and I couldn't continue with the practice. I think I learned a lot from the 10 day course, and may be I will try it again in future, though.
[Author of the paper here. I am not the OP, though.]
The post on religious-ness / culty-ness has quite a few replies and I thought I'd bundle up my thoughts and experiences here, so here goes:
## Goenka / chanting / Pali / Hindi
###################################
I definitely had a negative response to the chanting and to Goenka himself on my first 10-day course. The teacher's response of "the chanting provides atmosphere" was pretty unsatisfying. Worse than the chanting, I found myself really hating Goenka. At times he was "cute". At times he was serious. I felt like I was being played and it really rubbed me the wrong way. However, I did find I was seeing utility in the meditation by Day 6 or 7, so I stuck it out. After my first course, I was so horrified by the experience and turned off by the cult-like atmosphere that it took me two years and a lot of research before I returned to my second 10-day course.
By the end of my second course, I had really not come to terms with the chanting. As a monolingual English speaker living in Bangalore, it really had the religious overtones of Hindu shlokas. It was quite a bit later that I started reading translations of the Pali used in the chanting. There are two things to note here:
1) The Format: Pali, like Sanskrit, was probably spoken in a sing-song manner. Although we don't know what either sounds like today, the rhythmic chanting is basically Goenka's best guess. [Aside: there is one village in Karnataka which still speaks Sanskrit natively but the language is obviously not the same Sanskrit spoken 3000 years ago.] Like it or not, the chanting is likely the "correct" way to verbalize Pali.
2) The Content: To my English ears, the Pali still sounds like cult music, even though I know what it says now. But all the Pali chanting is a repeat of the instructions given in Hindi and English; there is nothing said in Pali which you aren't otherwise hearing as part of the course instruction.
A note on call-and-response chanting: "Sadhu Sadhu Sadhu" is the only chanting students are offered to (optionally) participate in. This is less than any other school of meditation I have tried.
After sitting 5 courses, I am now quite comfortable with the chanting. Particularly for English speakers, it will take some getting used to. Listen to it on YouTube before taking a course if it concerns you; if you find it too weird or off-putting, don't take a course. If you find it weird but tolerable, you can probably ignore it when you attend your first 10-day course.
## This Really Feels Like a Cult Guys
#####################################
My worst Vipassana "cult" experience occurred on my third 10-day course. One of the volunteers ruffled my cushion after the 2-hour Vipassana session on Day 4. I had curled up into a ball after a very painful meditation. He had decided it was necessary to break noble silence to tell me not to touch the soles of my feet to the cushion. It was my third course but I almost walked out.
You will run into people like this. The courses are volunteer-run, and some of those volunteers will believe in magic crystals and energy waves and crap like that. Some of the volunteers will be CEOs and scientists. The mix is pretty hard to avoid. Vipassana attracts every sort of person from every walk of life. Try to be tolerant.
After that awful third course experience, I decided to take my Vipassana experiment outside of India. As a Canadian living in Bangalore, I wasn't sure if the cult-like appearance of some of the students had more to do with India or Vipassana itself. I did my fourth course in Japan and found the volunteers and the atmosphere to be MUCH less culty. After that, I served (volunteered) for my first course back in India — in Gujarat — I wanted to see if it was any more cult-like on the inside.
What I found while serving was a huge relief. Yes, some volunteers you meet are "looking for something"... sometimes they are serious Buddhists or responding to an Orthodox Hindu upbringing with something they felt countered that (like many New Atheists today). This was still off-putting, obviously. However, the senior volunteers (one fellow who had done a 60-day course) and the teacher were fantastic. Their only concern was the safety and well-being of the meditators: When you get 200 people in one room for 10 days, there's a good chance someone will have a medical issue. Thankfully the teacher for the female side was a doctor. All the volunteers worked tirelessly for 12 days. I myself found I was working harder than I ever had in my life. The older ladies working in the kitchen were lovely. The teacher had a great sense of humour and was very approachable. Behind the scenes, I didn't see any cult-like behaviour at all.
This is one thing I find (perhaps unfairly) reassuring: Most of the teachers I have met are either doctors or PhDs. The inexperienced volunteers may be new age spiritual quacks but the people who have clocked 20,000+ hours meditating Vipassana are not.
[Continued]
## The Discourses Seem Religious
################################
I am quite happy to drop 90% of the theory and I intentionally left 100% of the theory out of my paper. It's not necessary. I haven't found another community with a comparable practice or environment and I am quite certain at this point that self-taught meditation isn't enough for me.
There is a very good chance this isn't true for you.
I wrote the paper with the interest of poking at peoples' curiosity. I have learned a number of yogic meditations, I have sat Zazen (including 7-day Sesshin), I have tried Tibetan and Thai Forest meditation practices. Vipassana is, far and wide, the most systematic meditation practice I have encountered and after years of meditating, my first 10-day course (as difficult as it may have been) was the first time I really saw not only how to meditate but why to meditate. A 10-day Vipassana course is self-described as "The Kindergarten of Vipassana"; as far as curiosity goes, it's a great way to get your feet wet.
Yes, Vipassana courses include Buddhist philosophy... but not much of it. Expect to encounter much more (and much worse) through Thai Forest, Sinhala, Zen, Chan, and Tibetan traditions. Also expect to find out much later. The advantage of a 10-day Vipassana course is that all the spiritual gobbledygook is laid out on the table, up front: "Here, take it or leave it." With other schools of meditation (Yogic, Buddhist, and "Secular") I have found there's a lot more concealed from students early on. It varies. The Thai Forest Tradition doesn't hide much but they will certainly water down their beliefs to keep you engaged. Tibetan sects have explicit "secret" and "magical" practices. Not for me.
Clojure is the least-worst programming language I have ever used in earnest.
Democratic governments based on proportional representation are the least-worst political structures I am aware of.
Vipassana is the least-worst school of meditation I have found so far.
YMMV.
## Ugh, Reincarnation
#####################
Although a person can leave reincarnation out of the picture completely, one can take stock of it in Theravadan terms as a thought exercise: If there is no "I" and no "self", what is there to reincarnate? If I am "reincarnating" constantly, moment to moment, just what is consciousness and what is the stream of consciousness?
"There is a becoming of continuity, but no continuity of becoming." - Whitehead
...I would suggest spending enough time with this quote and all its surrounding literature to understand precisely what it means (and why it is correct) before bothering with the concept of reincarnation.
Reincarnation is not very interesting, no matter how you look at it, which is precisely why I left it out of the paper completely.
## Sam Harris
#############
I'm not a huge fan but I appreciate why some people enjoy his writing. His guided meditations are pretty light — don't expect to get much out of them.
## Other Literature
###################
"The Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book" — I didn't like this and I don't recommend reading it but if you are going to try it, sit a couple thousand hours first... without experience to back it up, this book is far too easy to misinterpret.
"Mindfulness in Plain English" — This is a great (and light) starting point. Very introductory, though.
"Satipattana: The Direct Path to Realization" — This is a great book for examining a core Buddhist text from many angles. If you want to compare Goenka's teachings to others, this is a good starting point.
"Nothing Special: Living Zen" — Ostensibly about Zen practice, I found this book to be a huge help in understanding what was going on with my deeper meditation experiences. Highly recommended.
"The Mind Illuminated" — I have a copy but I haven't read it. I've heard great things and this comment thread has encouraged me to go back and read it. Thanks. :)
## Vipassana is Anti-Science
############################
Most Vipassana teachers seem to be PhDs. Goenka was a well-educated businessman. Many students on courses I've attended have been neuroscientists or neurosurgeons and they didn't take issue with the course material.
I'm really not sure where or how anyone has experienced "anti-science" in Vipassana courses. Even on my first course, when I found everything Goenka was saying rather distasteful, I didn't interpret his little understanding-the-depths-of-particle-theory-won't-bring-you-happiness anecdote to be "anti-science".
Are the tiniest sensations in my body representative of quarks, strings, or leptons? Probably not and I don't believe it... but no one's asking me to, either.
## In Summary
#############
I wrote this paper with the intention of eliminating all spirituality, pseudo-science, and even Buddhism itself from the equation. I find Vipassana very helpful in my life, regardless of its Buddhist origins. I do not find the nature of the teaching to be too offensive. I expect many hackers to be in the same boat.
That said, if Buddhist philosophy freaks you out, do not attend a Vipassana course. Also, I noticed that a few people have referred to it as a "retreat". Vipassana courses are not "retreats" and one should not expect them to be an escape from normal life. Join a Vipassana course fully expecting to work harder than you ever have.
Hope this helps someone while reading the paper and this comment thread. Thanks for reading and if you have constructive criticism on the paper itself (which is a work-in-progress), please feel free to tweet at me or email my address in the PDF.
https://twitter.com/deobald https://twitter.com/deobald
https://toot.cat/@deobald https://toot.cat/@deobald
Sorry this was so long-winded. :P