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My take on Vipassana, in a nutshell (having gone through one 10-day course): An experience gets memorized based on its emotional strength, so, for example, a s

by DenisM 14y ago

My take on Vipassana, in a nutshell (having gone through one 10-day course): An experience gets memorized based on its emotional strength, so, for example, a strong negative experience (a trauma) will get memorized quite well. Later on, in a sort-of realed situation one gets to recall and relive such stored experience - the brain sort of "believes" it's important to remember. If the re-living is also strongly emotional, the memory gets "hardened", but if the reliving is less emotional the memory gets "softened". As you go through life, most negative experiences gets softer and softer with each recall until each one disappears altogether for lack of emotional response, and thus subjective importance. However a small number of such memories become immortal - each re-living of one such memory is as emotionally strong as the previous one, and so the memory of the pain never weakens. Such stored memory is called "Sarkana". The problem with carrying around too many Sarkanas is that eventually any event in your life brings back a negative memory from the past, so you spend your life reacting to something that happened long time ago and bears only superficial resemblance to the present situation. The immediate purpose of the Viapssana meditation is to learn the ability to direct your attention where you want it to go, not where the pain pulls you, to learn dispassionate observation of your own suffering. Bi learning to ignore an itch on your nose, you also learn to ignore an itch in your soul. The less emotional response you generate, the softer the memory becomes, until it evaporates altogether. When completely through (a multi-year process), you only react to the present situation, not to any ghosts of the past. You can make a surprising amount of progress in 10 days, but you have to keep at it to maintain the gains. I found it impossibly hard to keep meditating on my own.

up_and_up 14y ago
12 year meditator here. You describe well the process of cleansing/polishing the memory. > I found it impossibly hard to keep meditating on my own Couple things to keep in mind: 1. Daily practice in some form is the real key. Just get up and do it. 2. There will be ups and downs, high and lows in meditation. 3. Vipassana is a pretty austere form of meditation. You are directly confronting the mind with little outside aid or warmup. Other forms of meditation leverage breathing techniques, concentration techniques and other practices that gradually bring the mind into submission, making the no-thought part somewhat more easy to achieve. Search around or shoot me an email if you want to know some other approaches.
- carbon8 14y ago
  Regarding #3, when practicing Vipassana as taught by Goenka, you do indeed start with anapana, both in the courses (the first 3 1/2 days are only focusing on breath) and in daily practice.
  - up_and_up 14y ago
    By breathing technique I am referring to something slightly different than watching and counting breaths, which in itself is somewhat austere and easy for the mind to wander. You also are inherently relying on the mind to keep track of things. How to achieve no-mind using the mind? This is tricky. I was referring more along the lines of pranayamas, mantras and other techniques that drive the mind into submission. The mind will be completely stunned after 10-20 mins. Look into any tradition be it buddhist, yoga, tantra etc and you find some other options.
    - Florin_Andrei 14y ago
      There's something strange going on around breathing. By combining it with body postures, or focusing on certain parts of the body, or repeating (mentally or out loud) certain sounds, or just breathing in a certain way, all sorts of strange unexpected things happen, either purely at the consciousness level or even physical sometimes. These techniques must put pressure on some deep, otherwise unconscious levels of the mind, and then produce responses closer to the "hardware" level. I'd love to see more research done in this area. (Note: I don't practice Vipassana, but different, yet overall somewhat similar, techniques of a school of yoga - and I mean yoga in the traditional sense, not the bastardized "female yuppie gymnastics".)
- endlessvoid94 14y ago
  I couldn't find an email to shoot you a message, so I'm responding here. I meditated for a few months back in 2006 and it was fantastic. I, too, have trouble maintaining it. What other sorts of practices would you recommend?
  - 14y ago
novalis78 14y ago
"sarkana" should probably read "sankhara", correct?
- FFishingnet 14y ago
  Yes, it is read as "Sankhara". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sa%E1%B9%85kh%C4%81ra http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sa%E1%B9%85kh%C4%81ra
visarga 14y ago
This is a great description of what happens, but only tells part of the story. Besides dissolving bad memories Vipassana also has an effect on the depth of your consciousness. Compare this with the upgrading of computer screens from 800 x 600 to the 1920 x 1200 resolution sported by many of them today. Everything is more detailed, more vivid. So is the effect of Vipassana: emotions are more "real" and makes the feeling of being alive more vibrant. We see kids and pets being this way and that is why we like them, the are always fresh and enthusiastic, they know how to enjoy every second with nothing pulling them pack (an effect of not having those negative memories weighing on their brain). It is a profound change in the most intimate place of our being - the consciousness. Then there is also an expansion, a feeling of infinity, eternity and something that could hardly be described by "radiant space like consciousness" or "luminous mind" which is really what meditators are after. This experience is the enlightenment sought by all religions and spiritual paths. You doubt it's existence? Just remember what your brain and body can do: bliss (orgasm), body buzz (marijuana high), extremely intense feelings of love (young people in love have this sometimes), total serenity (right after we when we wake up, before we start thinking about stuff), dissolution of the ego (we can all have this if we simply participate in a large gathering of people in an emotional state, like, a protest or a football match). Imagine an experience of which bliss, serenity, buzz, inner light are just aspects. We do have the hardware for enlightenment, we just don't know the API. Vipassana is such an API.
- klibertp 14y ago
  We know the api (at least the one which changes the mind resolution when called) pretty well thanks to Albert Hofmann. It's a pitty we can't use it freely and have to resort to much more time consuming open source alternatives...

by DenisM 14y ago

up_and_up 14y ago

12 year meditator here. You describe well the process of cleansing/polishing the memory. > I found it impossibly hard to keep meditating on my own Couple things to keep in mind: 1. Daily practice in some form is the real key. Just get up and do it. 2. There will be ups and downs, high and lows in meditation. 3. Vipassana is a pretty austere form of meditation. You are directly confronting the mind with little outside aid or warmup. Other forms of meditation leverage breathing techniques, concentration techniques and other practices that gradually bring the mind into submission, making the no-thought part somewhat more easy to achieve. Search around or shoot me an email if you want to know some other approaches.

carbon8 14y ago
Regarding #3, when practicing Vipassana as taught by Goenka, you do indeed start with anapana, both in the courses (the first 3 1/2 days are only focusing on breath) and in daily practice.
- up_and_up 14y ago
  By breathing technique I am referring to something slightly different than watching and counting breaths, which in itself is somewhat austere and easy for the mind to wander. You also are inherently relying on the mind to keep track of things. How to achieve no-mind using the mind? This is tricky. I was referring more along the lines of pranayamas, mantras and other techniques that drive the mind into submission. The mind will be completely stunned after 10-20 mins. Look into any tradition be it buddhist, yoga, tantra etc and you find some other options.
  - Florin_Andrei 14y ago
    There's something strange going on around breathing. By combining it with body postures, or focusing on certain parts of the body, or repeating (mentally or out loud) certain sounds, or just breathing in a certain way, all sorts of strange unexpected things happen, either purely at the consciousness level or even physical sometimes. These techniques must put pressure on some deep, otherwise unconscious levels of the mind, and then produce responses closer to the "hardware" level. I'd love to see more research done in this area. (Note: I don't practice Vipassana, but different, yet overall somewhat similar, techniques of a school of yoga - and I mean yoga in the traditional sense, not the bastardized "female yuppie gymnastics".)
endlessvoid94 14y ago
I couldn't find an email to shoot you a message, so I'm responding here. I meditated for a few months back in 2006 and it was fantastic. I, too, have trouble maintaining it. What other sorts of practices would you recommend?
- 14y ago

novalis78 14y ago

"sarkana" should probably read "sankhara", correct?

FFishingnet 14y ago
Yes, it is read as "Sankhara". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sa%E1%B9%85kh%C4%81ra http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sa%E1%B9%85kh%C4%81ra

visarga 14y ago

This is a great description of what happens, but only tells part of the story. Besides dissolving bad memories Vipassana also has an effect on the depth of your consciousness. Compare this with the upgrading of computer screens from 800 x 600 to the 1920 x 1200 resolution sported by many of them today. Everything is more detailed, more vivid. So is the effect of Vipassana: emotions are more "real" and makes the feeling of being alive more vibrant. We see kids and pets being this way and that is why we like them, the are always fresh and enthusiastic, they know how to enjoy every second with nothing pulling them pack (an effect of not having those negative memories weighing on their brain). It is a profound change in the most intimate place of our being - the consciousness. Then there is also an expansion, a feeling of infinity, eternity and something that could hardly be described by "radiant space like consciousness" or "luminous mind" which is really what meditators are after. This experience is the enlightenment sought by all religions and spiritual paths. You doubt it's existence? Just remember what your brain and body can do: bliss (orgasm), body buzz (marijuana high), extremely intense feelings of love (young people in love have this sometimes), total serenity (right after we when we wake up, before we start thinking about stuff), dissolution of the ego (we can all have this if we simply participate in a large gathering of people in an emotional state, like, a protest or a football match). Imagine an experience of which bliss, serenity, buzz, inner light are just aspects. We do have the hardware for enlightenment, we just don't know the API. Vipassana is such an API.

klibertp 14y ago
We know the api (at least the one which changes the mind resolution when called) pretty well thanks to Albert Hofmann. It's a pitty we can't use it freely and have to resort to much more time consuming open source alternatives...