Vipassana — a brief introduction

The beautiful views from the Vipassana Centre in Worcester

I have just returned from my 3rd Vipassana course in Worcester, South Africa. It’s been a practice that I have been developing for the past few years, and it has been instrumental in deepening my spiritual journey.

While I sat in the meditation hall, practicing the technique for hours on end, my mind often wandered off (as the monkey mind does 🤪). I would think about that one friend who is going through a difficult relationship or the stressed mum who would benefit from this. I would remember a conversation with a colleague who has been going down different rabbit holes just as I have, or the overworked dad who has forgotten to take care of himself while providing for the family. I thought about all of the people that this meditation technique could benefit.

I felt such a profound amount of gratitude for having the opportunity to spend 10 days of my life at this place, away from the noise and chaos of real life. I had so many revelations and perspective shifts and came back with a sense of peace within myself.

I decided to share a little bit about what Vipassana is and why it’s such good use of your time. Often the people who have come across Vipassana will have heard about it from multiple people before they decide to take the plunge. I hope to distribute a few seeds of this beautiful practice and motivate those who have been putting it off for a while 😉

What is Vipassana?

The simple answer is that Vipassana is a meditation technique.

Like many other meditation techniques, the meditation starts with breathwork so that we can sharpen our awareness. The first 3 days of the 10-day Vipassana course are spent doing this breathwork ( this is called Anapana meditation).

Unlike other meditation techniques — here, we move beyond the sensation of the breath. We do not use any verbalizations, visualizations, or imagination. We start to build our awareness of reality through our physical sensations. We watch as these sensations come up, and change from moment to moment. While we are becoming aware of this reality, we also practice remaining unattached to whatever comes up (the word equanimity is used).

My feeble attempt at depicting Vipassana

Vipassana is the act of physically experiencing change being a constant. This is done by taking your awareness into your body sensations and equanimously watching as different bodily sensations come up and pass away, from one moment to the next.

The prolonged practice of Vipassana allows you to create a gap between stimulus and response when something happens in your life. You can then choose to respond differently to sensory stimuli instead of unconsciously reacting out of craving and aversion (change the habit pattern of your mind)

3 reasons why you should go for a vipassana

1. If you would like to pick up an experiential tool to help you in life. You will learn a tool that helps you in the real world- not just in your mind, but in your body. You will learn about the direct connection between your emotions and how that emotion feels in your body, while it is coming up. This will help you change the way you react to these situations.
2. If you’d like to enjoy a few moments of blissful awareness within your body. Within the 10 days, you will surely feel a few moments of deep relief. You will feel the bliss of staying present in the moment with your body without your mind getting in the way. You will feel parts of your body that you had forgotten to feel into, and even if there is tension, you will be at peace with what is, at this moment, and accept it.
3. If you’d like to work through difficult trauma or painful memories without directly engaging the brain and emotions. The technique has been carefully designed to engage with the subconscious mind where the majority of our trauma, patterning, and shadows sit. By engaging with the subconscious at the deepest level, we do not have to keep retraumatizing ourselves through our conscious mind and emotions, but rather engage with the sensations that those life events have left us with, and helping us change those patterns once we have relieved ourselves of this pain.

3 reasons why you shouldn’t go for a vipassana

1. If you are looking for a retreat or getaway. These 10 days will not be relaxing in the way you assume that meditation and yoga would be. It is an active meditation practice that will require your energy and full engagement. There will, however, be a long-lasting relief after the inner work. The fruits of your labor will start to show soon after integration and regular practice.
2. If you are looking for a mental/theoretical model of spiritual insights. You would need to go in as the scientist and experience the technique yourself, before creating a judgment or opinion about the technique- if you are walking in with the assumption that your brain can make a judgment based on logic only, you will struggle with this exercise and will not be able to engage in the necessary learning and practice. The real benefit is in the practice and disengaging the chattering brain.
3. If you are looking for a magic pill to solve your problems. You will not go in and magically solve all of your problems or make massive shifts in your life straight after the course. It will definitely expand your mind and create space for you to respond to life decisions differently, but there is a lengthy integration process and this cannot be rushed. This is a slow and deep operation of your life-long habit patterns and will take the necessary time and effort to show results.

My aha-moments during the course

1. I found some of my own subconscious barriers. During this course I realized that I had stopped feeling sensations on my chest and stomach — the sensations are always there, but I had stopped being aware of them. I started feeling into my blind spots in these spaces with patient awareness. Through the sensations, a realization came to my mind. I noticed how I had gotten into a habit pattern of forcing my feelings into the box of my mental models and stringent belief systems. I had no room for expression and exploration. No room for fun or play. It’s like I found every way to suck the joy out of a task and make it serious and heavy. My body had become enslaved to an incompetent master (my mind). By the end of the 10 days, my relationship with my body had drastically improved, and there was a shift in my mindset. It’s difficult to explain the relationship between the sensations and the epiphany, but I’m more light and playful after that session.
2. My relationship with change changed. On day 5 I got about 8 hours of meditation in. Each session left me feeling completely differently. In some sessions I was falling asleep, others I had such a chattering mind that I could not stay aware of the sensations, and in other sessions, I sat with deep gross pain in my leg for almost the entire 60 minutes. I literally felt my mood change 5 times in that one day- it was like an emotional rollercoaster. I watched as my mind tried to escape the deep work and I also watched as the pains came up and then completely disappeared as if they never existed. I learned how fickle the pain really is, and how impermanent my moods and thoughts are.

Frequently asked questions

These are a few questions that I heard others at the course ask. It is usually only the course teacher who is allowed to answer these questions. I have paraphrased what the teacher had said, so please take my responses with a grain of salt and go and experience this for yourself 😉

1. What impact will observing my sensations on the cushion have on my day-to-day life? The practice of remaining unattached to the sensations that you observe on your body, helps you change your habit pattern of immediate reaction to external sensory stimuli. Our subconscious mind is conditioned — to constantly react with cravings when we feel a pleasant sensation. To constantly react with aversion when we feel an unpleasant sensation. By allowing yourself to observe without reaction, you will allow the conscious mind to reflect on the sensation and respond differently. Eg. the things that you would snap at or get irritated with, will be moments of reflection where you choose to respond differently, and possibly more calmly.
2. When I am sitting and meditating, I sometimes feel a gross painful sensation, and that triggers a flashback. What do I do then? Allow the flashback to be. Accept that it has come up, and then gently bring yourself back to your sensations at this moment. Engaging in the emotions of your flashback will keep you in a reactive pattern. Watch that it has come up and let it go. We want to train the mind to observe.
3. So is this technique about dissociating from my feelings? It is quite the opposite. With this technique, you are observing and feeling into the pain. You are learning to pass through the pain, instead of avoiding it through your reactions.
4. If I feel like I have a pressed nerve or a swollen hand, is it a physiological issue or “sankharas”? Do I fix it through meditation? It is probably both- a physically stored defilement (sankhara) as well as a physiological issue. That said, this technique is not here to heal your body ( although that may be a secondary outcome for many). This technique is to help you better position yourself in everyday decision-making, without falling into old habit patterns that were not helpful for you. Therefore, if you think that you have a physical health issue, please see a doctor.
5. I really enjoy the subtle flow of sensations that happens throughout my body, but I know I should not start craving this feeling. How do I stop myself from craving it? It is not a simple task to stop craving. We are made up of so many cravings, and so it truly is a practice to stop craving — do not put so much pressure on yourself. That said- try to enjoy the present moment without expectation. Try to release all expectations of what the present moment should be like and just be with it. It is perfect as it is.

A few resources

disclaimer: I would personally Err on the side of learning less about the course before attending, as this is an experiential practice and not a theoretical or mental exercise. Going through mental gymnastics with the information may be comforting but can easily become a false replacement or deviation from the actual practice.

1. A personal account of vipassana by Yuval Noah Harari: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vogue.in/content/yuval-noah-harari-on-how-vipassana-shaped-his-success-story/amp
2. Global Vipassana website to book a course: https://www.dhamma.org/en-US/locations/directory#pataka
3. Vipassana website for South Africa: https://pataka.dhamma.org/
4. YouTube playlist of the discourses every evening: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPJVlVRVmhc4_4WqjBXuWXB_0MQunBEjb

If you have any questions or would like to add some more context on Vipassana, please feel free to drop them in the comments 😊

May you be happy 🌻