MEDITATION: Patricia Danaher was reluctant to embrace the rigours of the Vipassana method. When she did she found clarity through self-observation
If it hadn't been for the beaming, radiant face of my friend, weeks after she had done a 10-day course of Vipassana meditation, I know that there is probably no way I would have agreed to spend Christmas and the New Year in conditions which would make a pilgrimage to Lough Derg seem like a holiday in Ibiza. Although I have a fair amount of experience of meditation and retreat and am used to discipline when it comes to meditation practise, the rules and rigours of this technique seemed to me not only cruel, but extremely unusual and I had avoided doing one of these courses, arguing that there was enough involuntary suffering in my life, without my signing up for boot camp over the holidays. But my friend's unshakeable calmness and lucent glow had me curious and I figured if she could do it . . .
The technique of Vipassana is more than 2,500 years old. The word comes from the ancient Pali language and means "to see things as they really are". There is no talking or any kind of communication between students, no reading or writing. In other words, no form of external distraction of any kind. You rise at 4 a.m. daily and meditate for 11 hours during the day, before going to bed at about 9.30 each night. It is about as far from recreation or a break as is possible to imagine. This is work and there's no faking it - if you don't work the technique as prescribed, these 10 days can feel like 40. The rules now are the same as when it was first taught and are identical whether it is being taught in prison or in university. There is no charge for doing a course and only those who have completed one may make a donation.
S.N. Goenka is a Burmese businessman and grandfather who has become one of the best-known teachers internationally of Vipassana during the past 40 years. Now aged 84, he continues to teach the technique and has just begun a four-month tour of the US, where students will include academics at Harvard, New York business people, prison inmates and NASA scientists. On Tuesday he addressed the UN on the technique which is known as "the art of living".
At the heart of Vipassana is the understanding that physical sensation and emotion are very closely related and we can come to know the workings of the deepest parts of our mind by awareness of sensation in the body. Our unconscious mind is where the roots of our emotions and patterns of thought, speech and action are located. It is only by accessing it that we can begin to literally change our minds, freeing ourselves from habitual and often negative patterns of thought and speech.
We cannot normally access it with our intellect or conscious mind, but the physical body is in constant contact with it. For example, when you are angry, usually there is a tightening and often a burning sensation in the belly. This sensation is present even before you begin to express the anger, but most of us are not aware of physical sensations, so we are engaging our anger before we know it.
"When we react it is nearly always negative," said Goenka, during a visit to a Vipassana centre in Birmingham last month. "Whereas when we act, it is usually with control and discipline and is something considered."
Sitting in meditation for 11 hours a day certainly gives one plenty of time to observe quite a few sensations. When you develop cramps in your legs or pain anywhere, you are encouraged to practise observing the discomfort in a detached way. So, instead of the monologue: "Jesus, my legs are killing me. When is this torture going to be over? You try to observe the texture of the discomfort, the tingling, the heat, tension, and, amazingly, the experience of the discomfort changes from something you want to react to by fleeing to something which changes as you observe it, before passing away. Ten days of this kind of observation generates incredible clarity like I've never known through any other system. But it is far from easy.
"Most people think meditation is some kind of blissful, relaxation technique that just calms the surface of the mind - and some are like that - but this technique works at the deepest level of the mind and is more like doing an archaeological dig into your unconscious. It's hard, but the results that people can get are equal to the effort they put in," says Dearbhaill Ryan, an Irish Vipassana meditator who has been practising the technique for several years.
As Vipassana works by observing emotion through physical sensation, the technique has had tremendous effect on people with addictions. "Alcoholics are not addicted to alcohol", says Goenka. "What they are addicted to is the sensations which the alcohol produces in the body. What the addicted person doesn't realise is that they are reacting to the sensations and they are not free as long as they do not understand this." In Switzerland, Vipassana has been used widely in the treatment of drug addiction, with impressive results.
Aileen O'Loughlin suffered from depression for many years and says Vipassana is the only thing which has really helped. "We are all carrying around knots and complexes and bundles of tension," says Robert Freese, who meditates in Dublin. "In Vipassana, what you learn is a way of observing the mind, moment by moment, and to see the tricks and traps. The key is learning to observe and not to react and gradually you stop tying yourself in new knots."
There are about 90 Vipassana centres around the world and every year about 100,000 people take courses. Ireland does not yet have a permanent centre, although there are about 300 people who practise the technique and they hold 10-day courses around Ireland. The last course, held in Kilkenny, catered for 80 meditators and there was a considerable waiting list. Several people travelled from across Europe, unable to get on courses there.
Last week, at the start of the tour, 200 businessmen in New York took their first 10-day course, after a seminar addressed by Goenka titled "Spirit in Business - Ethics, Mindfulness and the Bottom Line".
As a former businessman, Goenka is well able to talk the talk about the motivations of business. He will also be teaching in several prisons and visiting some of those in Seattle and in Alabama where courses have already taken place. In India, courses in prisons are run regularly and the effect on inmates is profound.
The Vipassana technique is non-sectarian and has been practised by people from all faiths and none. There is no ritual, no guru, no icons, pledges or prayers. There is just the technique of self-observation or watching how your unconscious mind works and then learning to change it so that it does what you want.
Patricia Danaher is the Republic of Ireland correspondent for UTV. She has been practising meditation for several years. For further information on Vipassana courses in Ireland contact IrishVipassanaReg@eircom.net or telephone 01-6677844. See also www.dhamma.org