Yoga diary‘s archive series is a curated collection of articles originally published in earlier issues dating back to 1975. This article first appeared in the July-August 1981 issue of Yoga diary.
In the early fall of 1960, USN Goenka came to California for the first time to lead a ten-day Vipassana Meditation Retreat Camp Mendocino County, California. He has led hundreds of these retreats in many places around the world, especially in India at the Vipassana International Academy, in Igatpuri. Sri Goenka is one of the most famous Vipassana teachers and continues the tradition of his Burmese teacher U Ba Khin.
The Vipassana technique was discovered more than 2,500 years ago by Buddha Gautama. It has been passed down in an unbroken chain from teacher to student all these years through a number of slightly different lineages, each in its own way directly connected to the Buddha’s original teachings. Some of Sri Goenka’s speeches to students of the camp are quoted here.
The quest to transcend negativity in any situation
“In ancient times, there were many sages and saints whose goal was to find a solution to the universal problem of suffering. Their search made them look inward and resulted in the clear understanding that if negativities arise in the mind, you are bound to get irritated. Since all negativity creates disharmony, misery and unhappiness, why do we allow this process to happen? The wise beings of the past realized that humanity had no control over life, even though the desire to create the feeling of control was very strong.
Who doesn’t want only good things to happen in everyday life? Who does not experience that unwanted things and situations happen, and that desired things and situations do not happen? Can one acquire the power to control the flow and process of life? Not even the most powerful emperor in the universe can do that!
Some solutions have been found to the problem of generating negativity. For example, as soon as anger or other negative thoughts arise, divert your attention to something else. Drink a glass of water, count forward or backward, invoke your deity or your guru, recite the name of God. These are all good solutions because they work temporarily. But they are not the best solution.
Over time, fully enlightened beings emerged who discovered that running away from the problem is not a real solution. Although you may feel free of negativity at the surface level of the mind, the so-called conscious mind, in reality you have pushed it deep within, to the subconscious level. At this level, your excitement or negativity continues to boil, and sooner or later it will come out in a violent outburst. These enlightened masters realized that you could cope with all situations and problems by using the technique of observation.”
Observe, observe, observe
“How do you observe? By observing all the thoughts and emotions that arise in the mind. If there is anger, just observe the anger. If fear or desire has arisen, just observe the fear or desire. With constant observation you observe not only at the conscious level, but also, with the powers of concentration and penetration, at the unconscious levels. Since you have not suppressed the thoughts or emotions, they must disappear, because this is the nature of the mind. At the same time, you have not responded to these thoughts or emotions to eliminate them give free permission to them. This was then the middle way that the ancient enlightened people found: observe, observe, observe!
A wonderful solution, easy to understand on an intellectual level, but very difficult to put into practice in everyday life. For example, when anger arises, it overpowers you so quickly. How can you perceive if you lose control of the senses? Then you do something on a vocal or physical level, react, deal with the results of the reactions and generally make life incredibly complicated and discordant.
Those who reached the stage of complete enlightenment realized through experience that when negativity arises on the mental level, two things happen simultaneously on the physical level, one on a grosser level, the other on a slightly more subtle level. At the coarser level, your normal natural breathing becomes ‘harsh’ or ‘choppy’. At a more subtle level, biochemical reactions begin to take place somewhere in the body. Instead of dealing directly with the negativity, which is very difficult if not impossible given the makeup of the mind, you can shift the focus to the breath and body sensation. With proper practice and developing this ability to automatically shift attention to the breath and body sensation, observation rather than reaction begins to take place.
When a situation arises in everyday life and you start to react blindly because of your old habits, you will be able to get out of it sooner. It is not the case that after taking a ten-day course you become like a Buddha, who does not react and remains equanimous. No, the old habit patterns are still there, but they slowly change with practice and time. Let’s say something has happened that creates a negativity in the mind. Immediately you start observing your breathing, your body sensations. The mind is then brought into balance before you act.
Maybe it all happens just for a few moments…It’s enough! It’s not like when something happens in life you can run to your meditation room, sit down and close your eyes… That’s not possible!… You are in the situation! So with your eyes open you are aware of your breathing, aware of the sensations, even for a few seconds. This consciousness acts like a very good set of shock absorbers and balances the mind. Then everything you do is not a reaction, but an action. And action is always positive and creative, never negative.”
Look inside yourself
“From the moment you are born and open your eyes, you begin to look outside. You become so accustomed to seeing things outside you that whenever a problem or suffering arises, you always look outside to find the cause. ‘Oh, I am miserable because of this person, this incident, this thing! You always find fault outside. Once you deceive yourself that you are miserable because of the outside situation, you use all your energy to adapt and change something, again from outside. “So-and-so is really bad. If this guy changes, I will be so happy. This situation is so bad, if it turns out differently, I will be so happy.” What an illusion!
Because you only looked at life from one angle, from ‘outside’, it seems as if everything happens there. But seeing things and reacting to things from one angle is very dangerous, because you are not seeing the totality of reality. You see a partial truth. Partial truth is a distorted truth, which obviously brings great difficulties. Because we only see things from one angle, we are blind to the others, so many others! It is essential to look at things from this most important angle: to see things from within, to observe reality within, to experience reality within. If the “inside” angle is missing, something important is missing from your life.
In any case, by using the Vipassana technique in everyday situations, you make use of both the outer and inner angles, and thus come closer to the totality of truth. As you get further along the trail there will be even more views and different angles.”
Manage your expectations in relationships
“Every relationship you have is based on fulfilling your desires and dreams. You expect this person to be a helping hand in their fulfillment. As long as this person remains a helping hand, you love him or her like anything. But the moment he or she starts doing something that goes against your wishes, against your desires and dreams, all love dissolves.
So as you go deeper, it becomes very clear that although hard and bitter, the fact is that you love yourself and your dreams, nothing else, no one else. When two brothers love each other, or husband and wife love each other, as long as the dreams of both are in the same line, if one’s dream is fulfilled, the other’s is also fulfilled. Both are dreaming in the same dream. But the moment one begins to dream one way and the other begins to dream another, one person’s dream is fulfilled and the other’s is crushed. Then there is no more love; only enemies, hatred and negativity remain. When you observe this, it becomes so clear that love is focused on yourself and your own desires and ambitions.
Now you say, “The cause of my suffering or situation is outside of me, because of this person or situation.” But soon you will reach a stage where you will say, ‘Yes, the cause of my suffering is to some extent this person or situation, but the cause is also within me. Fifty-fifty, you and I share the responsibility.’
Then as you go on, there will undoubtedly come a stage where you will say, not because Buddha said it, not because your teacher said it, not because any scripture says it, but because of your own experience you will say, ‘If I am miserable, it is one hundred percent my responsibility. No one else is responsible for my misery, not even one percent.” This cannot be understood on an intellectual level; it can only be understood on the factual level when you experience the truth. From this new inner perspective, many truths will unfold and you will discover: “Yes, the responsibility lies deep within. Whatever changes or repairs I need to make, I need to make within. I need to become a good person to myself, I need to change myself.” It is here that Vipassana will help. Observing reality as it is will make things so clear!
As you develop in wisdom, you learn what you learn metta‘selfless love and compassion.’ No response of anger or hatred in any situation, only love and compassion. This development will make your life so full that you will become a real and fully developed human being. All your faculties of love, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity will develop and unfold, so that your life will be healthy and harmonious for you and for everyone else too.
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