Know that you are largely your mind

Through regular practice of Vipassana, one starts benefiting on various fronts. Reduced stress, better concentration and steadiness, greater ability to take decisions and give up habits such as smoking and drinking, improvement in health, etc are commonly experienced. Health improves because it is a reflection of the mind, and as the mind becomes purer, wonderful results have been seen in a large number of cases.

At a philosophical level, the whole karmic cycle starts becoming clearer in terms of one’s life experiences. One moment of experience of the fire will teach far more than a million year discourse on it. Thus, Vipassana seeks to bring about a change from within by operating at the root of the mind. Vipassana is taught absolutely free (too valuable to be priced) in 55 languages at more than 150 centres in India and 90 other countries of the world. The tradition is maintained by the donations.

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‘You have to work out your own salvation’

SN Goenka is the leading teacher of vipassana, a popular Buddhist meditation technique. He was born in Burma to Indian parents and raised as a Hindu. He spoke to The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on NDTV’s Walk the Talk on how Buddhism changed him and how he brought vipassana back to the country of its origin

How is vipassana different from other forms of meditation?
Vipassana is observation of truth. Not the apparent truth. Not your face or your arms. You feel what is happening inside you. The mind becomes very sharp in three days. In those three days, no words are used. Nobody asks you to chant Buddha’s name. Just observe the truth, the breath coming in and out of you. Experience the truth as is the law of nature. From the fourth day, you are asked to observe the whole body, to get different sensations, pleasant sometimes, but mostly unpleasant. A lot of negativity amd impurities well up in their minds. Then they realise what they are doing. They realise they are harming themselves and they start changing. This is how the change comes, with their own experience.

Read more: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/you-have-to-work-out-your-own-salvation/640972/0

Walk The Talk with S N Goenka

In this episode of Walk the Talk, Shekhar Gupta talks to Satya Narayan Goenka, Principal Teacher of Vipassana - a meditative technique of self-observation.

Watch online: http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/walk-the-talk/walk-the-talk-with-s-n-goenka/149260

The prison of Nirvana

Vipassana meditation camps in Tihar jail have tangibly transformed lives and minds: from anger to tolerance, violence to ahimsa, hatred to love. Hardnews interviewed five 'hardcore' accused in jail, who seem to have come a long way from condemnation to inner peace
Shaweta Anand

In a heart-to-heart conversation with five prison inmates - two murder convicts, one rapist and two undertrails - in Tihar's Jail No. 4 in Delhi, what struck me most was that there was not one moment during our intense, three-hour session that I felt uncomfortable in their presence. Despite bearing the tag of 'hardcore criminals', they came across as ordinary, peace-loving people, almost fated by destiny as much as their own actions. What followed, as they shared bananas with this reporter, are intensely complex and tragic accounts of their private histories, their prison-life and their unexpected tryst with 'Vipassana'.


.... Mahavir is a murder convict facing life penalty, who meditates regularly and volunteers cheerfully to serve at Dhamma Tihar. "I was a modest businessman but a feud ensued between some business parties that led to murder. Extreme anger has always been my problem. Even after conviction, I used to be sent to kasuri ward (sinner's ward) because I used to pick up fights with everyone, including with the jail administration. That ward is a small room in which troublesome inmates are kept locked for 23 hours and let out only for one hour as punishment. But after Vipassana camps, I hardly get angry; everyone can see the difference and they keep complimenting me."

By some quirk of fate, those who were involved in the conflict with Mahavir, landed in jail too, for some other petty offence. "No matter how much they wanted to provoke me or pick up a fight, I kept giving them mangal maitri and slowly, we became friends," he said.
My final question to him was about God and this is, by far, the best answer I have ever heard: "God is anyone who is able to work on his mind (patterns) and improve it not only for his own good but also for that of the society."

Read more: http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/2010/04/3524