Unpleasant truths hurt, cause pain. So we dodge them. But realities have to be faced. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and no escape – for nature’s accounts must be settled, in this life or the next. So it came to be that a Myanmar government accountant and his student shared the way called Vipassana to face inner truths, settle accounts of past mistakes – and be free from suffering.
On January 31, two special Vipassana courses were organized at Pancayati Wadi, a rest house in South Bombay, where 50 years ago Sayagyi U Goenka conducted the first Vipassana course in India – after 2,000 years.
He shared Vipassana to experience reality within. The apparent reality is we react with craving or aversion, ecstasy or emotional pain to tragedies and triumphs, to what others say or do. But in reality, we blindly surrender to a dangerous blackmailer within: bodily sensations pleasant or unpleasant –a biochemical flow arising with thoughts, when our sense doors make contact with the world.
This inner blackmailer demands gratification, time after time. In actual reality, we lust for nothing outside; the craving is for particular sensations we relish. We want that experience to generate such sensations again and again, in an endless addiction.
How to be free from the blackmailer? Instead of blind reaction, or suppression, we practice the middle path of Vipassana: objectively observe sensations. And like fire dying without added firewood, addictions weaken, gradually fade away. We break free.
As eyes give sight, Vipassana gives this insight. Developing the faculty of awareness and equanimity to sensations, pleasant or painful – we experience the universal law, every moment: everything changes, nothing is permanent.
Experiencing wisdom of impermanence, harmful reactions change to positive actions. No irritation to others. We observe sensations. The problem is within. The solution is within. A big ego prevents us from accepting reality as it is. Vipassana enables being with reality, as it is.
For a country to change for the better, the individual must change. Vipassana enables change. I have no doubt Vipassana is the purifying force gradually changing India, cleaning India, silently from deep within.
India owes much to Sayagyi U Ba Khin, independent Burma’s first Accountant General and Vipassana teacher. He sent his student U Satya Narayan Goenka, a 45-year old industrialist and Hindu community leader in Yangon, to return to his motherland, India, and teach Vipassana.
Vipassana was lost in the country of its origin. Sayagyi U Goenka, with ancestors from Rajasthan, the land of brave warriors for whom death is better than dishonor, reached Calcutta from Yangon in 1969. From Bengal he went to Bombay where he set turning again the wheel of Vipassana, for India and the world.
A Fully Enlightened being re-discovers Vipassana, to uproot harmful habit patterns in the mind. Vipassana enables experiencing realities of nature, and has nothing sectarian – just as there is no Hindu sun, Muslim sky, Christian moon and Buddhist rain.
An inner technology to experience universal truths is for entire humanity. Vipassana benefits people from all religions, cultures, socio-economic backgrounds, in more than 100 countries.
Know this for yourself by giving Vipassana an open-minded trial (www.dhamma.org). Work correctly, and from direct experience you will know.
You will know how impurities of the mind can erupt like a volcano. A careless Vipassana practitioner forgets to apply the practice. Then he suffers like a warrior not using his weapons when inner enemies attack. The strongest can sometimes fall, but the Vipassana training ultimately protects. The strength returns. He walks again. Nothing can stop him. His Vipassana service to all beings is endless.
Sayagyi U Goenka set the example. He was the rare teacher who practiced what he taught. I knew him personally since 1997, with the privilege of serving with him for a decade. I called him “Sayagyi”, the Burmese word for “teacher” – appropriate for a self-dependent path with no “gurudom”, no personality cult, nor blind beliefs. I understood him as the most compassionate, wisest person I had met or known.
His generosity was boundless. I was fortunate to have stayed as his guest for some days in his earlier residence in Juhu, Mumbai (before I left for the Himalayas), with warm hospitality of his family. His wife and Principal Teacher of Vipassana Illachidevi Goenka (1929 – 2016) whom we called Mataji (respected Mother) smilingly took care of me as she would her own son, saying, “Raja, this is your house”. I have an infinite debt of gratitude to them.
Perhaps more than anyone, I experienced Sayagyi U Goenka’s patience, humility, the care he took not to hurt anyone, his special powers of the mind. He sacrificed much, including his health, so that more people can benefit from Vipassana. He worked tirelessly.
In early years of teaching Vipassana in India, this former millionaire used to luxury traveled in unreserved second-class train compartments. He once uncomplainingly accepted accommodation of a ruined room with no roof when he went to conduct a Vipassana course. He insisted that no fees be charged for Vipassana courses, not even for boarding, lodging. As in ancient India, Vipassana is taught with purity. Vipassana teachers do not accept any remuneration.
The 50th anniversary of Vipassana courses in Mumbai are a connection of links. India’s financial capital Mumbai has the most number of Vipassana practitioners in the world. The Global Vipassana Pagoda is in Mumbai. Sayagyi U Goenka lived in Mumbai, until he passed away peacefully in this city on 29 September 2013, aged 89. He was born in the Burmese city of Mandalay. His teacher Sayagyi U Ba Khin, following venerable Webu Sayadaw’s exhortation, first taught Vipassana in Kyaukse near Mandalay.
Pancayati Wadi rest house, from where Vipassana returned to India after two millennia, is near the Mumbai office of The Statesman. By my reckoning, in the past 25 years, The Statesman has published the most number of articles about Vipassana, the only mainstream media publication – apart from the Hong Kong-based online Asia Times – that has often told the world about Vipassana, the path of freedom from suffering, the way to experience real happiness. The merits gained are immeasurable.
(The writer is a senior, Mumbai-based journalist)