History and Practice of Vipassana - Essay Example

In 528 BCE, after his enlightenment, the Buddha spent the 45 years of his life that remained teaching on the way out of suffering. Vipassana symbolizes the most vital part of his teachings. For 5 centuries, millions of people in the Buddha’s homeland- India were helped by Vipassana. However, after around 500 years, the practice had vanished from India. Luckily, an uninterrupted chain of meditation teachers in the neighboring country of Burma maintained it until the present day. In recent times, the practice of Vipassana has been to India and to individuals worldwide. This has been done by a retired industrialist named S. N. Goenka. He is of Indian heritage but was born in Burma. Mr. Goenka was taught the technique of Vipassana by Sayagyi U Ba Khin. U Ba Khin was a famous lay Vipassana teacher and was the first one to teach westerners in English. In 1969, Goenka was appointed by U Ba Khin to teach Vipassana (Hart, 1987).

Methods of Vipassana
Vipassana is translated to mean ‘insight’. It utilizes awareness to take note of all details of our physical as well as mental experiences from time to time with an attitude that is without bias. There are three methods of practicing Vipassana. The main focus of all three is on breathing and the difference is the points on which attention is focused when breathing. The first method involves watching the belly. The belly is regarded as the location where the Hara center is. The Hara is a point of awareness that is regarded as the center of one’s subtle body. It is found just behind and below the navel. One can easily achieve a meditative state of mind by focusing their attention on the Hara center (Catherine, 2011).

The second method is watching the coolness in the nostril. When the air enters an individual’s body through the nostril, it creates a little coolness that is soothing. This method involves focusing one’s attention on this cooling while breathing in turn attaining a meditative state of mind. The third method of Vipassana is watching the breathing like a river. This technique involves focusing upon the breathing itself and is the most basic form of Vipassana. One visualizes their breath as it goes inside their body and then afterward goes outside. One watches a breath as if watching a river. Eventually, one gets into a state of meditation (Catherine, 2011).

Practice of Vipassana
There are various systematic meditative practices included in Vipassana practices. These highlight three primary insights which area: the emptiness of all conditioned things (Anatta); the unreliable or unsatisfactory nature of everything (Dukkha); and the changing or impermanence nature of everything (Anicca). When individuals clearly become aware of how things actually are, they are freed from the misconception that their happiness could be permanently based on any conditioned things. Frequently, individuals act on misconceptions by believing that experiences are other than they are. People forget to realize that conditioned phenomena are not-self, unreliable, and impermanent. Meditation fosters the capability to steadily comprehend the truth of not-self, lack of satisfactoriness and impermanence lying under the surface of experience. These three insights serve to prevent clinginess and therefore end suffering. Insight is transformational as it acts as a spotlight putting experience into clear view (Glickman, 2002).

Conclusion
Vipassana is not a task that is simple. It involves a deep journey into an individual’s mind that can be cause distress at times. It operates on the cause and effect principle where an individual learns that peace that originates from within is more delightful as compared to the happiness and excitements that come from without.