The issue of how to become liberated is confusing. Just like with Christianity it seems that everyone has their take on how to reach the divine state. One challenge that I've found within Goenka's teachings is the idea that he teaches the one and only way to become liberated. He states that he has helped …
Category: Personal Experiences
Mind Control
Do you remember watching Professor X from X-Men raise his hand to the side of his head and jump into someone else's head? Haven't we all dreamed about having telepathic powers at one time or another? Now I realize that all that time I spent dreaming about telepathy I didn't even have control of my …
One Breath – One Life
When we are agitated we are told to start with Anapana. Thoughts, feelings and ideas come to us rapidly, almost freefalling. How to stop them? We just need to relax and let them follow their own course. We focus on the incoming breathing and the outgoing breathing. Breathing in. Breathing out. In a few minutes, …
Can we influence people to start practicing meditation?
Some days back Ryan talked about Dhamma job – an idea about integrating meditation into our daily lives and involving more and more people in meditation practice so that they can benefit from the same. I tried to delve on – How we can connect more and more people with Vipassana meditation? I tried to …
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Friendship Timing
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about Right Friendship where I expressed that I needed to withdraw from friendships while I established my practice. Very understandably, this made some new meditators uncomfortable. "Why would I work hard to establish a practice that will cause me to lose friendships that give my life …
Gratitude
Written by Dipanshu Mansingka from Hyderabad, India It's been a week since Pujya Guruji passed away. For 2 days I felt different as across world meditators meditated and practised Vipassana and giving metta to him. I said to myself and the nature, may I get a life where I can grow in dhamma with him. Is it a …
The Bad Vipassana Meditator: What Five Precepts?
You know that feeling you get when you go to slurp some warm chai tea (or coffee, you choose) only to find it has gone cold? That’s the feeling I get when someone brings up the five precepts. Should I be focused on lighting souls on fire with the radical clarity this practice bestows, or …
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My Identity
I've come to realize that my happiness is linked to how closely I'm living my identity. I live my identity by spending time with things that I identify with. I don't identify with sitting in front of a computer. I don't identify with drinking anymore. I don't identify with seeking fame. The one thing I've …
A Dhamma Job
I would love to get paid to contribute to people's lives in a way that actually helps them. I've worked in non-profits and schools, but the most meaningful tool I know to contribute to people's lives is dhamma. So how do I make a living contributing to society in a way that helps people grow in …
Finding Inner Space
As we continue our practice and navigate the sensations as they arise and pass, we find more space inside of us when we are concentrated. That space, sometimes can be felt physically. Scanning our body sometimes we feel that we are taller/longer. Another days when we are not so grounded, or "in the mood" we …
Living Vipassana 