S.N. Goenka, my Vipassana teacher, has passed. I've decided to wait a few weeks before writing about this because I feel like it's not my role to tell people how they're supposed to feel about his passing. I do feel that it's appropriate to share my thoughts now that everyone has had a chance to process …
Meditating alone and with others
Meditating by yourself is really different from meditating in a room with other people. When you are alone, there’s nobody else to distract you, no coughing no abrupt movements, no heavy breathings, nobody falling asleep and (ugh) snoring. You are on your own and by yourself one hundred per cent. That feeling is certainly very …
Choosing Who To Love
Contemplating the meaning of unconditional love has been incredibly beneficial in growing my family relationships. None of us can choose our family, and understanding what it means to unconditionally love someone has helped me embrace all of my family members for who they are. I've recently discovered the challenge of applying unconditional love outside my family. We …
The Many Traditions
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 …
Life Chooses My Path
What do I want to do with my life? What is my passion? How can I make a difference? How do I meet my potential? I have asked myself these types of questions over and over again throughout my life. With Vipassana, now I'm wonder if I had the questions all wrong. Growing up as …
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 …
Continue reading Can we influence people to start practicing meditation?
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 …
Living Vipassana 