Vipassana: A meditation of being, not doing.
by Nirvair Kaur de Ruiter
Can we as humans cease to be human doings and learn to be human beings?
In our attempt to fulfil obligations to partners, parents, children, friends, bosses and even our spiritual or religious leaders, we DO our best. Our duties, our work, our tasks, our time are all stretched. We seem to have gone past ourselves. We seem to have missed the point; that this life is a spiritual journey. Instead we've turned this journey into a battle for survival.
Over centuries, from different cultures and traditions, we've been given answers to questions we never asked. Answers about what to believe, how to behave, how to act, how to gain approval, how to reach the much desired ability to "let go", how to reach states of enlightenment.
We've visited doctors, psychotherapists, spiritual healers, clairvoyants. We've sat with facilitators, teachers and gurus in workshops and learned about energy, crystals, past lives. We've learned to calm our monkey minds by visualising waterfalls, wonderful gardens or deities that will transform our thoughts and behaviour patterns. We've used techniques like concentrating or fixed objects, candles, sound mantras, counting the breath and more. All to "make us better".
But is it actually possible to make our minds calm and change our behaviour through this process of "doing"? Or can we begin to "be" with what is? Begin to gain deeper understanding and insight into the content of our minds?
Vipassana or Insight Meditation and its practice is often referred to as the development of insight without the requirement of a specific technique. The object of Insight Meditation can be anything or everything that is IN THE PRESENT MOMENT. A student of Insight Meditation is instructed to be aware and mindful, with a non-judgemental view, of whatever is arising in the body and mind. Without labelling, analysing or conceptualising sensations, thoughts or experiences, the student remains alert and non-rejecting to whatever arises in the mind and body. Simply seeing things as they truly are without avoiding, denying, repressing, suppressing or ignoring, is an essential part of Vipassana (Insight) Meditation. Simply allowing the mind to be free without identifying sensations or thoughts as positive or negative.
Freedom in the true sense of the word is the only structure in Vipassana. With that freedom come insights into how CONDITIONING takes place. What really belongs to us and what belongs to our culture, traditions, parents and educators. When the conditioned mind begins to separate from what has been accumulated it opens to the flow of insights which allow our minds, and therefore our bodies, to return to a state of wholeness and health; or holiness.
So we could refer to Vipassana Meditation as the state of "non doing"! Non doing also support undoing. The undoing of old habits, beliefs and patterns. Non doing allows us to let things be. Letting people or experiences be without judging or interfering, without attempting to change. Non doing even allows the body to be. We simply observe the body release its held in tension, pain, blocks and emotions. In the traditional practice of Vipassana, this last non doing, allowing the body to be, has unfortunately been taken out of the practice. It has been seen as disturbing the practice of fellow meditators, at times with justified reason! There are though, teachers who believe it to be of great importance to support their students in finding "total freedom to be". Freedom to be spiritually, mentally and physically, thus truly practising the art of being.
Dhiravamsa is one of those teachers. As a Vipassana Master he presents a thoroughly buddhist understanding of consciousness whilst incorporating modern-day Western Psychology and holistic medicine. This allows and supports students in deepening their awareness by practising a more dynamic way of Vipassana Meditation. The practice includes bodywork, bio-energetics and a broad understanding of all of life's experiences.
His explanation if the Vipassana tradition, his teaching and his wisdom, are quite unique. Having entered the monastic life in a small temple in northeastern Thailand, he left after 23 years of training to practice meditation and teach in the West. For the last 30 years he has taught throughout the world. He combines the deep, silent awareness of a monk with the honest and penetrating understanding of the pressures and complexities of modern life. He is primarily concerned with breaking through limitations and opening hearts.
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