Dhamma Niranjana Vipassana Center

05/05/2022

Vipassana Q & A with S.N. Goenka ji

Can Vipassana cure physical or mental diseases?
Mr. S. N. Goenka: Many diseases are caused by our inner agitation. If the agitation is removed, the disease may be alleviated or disappear. But learning Vipassana with the aim of curing a disease is a mistake that never works. People who try to do this waste their time because they are focusing on the wrong goal. They may even harm themselves. They will neither understand the meditation properly nor succeed in getting rid of the disease.

How about depression? Does Vipassana cure that?
Mr. S. N. Goenka: Again, the purpose of Vipassana is not to cure diseases. Someone who really practices Vipassana learns to be happy and balanced in all circumstances. But a person with a history of severe depression may not be able to apply the technique properly and may not get the desired results. The best thing for such a person is to work with a health professional. Vipassana teachers are meditation experts, not psychotherapists.

Can Vipassana make people mentally unbalanced?
Mr. S. N. Goenka: No. Vipassana teaches you to be aware and equanimous, that is, balanced, despite all the ups and downs of life. But if someone comes to a course concealing serious emotional problems, that person may be unable to understand the technique or to apply it properly to achieve the desired results. This is why it is important to let us know your past history so that we can judge whether you will benefit from a course.

Can we get complete happiness and complete transformation through Vipassana?
Mr. S. N. Goenka: It is a progressive process. As you start working, you will find that you are experiencing more and more happiness, and eventually you will reach the stage which is total happiness. You become more and more transformed, and you will reach the stage which is total transformation. It is progressive.

03/05/2022

28/04/2022

The Parami Of Generosity
According to the pure tradition of Vipassana, courses are run solely on the basis of freely offered donations. No fee is charged. The courses are financed totally by donations from students who have completed a prior course and have a volition to share the benefits they have received by giving donations for the students who will come after them. Neither the Teacher nor the Assistant Teachers receive any remuneration; they and those who serve the courses volunteer their time solely motivated by gratitude for the benefits personally received from Vipassana.
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Course finances
Courses are run solely on a donation basis. No charges are made, not even to cover the cost of food and accommodation. All expenses are met by donations from those who have already completed courses, experienced the benefits of Vipassana and wish to give others the same opportunity. Neither the teacher nor the assistant teachers receive remuneration; they and others who help on the courses volunteer their time freely.

How donations are used?
Donations given at the end of a course and other general dana are used to finance future courses and center operations. This includes construction activities, food, utilities, supplies and maintenance.

28/04/2022

Dana Parami

According to the words of the Enlightened One, the dāna of Dhamma is the greatest of all. Why is it the greatest? Let us understand. According to the law of nature, the seed that we sow will give fruits, many fruits and each fruits will contain the same type of seed. If we give dāna of food, then the fruit will be that we will get sufficient food in our present life and future lives.
According to the same law of nature, whatever type of dāna you give, you will get that type of fruit in the future in a greater quantity. When you give the dāna of Dhamma, the fruit that you will get is a greater quantity of Dhamma. As a result, one becomes stronger and stronger in Dhamma which helps one to reach the final goal. That is why the Enlightened One said that, “The dāna of Dhamma is the greatest dāna.”
The Dhammadana of Developing our Parami. Dana: This is the quality of giving to others. Our gift to a center will be our efforts to practice correctly, coming back to sensations, not judging, maintaining our sila impeccably while we are there, our practice and development of metta, our service for the benefit of others, and our financial support to provide a good place for future students to meditate.
As we help at the center, we do so with the thought that many students will gain the Dhamma or grow in the Dhamma because of our efforts. These efforts are our dana to a center. The proper way to give dāna. For any donation to contribute to the peace and harmony of the individual and the community, the volition behind the donation has to be that of compassion and goodwill.
One who earns money tends to develop a big ego. And as long as there is ego, there is no peace.

19/04/2022

Historic significance of Dhamma Niranjana Vipassana Center, Nanded.

🌼All images are courtesy of VRI 🌼

15/04/2022

Q: Why is the course ten days long?

Mr. S. N. Goenka ji: Actually, the ten-day course is the minimum; it provides an essential introduction and foundation to the technique. To develop in the practice is a lifetime job. Experience over generations has shown that if Vipassana is taught in periods of less than ten days, the student does not get a sufficient experiential grasp of the technique. Traditionally, Vipassana was taught in retreats lasting seven weeks. With the dawning of the 20th century, the teachers of this tradition began to experiment with shorter times to suit the quickening pace of life. They tried thirty days, two weeks, ten days, down to seven days--and they found that less than ten days is not enough time for the mind to settle down and work deeply with the mind-body phenomenon.

Why do I have to stay for the entire ten days?
Mr. S. N. Goenka: Vipassana is taught step by step, with a new step added each day to the end of the course. If you leave early, you do not learn the full teaching and do not give the technique a chance to work for you. Also, by meditating intensively, a course participant initiates a process that reaches fulfillment with the completion of the course. Interrupting the process before completion is not advisable.

15/04/2022

Q: Is Vipassana a religion?

S.N. Goenka ji: No. There is no cult or sect or religion involved in Vipassana. For example, people used to be under the impression that the world was flat. And Galileo said, No, it is round and it rotates on its own axis. This was so even before Galileo; it was so at the time of Galileo; it was so afterwards. People simply started accepting it: Yes, it's true, it’s round, it’s rotating. They didn’t get converted to Galileoism, they didn’t become Galileoists. Similarly, there is a law of gravity in nature. Newton discovered it. That doesn’t mean he created a law; the law was always there. The law of relativity was there too; Einstein discovered it.

In the same way in Vipassana, there is no conversion to any religion or any sectarianism involved. An enlightened person discovers this law, that when we generate negativity nature punishes us. Everyone wants to be free of this misery, and look, nature has also given us a way. We can observe it. We can observe the mind and matter reactions going on inside, and we will find we are coming out of it. This is the truth, which was always there. This universal truth can be experienced by one and all, all can benefit from it. A Christian will continue to remain a Christian his whole life, a Hindu a Hindu, a Muslim a Muslim, Jew a Jew. But they will start living a better life.

This is all Vipassana wants. This is what attracted me to Vipassana. I came from a totally different tradition, but when I passed through one Vipassana course I found it is so scientific, so rational, so non-sectarian, universal, and so result-oriented. It gives results here and now: what more could anybody want? Nobody told me to become a Buddhist. My teacher said, if you are a Hindu you remain a Hindu. I don;t care.

Doing Vipassana is like doing physical exercises to keep your body healthy. Here is a mental exercise to keep the mind healthy, which is much more important. The body may be very healthy, and yet if your mind is not healthy, you can;t keep your body healthy. It will become unhealthy.

So to me this mental exercise is so scientific, so non-sectarian, so rational, so universal, that everyone should take advantage of it. It is not a foreign cult which is being imposed on a particular community, nothing like that. People are afraid, I understand, because many gurus have come from India and tried to exploit the people in different ways, financially and socially. People are afraid when they see, Oh, another meditation teacher has come. Well, he may talk very fine, but ultimately he will try to exploit us and make us his slaves or this or that, or we may lose our own religion and get converted. That fear is natural, I can understand.

11/04/2022