My shortlived stay at Vipassana Meditation Center: Dogmatic + Pseudoscience + Good techniques forced on you without logic
I had decided to take part in a 10 day Vipassana course (taught by SN Goenka) at the Jaipur, India centre after practising mindfulness meditation for around 3 months and reading up about and effects of meditation. I had read a few things and watched a few videos and had made my own method of meditation which worked for me.
I left in the middle of the course, on day-5. This post has a follow-up article here.
Some of my readings and links were:
Altered Traits by Goleman and Davidson, Sam Harris- Death and Present Moment (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITTxTCz4Ums), Dhammapada by Max Muller, Anapanasati by Buddhadasa Bhikku, Satipatthana- The direct path to realization by Analayo, How Meditation Impacts the Brain and Implications for Health (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCymeuQECOs&t=400s), Making Sense with Sam Harris #111 — The Science of Meditation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOkxIcrCLEI), Greater Good Science Center, UC Berkely https://ggia.berkeley.edu/
The course is conducted by video lectures of SN Goenka and there are assistant teachers and support staff (people who have done this course earlier and have volunteered to help in the administration of courses later). One cannot talk to anyone else (apart from the assistant teachers and the support staff if needed) for the first 9 days. This is called the Noble silence.
Day-0
The program starts with a registration on Day-0 where they ask you to fill a form which asks (among other things) if you’ve been practising other forms of meditation practice. I wrote down Anapansati (which translates to mindfulness of breath). There is a counselling session as part of enrollment and they asked me in the counselling session where I had learnt this- I said I read things and watched videos (mentioning my references). I replied that “I focus on the breath and then when I am focused I analyse different parts of the body”, exactly these words. I also added that I had also tried a few guided mindfulness meditation techniques. The person took my form and crossed out Anapanasati, and wrote mindfulness. I asked what is the difference, he didn’t reply to this question and just said don’t mix other techniques with this course, it’ll do me harm. I agreed. (Note: I didn’t get a reply to my question.)
Day-1
On day-1, they teach you Anapanasati (breath meditation). Things were fine. The weather wasn’t supportive but I tried to accept it and adjust to it. The discourse (by SN Goenka) sounded sensible. (Link: Video) The claim was there is a ‘Universal truth’ and one must experience to believe something and not believe otherwise. The final goal of the technique is to ‘Purify the mind’. Throughout the discourses, there are terms that are used very broadly or narrowly (without the mention of this detail) so it is important to understand what they mean and what they don’t. I request the reader to watch the video to find out more if they are interested. I request you to not listen to it like a follower, try to understand it and critique it intelligently.
There are a lot of sweeping claims like there is an intellectual level and there is an experiential level, breath connects our physical structure and the ‘unknown fields of the physical structure’, ‘surgical operation of mind’, ‘puss and wound’ etc. [Pseudo science]
The field of research on meditation has recently started booming, and there is scientific evidence about where it works, for what it works, what is it appropriate for and for what it’s not, and there are scientific explanations to why it works. (I could not find an authoritative paper which nails it down, but here is one link: Link, you can find many more if you look)
But this not what they teach you in this course. See, people in ancient India didn’t know hormones, hippocampus etc, so they had their own explanation of why it works, although they had found out something that actually worked. The same 2,500-year-old explanation (+ some added opinions on top) is given in the discourse. It is also hard to explain most people these complex concepts and the moment you start using the scientific terminology you shut down a lot of minds and lose the mass appeal.
Day-2
I met an assistant teacher and asked him a few questions:
Me: My back pains, I haven’t sat on the floor in this position for more than a decade, I don’t have the habit of sitting like this, my leg sleeps and I shift my position very often. I have difficulty meditating like this.
Teacher: These are your ‘Vikaras’. These are coming out now.
So a simple act of change in habit is explained by ‘Vikaras’. [Pseudo science]
Me: Why do we need to wake up at 4? I have noticed that I myself and several others doze off very frequently in the early morning sessions. Most of my mornings are wasted, what’s the logic behind this?
Teacher: You will get into the habit of it in a few days. After a few days, you will wake up on your own.
Agreed. This is about habit, and I did wake up on my own, although it did depend on how hot the night was and my quality of sleep. A gradual increase in meditation hours would have made more sense.
The discourse that day added more ‘Dhamma’ jargons like ‘wholesome actions’ and ‘unwholesome action’ etc. (These terms are very common to Buddhist literature and the teaching of the Buddha). These are all opinions and constructs created to explain the universe of Buddhism/Buddha’s teachings. There are a lot of good things in it, but the problem arises when they start claiming that ‘This is the Law’, ‘There is a right way’, ‘There is a wrong way’, that only the intentions matter; if the intentions are good it’s wholesome, or it’s unwholesome, and that you feel electromagnetic reactions in meditation. These are supported by easily available obvious examples which resonate with the audience (Do not steal, Do not drink, Do not gamble). The examples never go deeper into complex cases like in real life, it’s all on the surface. (No dividing and dissecting here)
If you are getting into the argument of what is right and wrong, it’s such a wide debate. However, the course has no debates. The method of this meditation is not questionable. The teacher/Dhamma has stamped things as right and wrong, we just have to follow the path.
I asked the teacher about this.
Me: Is morality absolute or relative?
Teacher: I didn’t understand.
Me: Suppose there is a poor woman, who steals food for her hungry child. Is it right or wrong? You say that we should not steal, you also say the act is wholesome if the intention is right. Here the intention is right but the act is stealing. (The same could be with the act of protection, killing an animal to protect yourself. Not killing is one of the five precepts.)
Teacher: This is a wrong act, it’s stealing. No matter the intent.
So the pre-set law of no stealing can apparently override the good intention and wholesomeness.
The more I tried to get deeper into the Dhamma/this philosophy, the more it failed the test of real life and logic. There are so many flaws. It just falls apart just like other religions and dogmatic beliefs. It has been bundled with meditation for no reason. The teachings sound good and they claim it is science, and Buddha was a scientist. That is just bullshit. The so-called pure needs more “purification” based on real science, debate and reasoning.
The program claims to be secular. In reality, there are a lot of ideas that will conflict with your beliefs if you are religious (I’m an atheist) and these ideas are primarily from Buddhism and Mr Goenka’s own imagination. The claim that it is secular is a lie.
Day-3
The claims in the discourse became even more absurd on the third day:
The entire reality is apparently just wavelets, there is no solidity. (Even the Buddha said so apparently, I doubt even the word wavelet existed at that time)-> So every moment a person is a new person. -> Illusion
The smallest unit is Kalapa (It is about 1/46,656th the size of a particle of dust from a wheel of the chariot.)
Goenka cites an example of the Bubble chamber. A scientific instrument used to detect electrically charged particles. He uses it and the noble prize winning scientist Donald A. Glaser who invented this instrument to claim that Buddha also came to the same conclusion as the scientist about the nature of reality.
How can one meditate when the meditation teacher himself speaks such absurdity every day? and people nod at the end of these talks.
And all of this is supposed to make us understand impermanence. How? I never understood.
Day-4
I made up my mind that this is not for me. No matter how much they claim that they are not a cult or dogma. They are.
The core meditation technique is good but it is being taught by the wrong person, using the wrong explanation, using the wrong method.
The discourse of day-4 builds on the pseudoscience of previous discourses with more pseudoscience.
Day-5
I go to the teacher and tell him that I intend to leave the course. He immediately replied no without even hearing me out. I said I have reasons and I am open to discussing them.
Me: I have two reasons, first I have a big rash on my chest due to sleeping and sweating every day in the night due to the heat. Second, I find most discourses to be illogical.
Teacher: We can bring a doctor to check tomorrow. (I agreed)Let us discuss the second reason.
(Side note: The teachers discuss things like addictions and other psychological problems with the students of the course and I saw them even prescribing medicine to a few. On enquiry, I found the teacher is not a medical practitioner. I wonder on what basis they give any advice or medicine, and is it even legal.)
Me: When there is a scientific concept of atoms, why is the Kalpa needed? What is the proof of previous lives? You call this is scientific, none of this is scientific.
Teacher: You are thinking at the intellectual level, not experiential level. You will experience Kalpa when you go deeper into meditation. Do you not know Faraday’s law is disproved? Even Einstein’s theory of relativity got disproved recently.
Me (Stunned): What? When? What are your referring to?
Teacher: Yes, it happened just recently.
Me: I don’t know what you are referring to.
Teacher: You are thinking too much. You can’t relate to me since you are talking at an intellectual level, not at experiential level. You should stop thinking all this. Just focus your last 5 days of meditation on the practice. I was also like you when I did this for the first time, I thought too much. But at the end of 10 days, I realized I would have gained a lot more if I did not think. The second one was much better. I say to people once you do it three times, your life is changed. You will be in it for life. It’s also good for you if you don’t meet me for the rest of the days. Come to me on the 10th day and I will be here to discuss anything you like.
Me (No point continuing this conversation): Okay, thank you.
I did not attend any meditation session after that on Day-5, I wanted liberation from that place. I asked the office about the process to leave this course and they said the permission has to be given the same teacher. It took me 6 hours to get an appointment with the teacher (Becuase the teacher has a fixed timing and no matter what they will not meet). The office was helpful in the final steps and arranged for a vehicle so that I could leave at night (the centre is in a very remote location where Uber is not available, in fact, there is no phone signal).
Side note:
There were a lot of instances throughout the stay where I observed that the people who were helping organise the programs and the teachers did not have a mind of their own and could not explain the reason behind something. The helpers pointed to the teachers. The teachers pointed to what Goenka said. Mr Goenka sits inside the screen so I could not question him. So much for a course on “liberation”.
I do not recommend doing this course administered by Mr Goenka. It is a form of brain-wash.
My learnings from this experience:
- Vet everything before diving into it. I did not do it thoroughly. My mistake.
- Just because a lot of people agree to it or recommend it, doesn’t make it right. There are a lot of cults out there. This is one. Use the mind, yes, the intellectual mind.
- People who have taken the course in past like it’s intensity and the feeling of lightness they get after the 10 days. It is questionable if that is due to the meditation or the adaptation of the body to the posture of sitting. There are a lot of factors at play at the same time, one needs to control for just the meditation technique and cut/vary the rest of bullshit to find out whether the extreme orderliness, the time table, number of hours, discourse, etc help or degrade the whole experience.
- Meditation is good (but not for everyone and everything, read more about it), not because I say so, or Mr Goenka says so, or Buddha says so, or you’ve “experienced it” but because there is existing and ongoing peer-reviewed research on it and it concludes the same. Know the credibility of the sources. I will continue to meditate. We take a lot of medicines for illness where we don’t fully understand how they work. Only the one prescribing it does. Meditation can be the same. The doctor doesn’t need to make up false claims about how they work, and fortunately, the doctors that I go to don’t. Mr Goenka makes up false claims about how they work. Either he hasn’t cared to understand or doesn’t tell that he doesn’t know. In both cases, he’s lying, and he’s ignorant, and so are all his blind followers. (One sheela broke!)
- A system or organisation that doesn’t continuously update itself and just clings to the past and doesn’t live in the present and is averse to new ideas (Like this whole thing) is very likely to be outdated and should be replaced.
- My recommendation to people going to such places for genuine medical reasons like addiction, depression, headache, etc: Don’t. These are not medical practitioners, or even anywhere close to it.
There is no one cure-all, solve everything, explain everything theory no matter how much a person/an organisation (like this one) claims. Please be beware of such things.
A follow-up article explores if this organisation is a cult. You can read it here.
If you’ve read till here, I have found a few articles which critique the methods of Mr Goenka (I don’t approve/recommend everything in it).
