Vipassanā Meditation Distilled

Stephen Kidson
Jul 10, 2017 · 5 min read

Having just got back from a 10-day silent Vipassanā Meditation retreat, I’ve been itching to put my observations on paper. First off, if you are considering doing Vipassanā already, I would recommend to stop reading now and sign up — it is definitely a formative experience and having expectations going in can change it. That said, this article will detail my interpretation of what Vipassanā is and how it works, combined with my understanding of evolution and psychology. This article is primarily targeted at those that may disregard it as “just some hippy breathing thing”. The ideas below also abandon any talk of reincarnation and other aspects included by dhamma.org that I do not consider substantive.

Vipassanā is a form of mental conditioning to prepare oneself for the inevitability of death. The practice revolves around the idea of impermanence and accepting reality as it is — that all things in life constantly change and thus forming attachments to them only leads to misery.

The first step in pratice to develop one’s sensitivity to bodily sensations. In the 10-day course, this was done over the first three days by having students learn Ānāpāna — a meditation technique focusing on one’s own breathing. Vipassanā considers the breath of utmost importance because it is a system of the body the can be controlled both consciously and subconsciously. Specifically, the Ānāpāna taught is for feeling the sensations on the outside rings of the nostrils and upper lip caused by the body’s natural breath (if you’ve never tried bringing your attention to your breath without taking control of it, that might be because you didn’t lock yourself in silent room for hours at a time to do just that — it’s not easy). Only after you are able to feel very subtle sensations of this light, natural breath (e.g. change of temperature, very light pressure) is your mind considered sharp enough to perceive the sensations and enter the state of Samadhi.

When in Samadhi, your mind is clear and you are then instructed to slowly scan your body from head to toe. As you do this, you become aware of many sensations on small parts of your skin — the feel of subtle air currents, levels of humidity or perspiration, numbness, itching, etc. This part of the practice is now considered actual Vipassanā meditation and is taught under Strong Determination — you must not move any part of your body for the full hour. This is extremely difficult for beginners and doing so leads to intense pain sensations that can distract one from noticing subtler ones.

The student is taught to simply observe all these senations with equanimity — that is with complete neutrality and no attempt at averting unpleasant or craving pleasant sensations. I believe this is the primary mechanism for how this meditation can alter one’s thought patterns. The psychological explanation for this is explained by S.N. Goenka as retraining our subconscious to not instantly react to sensations, eventually allowing us to instead process them consciously.

As creatures evolve, these habits of craving and aversion are directly linked to survival — you eat something nourishing, your body sends a reward signal telling you to seek out more of it. When you’re bitten by an animal, your body sends a pain signal telling you to avoid it. It’s easy to see how such a scheme would an absolute game-changer in a survival-of-the-fittest environment and can be observed in almost every living creature still in existence.

The teachings of Buddha, however, describe that this craving and aversion is the root cause of misery for beings that have evolved sentience. As we are able to accomplish much more than our primordial ancestors because of our developed, conscious intelligence, we tend to crave things which, now available in abundance, end up harming us in large quantities long term (think fatty, sugary foods, alcohol etc). Similarly, we tend to start avoiding things that are unpleasant, even when toughing them out would inevitably lead to greater longterm success (eating vegetables, studying, chores, etc). As we continue to encounter things that bring us pleasure or pain, our interaction with them is now also infleunced by the previous interactions, strengthening this behaviour (or, as I see it, the neural pathway converting the input stimuli into an output reaction). Eventually these natural, survival-driven instincts cause us to begin living in a way where, at any given moment, we are constantly thinking about how to get the next pleasurable thing while avoiding things that brings us displeasure, causing one to stop living in the moment and instead always be planning the future or mulling over the past.

The next realization is that everything a being can experience is only delivered to it by means of the senses, of which Vipassanā teaches there are 6: sight, smell, sound, taste, touch, and thought (I think of these more as “possible inputs into the system”, where thought is the multiplicative factor caused from previous interactions). When observing sensations, the student is also taught to constantly be aware of its annica (pronounced ah-ni-cha) — impermanence, observing each sensation with the knowledge that it is temporary. This is intended to bring the student to the conclusion that, because the sensation is temporary, it only exists in the present and thus it makes no sense to form any kind of attachment to it. By observing these physical sensations, the practice teaches by means of experiencing this truth, rather than just hearing it and processing it intellectually.

As practice continues, and the student develops resistance to the pain of sitting for long periods, they begin to encounter sensations that do not translate to physical phenomenon — strange tingling, vibrating, or otherwise bizarre sensations. The student is taught that these sensations (referred to as Saṅkhāra) are the result of old experiences rising to the surface and that observing them with a neutral mindset lets one resolve old, deep scars (read: re-wire the brain). I am a bit skeptical of this explanation, however, as I find it difficult to believe that my painful memories of death, heartbreak, etc can be distilled into a portion of my leg vibrating unpleasantly. That said, the mind, as I am now well aware, is definitely a strange place — my best guess is that perhaps, in the state of Samadhi, all the thoughts that would normally be racing through your head are just finding any other way to surface.

When one has eliminated all Saṅkhāra, they are considered to be enlightened — free to live entirely in the moment. As they approach this goal, the claim of Vipassanā is that they will naturally be flooded with compassion and love for all beings, wanting to share this path to englightment with all. While I cannot vouch for this effect, persay, I can state with confidence that the practice significantly improves one’s focus and willpower; and, to me, that is more than enough reason to meditate regularly.

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Software Development Engineer at Amazon

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