(22) Cos'e' la Vipassana? What is Vipassana?

Cos'e' la Vipassana?

Della vipassana ne ho sentito parlare spesso. In particolare molti mi hanno parlato del ritiro di meditazione del silenzio come di un'esperienza meravigliosa per prendere distanza dai problemi di tutti i giorni ed entrare prondamente in contatto con se stessi.

Ero in particolare affascinato dalla vipassana in quanto una tecnica semplice e potente che non richiede alcun credo.

In pratica, vipassana significa vedere le cose come sono realmente.

Vipassana e' l'antica tecnica di meditazione indiana che Gotama Buddha riscopri' ed uso' per raggiungere l'illuminazione.

Vipassana e' un rimedio universale. Puoi essere cristiano, musulmano, hindu, buddhista o perfino ateo, la tua fede non conta. Vipassana non interferisce con il tuo credo. Durante la meditazione crederai solo in quello che puoi sperimentare. Dato questo approcio quasi scientifico – basato sull'esperienza piuttosto che sul dogma – e' diventata piuttosto popolare negli ultimi anni in quanto ben si adatta alle nostre menti moderne e critiche.

Si comincia osservando il respiro naturale al livello delle narici (Anapana) in modo da restringere il campo di osservazione della mente e quindi rilassarla. Una volta 'affilata' la mente e' possibile quindi osservare le continue sensazioni del corpo e i fenomeni della mente – ai quali in genere non diamo attenzione.

L'obbiettivo e' raggiungere un'equidistanza da dolore e piacere e comprendere la verita' universale dell'impermanenza.

Questo processo porta ad eliminare l'ignoranza e a raggiungere amore e compassione.

Il fine ultimo del percorso vipassana (Dhamma) e' l'illuminazione.

La tecnica vipassana e' stata tramandata dai tempi di Buddha fino ai giorni nostri da una catena di maestri. Quello attuale e' Mr. S.N. Goenka, che e' nato e cresciuto in Burma ma di origini indiane. Da quando ha cominciato ad insegnare questa tecnica in India nel 1969, vipassana e' diventata popolare tra migliaia di persone di tutte le razze e religione – soprattutto in occidente.

Il ritiro per principianti consiste in dieci giorni di silenzio (Silenzio Nobile) in un resort immerso nella natura. La meditazione dura tutto il giorno, comincia alle 4:30 di mattino e finisce la notte alle 21:30.

Durante il ritiro vanno osservate le seguenti regole: totale segregazione tra uomini e donne, solo cibo vegetariano, non si puo' leggere o scrivere ed ascoltare musica, non si puo' fumare, non si puo' praticare attivita' sessuale, non si possono avere contatti fisici o guardarsi negli occhi, non si possono praticare esercizi fisico o riti religiosi/meditativi diversi dal vipassana, non si puo' uccidere - neanche le zanzare.

- English Version -

What is Vipassana?

Many times I heard about vipassana. Several people told me about the ten days silent meditation retreat as an amazing experience to get distant from daily life issues and to really 'switch on' the light inside oneself.

Buddha enlightenment's place (Bodhgaya)

I was fascinated by vipassana since it is a technique that does not require any faith and is rather simple and powerful.

Basically, vipassana means to see things as they really are.

Vipassana is the ancient Indian meditation technique rediscovered by Gotama the Buddha to attain enlightenment.

Vipassana is a universal remedy. You can be Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or even atheist, your belief does not really matter. Vipassana does not interfere with it. During vipassana you will believe in what you personally experience. Given this almost scientific approach - based on experience rather than dogma - it has become rather popular in recent years as it well fits our modern critical minds.

One begins by observing the natural breath at the nostrils level (Anapana) in order to narrow the focus and relax the mind. With this sharpened mind one can observe the ever-changing sensations of the body and the phenomena of the mind – to which we normally do not pay attention.

The aim is to achieve an equal distance from pleasure and pain and comprehend the universal truth of impermanence.

The process of perceiving the truth will clear up ignorance and eventually brings love and compassion. The entire path of vipassana (Dhamma) ultimately leads to enlightenment.

Since the time of Buddha, vipassana has been handed down to the present by an unbroken chain of teachers. The current one is Mr. S.N. Goenka, who was born and raised in Burma but from Indian roots. Since he started teaching vipassana in India in 1969 vipassana became popular around the world among people of different faiths and nationalities.

The retreat offered to beginners consists of ten days of silence (Noble Silence) in a resort in the nature. The meditation starts in the morning at 4:30 and ends at night at 21:30.

The following rules are to be fully observed: complete segregation of men and women, no music or reading or writing, simple vegetarian food, no sexual activity, no tobacco, no physical contact, no eye contact, no physical exercise, no other religious or meditation techniques, no killing - not even mosquitoes.

(21) On Meditation // Sulla Meditazione

17 April 2013, Pune, India

Versione Italiana Sotto

This post is to briefly explain my interest in meditation and some of its basic concepts I came across.  

This reflection is based on my personal experience and came about after two months of meditation in India and while in contact with the thought of Osho.

My plan in India was to do meditation more consistently than how I did in the past, when I tried some Buddhist and Vipassana meditations without going too deep in it.

I consider meditation as a way to reach truth about oneself and ultimately real harmony and to transcend the surface of things.

The first thing to realise about changing anything in our own life is that we are personally in charge of this transformation. Nobody else can do it for us.

However this acknowledgement is not enough. We change our job, partner and behaviour but – unless there has been a deep transformation inside – we still are unsatisfied and with new problems.

We cannot achieve any harmony as long as the shift is not coupled with a deep change inside.

This because our external behaviour is the result of an interplay of deep forces inside, most of which are unconscious to us. Therefore, we change the surface of us hoping that things will get better but this transformation creates more suffering since the internal reality is still the same.

In The Way of Ectasy Osho says that when we change our behavior in ways that we are not really ready to behave in, then we deny a part of our consciousness. This part eventually becomes unconscious and as such more powerful.

We become false in order to accommodate an external necessity. All the new behaviors become part of our social mask. The more we convince ourselves to be this personage and we deny the huge part of ourselves that has become unconscious, the more we suffer.

This lying to ourselves, a kind of self-deceit, is hence the cause of suffering. But truth cannot be hidden without problems. An interior conflict will arise between our unconscious and conscious mind and tension will be the result and eventually physics and psychological disorders will emerge.

However, it is difficult to do otherwise because this is the way we have been raised up: change your external behaviour in order to change your self.

Osho argues that we should rather change our awareness. And I could not agree more with it. In the east this concept is well rooted, that is why meditations techniques emphasise awareness. We must observe ourselves in our lives: in our body, mind and feelings, in whatsoever we are doing in the moment - than change will happen on its own. Probably in ways that we cannot imagine now. We just need to be aware and open.

Therefore, I consider meditation as a way to reach awareness – although it is not the only means - which ultimately leads to truth and real harmony. Real harmony that means a real balance between internal truth and external behaviour.

Intrigued by these concepts, in India I started experimenting different meditations in order to find one that clicks for me.

I so began with the the ten days Vipassana silence meditation retreat in Jodhpur, India.



Versione Italiana

Sulla Meditazione

In questo post spiego brevemente il mio interesse per la meditazione e alcuni concetti di base in merito.

Questa riflessione e' basata sulla mia esperienza personale ed e' maturata dopo due mesi di meditazione in India ed in particolare mentre ero a contatto con il pensiero di Osho.

Arrivato in India la mia intenzione era di praticare meditazione a fondo e in maniera approfondita e costante. In passato avevo gia' avuto modo di provare alcune meditazioni buddista e vipassana senza pero' andare troppo a fondo.

Considero la meditazione come un mezzo per ottenere la verita' su se stessi e una profonda armonia interiore e per quindi trascendere la superficie delle cose.

La prima cosa da realizzare in merito a cambiare qualcosa nella nostra vita e' che siamo personalmente ed esclusivamente noi gli unici responsabili. Nessun'altro puo' farlo per noi.

Questo riconoscimento non e' tuttavia sufficiente. In genere si cambia lavoro, partner e attegiamenti ma – a meno che non ci sia una profonda trasformazione interna – si e' ancora insoddisfatti e con nuovi problemi.

Non e' possibile ottenere un'armonia fino a quando al cambiamento esterno non e' associata una nuova e profonda consapevolezza.

I comportamenti esterni sono il risultato di un'interazione di profonde forze interne, la maggior parte delle quali sono inconsce. Quindi cambiamo le cose sulla superficie sperando che le cose migliorino anche all'interno ma in verita' questa trasformazione crea piu' dolore se la realta' interna non e' davvero cambiata.

Nel libro The Way of Ectasy Osho sostiene che quando cambiamo il nostro comportamento in modi in cui non siamo davvero pronti a sostenere, allora neghiamo una parte della nostra consapevolezza. Questa parte alla fine diventa inconscia e in quanto tale diventa molto piu' potente.

Diventiamo falsi per accomodare un'idea o una necessita' esterna. Tutti i nuovi comportamenti diventano parte della nostra maschera sociale. E piu' convinciamo noi stessi di essere realmente questo personaggio fittizio e neghiamo l'enorme parte di noi che e' diventata inconscia, piu' soffriamo.

Questo mentire a noi stessi, una specie di auto-illusione, e' quindi la causa della sofferenza. Ma la verita' non puo' essere tenuta nascosta senza troppi problemi. Si viene a creare un conflitto interiore tra il nostro inconscio e la parte conscia della mente. E disturbi psicologici e fisici saranno il risultato.

E' tuttavia difficile fare diversamente perche' questo e' il modo in cui siamo stati cresciuti: agire sui comportamenti in modo da cambiare se stessi.

Osho sostiente che dovremmo invece cambiare la nostra consapevolezza interna. E sono completamente daccordo con questa affermazione. In Oriente questa concezione e' ben radicata, per questo motivo le tecniche di meditazione si concentrano sulla consapevolezza. 

Dobbiamo osservarci nella vita quotidiana: il nostro corpo, mente e sentimenti in ogni cosa mentre la stiamo facendo nel momento – quindi il cambiamento avvera' da solo. Probabilmente in modi che adesso non riusciamo ad immaginare. Dobbiamo solo rimanere consapevoli ed aperti.

Quindi, considero la meditazione come un modo per raggiungere consapevolezza – anche se non e' l'unico modo – che in ultima istanza conduce alla verita' e ad un'autentica armonia. La quale significa un equilibrio reale tra verita' interna e comportamento esterno.

Intrigato da questi concetti, ho cominciato a sperimentare diverse meditazioni sperando di trovarne una che si addice a me.

Ho quindi cominciato con il ritiro del silenzio Vipassana di dieci giorni a Jodhpur, in India.

(20) Experience at Kumbh Mela and Bodhgaya

“[...] It is done in love, or it is done in fear; I do not know which it is. No matter what the impulse is, the act born of it is beyond imagination, marvellous to our kind of people, the cold whites”

Mark Twain about Kumbh Mela

8 - 25 February 2013, Allahabad, Bodh Gaya, India

On 10 February – the main bathing day of Kumbh Mela - at 3 a.m. I left the camp with other people in order to see the parade before sunrise. We crossed the Gange with a small boat while hearing religious Hindu chants. The river was lighted up by fires that allowed the atmosphere to be magical and nearly unreal.

At the parade before the sun rose possessed and screaming nude men ran towards the river by shoving everybody on their way: they were the naga babas.

After seeing them I started returning to the camp.

On my way back I realised that the crowd was really immense. For kilometers only human beings were at sight while heavily armed soldiers tried to keep the control over people.

At some point, I found my self in an increasingly swelling and panicking crowd. Scared, I did not know what to do. There were camps around at whose gates the panicking mob was pushing. People from inside kept them away by hitting them with sticks and pushing at the other side of the gate.

A man from one of those camp for some unclear reason allowed me to enter and so I was safe. But the crowd suddenly bashed the gate and entered the camp.

Then panic spread also inside with people running everywhere and the security of the camp trying to keep the control over the situation with brutal manners, although they were much kinder with me and the other few foreigners.

I tried to run away toward the other side but I was blocked and put inside the tent of a baba, where nobody could or dared to enter. He, amid the chaos, acted as nothing was happening: he was calm and kept gently smoking his ganja, while people were dying outside. The whole situation was unreal and frightening.

I waited there some hours until the situation calmed down.

Many people died that day. Some because of similar situations of panic. Some others – especially elderlies – just let themselves go, happyly passing away at such a prestigious religious event.

I finally managed to return to my camp. After few days I moved to the rainbow camp that eventually I had to leave because of heavy rain.

On 16 February while it was still raining I jumped on a bus that in about four hours brought me to Varanasi. The vehicle was designed for approximatively forty people. But we were at least one hundred on it. All the people were wet, sneezing and couching. The crowd was so thick that I could not even move my arms. And the driver kept the crackling music so loud that I could not even hear my thoughts. The music and the constant beeping of cars and of the bus was driving me literally nuts. I somehow managed to ask the music to be turned down and I felt almost moved when he even switched if off.

Varanasi was also overcrowded so I had to leave the following day for the quiet town of Bodhgaya, the place where the buddha attained enlightenment.

In this part of India – likewise at Kumbh Mela - extreme poverty was evident. At Kumbh Mela I realised that I had never seen so much misery concentrated in one place. Lepers, beggars and a seemingly infinite number of people living on the street crowded the festival.

At Kumbh Mela and Bodhgaya my mind tried to escape from the reality. The difference with home was just too big. I became aware of my own limits. I became aware of how much I was alien to that context. My mind fantasized about being back home in my comfort zone.

Buddha enlightenment's place

Mental images, tastes, fragrances of home crowded my head throughout those days. These illusions were so real that allowed my mind to escape the reality. I was missing all the traditions, food, language and cultural aspects that were part of me and that were missing there. I was homesick.

However I decided to stay. I do not like to leave things unfinished. In order to really learn from an experience you have to go through it completely.

After few days in Bodhgaya I took a train that brought me to Jodhpur, to the other side of the country, where a vipassana meditation center was waiting for me.