This blog is about my recent experience with Vipassana. If you want to skip the context and directly jump to what Vipassana is just scroll down to the Vipassana Section below).
Growing up in a remote village, I never realised Buddha/Buddhism was considered by many as a separate religion as we considered Buddha as one of the Ten Avatar(a)s of Vishnu (Hindu God) and worship him(see the representative pic of statue that gets a place in many households). Much later when I moved to cities I started getting an inkling that this is not the case. In fact there is quite a bit of divisive politics about this and toxic arguments exist on both sides of the divide. As it often happens in such cases, these arguments are mostly done by people who have no real understanding of any of the“sides”. They use random disjointed tidbits to claim familiarity and use them like a drunkard uses light pole for support rather than illumination. Here are some of the example sentences that I have actually heard.
- Buddha/Buddhism is negative philosophy that leads to nihilism. (used by Hindu traditionalists)
- Hinduism is just a bundle of blind beliefs (By Atheists, Left leaning folks and such)
- I am buddhist not a Hindu because Buddha rejected vedas.
Add to this mix misinformation campaigns external geo political forces who wants to divide and control India (famous and very successful ploy employed by Colonial forces), the whole things becomes a mess.
I have also been a student of Vedanta(Literature part of vedas that come in the end of Vedas) since I was 12 years old. I got my hands(first prize in a painting competition) on Rajayoga written by Swamy Vivekananda and got hooked completely. Hinduism identifies four paths for liberation (Moksha, Nirvana). Karma (Service), Jnana(Analyses, knowledge), Bhakthi (Surrender or devotion) and then Rajayoga/Kriyayoga (which are techniques). It has defined and shaped so many things that I am today. All of my schooling (till engineering and after) I have lived almost a monks life. I stopped wearing any jewellery, cosmetics. Had only 2–3 dresses, cut my hair short and looked down upon fashion et al. I even stopped wearing slippers during all of high school, to the chagrin of one of my teachers. But then as you grow up, the economic realities hit me and my duty towards my family made me comply to conventions slightly more. During my first job I started wearing little bit of new dresses, got good slippers et al. But this is a slippery slope (more on this in Vipassana), once the journey starts that way, it is very hard to come out. To cut long story short, I became almost slightly above average vanity seeker and got sucked into endless cycle of making more money, more achievements.
In spite of all this I kept on researching and reading many literature around this, attended few seminars and spent bit of time at ArshaVidya (pure vedantic school), Chinmaya Mission, Ramakrishnashrama Mission, Sivananda Ashram and recently Kriya yoga centers like Isha and Ananda. Read many books on Buddha too. Never really understood what the the difference is and why it is considered a separate religion. Some folks said, Buddhism doesn’t believe in Atma(or soul). Some folks said it doesn't accept authority of vedas. Some folks there is no concept of rebirth (past lives).
But inspite of all the knowledge accumulated, I could see that I haven’t been really liberated, not even close. My experiences in start-up world taught me that I crumble amidst toxic ambitious greedy people. Lot of justifications pain and burnouts later, I was still looking for the answer…
Vipassana
That is, until now;
I finally attended Vipassana meditation by Dhamma org https://paphulla.dhamma.org/courses-offered/10-day-courses/. It is a 10 day intense meditation retreat with no communication whatsover with anyone; Not even eye contact and sign language. (By the way this popularly known as mindfulness and gets reduced to physical part alone, just like modern Yoga practice has become.)
At the end of 5th day of course when they revealed what the concept behind this is, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Felt like a person who kept the eye glasses on the head and searched everywhere for it. How come no one, not all the literature that I read, not friends who attended these sessions before, nor the countless blogs and apps on mindfulness talk about this missing link. Did I miss it because of some blind side ? or Pride ? Don’t know.
Anyways, here is the answer discovered (Or rediscovered as S N Goenkaji puts it) by Buddha.
- Human/Life is sum total experiences and is due to interaction of mind and matter.
- Misery arises due to constant pursuit of pleasant experiences (desires, Raga) and aversion to unpleasant ones (Aversions, Dwesha).
- These desires and aversions become deep rooted in the mind and are called Sankaras (Samskara). The more you indulge in them the more craving one develops and deeper the Sankaras. The Sankaras also develop over many lives.
- Therefore it is important to get rid of them.
So far nothing new, but what Buddha discovered and is quite phenomenal is
- The desires and aversion show up as biochemical reactions on the body and by training the mind you can “see” them. ALL sensations are ephemeral in nature (Anithya or Anichha)
- Observing the sensations the right way is called Vipassana and it is basically watching them like a scientist without reacting at all to them.
- This equanimous observation makes them ineffective and do not contribute to Sankara and thus making the creation of new Sankaras.
- This is where universal law kicks in and somehow brings up deep buried sankaras and by observing them with equanimity they get eradicated.
- A trained mind by constant practice of Vipassana can see body as it is (basically a bundle ephemeral vibrating energy) and can purify the entire mind.
- Once the entire mind is purified, one stops interacting with matter and thus no new misery.
- Anyone(Everyone) can(should) do this and see this for themselves.
This is it. Phew I cant put into words the intellectual relief I felt.
However the practice initially is brutal. One is made to work from 4 AM till 9:30 PM with close to 10 hour meditation thrown in. Just sitting and observing breath is exhausting. But slowly and surely one starts noticing the sensations all over the body and start observing them with equanimity. This ultimately leads to state of complete dissolution of the physical structure (called Bhanga which didnt happen for me in those 10 days). The closest I came to is when I sneezed during a deep meditation session in the pagoda cells. My entire upper body till the head lit up like thousands of LED rice lights and lasted for a minute or so. Anyway the real objective is to be equanimous about such experiences and not to crave them.
Having gone through this I feel bit vindicated in the belief there is not much difference (Actually doesnt matter). What Buddha discovered is one particular aspect of the whole pantheon on the Hinduism concepts.
Buddha completely endorses the concept of multiple lives (YOLO is false, Yay). If you want to look at the “scientific” research (i.e as per the current standards, take a look at the division of perceptual studies at the University of Virginia Medical School. They have done research on this for 50+ years. While on the topic of science do read the book by Sam Harris https://www.wakingup.com/. In that he claims, Hinduism Advaith Vedanta and Theravada Buddhism are the only two scientific religions.
While the concept of I (Atma) is rejected, based on the course, I felt that it is probably more syntactical than an anti theses. (Edit (April 28th 2024 — came across very clear explanation of Swamy Sarvapriyananda’s discourse on this question i.e whether atma exists or not -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvdF5xurSKs)
And yes moral and ethical values are part of this eternal law as professed by Buddha inspite of insistence of so many to the contrary.
So in a nutshell, everything continues to be same knowledge system. Hinduism is Bhuddhism and Buddhism is Hinduism. Both are part eternal open source sciences of spirituality continually evolving. Here is my current understanding (very simplistic, but this will do for now).
It would very interesting to see if we crack the other aspects of Vedantic concepts. Like Kriya is supposed to achieve many “Miraculous” feats like time travel which seemings break limits of Physics. May be the advent of AI and the interest of tech bros in these will lead us somewhere or not. If we just practice what we know, it definitely will be leap.
So I am going to focus on this practice. So best of luck to me and all of you.
(Disclaimer : This is a grossly oversimplified explanation on so many things, please refer to sources I mentioned if you want to dwell deeper. All mistakes here are mine alone.)
