Superscience
- An interview
with S. N. Goenka
tricycle
S. N. Goenka has been teaching Vipassana meditation
for thirty-one years and is most widely known, perhaps, for his
famous introductory ten-day intensive courses, which are held free
of charge in centers all around the world, supported by student
donations.
Born in Mandalay, Burma in 1924, he was trained
by the renowned Vipassana teacher Sayagyi U Ba Khin (1899-1971).
After fourteen years of training, he retired from his life as a
successful businessman to devote himself to teaching meditation.
Today he oversees an organization of more than eighty meditation
centers worldwide and has had remarkable success in bringing
meditation into prisons, first in India, and then in numerous other
countries. The organization estimates that as many as 10,000
prisoners, as well as many members of the police and military, have
attended the ten-day courses.
S. N. Goenka came to New York this fall for the
Millennium World Peace Summit at the United Nations. He was
interviewed there by Helen
Tworkov.
According to some people,
Vipassana is a particular meditation practice of the Theravada
School; for others, it is a lineage of its own. How do you use the
term?
This is a lineage, but it is a lineage that has
nothing to do with any sect. To me, Buddha never established a
sect. When I met my teacher, Sayagyi U Ba Khin, he simply asked me
a few questions. He asked me if, as a Hindu leader, I had any
objection towards sila, that is, morality. How can there be any
objection? But how can you practice sila unless you have control of
the mind? He said, I will teach you to practice sila with
controlled mind. I will teach you samadhi, concentration. Any
objection? What can be objected to in samadhi? Then he said, that
alone will not help—that will purify your mind at the surface
level. Deep inside there are complexes, there are habit patterns,
which are not broken by samadhi. I will teach you prajna, wisdom,
insight, which will take you to the depth of the mind. I will teach
you to go to the depth of the mind, the source where the impurities
start and they get multiplied and they get stored so that you can
clear them out.
So when my teacher told me: I will teach you only
these three—sila, samadhi and prajna—and nothing else, I was
affected. I said, let me try.
How is sila generated by watching the
mind?
When I began to learn Vipassana meditation, I became
convinced that Buddha was a not a founder of religion, he was a
super-scientist. A spiritual super-scientist. When he teaches
morality, the point is, of course, there that we are human beings,
living in human society, and we should not do anything which would
harm the society. It’s quite true. But then—and it’s as a scientist
he’s talking here—he says that when you harm anybody, when you
perform any unwholesome action, you are the first victim. You first
harm yourself and then you harm others. As soon as a defilement
arises in the mind, your nature is such that you feel miserable.
That is what Vipassana teaches me.
So if you can see that mental defilement is causing anxiety
and pain for yourself, that is the beginning of sila and of
compassion?
If you can change that to compassion, then another
reality becomes so clear. If instead of generating anger or hatred
or passion or fear or ego, I generate love, compassion, goodwill,
then nature starts rewarding me. I feel so peaceful, so much
harmony within me. It is such that when I defile my mind I get
punishment then and there, and when I purify my mind I get a reward
then and there.
What happens during a ten-day Vipassana
course?
The whole process is one of total realization, the
process of self-realization, truth pertaining to oneself, by
oneself, within oneself. It is not an intellectual game. It is not
an emotional or devotional game: “Oh, Buddha said such and such . .
. so wonderful . . . I must accept.” It is pure science. I must
understand what’s happening within me, what’s the truth within me.
We start with breath. It looks like a physical concept, the breath
moving in and moving out. It is true. But on the deeper level the
breath is strongly connected to mind, to mental impurities. While
we’re meditating, and we’re observing the breath, the mind starts
wandering—some memory of the past, some thoughts of the
future—immediately what we notice is that the breath has lost its
normality: it might be slightly hard, slightly fast. And as soon as
that impurity is gone away it is normal again. That means the
breath is strongly connected to the mind, and not only mind but
mental impurities. So we are here to experiment, to explore what is
happening within us. At a deeper level, one finds that mind is
affecting the body at the sensation level.
This causes another big discovery—that you are not
reacting to an outside object. Say I hear a sound and I find that
it is some kind of praise for me; or I find someone abusing me, I
get angry. You are reacting to the words at the apparent level,
yes, true. You are reacting. But Buddha says you are actually
reacting to the sensations, body sensations. That when you feel
body sensation and you are ignorant, then you keep on defiling your
mind by craving or by aversion, by greed or by hatred or anger.
Because you don’t know what’s happening.
When you hear praise or abuse, is the response filtered
through the psychological mind to the bodily sensations, or is it
simultaneous?
It is one after the other, but so quick that you
can’t separate them. So quick! At some point automatically you can
start realizing, “Look what’s happening! I have generated anger.”
And the Vipassana meditator will immediately say, “Oh, a lot of
hate! There is a lot of hate in the body, palpitation is increased
Oh, miserable. I feel miserable.”
If you are not working with the body sensations,
then you are working only at the intellectual level. You might say,
“Anger is not good,” or “Lust is not good,” or “Fear is not—.” All
of this is intellectual, moral teachings heard in childhood.
Wonderful. They help.
But when you practice, you understand why they’re
not good. Not only do I harm others by generating these defilements
of anger or passion or fear or evil, I harm myself also,
simultaneously.
Vipassana is observing the truth. With the breath I
am observing the truth at the surface level, at the crust level.
This takes me to the subtler, subtler, subtler levels. Within three
days the mind becomes so sharp, because you are observing the
truth. It’s not imagination. Not philosophy or thinking. Truth,
breath, truth as breath, deep or shallow. The mind becomes so sharp
that in the area around the nostrils, you start feeling some
biochemical reaction that means some physical sensation. This is
always there throughout the body, but the mind was so gross it was
feeling only very gross sensations like pain or such. But otherwise
there are so many sensations which the mind is not capable to
feel.
Can you say something about the generation of wisdom? Is
insight the same as wisdom?
Same same same! Insight is not trying to understand
the reality within myself merely at the intellectual level, but I
understand it now at the experiential level. For anybody who
admires Buddha’s teaching—that everything is impermanent,
changing—this is at the intellectual level. Yes, everything’s
changing. Nothing is permanent. Quite true. But that doesn’t help.
When I practice Vipassana, I start with sensation: Look, sensation
arises, seems to stay for some time but passes, is not
eternal.
And after four, five, six days, the sensations get
dissolved. There is no more solidity in the entire body. Mere
vibration, very subtle vibration. So this impermanence is now
experience. What is the purpose of reacting to something when it is
changing so quickly? What is the purpose of reacting with craving
or clinging? It passes away. Or hatred: it passes away. People who
are very angry, or are full of lust, full of fear or full of
depression or full of ego—when they keep on observing their
sensations, the whole habit pattern changes.
Does the object of awareness ever disappear so that there’s
only awareness of awareness itself?
Exactly. But when I say I am aware of this object,
and “I” is there, “I” am aware of this. This is a duality. Slowly
as you proceed, “I” goes away. Things are just happening, and the
knowing part knows. That’s all.
Is that the same as what some teachers call “bare
attention”?
Yes, this is bare attention.
When there’s no object.
The object keeps on changing. What is the object
this moment may not be the object the next moment. So whatever
manifests itself from moment to moment, there is clarity. And there
awareness means you are not reacting to it. Say the object, the
sensation, is very pleasant. The old habit pattern was that when we
feel this sensation we react with, “Ah, Wonderful! I must
continue—this must be retained.” Then this is not bare awareness.
But if you keep on, just awareness, let me see what happens, it
changes. You are just observing the changing nature of the
sensations. This sensation or that sensation, makes no
difference.
Do you move to a place where there’s absolutely no
self-consciousness of the awareness?
That is a very high stage, the nirvanic stage. As
long as we are in the field of mind and matter, sensation is bound
to be there. But sensations will become subtler and subtler.
Is it possible to transcend awareness
itself?
Certainly. But that takes time. If you keep on
thinking about this, it will be imagination. No imagination is
allowed in the whole technique. Be with the present moment as it
is. Otherwise you will be thinking: Nirvana, nirvana is like this,
I must—You haven’t experienced nirvana. You’ve heard about nirvana,
you’ve intellectualized about nirvana, you’ve emotionalized about
nirvana. You don’t know what nirvana is. So let it come. Every
moment is nirvana for you. Whatever is arising you are observing
it—now it is passing away, now it arises. Bare awareness. That will
take you to the stage where there is no more sensation, that is
beyond mind and matter. Sensations come where there is mind and
matter. And where there is no mind and matter there is no horizon,
no passing, no sensation. But we can’t imagine it. The moment you
start imagining, then it becomes a philosophy.
Do you understand this practice to be the essence of
Buddha’s teaching?
Yes. If proper attention is not given to the
sensations, then we are not going to the deepest levels of the
mind. The deepest level of the mind, according to Buddha, is
constantly in contact with body sensations. And you find this by
experience.
What is your role as the teacher?
A teacher, out of compassion and love, seeing that
somebody is suffering, gives a path. But each individual has to
walk on the path. There is no magical miracle with the teacher.
Totally out of the question. He only shows the path. That is the
only role of the teacher, nothing else.
You’ve built this worldwide organization, and it seems that
you don’t have a successor. So many are coming up, and to
appoint somebody a successor will disturb the purity. Buddha never
appointed anybody as a successor. Who am I to appoint? All these
five hundred or six hundred teachers whom I have trained, they will
carry on. If I am not there they will still carry on. Not because
they have faith in the teacher—they have faith in the technique,
which gives them results. That’s all that will remain. Otherwise
they think so long as guru is there you get all of the
benefits—guru is no more, it is gone: That is a personality cult.
The technique is so great. It will survive. Don’t worry [laughs]. I
am very confident. It will survive.
I wanted to ask you about criticisms in this country,
specifically about your organization’s reported refusal to allow
homosexuals to participate in advanced
retreats.
I don’t know how somebody started this talk, which
is, I can say very confidently, totally wrong. We have no
discrimination of any kind with anybody. It is totally out of the
question. But of course when you go for deeper courses—twenty-day
course, thirty-day course, forty-day course—it is a really deep
operation of the mind, surgical operation of the mind. Deep-rooted
complexes start coming to the surface, so every student must have
the facility of privacy, a place to be without getting attracted to
the object of passion. If somebody has got passion, and the object
of passion is all the time there, then it might create a few
difficulties. It has created difficulties sometimes even in ten-day
courses. You have to be very careful.
I don’t know how this wrong thing started. There are
teachers who are lesbians and homosexuals in this country and in
Europe. Where there are facilities I teach them. When they go to a
center where there’s not much facility and they say, I was refused
there, so they write letters and say something bad about the
teaching. They can’t understand. What about the facilities we are
giving them? Just because one or two started complaining because
they were refused—and there are other reasons also for refusing. I
have refused those who are not homosexuals, who are not lesbians.
Because at present this person is not fit for such deep operation.
Even multi-millionaires, even there is one billionaire who is
pressing hard to take a long course. I don’t give it to him. I say,
No, you are not fit yet.
There has been some concern that the idea of not allowing
these people into long courses is that they would act
inappropriately.
No, no, no! Anybody can act in a wrong way. If we
separate people it is for their good, not for segregation, or
denouncing them, saying: “Oh you’re not good, so I keep you
separate.” It is for everyone!
Is it true that homosexuals have to renounce their sexual
orientation in order to take the longer
courses?
Totally wrong. Of course we examine every person
whether lesbian or not-lesbian, homosexual or not. If you are still
a bundle of lust and you can’t control yourself so you can’t do a
deeper operation of the mind, wait a little, take a few more
courses. That is what we tell everybody. Not because someone is a
homosexual.
In this country now, traditional practices—like segregating
men and women, or variations on that theme—are becoming part of a
mix, a melting pot. Some teachers welcome this challenge, but
others are quite concerned about maintaining the purity of the
various traditions. You are somewhat renowned for taking a strict
view of maintaining the integrity of each
lineage.
Ultimately you have to take one decision. You want
water, you dig ten feet, don’t get water, a different ten feet, you
keep on digging in different places. Some day you must be sure I
will get water here, then dig, come to that stage. I don’t say only
remain with me. You try, and whichever path seems more compatible
to your ideology, your thinking, go ahead. I don’t condemn.
In another example of traditions coming together, the peace
summit that you’re attending at the U.N. this week is bringing
world religious leaders together to make a declaration committing
themselves to global peace. What’s your outlook? Any cause
for optimism? When we look at Asia, we look at Burma, Sri Lanka,
such violence and suffering in these Buddhist countries—how can we
use our practice for peace? In centuries of Buddha’s teaching there
is not a single incident where the followers of Buddha were
involved in any kind of bloodshed in the name of propagating
Buddha’s teachings. Wherever Buddha’s teaching went, it went with
love and compassion. So that tradition says that here is a path
which does not support violence or bloodshed.
Now you come to this millennium conference that is
going on. Again, according to Buddha’s teaching and according to
science, human science and the reality that we face, we want peace
in human society. Certainly everybody, Buddhist or non-Buddhist,
wants this. But how can there be peace in society unless there is
peace in the individual? If the individual is boiling, agitated all
the time, there is no peace. And you expect the entire society to
be peaceful? To me it is unsound. Doesn’t sound logical.
Is it helpful to not use the word “Buddhism,” so it can
become something for everyone? These are two words I have
avoided in the last thirty-one years. In the thirty-one years since
I started teaching I avoid using the word “Buddhism.” I never use
the word “religion,” so far as Buddha’s teaching is concerned. For
me Buddha never established a religion. Buddha never taught
Buddhism. Buddha never made a single person a Buddhist.
Everybody will agree that every religion of the
world has got these common factors, which I call the inner core of
religion—morality, mastery of the mind, purification of mind. So I
say this is the core, the wholesome core of every religion. And
then there’s the outer shell. The outer shell differs from one to
the other. Let everyone be happy with their rites, rituals—but they
should not forget this inner core.
If they forget this and say, I am a religious person
because I have done this rite, they are deluding themselves, they
are deluding others.
In terms of this sense of interior peace: There’s a
fear in this culture that if you are very peaceful that you’re a
little dead. We want to be peaceful but cannot imagine how we can
save the world, in terms of ecology, without being angry. We want
to engage in life with those kinds of passions.
I recognize that. I am not against that. People have
not understood the Buddha’s teaching properly. Say a person comes
to harm me, and I say, “I am a Vipassana meditator, like a
vegetable, come and cut me”—that is not Buddha’s teaching. We will
take strongest action wherever necessary, strongest physical and
vocal action.
But before doing that we must examine ourselves at
the physical level, at the sensation level, and the mental level.
If I find my mind is very equanimous, I’ve got no anger towards
this person. I’ve got love towards this person. But because this
person does not understand soft language, I’ve got to use hard
language. He does not understand soft action, I will take hard
action. In his interest, in her interest. Love is there. Compassion
is there. If there is anger, then I’m miserable. How can a
miserable person help another miserable person?
This question requires a lot of clarification,
because this question keeps coming up. That if you are not angry,
how will we be able to defend ourselves? If we are not angry, how
will be able to be successful in this way or that way? That is
because people have not lived a life where they are detached and
yet very strong. People feel that only with attachment I can gain
my goal. But when they understand and they practice, a detached
person is more successful to reach their goal. Because the mind is
so calm, so clear. And whatever problem comes you can make a quick
decision, a right decision.
And the government is introducing Vipassana into the
police academy. Even prisoners change. Hard criminals. And every
government wants a prisoner to be reformed when he comes to the
prison. Instead of that it is a house of crime, where you discuss
what kind of crime, and how you did it. They learn much more, and
come out as bigger criminals. Now with Vipassana there is a big
change.
And that is not by giving discourses, giving praises
of Buddha. It is by technique, when they start observing. Living in
the prison, most of the students have anger: So-and-so gave witness
against me, when I get out I’ll kill him. Revenge. When they start
observing, “Oh, what am I doing? I’m burning myself,” it goes away.
With the other way this person will create more and more violence.
Now he can’t do that. He’s full of love, full of
compassion.
And the person becomes so active. A number of hard
criminals when they come out, they get jobs here and there and they
don’t return.
Do you think in the Buddhist societies today, where
violence is being carried out, are they functioning with this
detachment or no?
If somebody says they are a Buddhist and that is all
they do, then I say you are a devotee of Buddha, you are not a
follower of Buddha. It’s a real difference. You have great devotion
towards Buddha, you say, “Lord Buddha, Lord Buddha, how wonderful!”
But you don’t practice. Whether we keep calling ourselves Christian
or Hindu or Muslim, it makes no difference. A follower of the
Buddha follows the teachings: sila, samadhi, prajna. Those people
who simply call themselves Buddhists are not living the life of
Buddha. That is why I don’t use the word “Buddhist” or “Buddhism.”
Buddha never taught any isms. In all his words, and the
commentaries, which number thousands of pages, the word “Buddhism”
is not there. So this all started much later, when Buddha’s
teaching began to settle. I don’t know when it started, how it
started, calling it Buddhism, but the day it happened it devalued
the teaching of Buddha. It was a universal teaching, and that made
it sectarian, as if to say that Buddhism is only for Buddhists,
like Hinduism is for Hindus, Islam is for Muslims. Dharma is for
all.