About Vipassana... from the Global Vipassana Foundation

Humans generate desires almost obsessively, further accentuated by aggressive marketing. If we keep generating desires recklessly, frustrations are bound to rise commensurately.
Typically, we counter frustration with violence — towards others (anger, jealously, etc) and oneself (intoxication, depression). Or we adopt some popular spiritual path to mitigate our misery at a superficial level, hoping most of the time that some external agency will do the job of making us happy.
Vipassana is a scientific path to health and happiness. The foundation of Vipassana practice, rediscovered by the Buddha, is the same as Karma: i.e. one’s own good action leads to good results and vice versa, and “experiencing this truth within oneself” brings lasting peace. However, the Vipassana tradition is different, in the sense that it approaches the goal of peace in a practical, non-sectarian, experience-based manner, using a self-observation technique, yes, a mere technique.
Also, it is completely devoid of dogma, ritual or worship of any God or ‘guru’. The only requirement is to follow a strict, simple, code of ethical conduct during the course.By abandoning the ‘imaginary’ or ‘theological’ concepts of the ‘self’, it has encouraged people of every class, country, caste and creed to come and experience it. Vipassana (the Pali word has the same meaning as vigyan in Sanskrit) tackles the ‘problem’ where it arises, like modern day science does. Since misery is felt bodily, one is asked to examine it at the experiential level. As one advances in the practice, whatever reality lies beyond the body and the mind would manifest itself.
It is essential to attend a ten-day residential course to learn Vipassana. At the course, the student is trained to experience one’s own breath for the first few days. This enables the extroverted and volatile mind to become somewhat introverted and quieter. During the remaining days, one is trained to observe bodily sensations. These sensations are nothing but changes that arise every nanosecond in the body. Because of this direct examination of the readily available reality of one’s own body, most people experience many ‘truths’ — truths that are not imposed but are their own experiences.
These include insights such as: the mind surfaces in the body all the time in an interactive manner; that one is largely one’s mind, particularly, the so called sub-conscious mind; that one is reacting, without being aware, to these changes; that it is possible to be a dispassionate observer of these changes, at least intermittently, and that through this process, an extraordinary sense of insight and peace result.
The most important finding, of course, is that one does not react continuously to the outside factors, but to these sensations, and that they are only apparently linked to the outside factors. This habit of reacting to these pleasant and unpleasant sensations leads to the cycle of desire generation and frustration and is the root cause of one’s misery. It is because of this reason that the saints have talked about giving up the infatuation with the body and not because the body as such is ugly or harmful.
Through regular practice of Vipassana, one starts benefiting on various fronts. Reduced stress, better concentration and steadiness, greater ability to take decisions and give up habits such as smoking and drinking, improvement in health, etc are commonly experienced. Health improves because it is a reflection of the mind, and as the mind becomes purer, wonderful results have been seen in a large number of cases.
At a philosophical level, the whole karmic cycle starts becoming clearer in terms of one’s life experiences. One moment of experience of the fire will teach far more than a million year discourse on it. Thus, Vipassana seeks to bring about a change from within by operating at the root of the mind. Vipassana is taught absolutely free (too valuable to be priced) in 55 languages at more than 150 centres in India and 90 other countries of the world. The tradition is maintained by the donations.
Vallabh Bhanshali chairman, Global Vipasanna Foundation