Hi Ruben, Good gurus are strict. If you want to take refuge with a particular guru, you have to be prepared to follow their rules. If you don’t, often they will think you are not serious. Dharma teachers are often very committed and have years of retreat time.
That rule requiring practicing no other meditation between retreats seems to be about keeping people on their course. It’s about keeping people on a predictable course. They may think there are good reasons for that, but I can’t agree. Disregard that.
Adamant
Helpful, I’m grateful
Hi Ruben, Retraction alert! You sparked my interest in Goenka and I bought “The Discourse Summaries” which are the lectures given each day of the 10-day retreat. This guy is great. His exposition of the dharma is par excellence. He recommends one 10-day retreat per year and two one hour sessions per day. His rule about not practicing any other technique between sessions is advisory, just like Yogani’s. The purpose is so that one will not get involved in too many practices and get no where. All gurus tell you that progress cannot be made, unless you dedicate to one practice. It’s just common sense. Obviously, there’s no limitation on you to explore. His view is strict non-sectarianism, which means he’s not asking for devotion. But if you begin the practice, he is recommending diligence and consistency. Any sports trainer will tell you that.
I want to emphasize that Goenka’s teaching is very profound. It doesn’t get better than that. I have enormous respect for him. All his comments are spot on. His shamatha technique of breath awareness is very clearly described and put into perspective of insight into the nature of the mind-body compound. His vipassana practice of “body sweeping,” as Christi described it, is great. I have practiced that for years (that’s what my granddaddy taught me). The “dark night” woes I described and shared with Daniel Ingram would not happen here, because there is balanced use of shamatha with breath awareness.
The worry about “premature crown chakra opening” is something dear Christi and I must respectfully disagree about. Look, the crown chakra is a worry if you have wrong view about impermanence. And again, shamatha will balance that the uncomfortable feelings that arise. Besides, the crown chakra is your friend. That is our connection to pure wisdom. When that opens, it is wisdom and insight. Other than that, one can proceed to the final goal without ever once doing anything with any channel or chakra.
I also respectfully disagree with Christi that investigation into impermanent nature of body-mind phenonmena is not meditation. Christi has his own bias toward Christianity, Yoga, bliss consciousness and Self. My bias is toward the dharma, which is no bias, no opinion and no reliance on any state of being as a so-called “ultimate truth.” The only truth of the dharma is that one may be liberated from conditioned existence. That only happens by releasing one’s attachments to both gross and subtle sensations of pain and pleasure, and to false conceptions and sensations both gross and subtle of “I-ness.” So, Ruben, you should be aware that here is where the Buddha’s teaching diverges in a 90 degree angle from those teachings that promote bliss consciousness and “the Self.” The teaching of the Buddha is not about bliss consciousness. “Bliss” described by the Buddha is just awareness that one is free from cyclic existence; that is the meaning of liberation, no more habit conditioning.
Also, I find the “noting” practice emphasized in the prominent Theravada teachings is a misunderstanding of the mindfulness training. Mental noting is a lot of distraction. Awareness is much faster than that, and one can make a nonverbal mental note (by simply noticing sensation) much faster than one can verbalize mentally. That is what the Buddha meant by “knowing I breath long” and whatnot. Goenka’s is the simplest method there is and is better than what is described by Daniel Ingram, because it is simpler.
Ruben, if you are interested in this practice, then do the 10-day retreat. Follow it up with six-months of sustained two sessions per day in your work-life as that system describes. That should be sufficient time for you to evaluate the path. If you have problems then reconsider. But (being the dharma devotee that I am), I wish I had found these teachings earlier.
IMHO, this is THE BEST Theravada exposition of the Dharma I have ever seen.
Remember, the Buddha says in the Satipathana Sutta, that one can obtain realization in one week. The Buddha was not worried about premature crown openings, and neither should you.
Thank you for sharing this teacher with me, Ruben. I’m sold.
Adamant
P.S. The “body-sweeping” method used here is just a touch different from Mahamudra, except, in Mahamudra one maintains sensation awareness over the whole body at once and in space all around (with no focus, aka space-like awareness). The fruit of Mahamudra is a deep contact with interdependence. Whereas, in Goenka’s method one just focuses on the sensations in a small area of the body from the head, slowly scanning down to the feet. This is fine, and as one gains skill in the Goenka method, I would think one would find it more effortless not to scan and just to rest the awareness throughout the body. That is, as long as one has gained the skill in meditation sufficient to maintain mindfulness of the whole body at once.
Okay so I just finished “Vipassana Meditation” by Goenka. One does the body sweeping until one can maintain concentration over the whole body. That’s what I thought.
Adamant
Dear Adamant,
I really appreciate your post. Thank you so much for your sharing and explaining your experience and research findings so carefully and enthousiastically. It’s inspiring and energizing.
The simpleness and non-sectarianness of the Vipassana practice is what attracted me to start exploring it (although actually with an infinitesmal understanding as without any conscious meditation experience). It gives me a good feeling to read your deep experiencebased reinforcement of this attraction I had from the first time I read about Vipassana.
The period in which I started posting on this forum has been one in which I’ve more and more felt an intense attraction towards exploring both AYP and Vipassana. Before reading your last post, I was actually spending the entire night reading yogani’s lessons.
I feel continuing exploring both the Vipassana and yogani paths is what’s most natural at this stage as choosing seems really difficult, and, I hope now, unnecessary. Of course, I understand true progress comes from focus and dedication; maybe exploring is what I need now to intensify focus and dedication later.
I’ve started meditating yesterday the way you recommended (starting with deep meditation, resting a bit and continuing with Daniel Ingram’s recommendations. I felt such inner peace and happiness whole day. It really seems as though this was exactly the right thing to do.
Would you recommend me to continue meditating this way (combining AYP and Vipassana?). And going for a Vipassana retreat as soon as is possible to learn the practice properly (depending on availability of retreats and on dayly life implementability)? Or start with AYP only until I’ve done a Vipassana retreat? What would be the best preparation for the Vipassana retreat? I’m especially concerned about the physical aspect of it (although I’m a young, healthy, quite athletic man, flexibility is rather weak; so long relaxation in one sitting posture seems unfeasible which maybe could do more physical damage than generate spiritual progress).
Ruben
Hi Adamant,
Yes, this is what my experiences and feelings have been as well. That is why I left mantra meditation for breath awareness at first, and then pure breath awareness to “just being”. In this just being or just sitting and being quiet, there is natural and spontaneous noticing. This is what I found. It is what comes more naturally, and so it seems self-regulated to fast progress with natural pacing.
I notice that in this “practice” there is a mix of samatha and vipassana (if we really have to use any concepts and terms at all). If I do feel too distracted with thoughts (which is not very often) I can always come back to the breath, and then naturally an awareness of whatever arises comes. I believe this is the basis of true insight/meditation, and it is not somethign we actually “do”. By just being (i.e. observing with no effort), the nature of reality is revealed to us. Because it just is there in plain sight to see, and we are aware of it. It can never not be IT.
All the best.
Hi Ruben, I do think AYP + a small vipassana session is very wonderful and provides a stable base. Then, you can do 10-day Goenka retreats from time to time. I think that would be great.
Adamant
Hi Yogaislife, I agree with you 100%.
Adamant
Hi Ruben,
I think it is fine to carry on as you are, combining AYP with the teachings of David Ingram (inquiry meditation). This is very much how I started with AYP, as I already had many years of dharma practice under my belt, and felt that it was very natural to combine the two.
If you are interested in a non-sectarian approach to the dharma then you may find that Goenka vipassana is not it. As you have already noticed, and I mentioned above, there are certain pre-requisites for joining retreats, and combining spiritual practices is not looked upon in a good light. If you were interested in taking that approach, then you may want to talk to the retreat managers and explain what you want to do.
But the first thing would be to go on a 10 day retreat so you can experience first hand what the teachings are and what the practices are. Anyone can join a 10 day retreat for the first time, whatever their spiritual background. That’s what they mean by non-sectarian. 
Christi
Hi Adamant,
With all due respect, I didn’t say that investigation into the impermanent nature of body-mind phenomena is not meditation. It is. What I said was that a body sweeping practice is more pratyahara than meditation. That is not to devalue the practice, it is just to put it in it’s own light.
With all due respect, actually my own foundation is in the Dharma. Everything else flows naturally and spontaneously from that.
You may not be aware of it, but the Goenka vipassana school used to have a direct crown chakra based practice. They had to take it out of their set of practices because too many people were experiencing premature kundalini awakenings and having severe problems in their lives.
Even now, the technique that they teach under the name “vipassana” has a significant crown chakra element, and friends of mine have ended up in serious trouble as a result of following the practice on a daily basis as it is taught.
These days we have more knowledge than in the past, which means that people do not need to suffer as they have done. It can be a choice. This is one of the significant advances that AYP has brought to the spiritual field, an understanding of the complexities of the crown chakra, and how it functions in relation to the spiritual path.
Christi
Hi Christi, That all seems fine. But the body sweeping is just a preliminary exercise. It is described as a practice to accomplish full body mindfulness, which is the real practice. I don’t think that is a pratyahara. Pratyahara is part of shamatha. Rather, it is vipassana, because one is aware of the arising and passing away of impermanent gross and subtle sensations that precede or accompany mental events. If you combine with anapasati, one has a complete path to purify active and latent habits. It is really very concise and simple.
I don’t know what the Goenka culture is like in terms of sectarian. Goenka repeats often that breath yoga and body mindfulness is non-sectarian. That is true. However, Goenka does say things like mantras and visualizations are sectarian. That also might be true in a sense, but is also sectarian to say that. On the other hand, his comments that mantra and visualizations create a comforter cover for one’s “stuff” stored in the unconscious is also true. Vipassana is about stirring up the stuff and resolving each bit on the spot, pleasant or painful. The Goenka method is a sharp scalpel. His students might be a little dull, I don’t know. In a retreat, one practices a method not a community. If I was Ruben, I would just keep my personal daily practice to myself and take advantage of a great method and opportunity to practice in a nice retreat place.
I didn’t read anything about a crown practice. That would be weird, because the Buddha never mentioned chakras even once and Goenka’s methods correspond to the suttas. That may have to do with dwelling too long at the top of the head during “sweeping.” One should only be sweeping for a day or two to get the hang of body mindfulness. I certainly don’t think anyone needs to be scared of vipassana. The Buddha’s methods are wonderfully blessed.
I would revise the “noting” practice of Daniel Ingram’s style to just noticing. Noting is too much work. When doing AYP, one basically accomplishes full body mindfulness, so sweeping is unnecessary.
Adamant
Dear YogaIsLife, Christi and Adamant,
Thank all of you for continuing posting, reacting and sharing insightful advice. The profound understanding that sparkles from your words continues to inspire.
Meditation practices bring peace, no-reason happiness and joy in daily life, and, maybe best of all: a feeling of connectedness with friends, family and surroundings. Feeling blessed for that.
Ruben
For vipassana read Daniel Ingrams masterpiece mastering the core teachings of the buddha. It can be read for free at his website and most who read it progress a lot faster after reading it.
Any grounding problem with Vipassana can easily be mitigated by doing embracing the tree or something like that for 10-15 minutes a day. That in itself is a great meditation and energy practice.
Hi Markern,
Thanks for suggestions! I downloaded Ingram’s ebook already and started reading. Find it very interesting indeed! (Thanks to Adamant also for recommending this ebook!)
Haven’t heard of “embracing the tree” before. Found a previous post of yours where you mentioned it too. Is this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fBszKqshWk&feature=related) what you mean? This actually reminds me of a girl who once spontaneously literally embraced a tree in high school. At that time this seemed a bit weird to most of the people seeing this (including me, admittedly). Now, I think she is someone very spiritually gifted with a deep sense of intuition and compassion.
Ruben
You sound quite interesed in the practice of Burmese vipassana meditation. If you are, you may be interested in going on a retreat, where you would learn much more about it. The retreats that I have done were in the U.K. but there are retreat centres all over the world.
Following the instructions given during the retreats, you will find that the attention is brought repeatedly to the crown chakra at the top of the head. Also, the body sweeping (involving the attention being brought to the crown on each sweep through the body) is not just for a couple of days. It is for most of the retreat. These are things that you should bear in mind if you are sensitive to practices. If you are already stable at the crown chakra, then it will be of no concern.
All the best,
Christi
You’re welcome, and good luck with it all. 
Christi
Hi Markern,
Thanks for suggestions! I downloaded Ingram’s ebook already and started reading. Find it very interesting indeed! (Thanks to Adamant also for recommending this ebook!)
Haven’t heard of “embracing the tree” before. Found a previous post of yours where you mentioned it too. Is this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fBszKqshWk&feature=related) what you mean? This actually reminds me of a girl who once spontaneously literally embraced a tree in high school. At that time this seemed a bit weird to most of the people seeing this (including me, admittedly). Now, I think she is someone very spiritually gifted with a deep sense of intuition and compassion.
Ruben
I think it is but I will have to listen to what she says first and see the whole video and now I only have a minute but I will get back to you on it. Various qigong stances, and martial stances, deep horse stance for example and Chias Iron Shirt poses in addition to embracing the tree will root energy in a powerfull way I have never found any asana to come close to doing. If you do this enough it acts as a counterforce making it quite easy to balance out excess crown activity. I think AYP, despite being a really superb system in most ways taht I recomend people to try, lacks a serious grounding practice and this is why avoidance of the crown is so important in AYP but not necesarilly in all other systems. In KAP for example there is a lot of direct crown work only some weeks into the beginners course but I have not seen one person have problems with it. This is because KAP has several very powerfull grounding and rooting practices to counterbalance. It is probably THE most grounded system I have read feedback about. So I think the often reapeated advice from AYP people to stay away from the crown, although correct in the case of AYP and several other systems, is not generally correct. I think what should be the next development in AYP should be proper grounding techniques. At present it does not have them. People in AYP seem to stay within the safety zone, which is the most important, but still to be struggling quite a lot with being too ungrounded. Being somwhat ungrounded is both hihgly uncomfortable and psychologically highly unbalancing and so important to avoid. Just aiming for basic safety is not enough IMO. Also a lot of people do not really understand that they are ungrounded before they have done some powerfull grounding techniques for a good amount of time. They are just so used to being fluffy without having a contrast they don`t see that they are ungrounded as long as they are only moderately so. Which techniques would fit best into AYP I don`t know but as far as I have seen from others and my own experience various qigong stances for grounding works well along side practices from other traditions in grounding energy. Precisely done belly breathing also gets energy down quite well. But this is not just focusing on the breath but conciously breathing exactly correct deep down in the belly. As long as you do grounding work enough to feel very grounded and that you have developed the ability to within a few minutes push/sink your energy deep into the earth and hold it there, you can do a lot of work high up without much risk because you can get the energy down within minutes instead of weeks or months which is what often happens without a powerfull grounding technique. If you early on develop this abiltiy you do not have to do much maintanance to keep it alive. You want to get to where you can voluntary move energy down or up and keep it at the prefered location quickly. Starting out it takes a loooong time to get energy down and develop real root but once you have it not much needs to be done to get solidly earthy any time one is tipped of balance. All the advice on walking in the woods and physcial labour etc. is good enough but takes about 30 times as long as a proper energetic technique. I would also think that Mahasi style Vipassana avoids these problems better as they usually focus on the breath in the abdomen not sweeping and they also include walking meditation with awareness at the bottom of the feet. If you want to do Vipassana I highly advice you to try out the secret smile as a warm up or finishing part of meditation as it smooths things out a lot and balances your mind in a very good way and helps a lot in awakening kundalini and will help depth in meditation as well. If you deceide to do AYP it might be better not to use it as it can add up to be too much.
Hi Christi, have many hours of free time in my professional life, so I’ve been testing it out at my home retreat room. The body sweeping is not my thing. That’s too much work for me. I have enough experience to allow my attention to embrace my whole body at once while following the breath. The body sweeping is just mindfulness training. The key cool feature I like about it is the emphasis on honing in on the vedana/sensations that attend emotion and thought. This is the best way to short circuit or de-link negativities. I think I will try a retreat at some point. I don’t mind crown practice. In Vajrayana every visualization happens “above your crown, on lotus, sun and moon, on a jewel throne sit X.”
Adamant
Hi markern,
Thanks for your suggestions. I have tried embracing the tree; it makes me feel quiet but I also get some sensations between the ears, as with meditation.
This is the first time I hear about KAP. Are you combining AYP and KAP?
Ruben
Hi Markern,
Thanks for suggestions! I downloaded Ingram’s ebook already and started reading. Find it very interesting indeed! (Thanks to Adamant also for recommending this ebook!)
Haven’t heard of “embracing the tree” before. Found a previous post of yours where you mentioned it too. Is this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fBszKqshWk&feature=related) what you mean? This actually reminds me of a girl who once spontaneously literally embraced a tree in high school. At that time this seemed a bit weird to most of the people seeing this (including me, admittedly). Now, I think she is someone very spiritually gifted with a deep sense of intuition and compassion.
Ruben
I think it is but I will have to listen to what she says first and see the whole video and now I only have a minute but I will get back to you on it. Various qigong stances, and martial stances, deep horse stance for example and Chias Iron Shirt poses in addition to embracing the tree will root energy in a powerfull way I have never found any asana to come close to doing. If you do this enough it acts as a counterforce making it quite easy to balance out excess crown activity. I think AYP, despite being a really superb system in most ways taht I recomend people to try, lacks a serious grounding practice and this is why avoidance of the crown is so important in AYP but not necesarilly in all other systems. In KAP for example there is a lot of direct crown work only some weeks into the beginners course but I have not seen one person have problems with it. This is because KAP has several very powerfull grounding and rooting practices to counterbalance. It is probably THE most grounded system I have read feedback about. So I think the often reapeated advice from AYP people to stay away from the crown, although correct in the case of AYP and several other systems, is not generally correct. I think what should be the next development in AYP should be proper grounding techniques. At present it does not have them. People in AYP seem to stay within the safety zone, which is the most important, but still to be struggling quite a lot with being too ungrounded. Being somwhat ungrounded is both hihgly uncomfortable and psychologically highly unbalancing and so important to avoid. Just aiming for basic safety is not enough IMO. Also a lot of people do not really understand that they are ungrounded before they have done some powerfull grounding techniques for a good amount of time. They are just so used to being fluffy without having a contrast they don`t see that they are ungrounded as long as they are only moderately so. Which techniques would fit best into AYP I don`t know but as far as I have seen from others and my own experience various qigong stances for grounding works well along side practices from other traditions in grounding energy. Precisely done belly breathing also gets energy down quite well. But this is not just focusing on the breath but conciously breathing exactly correct deep down in the belly. As long as you do grounding work enough to feel very grounded and that you have developed the ability to within a few minutes push/sink your energy deep into the earth and hold it there, you can do a lot of work high up without much risk because you can get the energy down within minutes instead of weeks or months which is what often happens without a powerfull grounding technique. If you early on develop this abiltiy you do not have to do much maintanance to keep it alive. You want to get to where you can voluntary move energy down or up and keep it at the prefered location quickly. Starting out it takes a loooong time to get energy down and develop real root but once you have it not much needs to be done to get solidly earthy any time one is tipped of balance. All the advice on walking in the woods and physcial labour etc. is good enough but takes about 30 times as long as a proper energetic technique. I would also think that Mahasi style Vipassana avoids these problems better as they usually focus on the breath in the abdomen not sweeping and they also include walking meditation with awareness at the bottom of the feet. If you want to do Vipassana I highly advice you to try out the secret smile as a warm up or finishing part of meditation as it smooths things out a lot and balances your mind in a very good way and helps a lot in awakening kundalini and will help depth in meditation as well. If you deceide to do AYP it might be better not to use it as it can add up to be too much.
Dear Adamant,
I’ve been reading “The Discourse Summaries” myself now. Deep wisdom. Reading the book itself calms the mind profoundly. Thank you for recommending and praising these teachings. More than ever calm feeling that going for a Vipassana retreat is highly valuable.
“May all beings be happy”,
Ruben