VIPASSANA

Every human seeks peace and harmony in their life. We experience many negative emotions throughout our lives... agitation, irritation, disharmony, suffering. These make us suffer but this does not remain limited to ourselves, this negativity tends to permeate around us and in society at large. Everyone who comes into contact with us also becomes irritated or agitated. This certainly is not a very healthy and desirable state to live in.

One should at peace with oneself, and also at peace with all others. Humans are social beings who constantly deal with other humans in the society. Thus necessitates a peaceful life. But how do we remain in harmony with ourselves, and to maintain peace around us, so that the entire atmosphere around us can be peaceful and harmonious?

Vipasana, is an ancient Indian technique of meditation that serves as a universal remedy for universal ills. It comes from the Sanskrit word passana, meant seeing with open eyes. Vipasana is seeing things as they really are, not just as they seem to be. It is a technique of self-transformation through self-observation.

This technique aims for the complete removal of mental impurities and thus gain the highest happiness. It focuses on the deep interconnection between mind and body, and seeks to observe this connection to dissolve the mental impurity. This results in a balanced mind filled with love and compassion.

When one experiences negative emotions, one has to know the basic reason or cause of the suffering. Generally upon exploring the matter, it becomes clear that people become negative when people or things are not to their liking or dont go according to plans. These things create tension within ourselves and such reactions to people or circumstances keep occurring throughout life, which means that we are constantly in this process of creating tensions within ourselves. This makes our existence so surrounded by negativity that we become miserable.

One must face these problems in life. Whenever negativity arises in the mind, just observe it and face it. As soon as one starts observing, the negativity begins to disintegrate till it is completely broken down.

But how do we know when negativity has begun arising in us? Now, whenever any such things arise in the mind, they find their manifestation at the physical level too. Two things begin to happen, firstly the breath loses normalcy, breathing becomes hard. Also some reaction or some sensation starts within the body. First is rather easy to observe and the latter can also be observed with careful attention.

Respiration and sensation help in warning us that something has gone wrong. If we act upon this warning and start observing our respiration and sensation, we find very quickly that the negativity passes away. Thus by observing these physical manifestations we address the negativity.

We learn to face reality as it is and the negativity loses its strength, and it ceases to overpower us. Further persistence, eventually makes it disappear totally, and we become peaceful and happy.

This way, we do not need to seek outside for the cause of our unhappiness. With experience one can be aware of the breathing and also of what is happening within. So one does not spread ones negativity around but instead lets that just pass away. The more one practices this technique, the more quickly one will find one will come out of negativity. Gradually the mind becomes free and pure, a mind always full of selfless love and compassion.

A Vipassana meditator becomes more sensitive to the sufferings of others, and does his utmost to relieve their suffering in whatever way he can, not with any agitation but with a mind full of love, compassion and equanimity.

This is Buddhas teaching and an art of living.

He taught just to observe nature as it is, by observing reality inside. Out of ignorance, one keeps reacting in a way that is harmful to oneself and to others. But upon gaining wisdom of observing the reality as it is, one come out of this habit of reaction. When one ceases to react blindly, then one is capable of real action, action proceeding from a balanced mind, a mind which sees and understands the truth. Such action can only be positive, creative, helpful to oneself and to others.

What is necessary, then, is to 'know thyself'. This alone is will help us to come out of negativities, misery and suffering.

There are three steps in Vipasana. Firstly, one must abstain from any action, physical or vocal, which disturbs the peace and harmony of others. One cannot work to liberate oneself from defilements in the mind while at the same time one continues to perform deeds of body and speech which only multiply those defilements. Therefore, a code of morality is the essential first step of the practice. One undertakes not to kill, not to steal, not to commit sexual misconduct, not to tell lies, and not to use intoxicants. By abstaining from such action, one allows the mind to quiet down sufficiently so that it can proceed with the task at hand.

The next step is to develop some mastery over this wild mind, by training it to remain fixed on a single object: the breath. One tries to keep one's attention for as long as possible on the respiration. This is not a breathing exercise: one does not regulate the breath. Instead one observes natural respiration as it is, as it comes in, as it goes out. In this way one further calms the mind so that it is no longer overpowered by violent negativities. At the same time, one is concentrating the mind, making it sharp and penetrating, capable of the work of insight.

These first two steps of living a moral life and controlling the mind are very necessary and beneficial in themselves; but they will lead to self-repression, unless one takes the third step - purifying the mind of defilements by developing insight into one's own nature. This is Vipasana, experiencing one's own reality, by the systematic and dispassionate observation of the ever-changing mind-matter phenomenon manifesting itself as sensation within oneself. This is the essence of the teaching of the Buddha - self-purification by self-observation.

This can be practiced by one and all. Everyone faces the problem of suffering. It is a universal disease that requires a universal remedy - not a sectarian one. When one suffers from anger, it is not a Buddhist anger, Hindu anger, or Christian anger. Anger is anger. When one becomes agitated as a result of this anger, this agitation is not Christian, or Hindu, or Buddhist. The malady is universal. The remedy must also be universal.