Master of Meditation : An Interview with S.N. Goenka

by Stephan Bodian

The following article was written by Stephan Bodian, editor of Yoga Journal (Berkeley, California). It appeared in the September/October 1989 issue of the magazine, and is reprinted here in its entirety.

Next to the Dalai Lama, S.N. Goenka may be the Asian Buddhist teacher best known in the West. Several prominent American teachers have studied with him; he makes periodic visits to Europe, Australia, and the United States; and hundreds flock each year from all over the world to attend his ten-day and one-month meditation courses near Bombay.

Yet Goenka, though he claims to teach what the Buddha taught, does not call himself a Buddhist. "The Dhamma is universal and non-sectarian," he insists. In a country torn by differences of caste and belief, this ecumenical message is like salve on an open wound. Hindu temples, Christian churches, Buddhist retreat centers, and a Muslim mosque have hosted his meditation courses, and hundreds of Christian priests, monks, and nuns have studied with him as a required part of their pastoral training.

What Goenka imparts to his students is called Vipassana, often translated as insight meditation. Learned from the great Burmese master U Ba Khin, Goenka's version of this ancient technique emphasizes three aspects: moral behavior, to encourage the mind to settle; mastery of the mind through concentration on the breath; and Vipassana proper, purification of the mind through insight into one's physical and mental structure. Following in the Buddha's footsteps, Goenka claims that this is a direct path to eradicating the threefold source of all suffering: craving, aversion, and ignorance.

Nothing about Goenka's upbringing would seem to have prepared him to be a teacher of Vipassana. Born to an Indian family that had settled in Burma two generations before, Goenka was taught the elaborate rites and rituals of conservative Hinduism. As a youth he was groomed to enter the family textile business, which he did while still in his teens, and by his mid-20s he had become an extremely successful businessman and a leader of the Indian community in Burma.

But success brought with it "a lot of ego, a lot of tension," as he puts it, and he began to suffer from severe migraine headaches, for which no cure could be found except morphine. Afraid of becoming an addict, Goenka sought medical care in Europe, America, Japan, but to no avail. Then a friend suggested he take a ten-day Vipassana course with U Ba Khin, who, in addition to being a meditation master, held high government office as the Accountant-General of Burma.

"I was hesitant initially," Goenka recalls, "partially because I could not believe this meditation could help when the best doctors could not, and partially because it was Buddhist, and I come from a very staunch Hindu family." But meeting U Ba Khin changed his mind.

"He was such a saintly person. The atmosphere around him was so calm and serene, just meeting him for a few minutes persuaded me to give this technique a try." The results were dramatic, and thoroughly convinced Goenka of the value of Vipassana.

"Of course, it gave me relief for my migraine. But the biggest relief was that the stress and strain and tension that I used to build up because of my ego - all that got released." Once a "short-tempered person," Goenka found that he now got along much better with his family and staff. Dogmas and rituals became "trivial" as he came to see that the Dhamma is not a religion but an "art of living, the art of living peacefully and harmoniously within oneself and of generating nothing but peace and harmony for others."

For the next fourteen years, Goenka practised regularly with U Ba Khin - when he wasn't attending to the responsibilities of business and family. Then in 1969 he moved to India, where, with the encouragement of his teacher, he began teaching courses in Vipassana. Since 1976, Goenka has been based at the Vipassana International Academy in Igatpuri, near Bombay. Built entirely with the donations of grateful students, this center boasts a meditation hall that seats over 400, with individual meditation cells for over 250. Centres have also been established near three other Indian cities and in Nepal, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, England, France, and the U.S. In all, approximately one hundred assistant instructors authorized by Goenka teach this approach without charge or personal profit to all who request it.

A teddy bear of a man in his mid-sixties, Goenka gives every impresson of being "the real thing" - one who has faithfully followed the path he espouses and has achieved the happiness and equanimity of which he speaks. During our interview, his voice never betrays the slightest agitation, exuberance, irritation or concern. Rather, it exudes the quiet, steady warmth and serenity one would expect of a master of one of the world's oldest forms of meditation.

Yoga Journal: In a recent interview, you are quoted as saying, "To me, Hinduism and Buddhism are both madness."

S.N. Goenka: One thing is clear: for me, Dhamma is universal; it can never be sectarian. The life of morality [s²la] cannot be a monopoly of Hindus or Buddhists or Christians. All must live a moral life, doing nothing at the physical or vocal level to harm other beings.

Nor can mastering the mind [samādhi] and keeping it pure and free from all negativities [paññā; pronounced "pahn-ya" ] be a monopoly of any sect or religion. These three [s²la, samādhi, and paññā] are what constitute the Dhamma, the teachings of the Buddha. So the Dhamma is universal. When I teach this approach, I don't call it Buddhist, because "Buddhism" is a loaded word, like Hinduism, Jainism, Christianity. It refers to a sect, whereas what I am teaching is universal. For me, sects divide; Dhamma unites. When I used the word "madness," I was referring to the situation in India and Sri Lanka, where Hindus are killing Buddhists, and Buddhists are killing Hindus. Even beautiful Dhamma has turned into a sect and become poisonous and fanatical, and the essence of Dhamma has been lost. When one is teaching pure Dhamma, there can't be any madness.

Could you say a little more about the Dhamma? What is this Dhamma you teach?

The Dhamma is the law of nature which governs the entire universe, both animate and inanimate. If one understands the laws of nature and works in accord with them, one leads a good and proper life. Now, Dhamma wants us not to kill, not to steal, not to tell lies, not to engage in sexual misconduct, and not to get intoxicated [the five basic precepts for lay Buddhists]. At the surface level these are actually laws of society, rather than laws of nature, because they contribute to the peace and harmony of society.

But when you start practising Vipassana, deep inside you understand that every time you break any of these precepts, even before you harm others, you have started harming yourself. You can't kill without generating a lot of anger or hatred in your mind. And as soon as you generate hatred or ill will, indeed any negativity, nature starts punishing you, and you become miserable. When you generate anger, you can't possibly experience peace and harmony. You feel so agitated, so miserable.

Similarly, every precept that is broken creates agitation in the mind and makes one miserable. Maybe nature continues to punish us after death; I believe it does. But nature definitely punishes us here and now. This is the law. I place my hand in the fire, and it burns. If I want to keep myself free from burning, I had better keep myself away from fire. So s²la [morality or precepts] is practised not just to oblige the society, but for one's own sake, to keep oneself peaceful and harmonious.

When these negativities are removed and the mind becomes calm, quiet, and pure, the law of nature is such that a pure mind naturally becomes filled with love, compassion, goodwill. One does not have to cultivate these virtues deliberately; they develop quite naturally. And as soon as I develop love, compassion, and goodwill in my mind, nature starts rewarding me then and there. I feel so peaceful, so harmonious. The reward for a pure mind and the punishment for an impure mind are universal. It works the same for Buddhists, Hindus, Christians and Jews. Because I call myself a Buddhist, nature will not favor me. The Dhamma is universal.

Another way in which Dhamma is universal is that, in the practice of samādhi, controlling or concentrating the mind, the object of concentration is the breath. No verbalization, no recitation of a name or mantra, no visualization of a god or goddess. Just natural breath that comes in and goes out. Now, this too can be practised without any difficulty by a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian, or a Jain. Breath is breath. It's a natural reality that is present in every being.

In the practice of paññā [wisdom] mind and matter work, how they interact. When we generate negativity, an unpleasant sensation arises in the body and we become miserable. When we come out of that negativity, we start experiencing peace, and we start helping others because we are being helped ourselves. All this can be done easily by a person of any sect, because no dogma or philosophy or symbolism is involved, just the law of nature. You are just observing nature, which is the same for everyone. So, in my own experience of all three aspects, s²la, samādhi, and paññā, I have found that Dhamma is universal.

Much of what you have been describing sounds like the law of karma, the law of cause and effect. If this law is indeed universal, I wonder why all the different religions don't teach it.

Not only other religions, but Buddhism as well. Over the centuries the teachings of Buddha have also been corrupted, and the various Buddhist sects have started giving importance to rites, rituals, sectarian beliefs, dogmas, and all kinds of different philosophies. But the essence of Dhamma is always universal. If the essence of Dhamma is lost, then every teaching degenerates into sectarian belief. We can't blame any one religion only. Every religion has degenerated into an empty shell; the essence of Dhamma has been lost everywhere.

But if we understand what the essence of Dhamma is, then there is no difference between one religion and another. Large numbers of people come to my Vipassana courses from different religions, and they find it so beneficial. At the end of one course, a Christian priest told me that I am teaching Christianity in the name of Buddha. At the end of another, a Jain monk said, "This is the essence of our teaching, which we have lost. This is what we are looking for." Hindus, Jews, Muslims, they all say the same thing, because nobody can find any defect in pure Dhamma. It is always acceptable by one and all.

Could you say a little about the Four Noble Truths?

Again, these are so universal. Nobody can deny the First Noble Truth, the reality of suffering. Association with undesirables [undesirable objects, people, situations] and disassociation from desirables bring suffering. So the First Noble Truth, the truth of suffering of misery, is universal. The Second Noble Truth, the cause of misery, looks different from the inside and from the outside. It seems that I am miserable because something happened outside that I didn't want to happen, or something didn't happen according to my wishes. But deep inside, everyone can realize that the misery I am suffering is caused by my reaction of craving or aversion. I like something, and I generate craving. I dislike something, and I generate aversion. This Second Noble Truth is common to all.

So, too, the way to come out of misery is common to all, because you have to eradicate the root of your misery, where craving and aversion start. At a gross level, a good way to do that is to practise s²la - that is, don't perform any action, physical or verbal, that will disturb or harm other beings, because simultaneously it will harm you. Then work with samādhi; control your mind. But mere control is not sufficient; you must go deep and purify your mind. Once it is purified, craving and aversion are gone, and you have reached the stage where there is no misery at all. It's all so scientific; people accept it so easily. Of course, if we keep fighting over dogma, difficulties arise. But I say, just practise and see: Are you suffering or not? Isn't this the cause of the suffering? And isn't it eradicated by practising in this way?

You talk about Vipassana meditation. What are the techniques of Vipassana, as you teach it?

The technique of Vipassana is to observe the truth of suffering within oneself, how one becomes agitated, irritated, miserable. One has to go deep within oneself to observe it objectively. Otherwise, the cause of misery always appears to be outside. Say, for example, that I'm angry, and I want to investigate this anger. Even if I close my eyes and try to understand it, the apparent external cause of the anger will keep coming to mind, and I will keep justifying my behavior. "So and so abused me, so and so insulted me, and that is why I am angry. It's no fault of mine." But the fact is, I am miserable.

The technique of Vipassana teaches you just to observe. If you are miserable, just observe misery as misery. As you start observing, the cause of misery becomes clear. Because you reacted with negativity, with craving or aversion, you are now experiencing a very unpleasant sensation in the body. But as you keep observing the sensation, it loses its strength and passes away, and the negativity passes with it.

We start with respiration because the mind doesn't become concentrated unless it has an object to focus on. For the first three days of the retreat, we observe the breath coming and going at the entrance of the nostrils. As the mind calms down a bit, we start experiencing the sensations around the nostrils and then expand to experience the sensations throughout the body. These sensations take us to the root of our minds. They take us to the root of the misery, to the root of the cause of misery, and they help us to eradicate that cause. This is what is taught in Vipassana.

If I'm not mistaken, the technique of observing sensations throughout the body is called "sweeping."

Yes, sweeping in the sense that, at a certain stage, all the solidity of the body dissolves. The apparent truth of the material body is solidity. We feel a solid body. But, as you keep observing it objectively, this solidity starts dissolving, and you start experiencing that the entire material structure is nothing but a mass of subatomic particles arising and passing away, arising and passing away. The entire body is just a mass of vibrations. At first, however, when you are still with the solidity, you can't sweep, can't get a flow of vibration throughout the body, because there are blockages here and there - pain, pressure, heaviness. Instead, you keep observing part by part, and little by little all that solidity dissolves, and you reach the stage of total dissolution, mere vibration. Then your attention can move easily from the head to the feet and back again without any obstruction. This is what I refer to as "sweeping."

So sweeping occurs when you are totally clear.

Totally - when there is no blockage anywhere. The Buddha says: "By this technique, a student learns how to feel the entire body in one breath. Breathing in, you feel the entire body. Breathing out, you feel the entire body." This happens only when the body dissolves, when all solidity disappears. Then as you breathe out, you feel from head to feet; as you breathe in, you feel from feet to head. That is what we call sweeping - a stage where the body dissolves and intense mental contents dissolve as well. If there are strong emotions, you can't get this sweeping, because strong emotions result in a feeling of solidity in the body. When emotions are dissolved at the mental level, and the solidity of the body is dissolved at the material level, nothing remains but a mass of vibration, a mass of energy moving in the body.

Ideally, one would be able to do this at all times, throughout the day.

Yes. Once one reaches this stage, one continues to work with sweeping. But certain conditionings or impurities of the past, called saªkhāras, may exist at a very deep level of the mind. Through this sweeping, moving from head to feet and feet to head, these impurities get shaken and start coming to the surface. Say a certain saªkhāra manifests itself as gross sensations in the body. You work on these gross sensations by just observing them, until they too dissolve and you again get a free flow.

The goal of this technique is not to achieve the free flow of vibrations, which is after all just another transitory experience, but to accept with equanimity whatever manifests itself. In this way, you eradicate your mental conditioning layer by layer, and along with it your suffering.

How is this practice different from other forms of Vipassana?

I don't want to give any opinions about others. But as I understand the teachings of the Buddha in the Satipaµµhāna Sutta and elsewhere, the starting point can be different for different people, but at a certain stage everyone must follow the same path towards nibbāna.

At the start of practice, Buddha gave different objects of meditation to different people, according to their mental conditioning, temperament, understanding, and capability. For example, those who have great attachment to the body and to the passions of the body, Buddha would have contemplate a corpse, so they would come to understand that their body is also like that - made up of flesh and bones and blood and pus and mucus and so forth. Someone who is so attached to the body doesn't want to accept that the body is dirty, after all. What, then, would there be to develop an attachment toward?

One can start this way, but eventually one must reach the stage where one experiences anicca, impermanence, how things arise and pass away. This arising and passing away should not be accepted at the intellectual or devotional level only; Buddha wanted us to experience it for ourselves. And it can be experienced only with sensation in the body. At the level of sensation, one finds, "Look, it has arisen, and look, it has passed away." Sensation arises, passes away; arises, passes away. When it is solidified, intensified, it arises and seems to stay for a while; but sooner or later it passes away.

When all solidity dissolves, it turns into subtle vibration, and every vibration becomes a wavelet that arises and passes away. So one experiences both solid sensation and subtle sensation arising and passing, arising and passing. Unless one experiences this directly, one hasn't understood the Buddha properly. Even before the Buddha, there were those who taught that the whole universe is impermanent, arising and passing. But Buddha discovered a technique by which one can experience it. And when we experience it, attachment, craving, and aversion go away, and the mind becomes purified. At a later stage, arising and passing occur so rapidly that one can't separate the one from the other. Then, after further purification of the mind, one reaches the stage of nibbāna. Whether one starts with contemplating a corpse, the material parts of the body, respiration, or some other object, the rest of the path must be the same.

So this is why you stress mindfulness of sensation, as opposed to mindfulness of mental states.

Exactly. According to Buddha, whatever arises in the mind manifests itself as a sensation in the body. People don't give enough importance to this teaching. If you just observe mental states, that will help you to perfect your faculty of observation. But that is not the totality of the truth. You are observing only your own thoughts. But what is happening to the body at that time? Mind and matter - both have to be observed.

When a thought arises, simultaneously there is a sensation in the body. And the sensation is actually the root of the problem. We don't react to thoughts. It may appear that, when I have a very pleasant thought in my mind, I start craving, and when I have a very unpleasant thought in my mind, I start to develop aversion. In fact, however, according to the law of nature, what you call a pleasant thought is nothing but a pleasant sensation in the body. Displeasure is nothing but an unpleasant sensation in the body. If you miss the sensation, you are just working at the surface level. This may give you some benefit, but it won't take you to where you eradicate your impurities. The roots still remain.

So when you are meditating, and you have a lot of mental turbulence…

Start observing the sensation in the body, and accept the fact that there is turbulence in the mind. That's all. Don't go into the details of the turbulence, and don't try to forcibly calm it down. Otherwise, you'll end up rolling around in your thoughts and not observing them objectively.

As you observe your sensation, you will find that your mind automatically calms down. Negativity is not suppressed, nor do you express it at the physical or vocal level. It just gets eradicated. If you observe the sensations with equanimity, without reacting to them, then you are purifying your mind at the deepest level. Otherwise you purify your mind at the surface level only.

Many of these ideas, which are classic Dharma, foreshadow the insights of modern mind-body theorists. For example, the German psychologist Wilhelm Reich believed that past conditioning is stored in the body and can be released by working at the physical level. And Carl Jung, the Swiss psychologist, believed that the unconscious exists in the body.

Quite so. The so-called unconscious mind is constantly reacting to the body's sensations, while the conscious mind has no idea what is happening. There is a big barrier. The conscious mind may not know what the unconscious is doing. This technique breaks the barrier between the conscious and the unconscious. Then one becomes aware of everything that is happening in the body. Little sensations here or there that the conscious mind would not otherwise have felt, it now feels. And this technique trains the mind not to react. At the root level, the unconscious mind has always reacted with craving and aversion, and this influences the conscious mind as well. The entire structure of the mind is influenced by the root. Buddha teaches us that, if we rectify things at the root, the entire mind will become perfectly all right.

Unless the sleeping impurities at the root of the mind are eradicated, one can't call oneself an enlightened person. To me, Buddha's contribution to meditation was this technique by which the unconscious impurities are eradicated. Otherwise, the unconscious mind will always be reacting to the body sensations.

We've talked quite a bit about anicca, impermanence. What about the teaching of anattā, which is ordinarily understood as "no self" or "no abiding self" ? Ordinarily we think that we need a self in order to function in the world. We have expressions like "self-esteem" and "self-confidence," and we believe that "ego strength" is a measure of a person's ability to cope with daily life. What does this "no self" teaching mean?

For those who haven't experienced the stage of "no self," it's true that in the apparent world there must be an ego, and this ego must be stimulated. If I don't crave something, I won't get the stimulation I need to function. In my courses, whenever I say that craving and attachment are harmful, people say that if there were no attachment, no craving, what would be the fun of living? There would be no life. We'd all be like vegetables.

Being a family man who has done business in the world, I can understand their concerns. But I also understand that when you work with this technique and reach the stage where the ego dissolves, the capacity to work increases many-fold. When you lead a very ego-centered life, your whole attitude is to do as much as possible for yourself. But this attitude makes you so tense that you feel miserable. When, as a result of doing Vipassana, the ego dissolves, then by nature the mind is full of love, compassion, and goodwill. You feel like working, not only for your own benefit, but for the benefit of all. When the narrow-minded ego stimulation goes away, you feel so much more relaxed, and so much more capable of working. This is my own experience, and the experience of so many who have walked on this path.

This technique does not make you inactive. A responsible person in society is full of action. What goes away is the habit of blind reaction. When you work with reaction, you generate misery. When you work without reaction, you generate positive feeling.

How do you recommend that people use this technique in their daily lives?

The first thing is to strengthen and perfect s²la, morality. The five precepts we teach - no killing, no stealing, no sexual misconduct, no lying, not becoming intoxicated - are the base. Once one starts slipping in any of these, samādhi becomes weak, and paññā becomes shallow. You can't work at the level of your sensations; you just end up playing intellectual games at the surface of the mind. But if s²la is strong, you can start going to the depths of the mind. And then, when you've gone to the depths and eradicated even some of the impurities, s²la and samādhi are both strengthened. All three help each other.

The next thing is this: while you're working, give all your attention to your work. This is your meditation at that time. But when you're free, even for five minutes, be aware of your sensations with open eyes. Whenever you have nothing else to do, observe your sensations. This will give you strength while you are going about your tasks. This is how people can use this technique in their daily life.

What about enlightenment. Where does enlightenment figure into all of this?

To me, enlightenment is progressive. It is because of ignorance that we keep on reacting deep inside with craving and aversion. When we come to understand that we are craving in reaction to a pleasant sensation and feeling aversion in reaction to an unpleasant sensation, then we have become enlightened to that reality. As we proceed, this reality becomes clearer and clearer, which means that enlightenment is increasing. And as we explore this path of arising and passing, arising and passing, we experience something that is beyond arising and passing, which we call nibbāna.

So enlightenment is the experience of a stage beyond arising and passing.

Yes, final, complete enlightenment is the experience beyond mind and matter, beyond the entire sensorium. All sense faculties stop working there. Eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, mind - they cannot function. For all practical purposes, one is like a dead person. But deep inside one is aware. How one is aware, and what one is aware of, cannot be explained in words, because the experience is beyond the sensory field.

So a person like this doesn't function in the world.

Yes, while one is in that state - for a second, or a few minutes, or maybe even a few hours - one does not function. Then one comes back to the sensory field, but one is totally changed. Because now one understands everything at the experiential level.

Having had that experience, a person would then lead a very different life.

Yes. That is an important yardstick for measuring whether one is enlightened or not. Otherwise anybody can say, "I reached this or that stage." But the only way to judge is to examine how they lead their life.