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Vipassana: others, such as Thai Forest, Goenka, etc.

Stream entry using pure Goenka technique

Has anyone attained stream entry using pure Goenka technique?

My question hinges on the meaning of "pure". The Goenka tradition strongly discourages "mixing techniques". I can see three ways of doing this -- previous exposure, during a course, and subsequently -- arranged along a spectrum from inadvertent to deliberate.

In the first case, if someone has previously practiced in another tradition and/or has developed skills and/or habits and/or insights, these may bleed through and crop up or condition the practice of the Goenka Vipassana technique. Even a prior A&P or PCE event would surely influence how the Goenka technique is received or applied. Would this compromise it's "purity"? Is "purity" even possible from this point of view?

The second case is deliberately (or perhaps inadvertently, but that is more subtle) failing to follow instructions during a course, or doing something other than or contrary to the instructions during a course, and attaining stream entry. I am not asking here about the distinction between morality based on obedience versus morality based on responsibility (although that obviously bears on the questions of sila, kamma, etc.,) but rather trying to determine in a pragmatic way what leads to what.

The third case is having trained in the Goenka technique, then going on to altering the instructions, rejecting them, transcending them somehow, but in any case doing something other than what one was told to do subsequent to a course, and then attaining stream entry.

So, my question is: are there any case reports of yogis actually attaining stream entry using "pure" Goenka technique, without doing any of the above?

My working hypothesis is that pure Goenka Vipassana rarely leads to stream entry. I would love to see this falsified. Maybe there is another discussion forum somewhere else where large numbers of Goenka practitioners have attained stream entry using the "pure" Vipassana technique exactly as taught, but they just aren't showing up here? If someone is aware of such a forum, a link would be appreciated.

RE: Stream entry using pure Goenka technique
Answer
1/14/12 11:34 AM as a reply to  Tarver .
I've read it elsewhere on DhO that Goenka actually instructs to stop scanning at some point (presumably equanimity) and switch to panoramic awareness. You just don't get to hear that unless you go to a 20-day course. So even according to Goenka body scanning is not the way to stream entry.

RE: Stream entry using pure Goenka technique
Answer
1/14/12 12:50 PM as a reply to  Tarver .
In the publication Satipatthana Sutta Discourses, S.N. Goenka (Vipassana Research Institute, Seattle, 1998) ISBN 0-9649484-2-7, p. 101, the following questions and answers appear:

Q. Since Vipassana is widespread, are sotapannas, anagamis, and arahants to be found today?

A. The number of meditators today is just a drop in an ocean of billions of people, and most are at the kindergarten stage: there are cases of meditators who have experienced nibbana, but very few.

Q. Without offence, are you, Goenka, fully enlightened?

A. I am not an arahant, but without doubt on the path to becoming one. Having taken a few more steps on the path than all of you, I am competent to teach you. Walk on th path and reach the goal: that is more important than examining your teacher!

RE: Stream entry using pure Goenka technique
Answer
1/14/12 1:11 PM as a reply to  Tarver .
Jill (TJ Broccoli) and Blue have both done this and subsequent paths.

I can tell you that when in high equanimity the full body awareness thing feels intuitively right. Someone else said much the same recently but I can't remember for the life of me who it was. I don't know how that would work from lower down in EQ, but I hope to be in a position to comment on that shortly.

Watch my practice thread for updates on that.

RE: Stream entry using pure Goenka technique
Answer
1/14/12 2:19 PM as a reply to N A.
N A:
I've read it elsewhere on DhO that Goenka actually instructs to stop scanning at some point (presumably equanimity) and switch to panoramic awareness. You just don't get to hear that unless you go to a 20-day course. So even according to Goenka body scanning is not the way to stream entry.


having sat 2 x 20 days, I don't remember these instructions to switch to panoramic awareness. It would have been helpful though. Following anapana for 6 or so days, it was the sweeping method for the majority of the course.

RE: Stream entry using pure Goenka technique
Answer
1/14/12 2:29 PM as a reply to Nikolai ..
Nikolai .:
N A:
I've read it elsewhere on DhO that Goenka actually instructs to stop scanning at some point (presumably equanimity) and switch to panoramic awareness. You just don't get to hear that unless you go to a 20-day course. So even according to Goenka body scanning is not the way to stream entry.


having sat 2 x 20 days, I don't remember these instructions to switch to panoramic awareness. It would have been helpful though. Following anapana for 6 or so days, it was the sweeping method for the majority of the course.

Found the thread:
http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/650316
tarin's post: "goenka does teach this, but not until the 30 day course ..."
So it's 30 days and not 20, which is why you don't remember it.

RE: Stream entry using pure Goenka technique
Answer
1/14/12 3:03 PM as a reply to N A.
N A:
Nikolai .:
N A:
I've read it elsewhere on DhO that Goenka actually instructs to stop scanning at some point (presumably equanimity) and switch to panoramic awareness. You just don't get to hear that unless you go to a 20-day course. So even according to Goenka body scanning is not the way to stream entry.


having sat 2 x 20 days, I don't remember these instructions to switch to panoramic awareness. It would have been helpful though. Following anapana for 6 or so days, it was the sweeping method for the majority of the course.

Found the thread:
http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/650316
tarin's post: "goenka does teach this, but not until the 30 day course ..."
So it's 30 days and not 20, which is why you don't remember it.


I had few opportunities to sit a 30 day over the many years sitting and serving at centres. I was even advised to sit a 30 day as soon as possible by the head teacher of Australia after my first serving course (which happened 5 months after my first ever course). But he then told me i couldn't when he realised I had not practiced more than 2 years, sat 5 x 10 days, 1 x sati, and a 20 day course yet. The experiences of constant 'bhanga' in every sit while serving a course and the massive upheavels of strange phenomena were enough for this head teacher to advise me to sit one, but the bureaucracy of the organisation made that impossible. I'm glad I never did for some reason. Cause and effect led me to interactive buddha, Daniel's book, the DhO and mahasi noting. No looking back.

Here is a possibly interesting summary of the 30 day discourses.

RE: Stream entry using pure Goenka technique
Answer
1/14/12 3:41 PM as a reply to  Tarver .
I've had luck getting stream entry and further using purely the technique. I have another close friend who also quickly moved through attainments.

You have to keep in mind that the technique has to work. Why?

There is a stage talked about in the Satiphattana sutta which says the meditator experiences the whole body in one breathe. There are many meditation topics but they all must reach this stage at some point. So if all topics must eventually go through this stage why would starting off with body sensations be bad?

On top of that the Anagami and post-Anagami stage is all about body formations. The completion of Anagamihood is the completion of the body (aka sense pleasures). This is inline with my experience and that of the Thai forest monks. You can read about them using body contemplation at the Anagami stage in several books

-d

RE: Stream entry using pure Goenka technique
Answer
1/19/12 10:46 AM as a reply to Bailey ..
Blue .:
I've had luck getting stream entry and further using purely the technique. I have another close friend who also quickly moved through attainments.


Blue, did you (and/or your friend) have knowledge of the maps of the progress of insight at the time when you got stream entry using "purely the [Goenka Vipassana] technique"?

I am wondering out loud here if that very knowledge (a) is an important element of getting stream entry using "purely the technique", and (b) might render the technique no longer "pure" by its own terms?

Congratulations on attaining stream entry, by the way, and thank you for participating in these discussions to help others do the same.

RE: Stream entry using pure Goenka technique
Answer
1/20/12 6:18 AM as a reply to  Tarver .
Depending on how strictly you define "pure" I could answer yes to this question, as my only formal instructed training was from three Goenka retreats (spread over 10 months) before I hit SE. However I had hit my first A&P before sitting my first course. So in some ways, it could be considered "purer" if someone had both hit the A&P and subsequently gone on to hit SE using the technique. Are you also considering it "purer" if a practitioner does not have knowledge of the maps?

Prior to my hitting SE I has read MCTB and had been paying more and more attention to sensation in daily life. I was also applying the technique according to what seemed to be working. At the point of SE I had recently come off my third retreat (in which I was serving) and was dropping scanning in favour of whole body awareness as I moved into EQ territory, which would happen quite quickly after starting my sits.

Interestingly enough, since SE I went on to hit MCTB 2nd and 3rd paths within eight months, without any subsequent retreat time or contact with a teacher, so you could say I made it to anagami with just Goenka technique. However that's pushing the definition a little, as 3rd path arose after a particularly intense bout of daily life practice (all day and all night at some points, in quite intense and extreme circumstances) in which I moved away from sitting towards a moment to moment investigation of how suffering was created by the "contraction" of the "field of awareness" around certain phenomena, including ideas, and the subsequent fabrications and self-concepts that arose from this moment to moment play of desire and aversion. This was closer to noting practice than anything else, but rather than the Mahasi style note-everything-as-fast-as-you-can approach I was just noting the contracting and sufferering as it happened, from a gently concentrated field-wide sensate base.

So yeh, for me it's a matter of using intuition in practice, and doing what works by honing the self-adjusting feedback mechanism.

In the end, it seems that the question as you phrased it comes down to what is and isn't included in the definition of "Goenka technique". Sitting and scanning aside, I seem to remember that in the discourses he mentions becoming more and more attentive to sensation in daily life. If this instruction is categorised as "Goenka technique" it necessarily means moving into a slightly more personal world of practice, as the ways in which we pay attention and subsequently what we pay attention to (in daily life) varies from individual to individual based on a huge array of factors.

Thom

RE: Stream entry using pure Goenka technique
Answer
1/19/12 9:05 PM as a reply to  Tarver .
 Tarver :
Blue .:
I've had luck getting stream entry and further using purely the technique. I have another close friend who also quickly moved through attainments.


Blue, did you (and/or your friend) have knowledge of the maps of the progress of insight at the time when you got stream entry using "purely the [Goenka Vipassana] technique"?

I am wondering out loud here if that very knowledge (a) is an important element of getting stream entry using "purely the technique", and (b) might render the technique no longer "pure" by its own terms?

Congratulations on attaining stream entry, by the way, and thank you for participating in these discussions to help others do the same.


I got to equanimity without knowledge of the maps. Then later ran into descriptions of the stages in a very old book. After that I was lucky enough to find them described in the pragmatic dharma movement.

As for my friend I don't think he was aware of the stages, he seemed to figure out a lot about them on his own.


-d

RE: Stream entry using pure Goenka technique
Answer
1/20/12 10:22 AM as a reply to  Tarver .
 Tarver :
Has anyone attained stream entry using pure Goenka technique?

My question hinges on the meaning of "pure". The Goenka tradition strongly discourages "mixing techniques". I can see three ways of doing this -- previous exposure, during a course, and subsequently -- arranged along a spectrum from inadvertent to deliberate...


what happened for me:
before 1999: no experience of 'spiritual phenomena' or funky energetic stuff of any kind
summer 1999: full-on pce after too much emotional and mental tension forced the mind to let go due to sheer exhaustion
fall 1999 to fall 2000: year of dark night existential angst
nov. 2000: stream entry on 9th day of 1st goenka course (and 1st meditation training of any kind)

as far as my understanding of goenka's meaning of "not mixing techniques" goes, what i practiced to get stream entry was nothing but following the 10-day retreat instructions to the best of my ability. any minor 'adjusting' or 'tweaking' or 'going against instructions' that i did was all for the purpose of being able to better get back to following instructions when i was struggling to, or to be able to follow them more effectively. an example of a 'minor adjustment' was keeping my eyes open at times when it seemed obvious that having them closed made it easier to drift off into daydreams, while keeping them open made my attention much more present and attentive to sensations (the instructions say keep the eyes closed). another example is not narrowing down the anapana spot if doing so obviously led to more daydreams and losing awareness, but spending sometime on the whole breath for a few minutes until concentration became stable enough to handle a tiny spot. (the instructions say keep attention at the spot above the upper lip, under the nostrils.) i'm sure goenka himself would support such 'adjustments' because he gives a few such tips himself, such as meditating standing up for a while or getting up to wash your face and come back if you're sleepy, or even holding the breath! at times the practice demanded an urgent ripping apart of beliefs or mental habits that got in the way of following instructions. so yeh, for me it was a matter of using intuition in practice, and doing what worked by honing the self-adjusting feedback mechanism.

woops, I stole that last bit...
Thom W:
So yeh, for me it's a matter of using intuition in practice, and doing what works by honing the self-adjusting feedback mechanism.


i can't ignore the importance of that pce experience a year prior to the course--having seen from actual experience what conditions to aim for really helped guide the practice. however, the pce insights did not show me how to alter the instructions in any way. as the days went on, the deeper i got into the practice, the more i felt that those exact instructions showed the fastest way possible for taking my life at that point closer to the pce ('fastest' at times also meant most unpleasant). what those pce insights showed me was exactly 'how little' or 'how much' application was necessary in every aspect of practice (given my specific mental/emotional/physical conditions)--how much effort, how much forcing of the mind, of attention, of the physical body, when to relax and let go, how literally or metaphorically to take goenka's different pieces of advice, or whether to follow a certain instruction very seriously every second possible as long as i still found myself alive and breathing, or whether to take it lightly as a gentle helpful tip and sometimes ignore it, like the case with 'keep your eyes closed'.

the path moment for me happened on a lunch break during the course, while sitting next to a lily pond trying to maintain continuity of attention. when high eq came, i wasn't doing any scanning in sequence, but just staying aware of breathing and whatever random sensations were interesting. what caught my interest was the weird new perfection of equanimity (even the swarm of fruit flies that buzzed around me and landed on my face and eyelids were entertaining and richly interesting instead of annoying), the changes in the perceptions of will, intention, physical body, perceiver, space, peace, stillness, and then the moment happened. so technically, i did not actually experience the path moment while doing scanning practice, but i was still following goenka's advice to stay aware (of breathing and some sensation or another) and equanimous at every moment. speaking from my experience only, i see no reason that this sort of "chilling in the present" should be included in his sitting instructions, because it's what the attention ends up learning to do anyway during rest periods and daily life after all the tough scanning work. what i don't know is if the path moment opportunity would likely be missed if one is intently focused on moving attention up and down the arms when high eq comes. (this is also why i've encouraged other goenka meditators, like btg, to have some aware chilling time after home sits to get the mind used to maintaining and enjoying heightened awareness in a natural way.)

so to me, "goenka-style vipassana" goes beyond those initial instructions to sit and scan and sweep. the practice for me includes building on whatever is learned from results of applying that technique and further applying those insights and new perceptual skills in both sitting and daily life. after several years of retreats, practice, and clear progress under only one tradition, one might end up with a personally-catered practice that could be called "mixing techniques" by a good stretch of the definition.

that balancing act of knowing how much/how little seems really important; it's finding your groove of optimal practice in real time, as it happens, and knowing how to make big or subtle adjustments every minute. i think this personal "recognizing what's just right" should get refined with some solid practice effort (retreat experience is invaluable), trial and error, sincere interest and self-examination, and perhaps access to more specific advice and useful information, as is available on this forum.

Tarver:
So, my question is: are there any case reports of yogis actually attaining stream entry using "pure" Goenka technique, without doing any of the above?

i just hung out with one such suspect a couple weeks ago: no prior experience with other techniques or strange energetic phenomena (wife made him try first retreat), demonstrates experiential understanding of insights that came to me at the path moment and equivalent freedom from suffering in daily life, no evidence of pre-path perspective or fixed logic or insight confusion, but no recall of "disappearing"(fruitions), no knowledge of stages of insight (before talking to me), and not much urge to seek more information on how to practice or reach new attainments, as his (goenka-style) practice is going fine, still bringing progress, and he's totally content with the incredible life change it has brought him.

Tarver:
My working hypothesis is that pure Goenka Vipassana rarely leads to stream entry. I would love to see this falsified. Maybe there is another discussion forum somewhere else where large numbers of Goenka practitioners have attained stream entry using the "pure" Vipassana technique exactly as taught, but they just aren't showing up here? If someone is aware of such a forum, a link would be appreciated.


i have no idea how rare or common it is, but i wouldn't have shown up here or on any web forum myself had a goenka yogi friend not persuaded me to read mctb. i actually lost all interest in reading anything about spirituality and enlightenment after finding a practice that clearly worked for me. from goenka's vague descriptions of attainments but high praise of the "totally changed person" as a "saintly person, a noble person" who has experienced "the first dip of nibhanna"(which is something "beyond mind and matter"--a total mystery to goenka students), it wouldn't be surprising if many stream enterers in this tradition have no idea what their life-changing relief was according to the suttas. in my case, i only found out nine years after the event, and i would probably not be out about it had i not been convinced by daniel ingram's arguments about the potential benefits of sharing this openly.

jill

RE: Stream entry using pure Goenka technique
Answer
1/20/12 10:39 AM as a reply to TJ Broccoli.
TJ Broccoli:
so yeh, for me it was a matter of using intuition in practice, and doing what worked by honing the self-adjusting feedback mechanism.

woops, I stole that last bit...
Thom W:
So yeh, for me it's a matter of using intuition in practice, and doing what works by honing the self-adjusting feedback mechanism.


jill


Yeh this phrase seemed somehow satisfying to me too ;-)

RE: Stream entry using pure Goenka technique
Answer
1/21/12 5:41 PM as a reply to  Tarver .
So, my question is: are there any case reports of yogis actually attaining stream entry using "pure" Goenka technique, without doing any of the above?


I want to add that this technique has to work. It is simply one of the methods Buddha gave in the Satiphattana Sutta: body sensations. On top of that, if you take any object (buddho, noting, breathe, body sensation) and stick to it like glue you will become enlightened.