| Greetings friends & colleagues,
I'm actually very sure that many of you are aware of this, so the purpose of this post is not to disseminate any information, rather I'm just writing this for me.
Recently, I realized that the purpose of vipassana meditation is to be present, here, now. And to acknowledge (not deny), and accept (not try to change) sensations, whether they are unpleasant or pleasant. Awareness is a killer, once something is acknowledged with 100% presence, it is experienced 100%, this exhausts the karma and the sensation no longer persists.
For a lot of my life, and maybe even now, I was afraid of going to hell, so I repressed any bad thoughts I had, and repressed any bad urges, and repressed any thoughts of doom and going to hell. Because of this, I subconsciously acknowledged these bad thoughts, and continuously ramped up great fear, in a vicious cycle.
Bad thought (of going to hell) -> fear -> repression
In other words, the fear itself engendered more fear because I was afraid of the fear. But upon acknowledge sensations with mindfulness and clarity, I experienced the full brunt of fear, the boiling sensations of hell, and there was no more proliferation.
In other words, by acknowledge and staying with the fear, the vicious cycle was cut. And the fear did not lead to more fear.
I consider this to be vipassana because I am now actually staying with sensations, as opposed to disacknowledging them and trying to have only pleasant sensations, which somewhat samatha-esque.
I am reminded of a sutta.
http://dharmafarer.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/2.25-Patala-S-s36.41.pdf
If anyone has any pointers about whether or not this is a good start, please feel free to do so.
Sincerely,
JJ |