Goenkha experience 3 times

Ben Meijer, modified 5 Years ago at 7/16/18 11:27 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 7/16/18 11:22 AM

Goenkha experience 3 times

Posts: 12 Join Date: 6/30/18 Recent Posts
Goenkha experience

Dear all, I have done 3 Goenkha course retreats.

The overview of the videos i made on Goekha Vipassana.
1. Who am I (to discus this)- https://youtu.be/Oik1CKZ4PIQ
2. Expectations - https://youtu.be/xM6fTo0EYHw
3. My experience https://youtu.be/yFHWtgTYJAg
4. -9 tips for you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cp723...

Now, on my experience, and the stuff I did not put in the videos

1. The third vipassana I had an encounter with a being who invaded my body at the moment when Goenkha talks about your wholev body being a shimmering mass of energy (which it was getting to be). Right at that moment, I noticed that a greed for enlightenment came,and I felt a being enter me.I spent the night exorcizing this demon. I have quite a bit of experience with that with myself and others, fortunately, and unfortunately (a have different hobbies, just not fun.).


2. Limiting cultural beliefs and attitude regarding emotions.

The whole atmosphere is made to help you meditate, but,you get a side order of limiting cultural beliefs regarding dealing with emotions, and that you are not supposed to endulge in them, you cannot deal with them... etc..Considerin my background as a therapist specializing in the removal of emotions, im not afraid ofemotions, and can stay with them just like with a physical sensation, so I did. I encountered emotions neatly packaged in balls in severalplaces in my body, i just stayed with them untill they dissolved. In talking with others after the course, I found out that I had 1- 4 emotional shifts per hour, where as most people had far fewer. There was another participant who, like me, had lots of experience dealing with emotions, he also had lots of emotions come up, and had a huge shift during the course, just like me. In trying to talk with the assistant teacher, which I did carefully, it became obvious he/they did not know a lot about emotions, were not very skillfull in dealing with them other than the standard retoric, ignore. The ATs seem to be selected on the basis of copying Goenkha AND not asking questions or thinking for themselves.

I took my time explaining that I found the vipassana to be very usefull as a therapist and asked if I could somehow integrate vipassana in my practice. They told me they could not tell me much, other than that i should get in touch with the AT after the course via Email, and ask again. He then gave me the email address of another teacher, who wa sa therapist. The organisation has an official stance, dont go into it. Dont try. Stay away. We deal with meditation, not with therapy. Of course I asked about no go areas, caution,etc. Got standard caution info back, no big deal.
 
Regarding using vipassana for psychosomatic issues, I'd say yes,go for it. If you feel through your body, you will be releasing emotions on a physical level.Vipassana will confront you with unresolved shit, and you will grow emotionally. It can be usefull if you tend to be a control freak, or have chronic dissociation, as you will be invited to merge (associate) with your body more. You will makeheadway.

I strongly advize all would be meditators to spend some time learning Emotional Freedom Techniques and Tapas Accupressure Techniques, as they can really give benefit with resolving blockages and familiarity with dealing with emotions.
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I Dream of Jnani, modified 5 Years ago at 7/16/18 7:20 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 7/16/18 7:20 PM

RE: Goenkha experience 3 times

Posts: 39 Join Date: 7/13/18 Recent Posts
Again, no disrespect for Goenkha, I have no knowledge there.

Your item 2. resonates with me. Many people seem to be after spending some years in Therevada practice, find it emotionally limiting, or encouraging fear or suppression of one's human emotions. This is not the way. Not any way I'd go or recommend to anyone. I think Mahasi's method is a very amazing mode of interpreting the Buddha's vehicle for escaping fundamental suffering, but I have needed "other stuff" and I see that even famous teachers have followed a similar track if you look into their biographies.

This stuff is not about missing the dance.

"If I can't dance, it's not my Revolution" Emma Goldmann - sometime prior to 1931.

Here's my own quote - If you find yourself beating on Anakin Skywalker, don't complain when you get Darth Vader. The same thing applies to me, and all the times my body has been animated by greed and hatred and its delusive taproot.

Metta
Ben Meijer, modified 5 Years ago at 7/17/18 7:10 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 7/17/18 7:10 AM

RE: Goenkha experience 3 times

Posts: 12 Join Date: 6/30/18 Recent Posts
Thank you.

I read david Chapman,
https://vividness.live/2011/06/16/the-making-of-buddhist-modernism/

https://vividness.live/2011/07/05/the-king-of-siam-invents-western-buddhism/


And my love is reading christiane northrup dodging vampires, an MD who points at some research which clearly states that Tibetan monks get diabetes II because of their attitute towards anger, and how that repressed emotion creates diabetes. They dodge it, and start to send love and compassion before they feel their anger. They take on a compassionate attituted without first dealing with the anger.

So, my conclusion is that the east has a few issues with dealing with emotions,
and we, the west, project our world vieuw on buddhism.
Ben Meijer, modified 5 Years ago at 8/31/18 3:56 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 8/30/18 6:00 PM

RE: Goenkha experience 3 times

Posts: 12 Join Date: 6/30/18 Recent Posts
Extend - Adding

My personal path is one comming from personal growth and therapy.

I use EFT and TAT.

This path of personal growth, is called content by Daniel Ingram, and now having read quite a signifant portion of his book, the value of personal growth is partially misunderstood.
Dealing with content is working through trauma, fears, limiting beliefs, etc.

Now when you do that with EFT and TAT you will notice that you can clear these issues much better than through normal therapy, and much faster. Now, there are limitations. The limitations can be pushed, but that is not easy. The limitations are that you are trying to treat yourself, and when you do that, you avoid the blind spots. You also have to realize that the most important thing is to remove layers of judgements and convitctions that are so ingrained, it is VERY hard to see them, they become the glasses you always have on, but now have to take off.

I personally have noticed that during the years this proces took, I started to realize things at a very deep level, Like how particular emotional patters always pan out, play out, and how they need to be resolved. A strong kind of intuitive knowing, a realization of emotional subjects. You start to just see through all the issues.

There is value is working with EFT and TAT, especially if you utilize an intuitive therapist or coach to find all your blind spots. This is very hard. The more convictions you remove, the closer you get to the core convictions of the ego. Hoping you too will find the appropriate assistance, you can remove all the convictions and judgements, and you will notice a strange thing happens... you feel that you lose parts of your ego along the way, and this feels quite funny. I notice that I started to be able to hear (louid) the voice of the ego, and compare that to the very quiet voice which is not ego. When you remove more and more, the loud voice starts to subside.

Please realize that working with content has a huge pitfall, and that is the illusion of removing the content is gonna make me happy.
Harris wrote a book on ACT called The Happiness Trap, and that it is. Shifting content, removing content does NOT make you happy, not having your issues, does NOT make you happy.
What makes you happy, is changing your relationship to your issues.
The mind always wants to create rules and recipes, in an attempt to sell you a formula to happiness. It never works, because the basic attitute behind it has not changed. The basic fears behind the attitude have not changed. The basic fear behind it all is that avoiding will be better, fear of dealing with hard stuff, telling yourself you canno handle it, or need to avoid it. Knowing that is untrue, is of no value, realizing it is not true is of value. If there is still a part of you which wants to avoid, you are not done yet.

Hard things are letting go of control....

You can realize the narrative is bullshit.
When you realize that again and again, you start to mistrust the drama.
You start to slowly become happy in the quiet.
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U Ba Fin, modified 5 Years ago at 8/30/18 6:39 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 8/30/18 6:36 PM

RE: Goenkha experience 3 times

Posts: 25 Join Date: 1/10/18 Recent Posts
I have done Goenka myself for two decades & quite familiar with the practice and institution.

In mundane life, dealing with emotions can be a very helpful therapeutic experience. Depending on your history and experience dealing with traditional therapists/psychologists can be profoundly important, necessary & essential.

A meditation retreat is best used only to develop insight into ultimate reality. Any content (emotions, memories, feelings, etc.) that may arise have absolutely no importance in the context of meditative practice. The problem is they tend to create mental fixations & encourage the mind to come out of mindfulness & roll in mental stories and mental impurities. For this reason, when you on retreat I encourage you to give as little importance as possible to the emotional & narrative aspects that arise during the practise & focus on the actual moment to moment sensate reality only. 

Have you read Daniel’s book MCTB? He explains this in detail and I encourage you to check out.

And RE: AT’s in the Goenka tradition parroting Goenka’s teachings. They are trained to do this, selected on the basis that this is how they will teach. Due to the somewhat dogmatic nature of the institution I wouldn’t ever expect it to change. It doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy benefits from Goenka retreats. Just don’t get too caught up in the instituional politics (for some student fixating on this become more important than practise).

For more personal instruction you would need to look outside Goenka to another Theravadan traditions. There are some excellent places in Thailand and Burma if you are seeking this kind of training.

Much Metta
shargrol, modified 5 Years ago at 8/31/18 5:54 AM
Created 5 Years ago at 8/31/18 5:52 AM

RE: Goenkha experience 3 times

Posts: 2344 Join Date: 2/8/16 Recent Posts
Ben Meijer:
Extend - Adding

My personal path is one comming from personal growth and therapy.

....

The limitations are that you are trying to treat yourself, and when you do that, you avoid the blind spots. You also have to realize that the most important thing is to remove layers of judgements and convitctions that are so ingrained, it is VERY hard to see them, they become the glasses you always have on, but now have to take off.

I personally have noticed that during the years this proces took, I started to realize things at a very deep level, Like how particular emotional patters always pan out, play out, and how they need to be resolved. A strong kind of intuitive knowing, a realization of emotional subjects. You start to just see through all the issues.

...

The more convictions you remove, the closer you get to the core convictions of the ego. Hoping you too will find the appropriate assistance, you can remove all the convictions and judgements, and you will notice a strange thing happens... you feel that you lose parts of your ego along the way, and this feels quite funny. I notice that I started to be able to hear (louid) the voice of the ego, and compare that to the very quiet voice which is not ego. When you remove more and more, the loud voice starts to subside.


Very interesting. I find this to be very similar to my experience, perhaps due to my interest in a similar kind of healing/growth/development. My main concern throughout my very wandering path through meditation was shedding immature ego defenses, seeing and droping habitual reactions, and trying to get a sense on how self-limiting beliefs really worked, and paying attention to how mind and body (thought and feeling) are interlinked. I was also very aware of stages of adult development outlined by Ken WIlber and others...

Ironically, the 20 years of wandering around, trying various approaches, never really took off the way it did once I read MCTB -- but it could also be said that those 20 years set up the next 5 years of rapid progress. MCTB does suggest putting the self analysis on hold, but I followed this along the  lines of "put the self-as-a-story analysis on hold, but be very very very interested in the self-as-created-from-feelings-and-basic-feelling/mental-orientations". Self-as-story can be a distraction, but self-as-visceral-experience is where real insights lie.

Sometimes I get a little befuddled by people who have meditative insights but not psychological/emotional ones. I have doubts people have made the progress they claim because certain self-defense mechanisms in them seem so regressed and so obvious... but I guess it really is possibile (and this gets seen pretty clearly) that the mind can fracture/compartmentalize itself and have pockets of repression which survive even if the overall level of development is much higher. 



Please realize that working with content has a huge pitfall, and that is the illusion of removing the content is gonna make me happy.
Harris wrote a book on ACT called The Happiness Trap, and that it is. Shifting content, removing content does NOT make you happy, not having your issues, does NOT make you happy.
What makes you happy, is changing your relationship to your issues.
The mind always wants to create rules and recipes, in an attempt to sell you a formula to happiness. It never works, because the basic attitute behind it has not changed. The basic fears behind the attitude have not changed. The basic fear behind it all is that avoiding will be better, fear of dealing with hard stuff, telling yourself you canno handle it, or need to avoid it. Knowing that is untrue, is of no value, realizing it is not true is of value. If there is still a part of you which wants to avoid, you are not done yet.

Hard things are letting go of control....

You can realize the narrative is bullshit.
When you realize that again and again, you start to mistrust the drama.
You start to slowly become happy in the quiet.

Really well said (except I would say that realizing that the narrative is bullshit is the dharma, but I get what you mean: when we realize the f happy-happy-never-a-problem childish version of the dharma is not true, we go through a period of mistrust, but then -- hopefully -- learn trust our own experience and delight in life-as-it-is. Life-as-it-is is dharma and one who dwells in it is a Tathagata. ("one who has thus gone" (tathā-gata) or "one who has thus come" (tathā-āgata)).

The simple way I say this is adult development and awakening give you better problems, much better problems. Maybe even much much much much much better problems.

But if you believe you will hit a stage of absolutely no problems... well, actually you should know that this is the way people get recruited into cults. They appeal to a very understandable and yet childish desire for a state of "happy ever after" or "never need to worry again". 

It's very important to know that you "wake up to your own life" -- you don't wake up into something different. So it still is important to create a good life to wake up within. You still need to live your life. And one way or another, we all need to look into our psychological defenses and reactive patterns and notice how they constrain our life and create needless suffering.

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