I came across Christopher Titmuss' review of a new Goenka biography. I have attended several of the Goenka 10 day retreats, but eventually got more and more sceptical about the whole set-up, and to me Titmuss' well balanced assessment was a good read. Hope you enjoy

I found the book a fascinating read, personally. For me, it filled in all sorts of details that were profoundly illuminating of the origins, personalities, politics, complexities, and compromises that has helped lead to the modern meditation world we see today. I highly recommend it.

Christopher's review does a pretty good job of covering the basics of what it is and what it talks about, but the devil is in the details, as some might say, and they are very, very interesting, at least for me.

Thanks, Daniel Stuart, for writing this remarkable book!

Oh man. That one's going on my list for sure.

Yes, thanks both for the update, I had not heard about it yet...

I find this segment of the article troubling:

It's amazing really when you think about it, how something as simple as sitting could become so complex and political.

+ 1 to what you say, Chris. There are just too many secterian traits in that tradition for my taste, even though they also have provided benefit for a lot of people, my self included.

A little anecdote to illustrate why I find the Goenka organisation secterian: On my third retreat, I went as a server, since I kind of thought it was my turn to do the dishes, and so in a rare break I had a short whispering conversation with a fellow server about the Mahasi noting technique. As servers we did not observe noble silence, but were aloud to talk, although not in front of the students. And we were sitting alone in a far corner of the kitchen, all students were in the meditation hall at that point. I didn’t even think any of the other servers would be able to hear our conversation. But the next day we received a reprimand and were told that is was not permitted to discuss other techniques than those taught by mr. Goenka as it would ”disturb the atmosphere” of the course. At the time I found it more curious than troubling, for a few seconds I even thought it was a joke. But it wasn’t. And the more I thought about afterwards, the more troubling I found it. It is an example of their generally troubling idea of a ”pure” dharma.

Niels, in my experience, working in the kitchen is the best way to know a meditation scene. For whatever reasons, the people who do the actual hard work while also walking the path end up being the ones who will tell you the truth with the minimal whitewash. If the emperor's wardrobe is not what it's cracked up you be, you will generally hear about it first from the cooks and the dishwashers, lol.

Ok, I read the book and found it quite fascinating (less so the second half compiling some of Goenka's writings -although it is new translations from hindi-, but that's the editorial policy of Shambala in this collection). Here is my review :

Some considerations on 'Goenka: an emissary of insight' by Daniel Stuart :
(crossposted from my Goenka related thread, I would rather have the comments here...)

I've read (elsewhere) people say that this work was not worth considering as its publication was not authorized by the trust (well he got authorization from the family to translate and include some of Goenka's writing, and says that Goenkaji welcomed his project back in 2008). But how could one hope for any interesting new piece of information to come from within the organization? I wouldn't, for one. While there are many assumptions by the author, most of them seem quite reasonable to me, and the result of extended research. Note that he gets darker by the end of the first part, which makes it harder to defend: it becomes obvious he has an agenda. But I'll come back to that.
It proposes interpretations on numerous points that remained mysterious until now. I'll throw a few of them below, that I found most interesting...

 As a young man, Goenka was deeply involved in nationalistic ideals that were critical of the non-violent path chosen by Gandhi. It reminds me of Aurobindo, but I never heard about him in relation to Goenka...
There is also an impressive account of young father Goenka's bouts of anger by his sister Ila Agrawal, which I don't feel like reproducing here as it would give a tabloid vibe to this review (p. 45, end of chapter 2).

In addition to being a meditation teacher, U Ba Khin was a powerful healer quite renowned for his healing abilities. Goenka knew this beforehand and was cured of his migraines after visiting him at the center months before his first course. When his faith wavered (some hesitation just before the course), the migraine came back.

The whole point of maintaining the purity of the technique is to protect the powerful dhamma vibrations (dhamma datu, dhamma forces as Stuart translates 'datu' by 'forces' instead of 'elements', which I like) of U Ba Khin channeled egolessly by Goenka (and by his assistant teachers re-enforcing the subtle vibrations of the tapes? hence the utter importance of letting ego behind, a quality highly valued in the ATs???)
Also, I suspect (so let's be clear that this assumption is mine!) that these dhamma datus (metta vibrations in the subtle atmosphere of the center) are believed to protect the students from the attack of destructive forces, in other words from having them submerged in the Dark Night stages. If they are, it's because they did something wrong. This is also one of the reasons why it is so important to maintain serious daily practice (Goenka talks about 'building a fence to protect the dhamma until the dhamma protects you... from destructive forces, by connecting to the teacher's metta?)
To give meat to this assumption, in his first years in India, he attributed his inability to produce conclusive attainments in his disciples to the opposition of destructive forces in the subtle planes. Sayamagyi stopped in India on her way to London to help him with that, as she was much more advanced in this regard (she had been assisting Sayagyi in producing attainments in his disciples since the fifties -I remember reading elsewhere that she was very gifted and reached high states of concentration from her very first introduction to the practice by Sayagyi U Ba Khin). Goenka would send his more advanced students to her until the split.
The split: I always thought that Sayamagyi was the one who severed the bond with Goenka (the famous anecdote of the course in Japan) because he kept on presenting Vipassana as purely secular and not connected with buddhist religion, which she did not accept. Stuart explains really well how Goenka was embarrassed with presenting Sayamagyi, who was so obviously buddhist, to the indians, and that he needed to cut that link... Also, his deeply Hindu family had to be convinced that his teaching was secular (and not in contradiction with hindu religion). One of his brothers always opposed his teachings.
Goenka then conformed with his task of introducing the Dhamma to as many people as possible.

Him teaching the Satipatthana course is presented here as a reaction to the course of the same name by Joseph Goldstein, interesting given he notoriously insists on maintaining the same technique to access the different stratas of experience (a technique better affiliated to the Anapanasati sutta)...

When still new to Vipassana, he organized the visit of and received Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on his first tour outside India (1959). He helped organize the initiation of the Hindu community in Burma to transcendental meditation. He sat beside his wife when she received the mantra and heard it as well, having it resonate within during a deep three hours meditation afterwards. In his diary (in 'A western student's meditation experience', U Chit Tin), John Hislop says that Goenka was quite impressed by the Maharishi, fact that was obliterated into further Goenka reports.
We also learn about his meetings with the Dalaï Lama, with (and his admiration for) Jiddu Krishnamurti, and I was very pleased to find a thorough account of the special friendship that he had with Anagarika Munindra until his final years at Igatpuri. Munindra is famous as a Mahasi teacher in his own right, but took Goenka's famous course in Bodhgaya, and seems to have remained faithful to the tradition at the end of his life.

The insistence on the guru-saddhak relationship between U Ba Khin and Goenka is beyond doubt and telling. Also telling was the fact that there was a private shrine in Dhamma Giri with a statue of Buddha and a picture of Sayagyi U Ba Khin... So much for our tradition being devoid of guru figures, relying solely on a technique (also the unfortunate golden statue of U Ba Khin at the global Pagoda)...
The tension between the secular and the 'powers' (of the gurus) makes a lot of sense, and sheds a (not so new) light on some long standing discrepancies (the 'serious old students' always talking of Goenka's vibration of metta as the highest proof of his realization).

Really funny that Stuart goes on a lot about the Boddhisattva vow in a way that lines up perfectly with my intuition from last year (see last post on this thread) after hearing a couple of sentences by Bill Hart in the documentary 'from Myanmar to the world'.

There is a change of tone around page 100 after he underlined the possible lack of attainment of Goenka. The portrait then evolves to depict a somehow cynical businessman maneuvering to consolidate his position as a global teacher (that's how I took it, maybe assuming more than was written?). The organization grows in time into an inefficient cultish wizardry in service of a subtle vibration... until the clash between western and indian teachers after Goenka's death.
Although I think he raises some interesting points, he doesn't seem to do full justice to Goenka (see Braun's article in Tricycle). I first assumed he was fueled by some resentment and that he kind of betrayed the trust of his informants... but thinking twice about it, maybe some of these western teachers wanted a critic to come out, a different voice to be heard, thus breaking the omerta that us, poor meditators, are used to. Again, my assumptions on top of his! (But browsing the internet, I found other hints at the (reasonable) rebellion of Paul Fleischman advocating for change (ref. needed), and that would be good news, giving some hope for the future).
I am quite moved by the extent of the drama (as exposed in Fleischman's myterious pdf to the ATs: 'an explanation on some differences of opinion between vipassana teachers') caused by the 'brutal dismissal of some of his closest disciples leading to a series of controversial rearrangements in the authority structure of the trust', and the suspected recess of Goenka's mental faculties in his last ten years. I did not know about it, just about vague tensions between indian and western teachers.
[on browsing the internet looking for Sriprakash Goenka (a son to whom Goenka 'handed over a number of institutional responsabilities'), I bumped into the story of  Gautam Gaikwad, a police officer instrumental in introducing Vipassana in prisons, assistant teacher close to Sriprakash (I read 'his mentor' here), who to the present continues to thrive in the organization despite charges of corruption and a weird drug related arrest which I guess did not bear fruits -if anybody wondered if there were really dark politics in the tradition-]...

Also, the role of Robert Hover, first among U Ba Khin western disciples authorized to teach that was instrumental in the creation of the IMS. Salzberg, Goldstein,  and others (Ram Dass, Munindra) were present at the first 'international' course in Bodhgaya in 1970. But this part of the story (of the rise of western Dhamma) has been written several times already, quite differently each time.
I did not hold Hover in such a high esteem after reading a (not so good) book of his a long time ago ('Internal Movement Healing') about healing... through the power of concentration on body parts! But he was a therapist, so... Maybe that's why reiki practitioners and other energy healers are blacklisted from courses?

So... what would be my takeaway from this often fascinating book? To keep it simple, it would be that the circumstances (historical, cultural, psychological) that led to the ripening of Goenka's unique personality also shaped his interpretation of his guru's teachings in ways unrecognized by his students. That soup became further solidified in this tape-driven tradition, which seeks to remain the only permanent feature in an ever changing world, oblivious of the universality of anicca, although it is the essence of these teachings. The book hints at the fact that change is nevertheless under way... which would be wonderful news for the future of dhamma (I have a hard time picturing Paul Fleischman going public about it, but who knows?).

That's all for now... may this little stroll in the book be useful to some...
metta to everyone
smiling stone

The following is an excerpt from something I posted on Titmuss's blog but has been awaiting moderation for quite some time (I hope he's okay) - thought it would be of interest here too:

-----
The book by Daniel Stuart indeed captures the many complexities about Goenka’s life and work in a uniquely engaging manner.
I’ve only recently begun my engagement with Buddhist meditation and my retreat experience is only with a few Goenka retreats in India. But, there are a few things worth noting in this context:

1. One needs to distinguish between (a) the 10-day silent meditation course of the Goenka organisation, (b) Goenkaji as an individual, and, (c) the Goenka organisation itself. The shortcomings of the Goenka organisation may affect people in a different manner than the introductory course does. 
   
   ...
2. There is one more aspect of giving meditation instruction which people who listen to only translations of Goenka’s recordings don’t understand: in the early 1980s, the voice of Goenka and the quality of instructions given, especially in Hindi was extremely effective. I heard these instructions for the first time only a short while ago but I heard the hindi instructions. The language used in English instructions is fairly ordinary english which still captures the basic instruction, but the words chosen in hindi instructions are archaic and the way they are spoken are simply brilliant. Some of these words I had only heard in some (hindu) religious context when I was a kid (I’ve been an atheist for a very long time after that) and the words and the instructions could cause some genuinely deep sense of seriousness in me. In short, the instructions given were a performance. In an online app of the Goenka organisation, there are recordings of instructions given by other people, even in Hindi: but even I, who has no association with Goenka himself, find his instructions to be much more effective purely because of sheer performance. 
3. This illustrates an important point which many westerners miss about the introductory Goenka course: it was originally designed for mostly non-Buddhist (typically hindu / jain) Indian public of the late 1960s and early 1970s, an era with limited globalisation - it is important to keep this context in mind. This shows up in all his evening discourses as well...
4. Similarly, while I’m also uncomfortable with the requirement that, in order to take longer courses in this tradition, one should be only practising vipassana meditation in Goenka tradition; I think people in other Vipassana traditions (e.g. Sayadaw lineage) often forget that Goenka organisation has most of its centres in India and “other techniques” often refers to the so many meditation techniques, particularly in the context of so many Hindu traditions, prevalent in India. The other Indian traditions (e.g. chakras, nadis, kundalini yoga, kriya, shakti, divine light etc) have very different interpretations of the sensations and this often leads people to follow different instructions e.g. forgetting to maintain equanimity (as in other traditions, these experiences often carry special / divine interpretations).

In summary, Goenka organisation is far from perfect, but while judging it, one has to see it in the right context and not easily surrender to prejudices towards something which is culturally so different. E.g. one needs to remember that if a society has many people with very limited critical thinking skills and superstitious beliefs and the education system doesn’t fix this, Vipassana meditation also won’t fix it. So, people come to Vipassana meditation, become excellent meditators, become lovely people who care for all of humanity (in fact all of living things); but they do not necessarily become careful thinkers who question every unexamined view. I do hope that other researchers will explore all this and add to Stuart’s brilliant work about this.

------------------

In addition, I think one needs to remember that Goenka tradition is not attainment oriented. Thus, for them, the maps and attainments are a red-herring, the real deal is how we handle challenges in the off-the-cushion life i.e. real life. I.e. if your practise helps you to not lose your equanimity in the face of challenging hardships in real life - because you can constantly see the way things really are i.e. you can easily spot how it is your mind which keeps on constantly generating cravings and aversions, then, in this view, your practise is successful.

This fits well with one of the things about Goenka which Erik Braun wrote in the article linked by Smiling Stone above:

"This was a man who was adopted by his uncle at 13 so that the uncle would have an heir, married by arrangement to a 12-year-old when he was 18, and denied by his family the university education he sought; who trekked over the mountains out of Burma with the Japanese on his heels and lost his thriving business to a government takeover."

In an extreme version of this view of practise, when not accompanied by a constant attempt to develop alertness towards one's defilements, the meditative attainments are just special experiences which happen to be labeled by fancy names in an Ancient language (Pali). 

Thank you for sharing this Gorav, I hope the full version will be published on Christopher Titmuss's blog (it is weird, this moderation thing, maybe it went through unnoticed?)

About your different points:

2- Thanks again, I took some courses in India and was always very curious about the hindi version (I don't speak hindi, unfortunately). When asking, people would always say: "same same", hinting at a slightly diluted content (as the hindi discourses are often 20% longer or more), but nobody ever said "he uses archaic poetry, it rocks!". It makes sense considering his skills in this regard (and while listening to some, I could recognize quite a bit that was really close to pali, so I do not doubt it gives a special feel..)

3- Well, yes it was less global, but the westerners came in really early in the picture (as reported in the book). Anyway, you are right in the sense that Goenka's english was weak during this period, so it is probable (as Titmuss says) that he wrote his english discourses very precisely (maybe with some help?) early on. Yes on his original discourses being targeted toward a less intellectual/cosmopolitan audience (the hindu householder)...

4- Unfortunately, it is also taboo (in India as well as in the west) to practice in any other Vipassana traditions (I would not feel confident applying for a long course, even after going to Sayamagyi IMC centers -except in Myanmar, as it is the original U Ba Khin center, if I understand well-, but maybe somebody can prove me wrong?)

5- As to attainments being a red-herring, well, Goenka talks about the stages but interprets the dukkha ñanas as being tempted to lose oneself in the subtle realms after bhanga (I write about this somewhere here, it is not so clear in my mind now)... and there is this half-baked idea of the constitution of a Boddhisatva army (us!) that will meet at the gate to support Maitreya (hum)...

About your final point, everybody here agrees that enlightenment is not an experience... oh, you said attainments!

Welcome to the Dho, I hope you find something of value here (I do!)
with metta
smiling stone

Thanks Smiling Stone for your reply! I'd seen the thread you just linked to: it was very useful.

Needless to say, whether one likes listening to the instructions in Goenka's voice in Hindi (with the use of very archaic hindi words) is a subjective thing. But, among those who have heard them in his voice once, I suspect that there will be quite a few (like me) who might like to continue to do that - this may be one of the many reasons because of which some people might want only recorded instructions to continue.  

India has way too many Gurus and way too many different kinds of meditations (and way too many criteria for enlightenment etc): it is hard to know which is even worth paying attention to. Currently, it seems to me that by Indian standards, the Goenka retreat is kind of nice (at least for beginnning meditators). I had some pretty powerful experiences (map guys would say A&P, dissolution etc) and the only price I had to pay was that I had to listen to various claims about atoms, past lives etc and had to witness a bit of dogmatism (especially while talking to people on the 10th day). 

Irrespective of the seeming fact that the Goenka organisation doesn't seem to be very helpful in making people reach stream-entry; by getting them started, it is in fact making sure that many many people enter the path which can lead some of them to stream-entry (if required, by eventually getting dissatisfied with this tradition and going to another tradition). The analogy "spreading the seed" is quite accurate - lots of seeds do not lead to full fledged trees, but some will.

At some point, I'd ask some questions in an appropriate thread about a thorough comparison of goal oriented practises vs non-goal oriented practises (e.g. if I slide into dukkha nana stages, do I have to necessarily become goal oriented)?

Interesting conversation GG & SS. It adds a new angle on the topic. Don't have much to add to the thread, but point to some of Daniel Ingram's posts. Check Pros and Cons of goal-oriented and non goal-oriented traditions and the following entries for more. 
​​​​​​​

Hey Pepe, well done, O you High Dharmaoverground Librarian, Great Ananda of pragmatic dhamma... You find a quote in your vault for every situation!

Gaurav, for me, the question is: what is a goal?  In a world of time, of concepts, who can say he is totally devoid of a goal? I would venture only a completely liberated being can claim existing without any expectation...in the moment where he ceases... or a stone, maybe! Intention is intention to change, to reach something, to satisfy smthg, to escape from sthg... If we dig a bit, we find a subtle intention or another as the subtle bridge which carries us to the next moment...

I believe it can be very useful to know about the dukkha ñanas to be able to make sense of very strange mood swings, of the A&P to make sense of very strange experiences, and so on... apart from that, a goal oriented practitioner has to mature into one without goal for the journey to cease (here I speak as if I knew what I was talking about, I just got carried away!). Well if you are into pragmatic dharma, you believe that a total cessation of experience will mark the transformation, if you are into Goenka (or into the thai forest tradition), you believe you will experience something totally beyond mind and matter, which has a koan quality to it...

Hmmm... that's a big question here anyway. I wish you the best with your quest...
(and I would say that Goenka retreats can be 'nice', even for confirmed practitioners -and not always so for beginners-)
with metta
smiling stone

Dear Pepe and Smiling Stone,

Thanks a lot for your engagement and for pointing me to useful resources. I've posted some further thoughts in the thread named "Some views on the technique in the Goenka tradition" as they aren't about Daniel Stuart's book. 

Thanks,
​​​​​​​GG

Hey Gaurav,
I just saw that you were published on Christopher Titmuss's blog. Like you said your answer there is a little bit longer, adressing a few other points (positive assessment, sitting posture, the role of ATs...), for those interested... And you got a nice answer from Mr T. Congratulations!

[edited the link]

Hello everybody,

I just found this hidden gem thanks to the usual algorithm (for once):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcURGAMyH0g&t=4858s
It's a talk by Daniel Stuart from 2017 addressed to some hindu university scholars in Pune (his own university, it appears, forgive my mistakes if I mixed things up). He was then writing the book we have been talking about.
The fascinating aspect of this lecture is that he talks mainly about stuff that did not make it in the final edition. I could sense his degree of involvement big time here, and the complexity of politics that would make him amend some of his data.
But first interesting point, unrelated to questions about Goenka:
In 2013, he went to interview two meditation teachers (one Jain from the Therapant sect -Mahaprajña who invented prekshadhyan, a new form of jain meditation- and the other a yoga guru), both who developed a meditation system heavily influenced by their formative experience at Goenkaji retreats. Mahaprajña, who had been promoting Goenka retreats among the jains, never acknowledged his debt to Goenka after breaking the bond. He states that in his method, auto-suggestion is what will enable the transformation of the soul, which is (of course) absent from Vipassana.
 The Guru (A.L.V. Kumar) still sends his students to ten days retreats (at the time of the talk, that is), stating that he alone can then lead them to sotapanna (that the Vipassana system is incomplete and poorly understood, even by Goenka)...
These are just examples of how traditions cross-pollinate from time immemorial, usually without acknowledging where they come from. Stuart states that all the western secular mindfulness movement is heavily in debt with Goenka's worldview, itself a product of very diverse influences.
He has some savoury lines about Kabat-Zin, when he goes through the later's method of body scanning "imagining a hole at the top of your head, like a whale, through which you inhale and exhale, down to the toes of your feet..." that KZ presents as perfectly secular, but that he does not understand. In the end, he keeps using the purification framework. Stuart becomes quite emotional when he explains that it comes from U Ba Khin, who sends us his "maitri" (sic... his dhamma dhatus...) from his sit in the clouds to the crown of our head, escorted by scores of devas who come to protect us, as was his very traditional belief (the "mangal maitrika" Goenka talks about during metta and that I simply equated with metta until now)... It is just one example of how Goenka's worldview influenced (more or less) every western meditation teacher.

In the end (at around 1h34), he gets a little bit "hyper" talking about Joseph Goldstein and Anagarika Munindra in a way that did not make it into the book. Fascinating. He has a deep knowledge of the subject and a broad view. And he knows he blacklists himself by talking openly about subjects that are taboo.


I do not do justice to the lecture, it is really worth a watch (for those interested I mean). And I'm not sure it will stay forever...

In the end, Daniel Stuart seems to have some serious mastery over his subject, and he has an agenda in demonstrating that there is no such thing as "purity of any tradition", which he does with passion.
I can relate to the fact that he is a "serious old student" (you have to see him say "I sit two hours a day, have done many long courses and been all over India and to Burma"...) who understood the inconsistencies in the tradition's resume and who did quite an amazing job at digging for... the ultimate truth about all this. Respect!

with metta
smiling stone

Ten-day Goenka retreats are the single biggest source of clients for Tara the kundalini therapist. Audio interview (47'47") with Tara is here: https://www.beyondtheillusionpodcast.com/episodes/s3-ep-12-kundalini-activation-with-tara-springett

Smiling Stone: thanks a lot for the link to Daniel Stuart's talk at Pune - it was totally awesome! 

Hello to those following this thread,
I noticed two days ago that the conference got deleted from Youtube. When I posted the review, there were 19 views (after three months online) which raised to 50 (! -we're talking about Youtube, that's impressive figures-) after a couple of weeks.
I don't know if the delete was linked to my post... in case it was a disservice to Daniel Stuart, I apologize. My goal was to provide useful information to those interested, and to extend my own views. I sure regret that it's no longer available...
The other possibility is that he is now running into problems with the Goenka organization (or with the Mindfulness crew, he did not spare his bullets). Good luck to him! (I just noticed today that the author does not appear at all on Youtube now..)

It makes me want to dig in my memory and retrieve what exactly he said about Goldstein and Munindraji... But I'll refrain for now as I don't want to further complicate the situation of Mr Stuart. We'll see how all this develops...

metta to all
smiling stone

Where in the interview does she mention ten-day Goenka retreats are the single biggest source of clients for her?

It's funny that Titmuss's and Braun's poorly written and (somewhat) disinformative reviews of Daniel M. Stuart's S. N. Goenka: Emissary of Insight have been brought out in this thread, while two quite thoughtful and informative reviews have been "overlooked."

Lauren leve's review in Buddhadharma is perhaps the most insightful for someone looking to understand the book, and it is also very well written: https://www.lionsroar.com/behind-the-global-goenka/

Brooke Schedneck's review at Reading Religion is less incisive, but still quite informative: https://readingreligion.org/books/s-n-goenka 

As Daniel Ingram points out above, "the devil is in the details."

 Hello 84000 *,

Thanks for pointing to these two interesting reviews. I agree with you that Lauren Leve's is the deepest and best informed that I've seen so far. She's a scholar, and it appears she's currently writing a book or something about a subject that runs parallel to Daniel Stuart's.  There is a lecture by her advertised in 2019 : Globalizing Vipassana: Buddhism and the Secular in the Goenka Meditation Movement (I could not find the content so far, but it explains her width of view... She witnessed first hand in Nepal the cultural dissonance Stuart talks a bout at length and developed her research around it. It looks like Stuart has been quicker than her, though. I also enjoyed her comment that many indian and western practitioners are bilingual... By the way we had a precious testimony of this with Gaurav on this very thread)

Re : It's funny that Titmuss's and Braun's poorly written and (somewhat) disinformative reviews of Daniel M. Stuart's S. N. Goenka: Emissary of Insight have been brought out in this thread, while two quite thoughtful and informative reviews have been "overlooked."

That seemed somewhat dismissive of the work on this thread ("overlooked", with quotation marks... please...), so please note that these two articles were published in June 2021, and that the bulk of the posts were written in March (the last one in May, but it was a while later).  the only other reference I found at the time was the review by Erik Braun... and I searched some !  Niels brought Titmuss, who seems to have been the FIRST one to review the book. I welcome any further reviews.
Plus, the thread's subject was the book itself, not the reviews. I, for one, would be delighted to have YOUR informed opinion on the book...

Re : As Daniel Ingram points out above, "the devil is in the details."
Indeed!

Best regards
smiling stone

Re : It's funny that Titmuss's and Braun's poorly written and (somewhat) disinformative reviews of Daniel M. Stuart's S. N. Goenka: Emissary of Insight have been brought out in this thread, while two quite thoughtful and informative reviews have been "overlooked."

Sorry if this came off as dismissive, Smiling Stone. The quotation marks around overlooked were simply a play on Stuart's use of this idea in connection with the New York Times "Overlooked No More" piece that he uses to frame the book. It was not intended as a critique of what others have written here.

Thank you, Smiling Stone, for hinting at my intention: I have not read the book, I just happened to come across Titmuss's review and found, as a former participant in several Goenka retreats, that both the book and the review might be relevant for others. I know very little about the controversies around Goenka, but have my own reservations, as stated above.

And thank you, 84000*, for adding the new reviews. It is fine to broaden the discussion.

Hi Smiling,

It seems that what you were talking about (here: Smiling Stone, modified 2 Years ago at 4/11/21 4:45 PM) is also in Stuart's article, give it a look:

https://www.academia.edu/37382339/Insight_Transformed_Coming_to_Terms_with_Mindfulness_in_South_Asian_and_Global_Frames

Also his recent one could be of your interest, if interested in historical moves:

https://www.academia.edu/109206699/Local_Cure_Global_Chant_Performing_Theravadic_Awakening_in_the_Footsteps_of_the_Ledi_Sayadaw

Hey Polymix,

Indeed, the first article develops the same points that were presented in the conference. Thanks for posting the link here, I had read it a few weeks after noticing the video disappeared, but did not post it here for some reason, as it is really thorough...
The second one, I had not read until now (despite checking Stuart's output once in a while), and it is really fascinating, he explores in depth forgotten territory which runs contrary to many assumptions about this tradition (the magical power of invocations, dating back to Ledi Sayadaw, but go read the article ! It looks like a book is on its way), so thanks a lot for that one !
with metta
smiling stone

Hi,
sure Stuart is doing an excellent work at explaining the history the U Ba Khin lineage, showing also how the equation Goenka = modernist innovation is reductive. Kind of, Goenka had a public stance on the Western audience as an agnostic methodology, but "in secret" he kept a magical bias on U Ba Khin powers and in general Buddhist/Burmese cosmology (*). The same modernist vein in Ledi Sayadaw, as depicted by Eric Braun, is biased, as you can see from Stuart's works. In this regards, Leon E Wright's life mentioned in the article (a Black teacher appointed by U Ba Khin) is explicitely against this view, having him a healer and interested in esoteric topics.

(*) See also how this dialectic went underground in the paintings showed at the Global Vipassana Pagoda - the author thanks Stuart, by the way!:
https://www.academia.edu/78449178/A_New_Career_in_a_New_Town_The_Graphic_History_of_S_N_Goenkas_vipassan%C4%81_Lineage

Happen to see this thread and saw that it was about Daniel Stuart who was at Dhamma Giri with me in 2002/ 2003. We also went to Burma on the Yatra with Goenkaji together , such a pali master! I remember him contacting me back when the pragmatic dharma movement was in full swing. Here is some pics from over 20 years ago with Daniel in a couple. His twin is also in the pics along with Kory Goldberg, who authored some vipassana guide books. Good times 

Here some nostalgia for you Goenka old students. Spot the gaunt Nikolai! This was in Burma, 2003. 

Thanks for sharing the photos N! 

Hi, in the pictures who is who? :-)