Yeah, my wishes that the Goenka tradition would upgrade itself in various ways are long-standing and oft-stated here and other places. There is a lot to be said that is good about Goenka, but their failure to properly acknowledge and normalize the dark side of things, the lack of individualized support, the lack of appreciation of the maps (both high and low, A&P and DN), and the fact that so many people cross the A&P on their technique (which is really good for that) and then fail to handle the DN well (particularly as a 10-day retreat is so good for getting people above the A&P just in time for them to return home to their lives and then crash later shortly thereafter), etc. are all well-known. A reasonable number also crash towards the end of the retreat in various ways, as is well-attested to here on the DhO. In fact, in my more cynical moments, I speculate that the DhO gets half of its membership and lurkers from people who had some variant of this happen to them on Goenka retreats and went looking for explanation and support that they couldn’t find through that organization. Truly, this is now how or why I wish the DhO to be as popular and long-lived as it is.
Unfortunately, the structure of the organization is entirely designed for stasis rather than innovation and reform. This at once provides it an institutional grade of stability yet prevents it from realizing important structural problems and fixing them appropriately. Every tradition has its problems and shadows, and this is one of the key ones of the Goenka tradition. It is ironic that one of the key structural components that has made Goenka such an institution paradoxically has helped to make the DhO one as well, but not for reasons that anyone would wish. May this change in ways that are skillful and of benefit to practitioners.
