Philanthropic aspect
To understand the philanthropic character of Vipassana meditation, we must go back to its origin.
About 2,500 years ago, a prince from what is now northern India, Siddhartha Gautama, left the royal court and its splendour to search for the origin of suffering.
He had understood that all of humanity suffered; whether young or old, man or woman, of one skin colour or another, one religion or another, one kingdom or another, it made no difference, suffering was there, everywhere; it accompanied humankind from birth to death.
Through deep introspection, he came to understand how his own body and mind worked. He understood the links that existed between the two.
He understood how physical suffering could be multiplied by mental suffering, and he also understood how mental suffering could add to physical suffering.
He understood that body and mind were intimately connected.
He went further in his search to understand where suffering came from, why humanity suffered.
Through his own experience of observing his body and mind he came to identify the origin of suffering – why the men and women of humanity suffered.
However, if suffering was universal, he reasoned that there must exist a way out of it, and so he set off to conduct his own search. At first with the wise men of his time, then with a small group of mendicant monks who shared the same quest, then alone.
He experimented with many of the meditation techniques that existed in his time.
None of them seemed complete to him, none could free the person practising it from all their suffering. This is what he observed.
He therefore searched on his own for the path to remove all suffering from the mind. What practical exercises could lead to this.
He found them, applied them to himself, and came out of his suffering completely.
From that moment on, he did nothing but teach all of humanity the path out of suffering, and did so for 45 years, until his death.
Vipassana is this path, a practice, a technique, that allows each person who practises it to gradually free themselves from their own suffering, to free themselves from their own ego.
By suffering we mean all the anger, fears, hatred, animosity, jealousy, anxiety, aversion, craving, ill will, etc.… all these emotional states that disturb our daily lives, that prevent us from living harmoniously, at peace with ourselves and with others.
As they gradually come out of their own suffering, a person who practises Vipassana will feel more peace, more harmony, more tranquillity within themselves. Their relationships with others will change, improve significantly and tangibly.
Little by little, their ego, so important at first – and the source of so many difficulties and conflicts – will dissolve.
Tolerance, compassion and goodwill towards others develop, and the lives of practitioners naturally turn towards others, towards helping others, since suffering is everywhere in our society.
Vipassana is therefore a path out of suffering, but also a path that will transform those who follow it, from being self-centred to putting themselves at the service of others, at the service of humanity, to ease the suffering of those around us.
The well-being of humanity, the alleviation of humanity’s suffering, are the aims pursued through the practice of Vipassana.
This is fully explained and put into practice during the retreats organised by the Vipassana association.
In this, the philanthropic character of Vipassana is real. This is why Mr Goenka, Vipassana’s principal teacher, now deceased, was invited to give an address at the Peace Summit organised by the United Nations.
Building peace between peoples begins with building peace within oneself, and Vipassana is an internationally recognised means of achieving this.
This is also why Vipassana has been introduced into the prison environment, among people in great suffering, in several countries.
First in India, in the largest prison in the world, then in the United States, Great Britain, Spain, Israel, New Zealand.
All these initiatives have produced the same results, confirmed by prison administrations and academic research; a reduction in tension between fellow inmates, an improvement in relations between inmates and guards, a reduction in reoffending among those who have been released and who took part in Vipassana courses.
This is also why Vipassana has been introduced in Switzerland in facilities for people struggling with drug dependency, so that they can, step by step, come out of this dependency and reintegrate more easily into society.
Vipassana is a real path out of suffering, whatever form it takes. It is not a magic wand, it requires a great deal of effort, but the fruits of the work accomplished are concrete and are reaped here and now.
The Vipassana association welcomes anyone in sufficient physical and mental health to attend a course; the centre is also organised to welcome people with disabilities, whether visually impaired or using a wheelchair.
Retreats are open to everyone, because suffering is everywhere. There is no financial barrier to attending a retreat, course costs being funded by donations from old students, that is, those who have already taken a course and felt its benefits. Teachers and course organisers are volunteers.
The association’s not-for-profit management aims solely to spread the Vipassana technique as widely as possible, so that everyone, through their own effort, can then come out of their own suffering, and so that, collectively, society and humanity improve.
That is where the philanthropy lies; Vipassana takes root in individuals with humanity as its aim, in order to reduce its suffering.
Educational aspect
First and foremost, learning Vipassana is an educational process based on personal experience, which leaves each practitioner free to progress at their own pace, each being master of their own practice. There is no master-to-pupil relationship, there are teachers who guide and accompany the practitioners’ work. The instructions for the practice of Vipassana meditation are very clear and understandable by all, everyone carries them out and gains an understanding of how their own body and mind function. However, learning is progressive, and although positive results are generally clearly noticeable after a first 10-day course, a deep understanding of the body-mind phenomenon is a subtle and profound exercise, requiring diligent effort over an entire lifetime. It is a genuine education through experience.
The foundation of Vipassana’s teaching is morality: five basic precepts are required to be observed during retreats. In our French society, places where one can be educated in the importance of morality, by experiencing it directly for oneself, by understanding the impact of observing it and also the impact of not observing it on the peace of one’s own mind, are precious.
The second lesson learned during retreats is how to master one’s own mind.
And this with the help of observing our natural breath. These exercises are accessible to everyone, whatever their religious or philosophical beliefs. The object on which we must focus our attention is neither a given image, nor a form, nor any deity, it is only the natural breath, which is universal and connects us to the reality of the present moment. There are few places where one can train to master one’s own mind, to concentrate using a neutral and universal object such as the breath.
The third lesson learned during retreats is how to remove from our minds all the suffering, all the psycho-emotional complexes deeply buried in our minds. And this with the help of observing sensations within our own body. We train ourselves to keep a balanced mind, generating neither aversion nor craving, in the face of the sensations we observe in the body. This exercise is also accessible to everyone, whatever our beliefs, our convictions. We train ourselves to sustain our attention, our awareness continuously, moment after moment. There are also few places where one can learn how to remove one’s own suffering through practical exercises.
At the end of the retreat, we learn the final phase of the teaching given by Gautama the Buddha: the sharing of all the merits gained during the course, through thoughts and intentions of goodwill towards all beings.
Cultural aspect
Vipassana is a very ancient meditation technique; the known origin of this teaching goes back to Gautama the Buddha, about 2,500 years ago. At that time, the teaching spread throughout India and then to neighbouring countries. Century after century, the practical teaching was mostly lost, only the transcriptions of the Buddha’s teachings remained.
A small lineage of monks preserved the practice for twenty-five centuries in its original form, passing it down from master to pupil, in Burma. Only a small circle of people, within a monastic setting, had access to the practice of Vipassana during all these years. Thanks to a lineage of teachers, up to Mr Goenka, this cultural treasure was able to be preserved.
He trained many teachers, and this allows Vipassana to be taught on a large scale throughout the world. Currently more than 80 countries take part in the spread of this technique and the preservation of this cultural heritage.
Vipassana therefore has the cultural value of a heritage from the past, from an Asian land, far from our French Judeo-Christian culture. More generally, we can observe that the search for ways to ease humanity’s suffering is not unique to the Eastern world. Over the centuries, the West has developed all kinds of technological and social solutions to eliminate or reduce the causes of suffering arising from our living environment.
We have heated homes with access to electricity, running water, agricultural production systems, education and health systems, infrastructure for transport, communication, etc…. Everything in the environment of our Western world that could be perceived as a source of suffering has been analysed, studied, so that technological and social organisation solutions could come to ease or eliminate them. The Eastern world has also explored, in another direction; not outside ourselves in our environment, but within ourselves at the level of our own body and our own mind.
The two approaches (Western and Eastern) are complementary. In this, the Vipassana association helps to spread a cultural approach, different from and complementary to our modern Western values. This is a genuine cultural value.
The association reinforces the sharing and preservation of a cultural heritage through the translation into French of a body of texts, talks, and books that were only accessible to English speakers.