ANNUAL MEETING: Dhamma Giri, India January 20, 1996
Questioner: The Dhamma makes us active, prepares us to face difficulties, and gives us strength to fight evil. Is it right to say then, when faced with difficulties, that the Dhamma will help, and to run away from the problem, to become inactive, saying, "Thinking about the problem will spoil my vibrations so I should just give mettā?" Goenkaji: No. You have not understood Dhamma very well. Even in the ten-day courses it is clearly explained that if a strong person is harming a weak person, and you just sit there and say, "What can I do? Let the strong person suffer for his kamma, and the victim is also suffering for his kamma"—this is wrong. Dhamma does not teach that.
Use all your strength, physical and vocal, to stop this person. But there should not be a trace of animosity, anger or hatred towards the aggressor. You have love and compassion for this person, but he does not understand soft language. You have tried that. Now you can take the hardest action, but with love and compassion. Dhamma does not make you inactive.
But where you don’t have the capacity to help—say somebody is very sick, on the deathbed, and the doctor is there treating him—now what can you do? You are not a doctor. So you sit and meditate, and give mettā. If you say, "I am a Vipassana meditator, so I must cure this person"—that would be a wrong decision. So wherever you are capable, you must be active. Don’t allow people to do something wrong if you can stop them. §
Can a meditator in whose area there is no AT or children’s course teacher teach Anapana to people?
Well, it has already been announced that if one is a schoolteacher, one can teach one’s students, and if one is a doctor, one can teach the patients. Otherwise, no. One reason is that you shouldn’t impose this technique on anyone. Another thing is that if you don’t know how to teach, even though you are only teaching Anapana, Vipassana may start, and some deep-rooted complex might come on the surface. You won’t know how to deal with that, so better avoid it. Don’t take that risk. §
A serious meditator wants to join the armed forces. Should he?
This is a decision for that person. If one feels, "I’d better be a member of the armed forces because I want to defend my country," well welcome, he can do that. But on our part we cannot say, "You should join the armed forces, or you should not join." That is not our job. Each individual has to decide for oneself. §
If there is a blockage or blank area during meditation, I become disappointed even though I should not. What should I do?
Understand that you have accumulated so much craving and aversion in you. When you become disappointed or you feel bored, that shows that you are craving for a situation where this blockage will go away. And you have a tremendous amount of aversion towards this blockage, towards this unpleasant sensation, and you want to get rid of it. So understand the reality, "I have not understood Vipassana properly. Let me start again with Anapana. Let me come back to kindergarten and then I will proceed further." §
If walking on this path one can become an arahant, then what stage have you reached?
I have not reached the stage of an arahant. What stage I have reached I cannot say, there is no meaning in my saying. It is for you to judge. If all my behaviour in life is full of impurity, then I have not reached anywhere. But if you find something good in me, then certainly I have developed on this path. §
If every day I remember the gods in whom I have faith, then what harm is there in doing so during the course?
Because during the course the object of your meditation is different. During the course, while you are practising Anapana, the object of your meditation is respiration. That is all, nothing else. And during Vipassana, the object is the sensation on the body, nothing else. So during this time, if you also try to imagine your god or goddess, then you are diverting your attention and you are not working properly. Whatever the object of meditation, give all importance to that. At the end of the course if you have great respect or great devotion to this god or that goddess, then share your merits with him or her and send mettā. That’s all, nothing more. §
Please advise us how to answer the following questions briefly: What is a sensation? Whatever you feel at the physical level on your body, we call it a sensation. Why do you get sensation?
Because you are alive. Your mind and matter—nāma and rūpa—are working together. Where there is no nāma, no mind, one cannot feel. An inanimate body cannot feel sensations. This pillar cannot feel sensations. Wherever there is life, sensations can be felt. §
What is equanimity?
When you don’t react to sensations you experience equanimity.
What do we mean when we say not to react?
Don’t generate craving for pleasant sensations. Don’t generate aversion for unpleasant sensations. Then you are not reacting. §
What is a free-flow?
There is nothing that flows. It is only your mind which moves from head to feet, or feet to head rapidly, because there is no obstacle on the way. Now there are no longer any blind areas or gross, solidified sensations—only very subtle vibrations of the same type. Your mind moves easily, and it feels as if a flow is there. The whole purpose is that you understand that no matter whether there are gross sensations or subtle sensations, your mind must remain equanimous. Don’t react with aversion towards the gross sensations. Don’t react with craving for the pleasant sensations. § I belong to the armed forces. What is my duty if our country gets into a war with a neighbouring country?
Well, you have joined the armed forces to defend the country, so fulfil your duty. Naturally you will defend the country by all means. That is your duty. If you are a Vipassana meditator you will work more perfectly. §
Is there a past life, or life after death? If there is, what is the proof? What have you known about the past lives from your experience?
It is not necessary that first one should believe that there is a past life, or a future life, and only then will Vipassana help you. You believe that this is the present life. Give all importance to the reality of this moment. Every moment you are dying, every moment you are taking a new birth. Observe that, feel that, understand that. And also keep understanding how you react to this changing flow, and how by reacting you are harming yourself. When you come out of that, your present becomes better and better. If there is a future, certainly you will get the benefit of it.
If there is no future, why worry? You have done your best to rectify your present. The future is nothing but the product of the present. If the present is all right, the future will be all right. §
Somebody does an evil deed and goes to the lower world. Someone else does the same amount of evil, it bears fruit immediately and he gets it over with in this life. Why is there this difference?
Because one understands what Vipassana is. In Vipassana, the fruit of the past life will come up first as a sensation on the body. If it was an evil deed, very unpleasant sensations will arise in the body. For example, if you abuse or hit somebody, you generate anger. When you generate anger you are burning inside, so whenever the fruit of this seed comes it will come with burning. When burning comes you are trained how to observe it, it loses all its strength and passes away.
Suppose a thorn has gone into your flesh. As it goes in it is very painful. If you want to take it out, you have to use a needle to go in deep. Again it is painful. Whatever sensation you experienced while performing an action, the same type of sensation you will experience while getting the fruit of it. Those who are good Vipassana meditators will observe, not react, not allow it to multiply, and it passes away. You are free from it. If you don’t practise like this, then naturally you will get the fruit of it later. §
Even while accepting that Vipassana meditation is effective and beneficial, some feel that meditators take more interest in meditation and do not usually get inspired to solve the problems of society and of the country. Wouldn’t it be proper to give students guidance and inspire them to serve society? Whether or not they actually do social work depends on their aptitude. Still, we can at least make them more cognizant of the problems of society.
Well, the whole technique is to improve each individual. The individual is more important because society is made up of individuals. This technique helps every individual to become a better person. Now, after becoming a better person, how he or she can best help others is each person’s decision. It is not our job.
However, what has been happening is that some of the students start feeling, "This technique, which was lost in this country for the last twenty centuries, has now returned. It has helped me so much and I feel that more and more people should get benefit from this. This is a service to society. When more individuals become better, healthier, more wholesome, then society becomes better, healthier, more wholesome." So if someone feels that they had better serve in this way, I can’t stop him or her. It is the decision of each individual how best to serve others. §
What is the difference between Vipassana and self-hypnotism? Does one get the same benefit from both?
No. Vipassana wants you to observe the reality as it arises naturally, not a created, artificial reality. When you start giving any kind of suggestion, it is a created experience. It is an artificial layer that you are giving over your conscious mind. This can be good, it gives results. If you are a better person at the surface of the mind you get benefit from that. But the accumulated complexes of your impurities deep inside remain as they were. So Vipassana teaches you to go deep inside and take them out by observing whatever reality manifests itself from moment to moment. No layer should be applied, nothing should be imagined, no hypnotism, no autosuggestion. At the depth of the mind these go totally against Vipassana. These two go in totally opposite directions. §
It has been mentioned that in Burma there are various writings on palm leaves that VRI would like to publish before they deteriorate and are lost. If this is correct, can you tell us something about the contents and significance of these writings as well as where they originally came from?
All these palm leaves contain literature in Pāli language. Certain palm leaf texts have already been published so we won’t deal with these. But there are some palm leaves with literature which has never been published. Certainly it will have something to do with Dhamma because it is in Pāli, so we want to bring it back here, print and publish it, and use it for our research. It is all to preserve the cultural inheritance of our country, which India has lost. Everything in Pāli was lost in this country. If somewhere something exists, it is our duty to bring it here and get it published and make use of it for Vipassana. §
In the Vinaya Piṭaka Buddha has censured the vow of complete silence. Why then do we keep complete silence in the course?
When this vow becomes a rite or a ritual then yes, it is harmful. But while you are meditating, when you are learning how to meditate, then his instruction is very clear: Either you have ārya maun, noble silence, or if you talk, you talk about Dhamma with your teacher or with your senior. That is allowed. Otherwise you have to be silent. But when it becomes like a rite—"I have taken this vow of silence, I won’t speak"—yet you keep communicating with others, either by writing or by gestures or glances, then it is worthless. On a course you are silent vocally, and deep inside you work to keep your mind silent, to eradicate your impurities. This is the teaching of Buddha, you are not going against his teaching. §
As Sayagyi U Ba Khin never put up a sign for donations, why do we put up boards requesting donations?
Sayagyi U Ba Khin used to put up a board on which projects were mentioned, "Now this is the next project, in which this amount will be spent." That is all. If the students felt like giving, they gave. If they didn’t give, they didn’t. He didn’t press people, "Oh look, now I want this, you had better give this much." So we are following the same procedure. §
We have just heard that a very large stūpa may be built somewhere in India. We would be interested to learn a little about this, such as where it might be located, what it is going to be like, how it is to be built, and what it is intended for. Can you tell us anything about it?
I do not yet know myself when it will be built, where it will be built, or whether it will be built or not.
One thing must be very clear: Our aim, in everything that we do, is to let people properly know about Buddha and his teaching, about Vipassana—so that they don’t have any doubts about the teaching and they get inspiration to come to the courses. The benefit that people get will not be because of this pagoda but by the meditation that they will do once they have understood the actual life of Buddha. So many misunderstandings have cropped up in this country during the last twenty centuries. These must be eradicated. The real teaching of Buddha, his life, and how people benefited from it, all that will be explained—if it is possible, if it really comes up. §
What policy do you have for Vipassana students or assistant teachers writing books on Vipassana or pure Dhamma?
I discourage it. Unfortunately I have seen translations of Buddha’s words by the so-called competent pundits, and they are totally different from what Buddha actually wanted to say. We know that it is different because we are practising. We cannot expect that somebody who does not know the technique properly would understand the theory properly. Someone might write something which is against what we are teaching here. If I don’t contradict it, then after one or two hundred years, or five hundred years, people may think, "Oh, Guruji has accepted this, it was written in his lifetime by his own student or by his assistant teacher. Certainly, this is correct." And people will be misled by that.
There is no time for me to check articles or books by my students. It is totally impossible. One of my students wrote my biography, then one of my family members brought that book to me and pointed out, "Look, such and such is written there, and this is wrong. Such and such is written on another page." I said, "All right, put a mark there and keep the book here, I will look at it." That was perhaps four or five years ago, and I still have not had time to look at those two pages. So understand, if something wrong is written in a book and I don’t contradict it, then it will be considered authentic.
Don’t be over-enthusiastic to write books and all that. Become perfect in meditation and teach meditation to others. Later on, when you become perfect in pariyatti also, yes, write. Or after my death, then you will be free to write anything. §
In my daily sitting of one hour, I devote at least thirty minutes to Anapana. Is it all right?
Nothing wrong. Anapana is just a tool to help you to practise Vipassana properly. Whenever you find your mind is very agitated, make use of Anapana. Maybe thirty or forty minutes, maybe for the whole hour you carry on with Anapana, and the next sitting will be much better. So Anapana is to stabilise your mind, to make it quiet and more sensitive to feel the sensations. §
In day-to-day life there is no exception to the rule of truth. Nobody is pardoned. Dhamma is the law par excellence. Why then is it said in Dhamma that those who make mistakes should be pardoned?
They should be pardoned because it is in your own interest. If somebody has done something which has hurt or harmed you, and you have animosity towards this person, you have started harming yourself. So to save yourself from that harm, it is better to forgive and forget. This is in your own interest. If this person also realizes, "I have made a mistake, and I won’t repeat that in the future," and keeps practising Vipassana, he or she will come out of misery. You are giving this person a pardon for your own benefit, because this helps you to come out of your feelings of revenge. § I am always lost in thoughts, forgetful, reticent. I don’t feel like working and am always behind in work. Is this anattā? If yes, then why has my silence put a distance between me and my family?
Because you have not understood Vipassana properly, you have not practised properly. So naturally you are becoming estranged from your friends and family, and you don’t know how to deal with them. If you understand Vipassana properly, then whenever you are depressed—you have a complex of depression from the past and it has arisen—accept the fact that at this moment the mind is full of depression. This is the truth. Not depression for this or that reason. The fact is, "My mind is full of depression at this moment. Now let me see what sensation I have."
Whatever sensation you have at that moment in any part of your body is related to that depression, and you start observing the sensations. You accept the fact that there is depression and the fact that there are sensations, and keep observing the sensations understanding anicca. You have been practising so you know, "This sensation is arising and passing, and so this depression is also arising and passing. Let me see how long it lasts." You are equanimous and certainly it will pass away, you will start coming out of your habit pattern of depression. This is how to make use of this situation. §
It seems that most meditators understand the technique of meditation. Many even get free-flow. They sit many courses. But their wisdom is not seen in their behaviour. Is there need for more discourses to progress?
No. Such people may take even a hundred courses without it helping them in any way because actually they have not understood the technique. The technique is not to get elated when you have pleasant sensations, and not to get depressed when you have unpleasant sensations. If no change comes that means they are playing the game of sensations—if it is pleasant they feel elated, if it is unpleasant, depressed— and they will continue not to get any benefit. So understand the technique properly. Pleasant or unpleasant, your understanding is, "Everything that I am experiencing is anicca, changing. There is no meaning to react towards something which is constantly changing." You are observing equanimously. Then you work properly and a change starts manifesting in your day-to-day life. §
Many people in India live in poverty. Do these people have to suffer like this because they have bad kamma of the past?
Well, if you believe in the law of nature, that as you sow, so you will reap, then certainly they do. Anybody who is suffering must have done something wrong in the past. But this should not make you feel, "I will never come out of my misery, I have done so much wrong in the past and my destiny is such." All the past kamma that you have done is done. Your present kamma is important and so powerful. If you are a Vipassana meditator, have confidence. If a person like A�gulimāla, who had killed 999 people in this very life (and we don’t know what he had done in the past), could eradicate his past kamma by the practice of Vipassana, why have pessimism? Have all the optimism. You have this wonderful technique by which you can come out of all your misery. §
Can an AT celebrate their birthday ceremony in the centre, and in the name of celebrating the birthday ask someone to sit a course and give dāna to the centre for all the expenses of that day?
Well certainly any AT or non-AT, any Vipassana meditator can come here and meditate on their birthday. Or you can meditate in your own house. This is the best way to celebrate your birthday. But it is not very healthy that you ask others to meditate for your birthday. Others may or may not meditate. If you are an AT this does not mean that you should ask all your students to come and meditate. You meditate. Whatever donation you want to give you are free to give, there is no objection to that. §
While walking or lying down, is it enough to observe the incoming or outgoing breath without concentrating on the point where it touches?
Well, if you feel the touch, good, but otherwise if you are only aware of the inhalation-exhalation, good enough. This will help you because you are with the truth, the reality. §
When is a human being able to decide that he or she is to wait for a sammāsambuddha before taking a dip in nirvāna?
It can happen in the next moment, why wait for a sammāsambuddha? You just do your job and leave the result to Dhamma. As I keep saying in the long courses, kālan āgameyya, let the time ripen. When the time ripens, automatically you will dip. So keep doing your job: observing sensations, remaining equanimous. Then you are coming nearer and nearer to nirvāna.
May all of you get a dip in this very life. Keep on working and forget about the results. Leave the result to Dhamma. May all of you be happy, be peaceful, be liberated. §
If a pagoda is being constructed at a centre, should the shape be standard, or is some other form also possible, such as a temple or a mosque-like form?
Well it could be a temple or a mosque, nothing wrong with that. But the architecture should be meaningful. There must be cells in it where people can sit and meditate. When we have a shape exactly according to the stūpas in Burma it reminds us that we lost this wonderful technique and Burma maintained it. We generate gratitude every time we see this structure. For centuries people will feel grateful to Burma. When this technique went to Burma, then along with it went the architecture of this country. They made stūpas like the Sāñci stūpa and later on all the decorations came. The form was of Sāñci stūpa to remind them that the Dhamma came from India. They were so grateful to India. §
In many courses teachers behave like disciplinarians. Why don’t they behave like a mother as you do?
Well, let them become a mother like me and then they will start behaving like this. They are learning how to become a mother and you are learning how to practise Vipassana. I have been getting good feedback about many of the assistant teachers or deputy teachers or teachers. People come and say, "I had such a wonderful experience under this teacher. He was full of compassion. She was full of goodwill. Look, he or she explained things to me so well." I am happy about this. However it is quite possible that there might be some who have not worked in an ideal way. Don’t give importance to that. Understand that they are under training and you are also under training. They are in training how to teach and you are in training how to learn. Carry on your job, learn. §
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