How to do Vipassana Meditation, and why?
There is a
lot of fuzz around the in the community of meditation regarding vipassana meditation.
There are a lot of retreats for vipassana meditation everywhere.
So, lets
understand this meditation technique right from the roots and know how to
perform it.
A little history lesson for Vipassana Meditation!
Gautam
Buddha was the practitioner of the vipassana meditation, and he was the one who
propagated it, and might as well have invented it, but we can’t say for sure on
that!
The Buddhism
religion started with the foundation and that foundation was Vipassana. What Buddha
preached was not Buddhism, is was vipassana. However, the religion came out of the
people who followed Buddha.
How to do vipassana meditation?
Vipassana means
to observe yourself. Vipassana meditation is very much similar to breathing
meditation or awareness meditation, and many aspects of those meditations are
the outcome of vipassana meditation technique.
So, let's
get to the core of the topic, ‘How to do vipassana meditation? And Why?’
Well, you
start normally as you do with other types of meditations. If you don’t know how
to begin meditation and if you are new to meditation, you should check out the
beginners guide to meditation first and then come to this article!
So, the
essence of vipassana meditation is observation as I said earlier, but the
reason for this observation and the ideology of Buddhists behind the
observation is really different.
·
Start
by focusing on your breath and try to feel little sensations of the nose and
the hair of the nose.
·
Try to feel the cool air coming inside and slightly hotter air going outside through the nose.
·
Try to feel every little sensation around the nose related to breathing.
·
You can also give attention to the feeling of your stomach as it swells inhaling and relaxes while exhaling.
This is how
you do vipassana meditation in a nutshell, it is really easy, but difficult to
master.
Why vipassana? And what is the reason for observing these smaller things!
What Buddha
believed is that we are always complaining about things! We either crave for a
thing that we don’t have, or hate the thing that we already have! So, what we
are actually doing is opposing what nature has to give us and in return
becoming sadder due to that opposition!
And Buddha wanted
to accept! He wanted acceptance! And he wanted acceptance because he knew that
acceptance would bring happiness as a byproduct!
When we
observe the breath, and as we become more observant, we will start feeling
every little sensation in our body. Itching as well as pleasant sensations are
a part of it! But what happens next is
really interesting and important to know and change!
What is the
first thought when you feel itching on your back while meditating?
“Oh, crap
now this will not let me concentrate for the entire session!!!”
“Lets just
move once and get rid of this itching FOREVER!!! (but it is never forever)
“Wow this
feeling is amazing, why don’t I get it more often!!!”
The first
thing that our mind does is to react to it! You crave either for the feeling to
vanish or you crave to make it last longer! The feeling is what nature has
given you, but you are not accepting it as it is and for the time that it is!
How to do vipassana meditation?
Why am I asking
this again? The reason is that the essence of vipassana meditation is to be nonjudgmental
towards feelings, to accept and to observe the little itchiness or pleasant sensations.
Once your
brain gets into the habit of acceptance, it will automatically start applying
it to other areas of your life! And that’s when you will feel “Oh, I am
happier! But why am I suddenly happier?”
You are not
‘suddenly’ happier, you are happier because your mind has started to accept the
situations and things that nature has thrown towards you!
This is the
reason Gautam Buddha practiced vipassana.
So now you
know “How to do Vipassana meditation, and Why?”
