Learnings & Experiences

During Vipassana meditation, the idea is to watch body sensations as they are, equanimously — ie. without reacting.  When I first started practicing, I was kind of unclear what “without reacting” or “equanimity” meant. Equanimity is a priced quality of a meditator and it is elusive. Sometimes I feel like I got it, and many…

I restarted meditation practice in early Aug 2023. I have written a full post about what led me to restart my practice, after I completely let it go in 2016 when I completed my first 10 day Goenka retreat. It started off small with just 5 min Aana Paana, once a day. Then a week…

Looking at biographical stories of many enlightened people, I have formed a theory that it takes roughly seven years for a meditator to go from start to complete realisation. After that, according to Frank Yang, it takes roughly seven years for the realisation to be more or less integrated with everything in life. Additionally, it…

During meditation, I have been noticing something interesting. As I observe sensations closely, they seem to behave differently. For instance, the very act of breathing changes when I observe it closely. The vibrations that float around breathing change as I observe them closely. Initially, the vibrations are in sync with breathing and when I watch…

One of the first things that Goenkaji tells us during the 10 days Vipassana retreat was this: When the mind comes in touch with a sensation, there is a reaction of craving or aversion. Out of ignorance (avijja), one does not understand the impermanent nature of the body and the mind. One therefore constantly goes…

Once we have done some amount of concentration practice, and then some amount of insight practice, we get into the territory where we start noticing things like body sensations, vibrations, emotions and thoughts (memories, plans, ideas). It will become easy to drop into meditation. Gone will be the days when you had to focus and…

How do we know that we are angry, or irritated, or sad, or frustrated, or scared, or anxious, or happy, or elated, or excited, or aroused, or horny, or bored, or anything else? No, no.. let me put it another way. How exactly are anger, irritation, sadness, frustration, fear, anxiety, happiness, excitement, arousal and boredom…

When I first learned Vipassana at the 10 day Goenka retreat in Dhamma Paphulla in 2016, I was taught to practise watching sensations in the body exactly as it is, not as I want it to be. The idea was to watch every sensation as it came and to realise that every sensation has only…

What exactly should one observe in the Breath during meditation? That was my nagging question after the first few sittings of Aaana Paana at Dhamma Paphulla in Jan of 2016, when I went in for my first 10 day retreat. I went into the 10 day retreat with a lot of excitement and motivation. But…

I had a violent and angry outburst three days ago, the kind I had not experienced in a long time. I have been consistently practicing vipassana for close to 8 weeks. In the past 4 weeks, its been two sessions of an hour each, every single day. I know that I am making progress on…