Post #133: The Flow of Dhamma

30 Aug. 2024

     While I give S.N. Goenka and his many assistants and helpers full credit for putting me on the Path—no small thing—I have never felt the need for any great closeness to him and his associate teachers. This may sound like ingratitude or an insufficient appreciation for what I owe them, but I don’t think so. To me, even personal temperament apart, it lines up with a central dimension of the Teaching itself, and with what Goenka himself keeps emphasizing, namely the need for self-reliance in the Dhamma.

     In a famous talk to the Kalamas, whose town occupied an important spot on the bustling spiritual lecture circuit at the time, and who were getting confused by hearing so many conflicting messages from seemingly credible teachers passing through, the Buddha made much of the need to use one’s own common sense and practical experience to distinguish the fruitful and salutary from the unwholesome and pernicious, in spiritual matters no less than in any other (Anguttara Nikaya 3:65). But these Kalamas were perplexed souls, one might say, not confirmed students of the Buddha; true enough, except that with his closest disciples too, the Buddha kept striking a similar note, all the way to his last days.

     The Pali Canon offers a touching account of how the Awakened One devoted his last energies to reinforcing the spirit of wise self-reliance on the part of his disciples. Having fallen grievously ill during the previous Rains, with pains so sharp that he felt me might die (though all the while unshaken in his equanimous awareness), the Buddha roused himself one last time and fought back the disease to gain a little time (Digha Nikaya 16.2.23). To what message did he commit this final, precious surge of a waning vitality? To nothing other than what he had been saying for nearly half a century: he reminded his monks that he had never held anything back from them—that he had taught all of them the whole of the Dhamma, insofar as it was essential for overcoming Dukkha, “making no distinction between inner and outer” (16.2.25). True, he admitted to knowing about much more arcane matters to which human curiosity might take a fancy—as plentiful as the leaves scattered about a forest in autumn—but none of this was vital to the true challenge and opportunity presented by a human birth (Samyutta Nikaya 56:31). What mattered most he had shared again and again, without stint, with anyone who would listen.

     One can almost hear a hint of exasperation as the long-time teacher called on his students not to keep turning to him anymore, again and again, for ever more explanations of things he had said so many times already, but at last to discover within themselves the maturity to live as islands, taking the Dhamma as their guide and themselves as their refuge, none other (Digha Nikaya 16.2.25-26). It is by practicing the Dhamma properly, not by paying outward respect, he reminded them with all the urgency of his last days, that one honors and esteems a Buddha rightly; all else is secondary (16.5.3). One last chance he offered them, on the very brink of death, to raise any remaining questions or express lingering doubts, doing so through their friends if they felt too shy to ask in their own names (16.6.5). And then he bid them farewell, to live by their own wisdom from now on, bearing ever in mind that all conditioned things arise only to pass away, and that they, his faithful disciples, must, as we all do, work out their salvation by unrelenting effort, not put their hopes in anyone else’s saving powers (16.6.7).

     It is the same in S.N. Goenka’s discourses: the need to develop self-reliance in the Dhamma is stressed from the very outset, even in the evening talks that accompany the foundational 10-Day Vipassana course; but it receives perhaps its most urgent treatment at the very gateway to more serious practice with the organization he founded—the first night’s discourse on the 20-Day course that is reserved for committed students who meet an entire catalogue of preconditions. Yet, however often a teacher may say it, and be he the Buddha himself, whether he will get reliably heard is another matter altogether.

     “Beware lest a statue slay you,” Nietzsche proclaims at the end of part I of his own attempt at prophecy: “You say you believe in Zarathustra? But what matters Zarathustra? One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil.” Zen even speaks of killing the Buddha if one were to meet him on the road—not words of blasphemy, but of pious warning against relying on props, even the most august, when one needs to stand on one’s own two feet. Alas, in a tragic but all-too common irony of spiritual practice, guruism is no less rife, and sometimes even more so, around teachers who keep pointing out its dangers. Nor is it a safeguard against taking things to sundry worrisome extremes that the middle way is continually invoked. Yessir! Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu, intone the reverent ones, with the best of intentions and a measure of encouragement, though with permission granted not to participate if one should be so backward as not to feel the sublime truth with all one’s heart.

     All of which is to say that, much as I value Goenkaji and what his teachers and volunteers have done for me, I do not often get withdrawal symptoms when I have not heard the familiar voice for a while, or even when I absent myself from the retreats a little longer than the regulation maximum of a year. I do in fact abide by that rule of thumb, and I’ve sometimes done several retreats a year in my hotter phases, not because Goenka or anyone else says so, or to keep my membership in good standing, but because I have indeed found it to be a key resource for keeping me on track, not only spiritually but in all kinds of invaluable ways. Not that I would call it a panacea that is able by itself to fix everything that ails us in life—a potentially dangerous notion, though not uncommon on the trail. Meditation does not make all problems go away; but it sure helps. One need not wish to live underground exclusively to appreciate a clean and solid basement for the house one is living in, rather than a foundation of sand.

     In other words, I had not heard from Goenka since my last retreat, a little over a year ago now—less because I am avoiding my annual dose than because of renovations at my usual center plus ligaments in my knees that have not been responding well to lengthy cross-legged sittings in recent years—when I decided, last night, out of the blue, to look up his discourses for the 3-Day course and put them on during my evening sitting. (Vipassana purists may insist that such discourses should be listened to at retreats only, or at least only after one has heard them there before. Sound advice, I would say, less because these talks would do any harm out of context than because, isolated from the practice, they may not prove particularly impressive or effective. Certainly there are Goenka students who adore these evening talks—and a few who do not, along with many who may change their mind from course to course, since they are always the same—but everyone would agree, I think, that they depend for their full power on the connection with the unfolding practice. (Even when one has heard the same line dozens of times before, one gets to the point where it is comforting, after another long day on the mat, to hear Uncle Goenka’s unmistakable cadences at night. He becomes a benign presence as much as a teacher—a fittingly ethereal state for someone who died a decade ago but remains forever in his bloom, in an ever-changing world, if only on tape.)

     Carried perhaps on the wings of what was being said, it turned out a particularly lengthy and intense evening session for me. Not that there were any great revelations: the 3-Day discourses contain nothing very new to someone already familiar with the technique and its logic, they just come at things from a slightly different angle that is helpful to hear. Goenkaji summarizes the essentials particularly well in these three talks, and I was reminded of something about the Path that I’ve discovered before, but that keeps surprising me whenever it happens again. On the surface of the vast body of water that is the Dhamma, there may sometimes be no indication of much going on at all. Instead of a mighty sailing ship or powerful steamer, perhaps there is merely a little raft floating along, with barely a makeshift sail on it, no engine, and no wind to speak of. By the looks of it, there may be no discernible movement at all. And yet there is always more to these waters than the surface and the vessel; there are also the currents and the depths, which can take hold of the traveler in unexpected ways. One moment, you seem to be merely drifting in languid circles, the next you feel the pull again, and then some.

     I’ve talked before about how I doubt that it is possible to “fall off the Path,” as is sometimes said (#90); that one’s readiness to “roll up the mat” often brings surprises in its wake (#86); and that the practice, to me anyway, has always felt like a call to start again, and again, and again—a favorite refrain of Goenkaji’s as well (#11). Even on the last day of the 30-Day course (no beginner’s fare, that one), Goenka speaks about “falling down,” repeatedly. This too comes as no surprise to the veteran, but it’s still gladdening to hear: the measure of one’s progress on the Path, as Goenka keeps reminding his students, is by no means how swiftly or impressively you can stride ahead, or what remarkable sensations you have to report on, but whether you can keep up the effort through the low periods, or take up the work again when the thread breaks—with awareness and equanimity.** The latter too may fail, of course, but then you can retreat to the second degree: being equanimous with the temporary lapse in equanimity. Or the third, and so on, finding some point in the spinning wheel where you can put a stop to the madness and simply accept what is going on, without judgment and reaction, only the wisdom of deep and detached observation.

     How much you will get tripped up along the way is not subject to your control, students of the Buddha would say, but largely a matter of the karma that you are bringing along, like it or not, as your surest and most inescapable traveling companion. At the same time, this karmic baggage contains some useful stuff for the journey and should not be mistaken for inescapable fate, since your every effort and intention goes into shaping and reshaping what you are carrying on your back, so to speak.***

     Never mind karma in the strict sense; take instead the gazillions of connections in your brain that have been getting established and strengthened (or weakened) every moment of your life. Imagine how everything you have ever experienced has left an imprint, and how your volitional actions have made especially strong impressions. Now add all the hereditary factors that condition your thoughts and actions—echoes not from your previous lives, granted, but from countless very real ones all the same. (I do not mean to equate this image with Buddhist karma, only to use it for illustration.) All this still remains dynamic and changeable, subject to some measure of volitional control on your part; yet, at the same time, all is deeply dyed in previous conditions that color and perhaps determine outright every move you make, mental or physical. Seeing things in this light, does it not make sense that we would naturally draw some kinds of experience towards ourselves, as if by a kind of magnetism, and repel others? If we add how our perceptions affect our experience, sometimes changing its meaning completely, must it not be admitted that we surely inhabit not the world as it exists independently of our past experience, but only as we see it through glasses that have become thoroughly tinged and tinted by so many days and nights of human willing and doing and suffering?

     Just where is freedom to be found, then? It’s a mystery over which the greatest minds have tied themselves in endless knots, and I have never felt I understood it myself, despite making an effort to follow the various intricate reasonings (#30, #121). Applying a kind of sloppy logic, I would not presume to answer the question with any rigor, only to dig in behind the common-sense proposition that surely we are too constrained to be perfectly free, but also too free to consider ourselves perfectly constrained. Somehow we can change the subtle but powerful configurations of our lives that I sketched above; but we can do so only in increments, like the giant tankers on the high seas that I have invoked before (#13, #61). Both these poles, the freedom as well as the constraint, inward no less than outward, seem unshakable pillars of human self-understanding to me; neither to ourselves nor before others could we make much sense of actual human behavior if we imagined it to be either perfectly free or totally compelled.

     Given not only what is unsettling about the ancient free will versus determinism debate, but also the Buddhist conception of no-self, one might well wonder who exactly is supposed to be in charge, to the extent that we are not just little steel orbs in a noisy pinball machine. What remains of the directing self if it is no longer considered a unified, abiding entity, but just a momentary, ever-changing constellation? Again, I cannot make sense of this puzzle in any very satisfactory way (I’ve called it a riddle before for a reason, see #30). All I can say is that whatever the self may or may not be, we do experience ourselves as making choices in the moment, and these choices certainly define us and set our direction in life. It would be foolish, not wise, to think that one could brush this bedrock of human experience aside with a half-digested vision of no-self.

     Part of our direction in life involves the orientation we choose towards what we take to be higher truths, the Dhamma in this case. To the practitioner it must appear (even if it may be a matter of faith as much as experience) that the currents of Dhamma will carry us if we let them; but we must also do our part to keep up the connection. If we pay this dimension of our lives insufficient heed, the guiding currents will not disappear altogether, but they will lose much of their power to show us the way. (As always, I am not propounding anything here, only thinking aloud. I do not understand these profound mysteries. The deeper you plunge, the more you may need to keep things simple if you don’t want to lose your way in the depths. It gets dark there too, not just enlightening.) Walk away all you want, deliberately or not; take a vacation or try to take your leave altogether, what you think you have left behind is still there for you to return to, should you change your mind. You won’t be forced to go back, or reprimanded for your dallying or straying; you will merely be welcomed, whether as a model son or a prodigal. What better definition of a true home could there be?

     What makes this demanding Path so daunting, by Goenka’s admission as by that of any serious practitioner, is that it is so very, very long—an aspect of the Dhamma that has never recommended it to human beings, who like their fixes fast and flashy. In our instant-access age it has perhaps become a greater obstacle than ever.† Who can even imagine anymore the sense in an effort in which perhaps an entire lifetime of dedicated practice will not get one within reach of the destination? Who wants to hear, these days, of slow and sustained courses of action at all, let alone ones that commit the devotee to decades of advancing at what may at times prove an almost imperceptible pace—a snail sliding along slowly on its own slime in an age of budget airlines and dreams of space travel. Liberate yourself this very instant, is the motto of the day, not work out your salvation one incremental moment at a time, all your life, perhaps with no very spectacular outward results at all, not even a discernible halo. As Joseph Goldstein has said, with a smirk, meditation is effective, no doubt, but it is also terribly inefficient (#13).

     It should not come as a surprise, then, that along with a very dedicated core and plenty of spiritual visitors who come for their Goenka trip, put it on record, and file it away, there would also be a cacophony of sneers from all kinds of visionaries who think they know better, or who are in a rush, or who are simply disinclined to make such a forbidding effort with returns that can be hard to pin down even for oneself, let alone to demonstrate before others. It may not be a practice that builds upon faith from the outset, but faith is still involved. Whether you will continue or not must finally depend, despite all disclaimers about the “scientific” nature of the Dhammic enterprise, on whether you come to believe, sooner or later, that the practice is good for you—whether others agree or not, and whatever you may or may not be able to demonstrate to them.

     I blame nobody for having reservations; I’ve gone through them aplenty in my almost twenty years of traveling with Goenkaji and my fellow students. What puzzles me is not anyone’s questions and doubts, or even pointed criticism, but how many denizens of YouTubia see fit to mouth off about something that could hardly be offered with purer intentions, free of charge, by volunteers who give very generously of their time for no other reason than to be of service to others. No one on the Path should be exempt from legitimate queries: Vipassana like the Buddhist Path teaches self-reliance, truthfulness, and common sense, not playing along with nonsense and keeping your mouth shut when something does not look or sound right. Yatha-bhuta, working on accepting things as they are, not as we would like them to be, may also bring unpleasant things to the fore. One might therefore say, without being faulted for it, that Goenkaji had his limitations as a teacher or that the centers organized along the lines he specified have their imperfections (though they are really very nice). Neither the structure of the courses nor their substance will be to everyone’s liking: that goes without saying. But if you have a bad or frustrating experience in Goenkaland, or a seemingly fruitless one, perhaps you should pause and ask yourself what these troubles say about you, before laying them at someone else’s doorstep.

     Another set of more high-minded critics think they need to warn off the great unwashed on the strength of their own lofty spiritual attainments—declaring the technique good but far too advanced for the common run of phone-addled lesser mortals. Go get ready first, they say, preferably under their own superior guidance, of course. Not for me, these holdings-forth on the spiritual immaturity of others; clean your own yard, front and back, and your basement too; leave it to others to take care of theirs. That human beings will use anything to mark status is certain, but I see nothing here but a high-brow variation on the ubiquitous Vipassana theme of preening by those who have braved a course or two and then post evidence of their proud survival, as if it were an Iron Man competition. It may line up only too well with the show-it-all-off culture that our so-called “social media” (all media are social, duh) have visited upon the land like a blight upon the fields; yet, however aligned with the signs of the times, nothing could be more inimical to the spirit of the Dhamma, to the Way of the Taoists and Stoics, to mental hygiene, or to any philosophical art of living worth the name (#24, #26, #80, #93).

     While boasting in such a crude vein is hardly attractive or apposite, it looks relatively innocent to the charitable eye—egocentric, to be sure, but easily forgivable, as being merely human, all-too human. It seems that we poor fallen creatures will always find something to posture about; making that something a wholesome practice, at least, is perhaps not so bad, considering the alternatives (#18). But using one’s own supposedly advanced perspective as justification for putting others off something that has proved life-transforming in so many cases, and doing it with a smugness that carries against the wind, as the Dhammapada describes the fragrance of the good, only with a far less pleasant odor—that is a very different and much less tolerable thing.

     It should be very clear to any prospective participant in one of Goenka’s courses that these ten-day meditation marathons can be very intense indeed. They are not to be undertaken in the spirit of a vacation; they will push everyone to the limit, sooner or later, usually for the better, sometimes not. Whatever mental troubles are brought along for  the ride, as they must be, may surface with considerable, occasionally overwhelming force, and the centers will not always be equipped to deal with extreme cases. But please, nobody makes any secret of the fact that Vipassana courses are very serious undertakings—least of all the organizers. It is evident that some risks for the ill-equipped cannot be ruled out, be it for physical or mental reasons. But that would be the case for anything that is deep and demanding in our world, however salutary and benign its tendency, and the numbers of those who may do themselves some temporary harm by overstraining their capacities in various ways on Vipassana courses are tiny compared to those who have benefited immensely, let alone those who need it badly but cannot find their way there. If it were otherwise the organization could never have grown to such size without any dues or membership rolls at all.

     Nor is there any way to prejudge, in advance, who will pull through—about 95 percent of students, from what I’ve seen—or what the benefits (or the problems) will be. These courses bring up a lot that is not normally visible, because it is so deeply submerged, and one can never tell beforehand, even as a relatively seasoned meditator, what might come next, or whether an episode will turn out “good” or “bad.” These very categories soon lose their meaning, or at least their usual unambiguous contours, when it comes to serious meditation. Let me be very clear: I was not conspicuous for my good cheer at the end of my first 10-Day Goenka course either. Quite the contrary:  I arrived on the finishing line raw and exhausted, and when someone asked me on the last day (devoted to Metta, loving kindness, and free exchange with one another) whether I would be coming back, I did not hesitate to say that I could think of nothing worse, for the moment. Still I had an inkling, even then, that despite all growing pains, I had stumbled upon something very special that I would need to revisit.

     I never held back on my pointed views, then or now, and always made sure, in conversation with others, not to paint the courses in too shining a light, lest someone sign up with misconceptions as to the rocky and sometimes outright agonizing road ahead. But that said, I would never have dreamt of trying to warn anyone off something that has the potential to turn lives around with sometimes truly transformative, and often highly beneficial results. Proceed with caution, common sense, and at your own risk, understanding that all such deep operations on your mind come with risks. So does even the slightest procedure at the hospital; but the possibility of complications is no good reason to shy away from an operation you need. All you can do is to weigh the discernible dangers as best you can against the potential gains, based on an honest appraisal of your own readiness for such a serious project; then you take your plunge and hope for the best. It won’t always go well, only usually: par for the course in life.

     Of course it may make sense to prepare yourself a little, physically, for sitting such long hours, and mentally, by being realistic about what a potential ordeal you have signed up for. It can all be done, even by the inexperienced and weak-backed to whom the relentless daily program does not come easily at all: me for one. There are ways to soften the impact and quietly cut corners, if you need to. It is also possible to withdraw along the way, should the imperative need arise, even if it is not recommended. Most importantly, we are all capable of more than we think. If it’s not for you, either you can quit early, if you truly must, or you can pull through and never come back. That judgment is yours to make, and unanswerable. But discouraging or dissuading others is another matter, and I wouldn’t go near it, even if I would be equally unwilling to talk anyone into it.

     Doing a ten-day retreat is a grave choice, and one you may well regret, temporarily at least, while the course takes you on what can be a truly wild roller-coaster ride. At other moments you may feel, with great exhilaration, that it is the best thing you have ever done. Ideally it would all be observed with a little more equanimity—but that is the fruit of the training, not its precondition. Whatever the ups and downs of your journey may turn out to be, in hindsight, despite a few naysayers, it almost always looks an enriching experience or even an unprecedented blessing.

     Once again, I too have kept a fairly detailed mental record of my miseries along the way, refusing to prettify the picture afterwards by erasing the memory how much I suffered and groaned inwardly, almost to the point of cursing the whole thing, or at least the need for it, at my lowest moments. So the question, as it looks to me, is not whether one must expect a measure of real pain from these courses, physical and mental; based on my own experience, I cannot imagine anyone escaping unscathed. Only how much is that really saying? No more, really, than that suffering is as unavoidable at such camps as it is in the outside world, only experienced more intensely, under a magnifying glass as it were, but in as safe an environment as can be reasonably devised for the purpose with the resources available.

     Sure one can imagine settings with posture experts and resident psychologists at hand to indulge you to a greater extent than a Vipassana camp will, but such hyper-individualized attention is not the point of the exercise. As far as amenities and creature comforts go, the Goenka centers are pretty high-end—so much so, indeed, that one occasionally hears gung-ho purists gripe about being made to endure too much commodious living for their austere tastes. That may be their endurance test; on my part, I’ve never complained about being made too comfortable. As for the pain, since it is inevitable in life, the wise question to ask is not whether it will occur, but whether it will be kept to endurable levels, and whether it will prove therapeutic and salutary in the end. An affirmative answer cannot be guaranteed, but it is likely despite everything.

     Getting your teeth drilled is not something anyone normally constituted would do for fun, even if nothing major goes wrong, which can never be ruled out. Still it is an excellent idea, in almost all cases, to go see the dentist when you are aching. The Buddhists would say that we are always aching on some level, whether we realize it or not, and that everything depends on our willingness to keep our dental appointments; I am as inclined to agree with them, after years of struggle with the practice, as I am disinclined to airbrush the rougher episodes in the swiveling and reclining chair.

     You may find Goenkaji’s take on Vipassana near-perfect, or it may look seriously flawed to you. Who can be sure: such is the human condition. For now we see through a glass darkly, or at least I am sure I do; what beings of Goenka’s stature can discern, or how close they can get to seeing face to face, I would not presume to guess at or pronounce upon. It’s out of my range, plain and simple. Whatever else may need to be said, then, the Vipassana centers established in Goenka’s name look like a remarkable feature of our fallen world to me, a real spring of hope and solace, and surely not something one should discourage anyone from exploring, provided some basic common-sense precautions are met and kept in mind.

*Thus Spoke Zarathustra, section 3, “The Gift-Giving Virtue” (p. 78 in the 1978 Penguin edition translated by Walter Kaufmann). I have taken some liberties with the order of the sentences.

**The “two wings of the practice,” Goenka calls them in the 10-Day discourses.

***For a far more sophisticated and subtle treatment of the modifiability of kamma than the crude sketch I will offer in the following paragraphs, I highly recommend “Kamma and Its Fruit” in The Vision of Dhamma: Buddhist Writings of Nyanaponika Thera, edited by Bhikkhu Bodhi (BPS Pariyatti, 2000), pp. 310–322: “The lawfulness that governs kamma does not operate with mechanical rigidity but allows for a considerable range of modifications in the ripening of the fruit… The mental process constituting kammic action never exists in isolation but in a field; the ripening also reflects the kamma’s internal conditions—that is, the total qualitative structure of the mind from which an action issues… This complexity, already great, is increased still very much more by the fact that each individual life-stream is interwoven with many others through the interaction of their respective kammas. So intricate is the net of kammic conditioning that the Buddha declared kamma-result to be one of the four ‘unthinkables’ and warned against treating it as a subject of speculation. Yet, though the detailed workings of kamma escape our intellection, the practically important message is clear: the fact that kammic results are modifiable frees us from the bane of determinism and its ethical correlate, fatalism, and keeps the road to liberation constantly open before us… Any individual’s moral choice may be severely limited by the varying [karmic load] he carries around; yet every time he stops to make a decision or choice, he is potentially free to throw off that load, at least temporarily. In one short moment he can transcend aeons of kammic bondage.”

     This may be a good moment to remind readers that while my outlook on the things I discuss on this blog has been heavily influenced both by Goenka’s teaching and by more traditional Theravadan perspectives, what I have to say can be called Buddhist only in a very loose and approximate sense and should not be relied on as a guide to the Dhamma. It is made particularly clear in the 3-Day discourses to which I allude above how central a point of reference celibacy is for Goenka; it forms no part of my spiritual ambitions. Buddhahood itself appears in my field of vision only as a kind of framing device, or perhaps a diffused living presence, but certainly not as a concrete aspiration. Making such a definite distinction between myself and the eminent teachers I keep invoking in my writing has nothing to do with setting myself at a critical distance, as if I thought I knew better; if these venerable teachers see things differently, it must be because they come at the issues from a higher vantage point than mine. I can only live by what I can see, but they are the authorities and I do not challenge them; I am merely thinking out loud and making what sense I can of high mysteries that are beyond me.

†Not that it can be called a new problem. The Buddha himself is said to have hesitated, immediately after his enlightenment, over whether it was worth speaking to worldly mankind of profound truths so unintuitive and difficult to grasp—“this abstruse Teaching that goes against the worldly stream” (Majjhima Nikaya 26:19). In a similar spirit, the Tao Te Ching proposes, as one of the tests for the genuine Way, whether it will be foolishly dismissed and derided by those who think they know better (ch. 41).