A 1988 publication by BPS.
Book Reviews
The Art of Living: Vipassana Meditation As Taught by S. N. Goenka. William Hart. Harper & Row, San Francisco. 167 pp. $9.95.
S. N. Goenka is one of the most popular present-day teachers of vipassana meditation and now the head of an international network of meditation centres radiating from his main centre at Igatpuri near Bombay. A disciple of the late U Ba Khin of Burma, he is best known for his short intensive courses which combine meditation on the breath with the “sweeping” contemplation of sensations in the body.
William Hart, one of Goenka’s assistants, has compiled this book from his teacher’s discourses given during 10-day retreats as well as from his published articles. Hart has organised this material into a coherent sequence which unfolds in accordance with the Four Noble Truths and the threefold division of the path. Each chapter consists of three sections-a formal discourse, Goenka’s replies to questions, and brief stories illustrating the teaching-and the whole book ends with a chapter on the application of vipassana to daily life.
Although the title suggests that the book may be offering a soft sell presentation of vipassana tailored to popular expectations, Goenka’s exposition of Buddhist doctrine and practice is, with a few important exceptions to be noted, surprisingly traditional. His discourses set forth an extremely clear and lively account of the teachings, and his style is marked by a buoyancy and exuberance that bespeak the strength of his own confidence in the practice.
However, although I find much in this book that is worthy of appreciation, there are several caveats that I feel should be raised. One comes to the fore in Goenka’s reply to a question whether he is teaching Buddhism. Goenka answers that he does not teach an “ism,” a sectarian doctrine, but Dhamma, an art of living which anyone can practise regardless of his faith and which will make any individual a better practitioner of his own religion. Now this reply, though superficially attractive, will be found on closer examination to involve some flawed thinking. Not only does it imply, mistakenly, that the Buddha did not teach precise doctrines that are in principle incompatible with doctrines taught by other religions, but it also slights the important point that the practice of vipassana is intended to generate insights into those very teachings that set the Buddha’s Dhamma off from other creeds. It seems, moreover, to take the practice of vipassana out of its framework of going for refuge to the Triple Gem. It may be true that anyone who practises basic meditation techniques will experience concrete benefits. But if one committed to the belief structure of another religion is offered vipassana simply as an “art of living,” not a path to deliverance, he may eventually find himself drawn into a profound inner conflict detrimental to his spiritual welfare.
My second reservation concerns the explanation Goenka offers of how vipassana meditation purifies the mind. Goenka states that when the meditator attains a state of dispassionate equanimity, his old accumulations of saṅkharas, “conditionings,” arise in the form of sensations, to be eradicated by the non-reactive awareness of those sensations. Finally, when “all the past saṅkharas, are eradicated, we enjoy the limitless happiness of full liberation.” If this were the case, however, full liberation would be unobtainable. For during the beginningless past of saṅsara we have each accumulated an immeasurable stock of kammic conditionings. If these can only be eradicated by being contemplated with equanimity when they arise as sensations, we would have to contemplate sensations through an endless future and thus infinite time would be required to gain liberation. Obviously this explanation-which has no basis either in the Buddha’s discourses or the Pali commentaries-cannot be maintained, and the dilemma to which it leads points to a weak spot in an approach to vipassana which makes bare awareness and equanimity the core of the practice. In the Buddha’s own exposition vipassana purifies not simply by enhancing awareness and equanimity but by issuing in a penetration of the essential characteristics of the conditioned world. This penetration—which requires investigation and discernment—brings about a revulsion towards the conditioned, and thence leads to the abolition of clinging and the mind’s liberation from defilements.
When earlier parts of the book indicate that Goenka has a firm grasp of many basic aspects of the Dhamma, it remains a puzzle why he has developed an interpretation of the path that deviates significantly from the Buddha’s teachings set forth in the Pali Canon.