“Ah KNEE cha” is an ancient Pali word for “change”. It’s one of the principal working concepts for the Vipassana meditation practice taught all over the world by disciples of S.N. Goenka.
The tradition was founded by Siddharta Guatama, the Buddha, 2500 years ago.Although its concepts have been kept and taught through the years in the Asian countries, the technique itself had been lost to all but the monks in Burma until the 20th century. Teacher Goenka tells the story of his good Kharma to learn of the technique and to share it with the rest of the world. He began his efforts in 1969. Now there are centers of training all over the world run entirely by volunteers and funded entirely by contributions from past students.
From January 13-24th, I attended the ten day training at the center in Pecatonica, IL…just west of Rockford. There were 19 women and 14 men who completed my course. The training center is a complex of buildings in a country setting with corn fields surrounding. Students are housed in a residence hall where each person has a very simple sleeping room and shares a bath with one other person. There is a dining hall and a meditation hall.
Everything is organized for the students every minute of the day. Rising at 4AM there is work to do until 9PM. All meals are cooked and served for the students. I am not a vegan but, in my mind and the minds of all I talked to, the meals are fabulous! There are lots of rules, but one will discover that there is a reason for each and every one of them. “Noble silence” is part of the agreement one makes at the start. If you cannot chatter with others around you, there is no getting around the fact that you will turn inward. OK, turning inward…now we get to the crux of it all. By looking within during meditation the intent is to slow things down. The sensations that arise during the meditation period are compared to the frustrations and tensions that we deal with every day - the developments of cravings and aversions. I am here to tell you that some of those sensations were downright painful. In the middle of the week we were meditating for a solid hour without moving during that time. In the beginning I don’t mind telling you that I found a way to cheat just a little bit to relax my back.
I am a little ashamed to admit that by the middle of the week, I had begun to suspect that the whole thing might be some sort of conspiracy. Perhaps they would next ask us all to travel to Spain so that we might beat our bare backs with the thorn branches until blood would run down. Surely we were not supposed to talk to each other because we would share our feelings and all turn around to walk right out the door. What sustained me was the knowledge of the countless ways that lives have been turned around by this training. Surely, in the end, it would all come clear to me. It did.
On Day 10 we were allowed to have “Noble Chatter” for the last few hours together. We had spent 10 days meditating together, eating together and passing each other on the pathways and in the halls, not saying a word to each other. We seemed to explode at the end of the term in our joy of finally being able to share our thoughts.
There are lots of sources for learning more about Vipassana training. We are lucky to have a training center so close. The center here in Illinois seems to be one of the most active in the USA. Please see the website www.dhamma.org for more information and for the upcoming scheduled training sessions. You may also want to see some of the short videos on You-Tube of Teacher Goenka speaking. If you have not seen the documentary film Dhamma Brothers, this would be a good resource as well. It is the story of several hardened criminals who turned their lives around through the meditation practice.
Teacher Goenka spoke in front the United Nations assembly of nations in the year 2000. He stated, “If there is no peace in the mind of the individual, I can’t understand how can there be real peace in the human world.” Teacher Goenka has surely brought “anicca” to the world and to me. Laurie has my email address. I would be happy to talk with any of you who would like more information about my experience at the Vipassana training center. Jane Adams is a retired teacher living in Belvidere, IL. She has had the privilege to raise two beautiful young women and to sail around the world in a private yacht.She is now working on a book describing her adventures during her eight years of cruising.
