A Teacher
S.N. Goenka
Equanimous observation of bodily sensation (vedana) as a universal, non-sectarian path out of suffering
The transmission
Satya Narayan Goenka (1924-2013) was a Burmese-born Indian industrialist who became the most influential lay teacher of Vipassana meditation in the modern era. Born into a Hindu merchant family in Mandalay, he built a successful business empire but suffered from severe migraines.
In seeking relief he met Sayagyi U Ba Khin, a Burmese civil servant and meditation master, and began training under him in 1955. Over fourteen years Goenka mastered the technique, and in 1969 he moved to India, where U Ba Khin had long wished to see Vipassana return to the land of its origin.
Goenka spent the rest of his life teaching a standardized ten-day residential course in which students learn to observe bodily sensations with equanimity, understanding their impermanent nature as the path to liberation.
He insisted the technique was universal and non-sectarian rather than a religion, teaching it free of charge and funding centres solely through the donations of former students. From a single course in India the movement grew into a worldwide network of Vipassana centres, spanning every continent and reaching into prisons, schools, and executive programmes.
In 2000 he addressed the Millennium World Peace Summit of religious and spiritual leaders in the UN General Assembly Hall, appealing for tolerance and inner peace. By his death in Mumbai in 2013, his standardized course had made Vipassana one of the most widely practiced meditation systems in the world.
What they gave
The standardized 10-day Vipassana course: A fixed, replicable curriculum of silent residential practice that can be taught identically anywhere in the world.
- Vipassana as universal, not ‘Buddhism’: Framed the technique as a non-sectarian art of living open to people of any faith or none, insisting the remedy for a universal malady must itself be universal.
- Observation of sensation (vedana) as the path: Centred the practice on equanimous awareness of bodily sensations as the key to dissolving the deep-rooted reactions (sankharas) that cause suffering.
- A global donation-based centre network: Built a worldwide system of Vipassana centres offering courses free of charge, sustained entirely by the voluntary giving of past students.
In their words
Misery is a universal malady. The remedy for this malady cannot be sectarian; it also must be universal.
Every step on the path must be totally free from sectarianism.
There are two aspects of the technique: awareness and equanimity.
In every case one understands the impermanent nature of all sensations; then one can smile when they arise and when they pass away.
The line they stand in
Goenka was a direct student of Sayagyi U Ba Khin, training under him in Burma for fourteen years from 1955, and stood within the Burmese lineage traced back through U Ba Khin’s teacher Saya Thet Gyi to the reformer Ledi Sayadaw, who had helped revive lay meditation practice.
Carrying the technique from Burma to India in 1969 and then across the world, he transformed a comparatively small Burmese teaching lineage into one of the most widely practiced meditation systems on earth.
Essential Works
- The Discourse Summaries: Talks from a Ten-Day Course in Vipassana Meditation1987
- The Art of Living: Vipassana Meditation1987
- For the Benefit of Many: Talks and Answers to Questions from Vipassana Students 1983-20002003
- Meditation Now: Inner Peace through Inner Wisdom2002