Vipassana Meditation

[Kassandra]

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We are all prisoners, undergoing a life sentence, imprisoned by our own minds. We are all seeking parole, being hostages of our anger, fear, desire. Vipassana is a journey of discovery taken with closed eyes. The goal is not simply to satisfy the traveler's curiosity, but to get transformed by the journey, and start living a better life. Between the two poles of expression and suppression, lies a third option: observation. --Doing Time, Doing Vipassana, video



Pure Awareness, the Goal

It's akin to the concept of "grounding and centering" you already know about. One grounds one's attention into a state of single-pointed awareness, called dharana in Sanskrit. This is done sequentially, starting with observation of the breath as a gateway (called Anapana in Pali, the now-dead language that Siddartha Gotama spoke --the guy people call "Buddha," which I know you already know Dark Moon, just throwing that in there for those who don't). If the person is able to progress beyond that (because this is a lot easier said than done, despite how simple I'm making it sound), the person then turns the awareness to bodily sensations from head to feet (not necessarily in that order). After that, one can get arrive at experiencing pure awareness. It's hard to maintain that state in mundane life. But the skills learned while trying are extremely helpful and grounding to our daily lives, nonetheless.


Vipassana just means "clear-seeing," "insight," etc. in Pali. The premise is that we can't experience insight if our brains are too busy chattering a litany of discursive dialogues about everything with which we come into contact. The goal is an objective experience of pure awareness, to transcend the subjective mental chatter which tends to be our normal mental state (or, "monkey chatter"). A discursive mind can't be "present," but is invariably in one of two places: doddling around in the past regurgitating the same beliefs and reactions to things. Or, it's groping around in the future, fretting about things that haven't even come to pass. It's never present, never here, now.



Great for Energy Workers

An empath who doesn' t tend to draw good boundaries will tend to pay attention to what everything and everyone else is doing and feeling, yet be unaware of his or her own condition. It's like being in an "out of body" state, sort of, and this is really unhealthy. The good news is that breath-awareness exercises of Anapana, as well as the bodily-sensation-awareness exercises of Vipassana are perfect tools to bring an empath's awareness back into his or her own body. Through meditative observations the empath learns to "separate" what are his or her sensations from those which he or she is picking up from the surrounding people and environment. Reactions to every little thing dissipate. Thoughts become centered and grounded. Calmness and serenity are enjoyed. Relationships are improved and more "real," authentic, because the meditator is not in a "reactive" state all the time.


Vipassana is a technique, not a religion, so one doesn't have to become a Buddhist to benefit from the technique itself. It is also excellent for any endeavor that requires cultivating focus and concentration, so witches would greatly benefit since focus is needed in workings. Business men and women become Vipassana meditators, helping them to navigate their businesses. Energy healers would also benefit, since focus is needed to "see" illnesses and to direct healing energy to them, etc. Psychic readers and mediums would benefit in that that their psychic channels become clearer and keener, without distracting thoughts getting in the way. It'll probably even help you improve your golf game, lol. And the technique has been introduced to prison populations, lowering violence and creating positive impacts on inmates' lives (below is a video documentary about one such meditation experiment conducted on prison inmates in India).


I've personally applied these techniques to healing past life issues by remote viewing phenomena that normally got me agitated when I encountered them during past life regression sessions. Through meditation, I was able to "re-write the script" on (my perception of) what happened in some of those lifetimes, thereby releasing energies that had been rattling around in my energy field for who-knows-how-many-lifetimes, and healing me in present time. It was unsettling at moments, but ultimately quite liberating. That wasn't something anyone taught me to do; it just happened spontaneously during Vipassana meditation sessions...it is like having a built-in "inner therapist," lol.





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