Benefits of Vipassana or Satipatthana
I went for the 10 days retreat. The experience was very fulfilling. On day 4 of the Vipassana program during meditation, I was vividly seeing the events from my childhood more than 35 years ago which upset me very much and I was unable to sleep that night. I was finally able to put the thought on hold when I promised my younger self that I will take care of this matter. I was planning on writing a confronting letter. What do you recommend I should do here?
Answer:
Vipassana or Satipatthana is like a mental vacuuming process. It cleans up all hidden impressions from the deeper corners of the mind. It has worked in your case. If one continues the practice, it will keep bringing up hidden impressions to the surface and finally releasing them. It’s doing its job well. Now you must do your job. And what is that? Continue practice!
How impressions are created?
Our own reactions of cravings & aversions towards people/situations/things create impressions in our minds.
How impressions are stored?
These impressions sit in our unconscious mind like seeds waiting to sprout one day.
How to stop this vicious cycle?
When they sprout, they bring up various thought/memories/sensations. If you react, you are sowing new seeds, so one must learn the skill of non-reaction.
That is the practice of Vipassana or Satipatthana.
Buddha understood that the highest problem of a human is his own repeated thought. That is what we call stress. He wanted to find the cure for this disease called ‘repeated thought/craving/aversion’. He discovered the process of observing reality without reacting and shared it with the world as Satipatthana or Vipassana.
Once you have established yourself in the purity achieved by non-reaction, you become ready to dive into the higher samadhi’s, which can carve the path to eternal peace as your continued experience.
To get there, one must continue the practice of non-reaction. Non-reaction is key!
About your question of whether you should confront, it is your decision dear. If you think it will resolve the issue, go ahead. If you think, it is a reaction that will sow more seeds than you know better.
May you be happy!
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Om Sairam,
Pranam Ekta ji,
Iam a follower of Ramana Maharshi Guruji and I have also listened to your YouTube videos about Ramana Gurujis teachings.Since when I was 22 I had the query Who Am I and used to get up at night 2am to ask my mother we will die one day if so what happens to this body.Are we something more than only a body.Now after 22 years I realized that all was never existing ,and how to get Awareness.That s going fine.Can you guide me so as to if while sitting in meditation as the Self ,what to meditate cause in waking state dropping off everything is happening, Can you please guide on this.
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Thank you Ektaji for the article. I have a doubt. Do all meditations that involve silencing the mind -Awareness, shunyata, etc. bring up hidden impressions? How about meditation/ contemplation on name( mantras) or form ( deity) which involve the mind- do they bring up hidden impressions?
Also, Is it possible to eradicate hidden impressions, without bringing them up and then practicing non-reaction? Thanks!🙏🏼
Witnessing meditations like Anapana, Satipatthana, Metta, Shunyata, do not involve the activity of the mind all the way. They are aimed at using duality [using the mind as a starting point] to move towards non-duality [dropping mind and abiding as the witness]. In the process, they unearth hidden impressions because one is keeping the mind inactive. But chanting, singing, contemplating, are methods of actively using the mind, thus hidden impressions do not have the bandwidth of rising and releasing. I have not encountered any meditation technique where one can eradicate impressions with the activity of the mind, other than going through your Karma :-), please enlighten me if you find something dear.
Thank you Ektaji 🙏🏼 I understand your explanation.
You are the Teacher who never tires of answering my questions, however pointless, mundane, redundant or answerless they may be 🙂
Happy Teachers’ Day!