Vipassana Meditation at Dhamma Dipa: A Philosophical Consideration

Please be warned: this is a lengthy post (3000 words), but it contains all the fears and joys of my experience of the ten-day Vipassana meditation course at Dhamma Dipa. I hope you find it valuable.

How I felt at Dhamma Dipa: A Summary.

Ten days of renunciation, renunciation of all the things I listed here, some I was glad to be rid of, some I was uncomfortable without. The purpose of the renunciation was to clear space for meditation, for the serious hard work of meditation, living the life of a monk for ten days. All my basic needs were comfortably covered, but I found that I was still not content. Food, water and shelter were not sufficient for me. What could I possibly still need after my basic needs were covered? I craved stimulation. I found I craved three big stimulations: mental, physical (including sexual) and social. I suppose there are other stimulations, such as psychotic and spiritual, but I do not covet these stimulations in the ‘outside world’ so I did not miss them at Dhamma Dipa.

Social and physical stimulation are expressly forbidden on the ten-day course and punished with expulsion (after warnings) so I could only indulge in mental stimulation. This is the last thing that another person can control. Physical and social activity can be observed, monitored and punished. But no one can observe my mind without pinning me down and sticking electrodes onto my skull. So I found solace from the boredom in my own mind. The evening discourses at Dhamma Dipa were the only brain-food that my poor mind found in the outside world so I turned inwards, naturally enough, and found that my internal world was a vast, unexplored territory. I spent hours and hours when I should have been meditating just going over small areas of this territory, discovering, rediscovering. The course was well worth attending just for this precious opportunity for self-exploration, even if I found the meditation hard going.

So why did I find the meditation at Dhamma Dipa hard going?

1) The physical pain was unexpectedly hard.
2) I’m not used to doing one thing repetitively for up to twelve hours a day.
3) I don’t like being told what to do and particularly when I’ve got to do it.
4) I was not ready for the hard work and mental focus that meditation demands. My mind was much more eager to explore itself.
5) I found certain aspects of the Vipassana meditation technique contradictory, confusing and frightening.

Now, numbers 1) – 4) are all about me. It would be unfair to judge Vipassana for these personal limitations. However, number 5) is more serious; an ideological barrier is more significant than a physical or even a mental barrier.

So what did I find objectionable about the technique at Dhamma Dipa?

1) False scientific claims.
2) Rites, rituals and holy men.
3) Egocentricity.
4) Fear of brain-washing.
5) Inflexibility.

1) The technique was repeatedly described as ‘scientific, rational and logical.‘ It was not. There were elements that had their own internal logic, correct, but the premises they were founded on were neither scientific nor rational. For example, the idea that the pains or sensations of pleasure that you feel in the body are ‘Sankharas bubbling up to the surface,‘ and that by simply observing them and not reacting they would ‘pass away,‘ and not trouble you again is absurd. Equally the idea that these Sankharas are the fuel that is required for mind and matter to ‘push the life force into the next life‘ is absurd. I need not explain why this is not scientific or even rational. It is prima facie absurd.

Unfortunately for logic, reason and science, there was a text-book religious escape clause built into the Vipassana technique: if you don’t agree with any of the theory, that doesn’t matter – ignore it, forget it, pay no attention. If the meditation works for you, that’s fine, and you might find that after meditating for longer you realise that these elements of the theory are in fact the truth also. I suppose anyone who puts a serious amount of time into something is going to believe more and more. I would suggest that the more ‘Christian’ you become, the more rational the raising of Lazarus becomes.

2) The method was also held up as free from all dogma, rite and ritual and yet, at the end of every meditation sitting, there would be the repetition of the phrase ‘Bhavatu sabba mangalam,‘ to which the response was ‘Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu,‘ and then a little bow (if you wanted). The teacher assured us that these were merely kind words of encouragement and that the response was simply thanking the teacher for his teaching. Fine. But why in this language, the dead language of Gautama the Buddha? Why not in my language? It reminded me of the Catholic church, with mass called in Latin. The sittings also start and frequently end with some chanting, also in Pali, this language I don’t understand. If this isn’t ritual, I don’t know what is. Metta meditation, which takes place at the end of a sitting of Vipassana and involves filling the mind and body with thoughts and feelings of goodwill for all beings, struck me simply as prayer: ‘May all beings share in my happiness.‘ Furthermore, at the end of the discourses, the teacher raises his hand and speaks some words of what I can only call blessing. It looks like he’s Jesus or something. I was not impressed; in fact I was scared.

3) Some aspects of the egocentricity in the technique were positive, like the belief that you should focus on changing your perception of the outside world rather than trying to force other people to change. But the egocentricity went further. We were urged to spread our experience of dhamma, the law of nature, to other people. This was essentially a call to proselytise on behalf of the Vipassana technique, which is the only true course to knowledge of dhamma and real enlightenment. We were urged to use our knowledge of dhamma for the good of the world. I found this frightening. Perhaps I am a moral relativist, but I find it hard to guarantee my good judgement in all cases, even if I were an enlightened being. The technique seemed to breed the sort of arrogance you see in religions: I know I’m right, let me help you to better yourself by teaching you my wonderful technique.

A development of this egocentricity was the idea of intentionality. According to Gautama the Buddha, intention of action is everything. If the mind is pure (ensured by following the sila, five moral precepts) then the action will be pure, even if it turns out to be a wrong or harmful action. Only from an impure mind can impure actions follow. In other words, honest mistakes happen, but it doesn’t matter too much, you can make up for them. Flip this around and you could say that unintentionally good actions from an impure mind are also mistakes and shouldn’t be counted as good.

Unfortunately, I disagree entirely. I happen to believe that hypocrisy is fine. We are all hypocrites (except perhaps Gautama the Buddha) – there’s no getting away from that, so why not fake it until we make it? I would argue that, as long as the action is good, the intention scarcely makes a difference. If the action is bad then a good intention only ameliorates things for the victim, doesn’t it? It’s mitigation in your defence and doesn’t necessarily lead to forgiveness and restitution.

For all we know, the intentions of Hitler may have been good. Surely every human on the planet believes in their own right action, we all feel sure our intentions are good. But the actions of Hitler were, by general consensus, bad. His (hypothetical) good intentions do not make the suffering of the victims any more bearable. Similarly, no one actually cares if the intentions are bad, as long as the actions are good. I could do something solely for my own personal gain and only inadvertently do endless good to others. I don’t believe that makes my action bad.

But perhaps Gautama the Buddha would say that your good action with bad intent would make you feel bad, that it would make you miserable. In other words, that, while intention might not matter from the perspective of the victim of the action, it does from the perspective of the perpetrator. But I would argue that good intentions only ameliorate the situation for the perpetrator also. If you are the one who pulls the lever that kills six people when you thought that it would save them, you are still overwhelmed with remorse, you go over and over the action again and again trying to work out if you could have done anything. Everyone may well say that there is nothing you could have done, that it wasn’t your fault – but still you killed six people. If you have bad intentions behind good actions then you might feel like a fraud, but good intentions behind bad actions might make you feel like an idiot, a blunderer.

4) We were asked, not only to renounce physical comforts, mental props and all kinds of things, but it seemed we were also asked to leave our brains at the door. We were told that ‘In order to give the technique a fair trial,’ we should give ourselves entirely to the method, to work hard and to focus for ten days solid. After the ten days we would be free again, we could throw it all in the garbage can if we wanted. But to give up your mind for even ten days is a huge commitment. I’m pretty sure I could make anyone believe in the power of writing if they gave themselves to me for ten days and worked on nothing but writing for twelve hours a day. It’s nothing to do with the wonder of writing (or plumbing or painting or accountancy, all of which would benefit from 120 hours hard practice), it’s to do with the sheer time commitment by the student.

This ten-day commitment at Dhamma Dipa was then coupled with a further commitment to continue to practise at home for two hours a day for a year. Again, if you do anything two hours a day for a year, you’ll sure as hell believe in it! You’d get good. The more you invest in something, the more your clever brain will squeeze out of it and, crucially, the more the brain will ascribe value to the activity. Now I’m not saying this is a bad thing. I’m not saying it is a good thing. It is just a fact. Vipassana doesn’t seem to do anything particularly harmful to its students or to the people around the student. It’s hard to disagree with the ethics of Vipassana (although I’ll try, later) and equanimity seems a pretty harmless life-goal (if a little dull). But why should I help spread this particular meme?

Unfortunately the Vipassana meme can also be addictive, ironic as it is supposedly about freeing the mind and the body from craving. My room-mate at Dhamma Dipa was addicted to meditation. I know this because he told me. He was upset on the last night that it was all over, another person in the hall was in tears. A co-meditator warned me about meditation becoming an ego trip, as it had become for him some years previously. Several people commented that either people go once and then never again or they get really into it. A young guy told me that you need a girlfriend who is into it otherwise they don’t understand when you don’t react to their love or their anger – they think you don’t love them.

Isn’t this the meme multiplying itself very successfully? But does this addiction matter if it makes people happy? There is an element of truth in the idea that happiness comes from simply committing to a life philosophy or a life goal. We see it all the time in people who have found Jesus (sorry to pick on Christianity, I use it only because it is the predominant background religion in the UK and my use is illustrative).

Perhaps it’s just that I don’t want to commit to a life philosophy; I enjoy learning as I go, trying new things, building my own system. That is the game of life for me. I don’t believe in any after-life, therefore I have no need for any system of getting there (or not getting there). All I need is something that will make me happy here and now and that will make other people happy (which seems to be what makes me happy). I am perfectly willing to concede that this purpose could well be served by Vipassana, but I prefer the liberality of my own vision. There are plenty of people in the world who share my ideas, including students of Vipassana. The main advantage (some could see it as a disadvantage – it involves thinking) is that I’m open to change, Vipassana isn’t.

5) I don’t like the inflexibility of Vipassana. The first precept, for example, is: ‘To abstain from killing any being.‘ This translates (in real terms: no human likes killing things) into vegetarianism (and not squishing bugs). But really, science has moved on. Plants are no longer the dumb biomass that people thought 2,500 years ago. They are sentient beings just like you and I. The moral justification for vegetarianism on these grounds is shot to flames. So too, therefore, is this precept, but they aren’t about to change it, are they? Of course not: the five precepts are fundamental and immutable.

I’m not saying that you can’t justify vegetarianism on moral or ethical grounds, just not on these moral grounds. You could, for example, argue that vegetarianism is the least disruptive diet to the ecology of the planet, given our current farming methods and our current population. Fine (but note that these conditions on the ethical rectitude of vegetarianism are subject to change), but you cannot justify it on the grounds of the immorality of killing any beings. It is this inflexibility that leads to dogma and unthinking. That is what scares me. And of course, once you’ve opened up this precept to examination, then all kinds of questions raise themselves, real questions that people have been facing up to for millennia, such as: when is killing acceptable?

So what did I like about the method at Dhamma Dipa?

You may have got the impression that, from a theoretical point of view, this ten-day course was a complete waste of my time. Fine: I may have learnt a lot about my own mind, but I could have done that without the Vipassana education on top, couldn’t I? Yes, but I must be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water. There were a plenty of theoretical points that I did appreciate in Vipassana and several very important lessons that I learnt, more ammunition in my arsenal against the demons, devils and dragons that we face in life.

1) Everything is changing. One can witness this by observing sensations on the body, by observing the feelings of pain or pleasure that arise and then pass away after some time. But the idea goes much much deeper than sensations on the body. Every situation we face, every being on the planet, every molecule is in a state of constant flux. This concept helps to develop equanimity, which can help you combat stress, help you make better decisions or simply make you happier. For example, if you have money problems, then understand that this is just a situation and that it will change over time. Sometimes you will have money, sometimes you won’t. You can then use this equanimity to develop a calm and logical plan for saving money or for earning more – or for deciding that money isn’t important to you.

2) It is the sensations that we feel on the body that provoke disgust or pleasure and that lead to our reactions of aversion or clinging. Understand that it is not the object out there in the world that causes your reaction, but the patterns of the mind that interpret how your body feels. With this in mind, it is much easier to resist the temptation to buy that videophone that you know will only cause you pain when it breaks or when it is stolen, that you know will only cause you to spend hours on Facebook when you should be working, that you know will only take you further away from real social interactions with the people you love. Equally it makes the thought of cleaning the toilet a much happier prospect: that disgusting stain on the bowl is simply that. It need not provoke aversion; perhaps it is something to be enjoyed instead. Enjoy it for what it is: just another object in the world, like a deer in the snow or that scene in There’s Something About Mary or a kiss from a lover – nothing to feel aversion towards or craving for.

3) Hard, hard work is the secret to success. The teacher had a mantra that is a great foundation for everything we do in life: ‘Work diligently, patiently and persistently, and continuously. You are bound to be successful, bound to be successful.’ It is not about sitting around and waiting for enlightenment (or whatever); it is about getting off (or on) your arse and doing some hard bloody work. We all think we’re perfect so the first step is to realise that isn’t true and to work hard at being better.

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David

David Charles is co-writer of BBC radio sitcom Foiled. He also writes for The Bike Project, Thighs of Steel, and the Elevate Festival. He blogs at davidcharles.info.

13 thoughts on “Vipassana Meditation at Dhamma Dipa: A Philosophical Consideration”

  1. I found this really interesting, thank you. I’ve just got back from Dhamma Dipa. However, I dropped out on the second day for so many of the reasons you state. Not because I couldn’t do the work (I’ve been on retreats of all kinds) but essentially, I realised I didn’t trust their approach enough to go with it. For the record, I’ve done a lot of meditation before and been taught very well but in Mindfulness of Breathing and the Metta Bhavana.

    This on the other hand felt like IKEA meditation – one size fits all, lazy and outmoded teaching methods and that bloody noisy and ludicrous chanting… I’ve both listened to and participated in a lot of chanting where it was done in a contextualised manner and where the Refuges and Precepts of Buddhism were carefully explained, very different to Dhamma Dipa!
    Their whole approach to meditation felt harsh, there were far too many people there for starters and they didn’t even teach people how to sit well, unlike the Buddhist Centre where I used to go. I intend to learn Vipassana but at Gaia House UK – they seem less gimmicky and far more – well, emotionally and psychologically intelligent from what I can gather. And undogmatic.

    I didn’t find the food, the early rising and all the rest difficult – rather, it just felt very joyless and a bit spooky if I’m honest. The staff were lovely, the food nice, the accommodation great – the sits were hard of course but I expected that.

    Btw, as for the stuff you mentioned about plant pain, I hope you find this article interesting – vegans and veggies eat a lot less plants than meat-eaters (indirectly) plus there’s the environmental considerations that you mention. But there’s more than that! http://veganrabbit.com/2013/03/18/plant-sentience-and-pain/

    Hope you continue to have lots of great adventures – ‘never stop exploring’ as one outdoor company might say… goes for the mind and spirit too I guess. Best wishes, Jane

    1. Thanks for reading – I’m glad it was useful for you! Four years on from my experience at Dhamma Dipa, I still think about it regularly. I am glad to say that it has had a lasting positive effect and I do continue to recommend it to friends. But I still stand by my original objections and include those warnings to those same friends. Occasionally I think about going for another sitting, but perhaps I should look elsewhere, as you suggest. All the best, David 🙂

      ps: Thanks for the link as well – I wasn’t by any means suggesting that killing animals was “ethical” or even comparable with plant-killing, but challenging the “ethics” argument at its root. It’s a messy grey world and the black and whites that Dhamma Dipa presented me with made me suspicious. We have to solve the problem of fuelling ourselves and that can be done in a logical, scientific manner, without recourse to spurious ethical dogma.

  2. I believe you have misunderstood on vegetarianism. It is true at dhamma dipa all food provided are vegetarian. However even Buddha never preached laymen to be vegetarian, not even instructed to monks. He only preached to refrain from killing animals. Also he said not to encourage others to kill animals. Well people argue, by eating animal flesh, one can encoragement killing. Well, we cannot control actions of others. Control our own mind itself is quite difficult.
    However Buddha said not eat animal flesh if you have a doubt that the particular animal has been killed for your consumption.
    Today’s world when you buy food supermarkets it is difficult to understand if the animals have been killed for my consumption or not. Some may argue it is demand and supply. Whatever it is at the end of the day, if one has no doubt no animal has been killed for ones consumption then his or mind is clear. No one can escape from conscience.

    It is difficult to compare the technique and preaching with science as science is still evolving. Science is still not complete.

    It is true that vipassana is a very hard practise. To master the technique fully and reach the final goal it may take a life time or several life times. The teacher himself mentioned this. But there are thousands and thousands of evidence that the technique works and worked in the past. The question is do I have perseverance to achieve the final goal?

  3. A good friend of mine became involved in this organisation. He went to their centre in Myanmar and was promptly put on a three month solitary retreat. If this is not brainwashing of the most evil and inhumane kind what is it!

    1. Blimey! That’s extreme, eh? I hope he’s come out the other side safe and sound. I can recommend the book ‘The Buddha Pill’ by Miguel Faria and Catherine Wikholm. There’s an interesting chapter on the dark side of meditation and its potential to cause mental trauma – not something usually talked about by the community. Thanks for reading and good luck to you and your friend. d

  4. Enjoyed your pieces on this – thanks. I’m off to Dhamma Dippa next month so it’s great to be so forewarned, especially as focussed meditation has never previously been my thing. Are you really not allowed to write? I think I’ll find that the hardest, particularly as writing is so often how I collect and clarify my thoughts. How did you handle this bit of it, being a writer yourself?

    1. Yep, you really can’t write. I think in retrospect that the experience of not being productive for 10 days was probably very valuable. But at the time it just seemed like a heinous waste of cognitive potential. Especially as the surroundings were so conducive to deep thought and, presumably, great writing. I remember fantasising about writing a murder mystery set, of course, on a silent meditation retreat. I still think that’s a good idea! Good luck on your own adventures into the silence… Let me know how you get on!

        1. The main reason they don’t let you write is it’s another way to “entertain” ourselves and distract the mind. The need to write things down to clarify your thoughts is in itself a kind of attachment. For the 10 days of a Vipassana mediation course the idea is to leave all these things behind and focus on learning the technique.

          FYI I accidentally brought some paper and a pen on one of my courses and began to secretly write down all my “good ideas”… I suddenly realised I was compulsively doing this and hid the paper away.

          After the course was over and I looked at the paper my ideas didn’t seem all that good! Ha ha.

          I would say try and follow the rules and suggestions of the course as best you can for the 10 days, and you’ll get more out of it.

  5. Hi,
    I went to the centre about 12 years ago. From day one they put me in a room on my own! I found out at the end of the course that as I was chatting to everyone before we handed our personal belongings in that they thought I would be distributive in a room with other attendees! Fair enough!
    I gave it my full dedication and did the full 10 days. During this time about a third of the people quit and left which made me more determined to see the course out. In short, I too felt there was a lot of control, a level of nonsense, but I did learn to meditate and did experience the full energy body flow.
    But to try to carry on once home at 2 hours per day I found impossible. I did join a local group and meditated at their house but that felt more focused on Goenka rather the meditation session, so that was that for me.
    For someone who is full of energy I am glad I did the course. A challenge you might say. In one of the rare conversations you have with the married couple who run the centre I came away thinking that they didn’t answer my questions, and being sat crossed legged about my head height so looking down on me was their way of saying they were superior and I just thought the whole set up was a soft cult but with a good technique that has been twisted to the organisations benefit.

    For example, if a student was following the no talking requirements and has a one to one with the leaders, if I was the leader I would not present myself at a higher level than the student!

    Lots of explanation marks in my text but warranted. I cleaned toilets, scrubbed floors, raked gravel, but if this is so beneficial shouldn’t it have no conditions attached to it?

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