Vipassana Meditation of Theravada Buddhism
My experience with Buddhism began as I taught English in Thailand, a Buddhist country. The “wats” (temples) and Buddhist statues of Bangkok were the equivalent of the cathedrals of Europe. They offered a quiet reprise from the hectic city and from my hectic mind, but I was far from considering myself a Buddhist in those days. After some of the most challenging months of my life spent in Bangkok at a time when I was questioning everything I had ever been taught, I knew I needed to meditate, although I had never really meditated before then. Well ask and the Universe will ensure that you receive. On a bus into Chiang Mai, a very peaceful Russian woman told me how she learned to be with herself and to maintain tranquility through a Vipassana retreat at Wat Doi Suthep, a mountaintop temple. Within a day of arriving in Chiang Mai, I had begin my meditation course at the temple.
Vipassana at the Theravada (which means “Way of the Elders”) Buddhist temple was to say the least, absolutely life-changing. The technique that was taught was the technique handed down from Siddhartha Gautama and preserved for over 2500 years since. A simple, but incredibly powerful, combination of walking and sitting meditation techniques allowed me to observe my ego, my mind, and my energetic body more clearly than anything I had before experienced. Being able to see and feel these aspects of “myself” which is an illusion in itself, provided a sense of grounding, a dose of reality, and a fountain of energy and inspiration that I could have never imagined. For the first time in my life, I experienced different levels of consciousness that before I had only vague understandings of, but truly no experience in. My mind and consequentially my potential was unleashed, albeit well-disciplined and responsible. Years later, I can still say that Vipassana made me the best version of “myself,” for no longer was an ego in a body subject to an egoic mind. I was an energy of flexible and expanding consciousness. Spirituality was felt, not cognated.
Perhaps because of my background in academia or my American social conditioning, I was still thirsty to experience more. If this technique was a tool for me do what I could with my consciousness, what could different types of yoga do? What could different Eastern philosophies do? I embarked on quest to discover just this.
Mixing Vipassana Meditation with Yoga
First, I tried hatha yoga. Yoga was in fact a fantastic tool when combined with Vipassana meditation. The ability to focus my consciousness and to work into knots in my body (which are connected to knots in the mind) created a more active spiritual practice than Vipassana alone. For a while, I very much benefitted from the synthesis of these two practices. However, managing two different practices left me disjointed. It is time consuming to do both.
If I only had time for one, should I meditate or do yoga? And the philosophy underlying yoga is different than that underlying Buddhism. Should I subscribe to Hinduism while practicing yoga and then to Buddhism when practicing Vipassana? Should I try to do Vipassana in a yoga posture? I had many confusions like these and no one to answer them. Ultimately, this led me to fall off my Vipassana practice and to use yoga when I felt I needed it. However, loosing a true spiritual practice and adopting instead a use-it-when-you-need-it spiritual tool along with how poorly yoga usually translates into an American context led me to fall off my spiritual journey and to subconsciously return to a mostly accomplishment-focused path.
Experiencing Yoga and Hinduism in India
Finally, I was able to travel to India and experience Hinduism first hand. Hinduism held the wisdom of yoga, astrology, and ayurveda. Surely, their religion must be promising. What I discovered is that Hinduism is not just a religion, but a complicated and shifting matrix of culture, tradition, ritual, belief, spiritual experience, and much more. Whatever one would like to call the enormous complexity that is Hinduism, it is certainly not clean-cut. Traveling India and trying to break into the Hindu mind, I discovered a few problems that Hinduism creates.
The Problems with Hinduism
Hinduism is very messy. There are so many millions of gods, so many rituals, so many shifting beliefs, so many social constructs, so much of so much. It’s overwhelming and it is incredibly easy to get lost in, almost impossible not to actually and I’d say that a large majority of India has gotten quite lost in it. Where Theravada Buddhism simply says “observe” and all else that follows will be good, Hinduism says believe this, do that, stand on your head, grow your nails out a meter long, praise Rama, thank Ganesh. Perhaps Buddha saw all of these beings, but if he did, he kept quite quiet about them realizing that telling people of gods can lead a civilization into delusion.
The human mind can’t keep up with all that Hinduism demands and I’d say it often distorts people’s minds rather than connecting them to reality. People are told that there is an elephant god of intellect so they want to see, praise, and become one with that elephant god. But what if that elephant god is not actually god and not actually an elephant? Maybe Ganesh is just the essence of intellect depicted as a god and depicted as an elephant. A lot of people miss the point of the gods and begin forcing themselves to imagine and materialize a concept that should perhaps just remain abstract.
Hinduism’s Effect on People and Society
The intense complexity of the belief system is reflected in the people of India. There is an air of agitation, wildness, and chaos practically everywhere in India, understandably, for who can fit 330 million gods in their heads without going a little crazy? I have witnessed much more peace, much more calm, and much more happiness in Thailand and the Thais (almost) all seem quite sane. Furthermore, while India is highly unequal, corrupt, and impoverished, Thailand is quite balanced, equal, and supportive. The philosophy underlying the majority of people’s mindset surely has something to do with this. Buddhism seems to be more successful at bringing people wisdom and happiness and in inspiring people to do and maintain good. While I have been convinced that Buddhism is my way, I am still curious about Tibetan Buddhism.
Experiencing Tibetan (Mahayana) Buddhism in Dharmsala
The Appeal of Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism, one (but not the only) form of Mahayana Buddhism, cliques with me on several levels. Mahayana Buddhists claim that Theravada focuses on attaining enlightenment for the self which is ultimately selfish while Mahayana (Greater Vehicle) Buddhism focuses on the enlightenment of all beings. This leads Mahayana Buddhist to be a bit more active in the layman’s world, leading more social projects, and trying to inspire more people to consider their spirituality. Furthermore, Tibetan Buddhism embraces yoga and even has its own form of yoga, where Theravada Buddhism is not as welcoming of yoga. I liked the idea of combining a more physical practice into my Buddhist meditation practice. (However, looking back, I can see that trying to integrate yoga into my Vipassana practice without any guidance did end up being detrimental to both practices.)
My attraction to Tibetan Buddhism led me to Dharmsala, India, the calmest place I had visited in India, undoubtedly because of all the Buddhists. After China ruthlessly seized Tibet and began surpassing the people’s religion of Tibetan Buddhism (which they still do to this day), Dharmsala became the refugee capital for Tibetan Buddhists. The leader of Tibetan Buddhism, “His Holiness” the Dali Lama, lives in exile in Dharmsala along with hundreds of thousands of monks and lay Buddhists.
I completed an Introduction to Buddhism course in Dharmsala, which gave me insight into Tibetan Buddhism. While the things that attracted me to Tibetan Buddhism – the social work and the yoga – do stand true, I also perceived a few things that I hadn’t expected about Tibetan Buddhism.
Tibetan Buddhism: A Spiritual Practice or a Religion?
One can spin a prayer wheel for 1000-fold good karma, perform some purifying chants, pray on some mala beads, or get blessings from an experienced monk. These things are all quite ritualistic, leading people to believe rather than to perceive. I believe that the intention in these rituals is to foster good intention. But much like Hinduism, rituals can very often disorient people, leading people to get caught up in the ritual and to loose the connection to the point. Also like Hinduism, Tibetan Buddhism incorporates many gods and deities which have faces in the traditional Tibetan artistic style. While Theravada Buddhism teaches the history of a man who once lived, Tibetan Buddhism encourages belief in concepts and dieties that have not been personally experienced.
Furthermore, Tibetan Buddhism is quite hierarchal. There is the Dali Lama at the top, other lamas under him, rinpoches under them, then different levels of monks, then lay people. They also have far more Buddhas than Theravada’s one along with long-dead lamas of whom they still study the writings. However, sometimes different figures say different things, leaving modern monks to decipher and decode what the “right Buddhism” is. All this need to decode leads the monks to debate, one of the hallmarks of Tibetan Buddhism. Similarly, strolling into a coffee shop in a Tibetan Buddhist area, one might find Western people debating over the same Buddhist texts as the monks. The parsing and debating reminds me of all other religions. While monks don’t go to war over their differences like Christians and Muslims have, they do spend an awful lot of energy trying to answer the unanswerables.
In Theravada Buddhism, there is very little hierarchy and very little debating. Theravada Buddhists only study what Siddhartha Gautama said and he made everything crystal clear. His main message was to meditate. Wisdom comes from meditation. Theravada Buddhists don’t need to be right or to debate – highly left-brained focuses. They just experience and appreciate – highly right-brained focuses.
Having so many rituals and so many rinpoches and lamas disempowers people. In Theravada Buddhism, you just need to sit by yourself. I think many Tibetan Buddhists would feel quite powerless without ritual objects and without the network of teachers. I would say that this results in many Tibetan Buddhists becoming attached to the objects and networks. And as is pointed out in any form of Buddhism, attachment creates karma which is an obstacle on the spiritual journey.
I would say that Tibetan Buddhism, like Hinduism, is more of a religion than a spiritual practice. It makes sense, for Buddhism migrated centuries and distances before reaching the Tibetan people, who already had their own religion, the Bon religion. Committing entirely to the central teaching of Buddhism would perhaps undermine their way of life, so likely they mixed the pure spiritual practice with the religion of the time to make the seed of modern Tibetan Buddhism.
Fear Tactics of Tibetan Buddhism
The things I have mentioned so far that make Tibetan Buddhism religious are not so bad. They perhaps discredit Tibetan Buddhism as a spiritual practice, but they do not cast an image of any striking evils or intense corruption of power. However, there is one things about Tibetan Buddhism that I found to be disturbing, the use of fear tactics. In Tibetan Buddhist texts and in in-person teachings, there was one idea that was oft-repeated: You have this one human rebirth and most rebirths occur in the hell realms so you must use it wisely or else your chances in ending up in a hell realm are quite likely.
This left a very sour taste in my mouth. It seems ridiculous. People would need to spend many lifetimes to master the lessons and achieve the consciousness that it would take to ascend higher than the human realm. If you don’t become a monk, I find it quite unlikely that you will be reborn as an animal or a demon. However, if people believe this, it could be highly powerful in controlling people and converting people into monastics. The problem is that fear (an emotion of your root chakra) undermines spiritual progress. It seems that this concept is the Christian equivalent of original sin, which keeps people feeling guilty, which also undermines spiritual progress and can be used to manipulate people.
Once I identified the use of this fear tactic, I became quite disenchanted with Tibetan Buddhism and realized that it was certainly not the path for me.
A Return to Vipassana
So finally, after much searching, having circled the globe (again) I wind up back where I started (again), at Vipassana. After all of this travel, I have scheduled a 3-week Vipassana retreat in Thailand for a much needed spiritual reboot and a return to the home I once crafted in myself through Vipassana. I think I may be done searching for this lifetime – now it is time to just sit and observe.
