The Clock of Vipassana has Struck

Understanding the Dhamma is nothing more than understanding the law of cause and effect

-S.N Goenka

Reading the book The Clock of Vipassana has Struck it’s definitely recommendable to  to all who wants to understand a bit more about buddhism. The book is simple and very well explained. Sometimes the different types of buddhism can be quite confusing, some traditions have more rituals than others or different perspective about the Buddha itself, so if you don’t want to overcomplicate  yourself reading, just grab this book start reading and enjoy it.

In general terms the book talks about the life and it’s real meaning, the book is composed of different lectures from Sayagyi U Ba Khin and S.N Goenka, they argue that reality is not an intellectual game, because we create our own reality with our belief about us and the world around us.

They invite us to experience reality by our own experience, what they see as reality is our body sensations that are always there and always changing.  The book explain that everything is changing all the time, even if we don’t notice it, for example, the days, the time, our family, ourselves or our mood, but we don’t really notice it and we use to react to whatever sensation we experience, if it is a pleasant sensation we cling and attach to it, if it is unpleasant we develop aversion towards it, what we can do is observe the sensation and realize that it is always impermanent, it too will pass.

That’s why they invite us to meditate and get to know our body and mind conditioning, the reactants we develop as a habit, unconsciously,  but for them it’s not just about meditation and the training of the mind to purify it, they invite us to follow the so called right path and behave as good human being (with values), if you want to become a better person this is what you most practice:

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Sila: Morality, practice good mental, verbal and physical actions, if your mind is contaminated with negative thoughts towards you or others you will create suffering. Developing good will to others, because they too suffer.

Samadhi: Stillness of the Mind, be in the present moment always because the mind always is wandering away and shows a natural resistance to be present, this ability is established  with daily meditation.

Pañña: Wisdom or insight, when you see life as it really is imperante and full of unsatisfactoriness at the end you understand that nothing is really yours so you don't attach and suffer, you learn to live with contentment no matter the situation  because you recognize the impermanence in everything.

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Let’s to talk about suffering and impermanence, according to the Buddha all created things are impermanent, and this is the only true we will never deny, everything changes, everything that arises passes away, the term for impermanence in Pali is Anicca. As human beings we are constantly craving things and once we reach them we want more, a constant desire is what we feel, that thing we crave wil at some point cause us suffering either because we lose it or because we don’t longer want it, it always brings unsatisfactoriness, and if we don’t like something we will grow in aversion, getting just more suffering.

The idea of I, You, Us and They will change and fall apart, so there is nothing that we can attach to because in reality nothing is ours, the life is just temporal and indeed we suffer because we are always looking for happiness  and reach many goals. We don’t have contemptment with what we have and as we are right now, we think that we will be happy once we have this or that and forget about enjoying the now as it is, we waste so much of our time thinking that we we get what we strive for then we will be happy, until then we remain miserable.

We can find Dukkha (suffering) in every form of life, not just in us as humans, we most learn to keep the equanimity of the mind by observing our  body sensations, with the help of our breath we can focus on what’s happening inside us, not outside because all our world its just a mental protection of our inner emotions. For learning this technique of Vipassana meditation you have to take a ten day course and the teachers will guide  you though, at the end you will learn to maintain calm and equanimity in the mind no matter what may happen in your life. Rember, ups and downs are inevitable, if so, why suffering?

This technique will show you how to act  in a positive way instead of reacting in negative ways because that’s what we do by habit, we are so conditioned about the idea of us that we don’t decide any longer and start acting in a impulsive and automatic process, indeed we create more unhappiness for us and for others.

Summarizing the book talks about  suffering and how to come out of suffering in a practical manner and not by intellectualizing and theorizing the suffering, but to experiencing  how the mind works and generate suffering because we attach to the impermanence of life, always looking for pleasures and trying to avoid unpleasant feelings, we become addicted to wanting and pleasure, nothing last forever, eventually we will suffer again. We can learn the way out of suffering, this is Vipassana meditation.

I hope you enjoyed reading and I wish you find yourself motivated to read this interesting and well argumented book. Feel free to email me anytime, keep in touch.

A.P.R

#Sila #Samadi #Pañña