Vipassana Research Institute presents this small informative compilation on centres of Vipassana meditation in India and the world over.
For the practice of Vipassana meditation a quiet and congenial environment is the foremost requirement. In the Mahasatipatthāna Sutta, the principal guide of Vipassana meditation, the requirement of solitude is well stated. For fixing the awareness, it is necessary to go "into the forest or to the foot of a tree or to a vacant cell..." In countries where the meditational practices are in vogue even today, we have forest hermitages, viharas and quiet abodes. In Indian tradition, retreat to Himalayas, hill-caves or at the quiet river banks for attaining spiritual advancement is quite familiar. In modern times it is quite obvious that access to forest or river banks as conceived in the past is not possible, not feasible.
When Sayagyi U Ba Khin, the most distinguished world teacher of Vipassana established the first Vipassana meditation centre in Yangon (Rangoon) in Myanmar (Burma), he conceived a novel idea of building a hollow pagoda with cells for individual meditation.
Vipassana meditation is the quintessence of Buddha's teaching. It is a technique of self-observation, an objective observation of mind-body phenomena with a view to achieve purification of mind leading to total cradication of mental defilements, inculcating such wholesome qualities as loving-kindness, equanimity, sympathetic joy and compassion. The technique is simple, scientific, universal and available to all irrespective of caste, creed, nationality or beliefs.
India lost the technique after about 500 years of Buddha's passing away, but fortunately the neighbouring country of Myanmar preserved it. Sayagyi U Ba Khin was the distinguished teacher of Vipassana in the chain of dedicated teachers who preserved the technique in its pristine purity. Sayagyi deeply felt that Myanmar owed a debt to India in receiving the precious gem of Vipassana Dhamma from India. India needed it most, indeed, the whole world needed it!
Shri. S. N. Goenka, then citizen of Myanmar, took the first Vipassana course from the late Sayagyi in 1955. Sayagyi trained him for several years and prepared him for his mission, endowing him with the responsibility of taking Vipassana back to India, the country of its origin.
Goenkaji came to India, the land of his forefathers, in 1969 and started teaching Vipassana meditation in makeshift campsites. People who attended his courses in the initial stage of his teaching could scarcely believe that Vipassana centres would be like the ones we have today. In 1976, the first Vipassana centre, the Vipassana International Academy, was established at Igatpuri, Maharashtra, followed by another centre at Hyderabad and then soon at Jaipur in Rajasthan.
Campsite courses continue growing as do established centres in India and abroad. People from all walks of life throng to these courses to receive the nectar of Dhamma. Last year campsite courses were held at about 150 places. People from more than eighty different countries have participated in Vipassana courses. Goenkaji has set in motion the wheel of Dhamma which once again has started rotating in the country of its origin.
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