How to Apply Vipassana in Student Life

- by S. N. Goenka

(The following is a talk by Goenkaji to students from Symbiosis Centre of Management and HRD (SCMHRD) and Symbiosis Centre of Information Technology (SCIT) on mettā day of their ten-day course at Dhamma Giri from 18 to 29 September 2002. It has been adapted for the Newsletter.)

Here are a few words to help you understand how to apply the wonderful technique that you have learnt here in your day-to-day life. If you can't apply it in your day-to-day life, it is futile to spend ten days in a course like this. This is not a rite or a ritual; it is an art of living. One learns how to live peacefully and harmoniously within and how to help others to live in peace and harmony. How can we use this technique for this purpose?

As students, you are very fortunate that the leaders of your institute have understood the efficacy of this wonderful technique and have given you an opportunity to learn it. This technique will help you not only in your student life but also after completing your studies. You may become an executive or a chief executive officer or the owner of a particular business.

Now, as a student, it is possible that some of you may get very nervous. You have studied your text and have understood your lessons well. But during examinations, you become nervous and forget everything and can't give the right answers. You may get very low marks or even fail the exam. With this technique, the nervousness will be reduced. Whenever you find that you are getting nervous, be aware of your respiration for just a few seconds with open eyes. Just for a few seconds, maybe for a few minutes, be aware of respiration. Your mind will calm down and the nervousness will go away. If you are taking an examination, you will give the right answers and get good results.

Again, one often becomes nervous in stressful situations such as meetings with seniors. You are unable to face the situation properly because you are so nervous. This technique will help you to calm the mind. You will be able to face all such situations successfully because a calm and tranquil mind is a very strong mind.

When your mind is agitated and confused, the capacity to understand the subject decreases. The teacher is teaching a particular subject or you are reading a book but your mind is so confused and clouded that you can't understand it properly. You keep reading it again and again but you are still not able to understand.

Whenever you find that the mind is very agitated, practise Anapana for a few minutes or observe sensations for a few minutes. This will calm the agitated mind and you will find that your capacity to understand the subject will increase.

In the same way, when you are dealing with any situation and if the mind is very wild, very agitated, you can't take proper decisions. By practising this technique, you will find that you are able to take proper decisions because you know how to calm the mind.

There is another problem that arises quite naturally at this age. Passion arises, lust arises. This lust may overpower you and you may become a slave of this particular impurity. You may try to suppress it but the more you suppress it, the more agitated the mind becomes. Or you may express it by taking a wrong action and then you feel guilty, "Oh, I should not have done that, that was wrong." Again, you become miserable.

When you practise Vipassana regularly, you will find that everything that arises in the mind is accompanied by a sensation on the body. This was a great discovery of this great super-scientist. People wrongly think of the Buddha as the founder of a religion. He had nothing to do with conventional religion. He was a super-scientist who studied the interaction of mind and matter. He discovered how the mind is influencing matter and how matter is influencing the mind and how, out of ignorance, because one does not know what is happening at the depth of the mind, one starts generating some impurity or the other and becomes miserable.

The Buddha discovered a technique by which, as soon as an impurity arises, you observe it, and you are out of it. Now how to observe it? He found a way. Nothing can arise in the mind without a sensation on the body. This is the law of nature; it was not created by the Buddha. So, whenever passion or fear or depression arises, there must be a sensation in the body. This sensation is related to whatever has arisen in the mind. You just accept the fact, "This has arisen in the mind." Say, fear or passion or ego or any other impurity has arisen in the mind. You feel any sensation on the body and you start observing that sensation.

If you practise Vipassana properly and continue to practise it morning and evening, you understand, "Every sensation, pleasant or unpleasant, gross or subtle, has the same characteristic, arising, passing away; arising, passing away. So very impermanent, so ephemeral! So this particular defilement that has arisen is also impermanent. This is not eternal. Let me see how long it lasts!"

It cannot overpower you because you are observing it objectively. It becomes weaker and weaker and passes away. You can make use of this wonderful technique, which was discovered by this wonderful super-scientist in your day-to-day life as a student.

Later on, you will have bigger responsibilities in your career. As I know from my own experience, without Vipassana, negative emotions arise all the time. When you generate negative emotions, you make everyone agitated. The whole atmosphere around you becomes agitated. How can the staff under you work properly in such a negative emotional atmosphere?

By the practice of Vipassana, your whole attitude starts changing. You start generating positive emotions. Somebody has made a mistake, so what? Very lovingly, kindly, have compassion on this person: "Oh, he is ignorant or he has not understood the problem, so he has made a mistake." Explain calmly and compassionately and you will find that the result is so good. Everybody who works under you or with you will get better results because the whole atmosphere has become so peaceful and harmonious.

I know this from my own experience. After coming to Vipassana, my business turnover and profit increased many times, because the people under me also started practising Vipassana. So, the whole atmosphere was filled with positive creativity. Everyone works to get better results. This will happen. This technique will help you. Your relationship with your colleagues, with the workers under you, with your seniors will become so cordial. Life will become so peaceful and harmonious.

Here is a technique which is not a rite or a ritual. You do yoga or physical exercises to keep your body healthy, and strong, which is very important. Similarly, Vipassana is a mental exercise. If you practice it daily, morning and evening, you will find that your mind becomes stronger and stronger, more and more healthy, and it gives positive results.

Make the best use of this technique. Don't take these ten days just as a rite or ritual or ceremony. You have come here to learn a technique in a very scientific way and to use it for your own good and for the good of others. When you generate a mental defilement, you are the first victim of your defilement. As soon as you generate any negativity, you become the first victim, you become miserable and then you start making others miserable.

By practising this technique, you will learn how to live peacefully and harmoniously within and how to generate nothing but peace and harmony for the atmosphere around you.

May all beings be happy !

(Students of SCMHRD, Pune have been attending Vipassana courses since December 1996. A ten-day Vipassana course and daily meditation is an integral part of their curriculum. Since 2002, students of SCMHRD, Nashik and SCIT, Pune have also been attending ten-day Vipassana courses at Dhamma Giri.)