Why is it important to sit two full hours every day?
As it is essential that you give material food to your body every day, a minimum of twice, to keep it healthy and strong, similarly you have to give some food to the mind to keep it healthy and strong. And with these two hours of sitting, you give food to the mind to make it strong and healthy.
What is the value of attending group sittings?
Whenever a few people sit together, whatever they generate in their minds permeates the atmosphere. If five, ten, twenty, or fifty people meditate together, the vibrations of one or two amongst them might be good vibrations and it may help the others meditate better in that atmosphere. This is the reason.
I still get a lot of pain even when I meditate at home. What should I do?
Meditate. What else can you do? Now you have a wonderful object with which you can take out all your habit patterns of aversion. Whenever you feel something unpleasant, the old habit of the mind is to react with aversion. Vipassana is to help you to come out of all such conditionings.
Your aversion towards unpleasant sensations cannot be eradicated unless you face them and change this habit pattern. So welcome all these objects which help you to come out of your old habit of aversion. The whole purpose of Vipassana is to change the habit pattern of the mind; neither have craving towards pleasant sensations nor aversion towards unpleasant ones. When you have pleasant sensations observe them without attachment, without reaction, understanding they are anicca. Good, now unpleasant sensations have come; make use of them, work with Vipassana.
For a period after each course I can meditate okay. Then it becomes harder, so that I cannot even pass my attention through the body. What should I do?
Continue to work. Keep on fighting your battle. When you come to a Dhamma environment like this, the entire atmosphere is charged with vibrations which are anti-craving, anti-aversion, anti-ignorance. In this atmosphere you can work better, and you gain strength by your practice here. With that strength you have to face the world outside. After all, you have to live in the world. You can’t live in a meditation centre all the time. You go to a hospital to gain health, not to live there. So gain strength here and then live in the world. After some time you may find that your meditation is again becoming weaker. Understand the reason: The whole atmosphere outside is charged with the vibrations of craving and aversion, and you are doing something which is anti-craving, anti-aversion. The outside atmosphere starts overpowering you and you become weaker. You have to keep on fighting.
For this fight you are given two tools in this technique. The first tool, Anapana, is specifically for that purpose. Whenever you find you have become so weak that you can’t work with the body and bodily sensations, come back to Anapana. Breath is something which you can intentionally make harder. If you work with it and you can’t feel your breath then make it a little harder. You can intentionally make this object a little more gross. Work with that; the mind becomes calm and you will reach a stage where you can again start working on the body.
We have young children and it is very difficult to find time to meditate. What should I do?
A householder is bound to face such difficulties. But if you wait for the time when there are no hindrances, you will not meditate for your whole life. For a woman, motherhood is good. And if you have children, you have the responsibility to look after them—very good. Along with the responsibility of looking after the child, you must find time to meditate. When the child is asleep, meditate. The child has awakened, all right, again start nursing the child. In this way, even if you don’t get a fixed time or place, it doesn’t matter, do it in intervals. But meditate, don’t stop.
Why is drinking only one glass of wine a breakage of sila?
One glass becomes more. So why not come out it from the very beginning?
Once one becomes addicted, it is so difficult to come out of the addiction. Why not refrain from anything that is addictive?
Another important reason is that if someone who has come out of all kinds of intoxicants and is progressing in meditation takes even a very small quantity of alcohol, that person will immediately feel that it creates agitation and will feel unhappy. They can’t take it.
Understand, with the experience of so many who have progressed, that this goes against Dhamma, against the purification of the mind. Ignorance causes impurities to develop and intoxicants are closely associated with ignorance. They drown all your understanding. Come out of them as quickly as possible.
Why are both students and Dhamma servers asked to refrain from physical contact with others at a course site or centre, whether a course is going on or not? Can’t physical contact also be a way of expressing metta?
You say physical contact is just an expression of metta, but that is slippery ground because you don’t know when you will get caught in passion. It is very important to avoid this danger. There can be no justification for physical contact at a centre.
People keep telling me that in the West physical contact doesn’t involve passion. Maybe not always, but I have seen cases in the West where a student on a course started having physical contact saying it was without passion, and ultimately it resulted in an unhealthy situation.
You have to be especially cautious because you are working on Dhamma land, and the anti-Dhamma forces will always try to pull you down. You are representing Dhamma. If you have any little weakness (and passion is a great weakness) these anti-Dhamma vibrations will arouse passion in you, and you will spoil the entire atmosphere. So you’d better avoid any kind of physical contact. However people may justify it, don’t listen to their arguments. It is a strict rule in every Dhamma centre or even at a non-centre course that no physical contact is allowed.
When students are serving on courses or staying at centres, they might feel an attraction to a person with whom they would like to establish a relationship, and hopefully, a Dhamma partnership. How should students who are at the beginning stages or later stages of a new relationship conduct themselves when they are serving on courses or at centres?
It must be very clear that Dhamma land is not the proper place for any kind of courtship—whether it is the early or the later stage of a relationship makes no difference. If any Dhamma server finds that he or she is becoming attracted towards another person they should immediately leave, they should not stay at the centre even for a minute. Develop your romantic relationships outside the Dhamma centre. At a Dhamma centre you have to behave towards each other like brothers and sisters. Even a trace of passion arising in the mind of anyone will disturb the atmosphere of the centre, and this has to be avoided at all costs. It should be made crystal clear to every Dhamma server that a Dhamma centre is not a place for courtship.
Why is it necessary to maintain segregation of sexes on the courses and at the centres?
For the same reason as given above. Passion is the greatest weakness, and it will find some way or the other to express itself unless you maintain segregation. So it is better to remain segregated. This is healthy both for you and for the students who have come for the course.
If you have any other questions about your practice? Send an email to [email protected] OR for detailed answers you can also visit A store-house of answers by S.N. Goenkaji
